The Brides of Maracoor continues Wicked’s story after a 10-year cliffhanger

Playbill had estimated in 2018 that Broadway’s productions were seen by over 30 million people. Wicked.This behind-the-scenes view of the Stephen Schwartz/Winnie Woodman musical is a heartwarming one The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West, and it’s become an enduring stage sensation, with a John M. Chu movie adaptation on the way, and a long, long cultural tail, inspiring endless copycat works. You can also draw straight lines between them, among other things. Wicked’s billion-dollar-plus earnings and Disney’s recent mania for villains-reimagined stories like Maleficent Cruella, and The Villains book series.

Broadway’s version of WickedEnds with the murder of Elphaba (the Wicked Witch), whose true name is Elphaba. And whose motives have very little to do wickedness. But author Gregory Maguire, who wrote the bestselling 1995 novel that the Broadway show adapted, continued the story in the Wicked Years series, with 2005’s A Witch’s Son following Elphaba’s child Liir, 2008’s The Lion among Men going deeper into the Cowardly Lion’s life, and 2011’s Out of Oz bringing in Elphaba’s granddaughter, Rain. Out of Oz ends on a cliffhanger, with Rain flying out over the ocean, intending to destroy Elphaba’s most magical artifact. The book’s closing line mirrors the opening line of WickedThis brought the series to an abrupt halt. But it still left Rain’s fate and future unclear.

Maguire’s fairy-tale books include the Hans Christian Andersen-inspired novel. Unwild Winter Swan The Alice In WonderlandInspired Alice. But he finally returns to his most famous series with 2021’s Maracoor’s BridesThe novel opens in a different country. A timeless ritual is performed by seven Maracoor Spot women who are known as the Bridges of Maracoor. They are all either orphans or findlings who were brought here in infanthood to take the place of a deceased Bride. Rain ishes onto the island disrupting their religious rites. Her presence also upends power balance, especially between Helia, the oldest bride, and Mirka, the waspish successor. Cossy, the youngest, becomes the Bride at the end of the day. As the story continues, it expands to include new characters and nations that are interested in Rain.

Here is a sample of the excerpt. Maracoor’s Brides, and a Q&A with Maguire about how Wicked’s success affected his writing, where he sees his own children in Rain, and what’s next for his re-imagining of Oz.

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Why are you returning to Rain’s story after 10 years? You always planned to tell that story.

Gregory Maguire Yes, it was never my plan. I was actually referring to the title of the final book in The Wicked Years. Out of OzI tried to convey to my subconscious as well as to my reader public that, just like one can have Cheerios but not Scotch, so I wasn’t out of ideas. I’d finished everything I could find out about this story, and I wanted to leave my central character at that point young, full of doubt, and full of liberty, which is where we feel most alive, I think.

It makes no sense to go back in 10 years after my subconscious had decided that I should. Partly it was due to the pandemic. After realizing that we would all be stuck in sequestration for an unknown amount of time, it dawned on me that I had to look beyond the landscape I saw outside my windows for my mental health. My children, who are currently the age Rain, had been around for 10 years. I realized that I now have concern for those of similar age. Sure, it’s great if they’re free and full of doubt, but they’re still endangered. They’re still people. My fatherly instincts overtook me and I started to worry.

Just as the title suggests, this book comes to an abrupt end. Out of OzDid. Do you plan to tell the story again?

It’s definitely the first of three. The other two, I’ve already written. I took about 10 days for this, and then started on the last chapter. Maracoor’s BridesTo the sequel, which is called Maracoor Oracle. Rain will be taken from Maracoor’s coast further inland to seek out someone who is wise enough to help her with her problems and also to advise the Maracoor nation on what to do about the hazardous material.

You’ve talked in the past about how you wrote WickedTo make people reflect on bullying and the ways they treat others. Does Rain’s story have similarly specific intentions?

I would say I’m less full of hubris than I was when I was 38 and wrote Wicked. I didn’t really believe I knew the answer to anything back then, but at least I felt I knew some interesting questions. These are the questions I wanted to ask myself and my readers. Now, I’m not even sure my questions are that interesting. But I am sure that each individual soul — if you want to call it that, and often I do — each individual soul is worthy of attention, and is fascinating if you look hard enough. Rain will never be Elphaba. She comes from Elphaba’s stock, but she has a different trajectory in life. It is just as crucial to see how she learns about her strengths and limitations.

As a parent, you look at your children and say, “Each one of them has a different set of hurdles to overcome.” And most of them are invisible to you, but that makes them fascinating. Sure, Rain is interesting because she’s green, and because she has some nascent power, the way most 17-year-olds do. She just doesn’t know what it is yet, or how to use it.

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This book feels as if one of its major questions is morality. There’s an ongoing question about the nature and use of power, and who’s to blame when things happen, especially if some one person has the power and one person doesn’t. Are those among the questions you’re asking?

This is definitely true. I can’t deny that I think as we as we stare, astonished, at the manifestations of political power in our own nation, for harm and also for good, it really behooves us as citizens not to lose focus on how power is used, and how it is abused. This is not a political statement. I am simply saying that to bury one’s head in the sand and say, “Oh, well, I don’t really pay attention to that” is, I think, no longer an ethical choice.

The central power struggle in this book is very important to everybody who’s participating, but you repeatedly zoom out to show how petty and ridiculous it is from a distance. Are you also interested in the absurdity of power?

I wouldn’t have chosen that lovely word, but I’m glad you did. [Laughs] It’s the pettiness of power, but also the lure. You must confront its sexiness and addictive nature. Many say it’s impossible to go into positions of power, without having an oversized ego. In order to assume the reins, and then to make use of them in a wise or poor way, with beneficent or negative consequences, one must be somewhat ill-equipped for human congress. I don’t know that I believe that, but I think it’s an interesting question. But those who are in charge very often seem really petty, as if they’ve lost connection with the roots of what it means to be a common citizen, caring about common things.

Speaking of not caring about common things, in the opening chapters, Cossy sees a mouse drowning in a bucket of rainwater, and doesn’t help it, because she wants to see what it looks like when it’s dead. It’s such a striking failure of empathy.

Absolutely. It was exactly what I needed. It’s also, I hope, an image of exactly how impoverished she is, not just by the ways in which she’s being raised, but by the fact that being imprisoned into this island life, without her consent, she’s really bereft of common experiences that might help her think outside herself. That’s part of the crime perpetrated against all of those women, that the full panoply of life has been stolen from them against their will.

The result is clear. How did you draw her? She’s such a complicated, conflicted character.

I don’t want to say she’s a picture of anybody I know. However, I do have three children adopted by me. Now, the youngest child is 20. When they were adopted, no one was older than fifteen months. And the youngest was only eight months. And I brought them into our family home and looked at them, and thought, “Now, you have to do a lot of the work of unpacking yourself.” All children do, but people who come from family stock about which nothing can be known, there’s deep, deep mystery there. As a parent, my job is to make sure they grow up safe and well-informed, loved, and strong. But I also have to be able to let them discover their own uniqueness. I didn’t know, I just knew that I loved them.

That is why I have the same approach to my characters as well as Cossy. She comes in her own life with exact the same challenges that mine. If she wants to be functional, she must experience and make mistakes. She should also learn from them.

With the great success of Wicked as an adaptation, when you’re writing a book now, do you ever consider how it might look onscreen, or onstage?

Not precisely. But I will say, I’ve always had a histrionic bent. For a quiet, mealy-mouthed, balding man of a certain age, I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic in my own mind. A Walter Mitty, I suppose you might say. So when I write anything, part of my instruction to myself is to say, “All right, if Steven Spielberg had this chapter, what would he need to see and know, in order to make this work?” That involves pacing and a lot of visual, especially when you’re writing about a land nobody else can imagine. It’s one thing if you’re writing about midtown Manhattan. It’s something we all recognize. It doesn’t need page after page of description. But when I’m writing about a land nobody else, including myself, has ever been to, I really do need to be precise. It is important to allow the set designer to create a memorable experience that’s specific and unique.

Characters, their appearance and sound, are the same. It is the same with movement through pages. There are very few chapters or pages where someone is just standing, thinking, because the camera doesn’t like to just stand and look. The camera wants to move, and it also wants to pan. It desires to move back and forth among characters. It wants to be seeing details that are going to be important later on, and storing them away in the reader’s subconscious mind.

Are you in any way connected to the discussion? WickedWhat movie is it? Have you heard anything?

A Hollywood agent informed me recently that the time and location of their filming has been determined. I haven’t been told this a secret, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you. I think they’re going to begin shooting next summer in London, of all places. Universal Studios, I think, is building a whole new film lot for itself over there, and I believe it’ll be one of the first things shot on that lot.

What emotional stake do these adaptations make in your work?

Not a lot, but more than I admit. I am easily distracted. To go back one more time to my children — when WickedWhen I published the book in 1995, I didn’t have any children. By 2003 when Broadway’s musical premiered, I was married and had three children. They were all younger than 6. Broadway was and still is exciting but I have a responsibility to my children. It’s all very well and good to have CBS or NPR or The New York Times or Oprah swarming around with a camera, which they all did.

However, in the end, grilled Cheese is Grilled Cheese, lunch is Lunch, and Children Need to Be Feed. I didn’t arrange the timing like this, but having taken on the obligation to raise motherless children, I accidentally preserved myself from getting too wrapped up in the green glory that was draping from heaven upon me. I think that’s been my salvation. Others may say, “Are you kidding? He’s nuts. He’s deranged.” But I think I’ve managed pretty well, precisely because I kept my priorities front and center.

And now, here’s an exclusive excerpt from Maracoor’s BridesRain, her goose friend Iskinaary and the beach-goer Maracoor Spot are spotted by the brides. Now available in hardcover And eBook Editions

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The intruder’s eyes were closed. The brides didn’t want to hurt her. They didn’t want to touch her.

Mirka said the words, Bray was strong and tall, so they took Bray’s foreign girl by her shoulders and set her straight. The water ran out of her nostrils. Bray cradled the crown of her skull as one would an infant’s, to protect the neck from snapping. Others removed their veil and carried the individual onto them. They carried her up to the temple. Cossy carried the waterlogged broom that had been dislodged, with some effort, from the castaway’s clenched armpit.

Following the bird, it settled down on the portico from a considerable distance. With that capacity for skewing that birds’ eyes have, it trained its gaze at several points of the horizon at once. However, before long it was able to tuck its head underneath the wing responsible for bringing the traveler safely to shore. It became a monument: Sleeping Goose

Mirka gave them a signal to quieten down, but Helia heard them. The senior bride banged against the wall with her oakthorn stick from her corner in the dormitory.

“You go quiet the old maenad,” said Mirka to Cossy. “She is soft on you.”

“What’ll I say?”

“Say nothing.”

It was not much help.

Cossy didn’t want to leave. How would it be if Cossy were to die while the visitor was away? It was a moment you won’t want to miss. But with Helia bedridden and mute, Mirka was thumping around as senior bride, even if she wasn’t yet sporting the white veil. Cossy was forced to follow her lead.

Helia lifted her fist in the air as a sign of what she meant. Take me to a sitting place. Cossy didn’t think she was strong enough to do it by herself, but Helia leaned on her staff and pushed, too.

After a while, the old bag of bones started to sit up. She was sniffing the air as if she were a cavedog. In the shape of a question, she grunted. Cossy replied as nonchalantly as she could manage: “Everyone’s come in early today.”

Helia moved her left hand laterally and waved her other hand. This clearly indicated that she was trying to communicate. Coracle spots its approach?

Cossy raised an eyebrow. She didn’t want to lie to Helia or disobey Mirka. “Do you want some water?”

Helia frowned, thinking. She nodded.

Cossy raced to the water bowl and dug a cup of clay. When she got back to the side of Helia’s bed, she said, “Here.”

Helia took it and smiled at Cossy. She then placed her cup upside-down on the end and began to throw the clay object over the screen. Above the other brides, it shattered against a wall.

Mirka was immediately at the screenfold and was scolded. Old Helia raised her arms and flinched her fingers. It was obvious. Helia was in control, no matter how wordy or non-wordy. Bray and Tirr were summoned to Helia’s side. They helped the senior bride get up from the bed and into the common room.

As if in a delicate gesture, the elderly woman placed her arm on her breast. Bray looked behind her and snorted. Helia gave the old bride a backhand slap, without looking. Nothing wrong with the old bride’s hearing.

She moved on. She looked around, as if a baby chick, at this new world.

***

Around the table, seawater was still sluicing. The visitors were being dried by the brides with towel made of linen. She rose and fell at her breastbone, which proved that she had a stubborn nature. What was the secret to holding on so long? They used the privy. This was a puzzle.

Under Mirka’s instructions, the brides of Maracoor surrendered to the guest a small portion of their precious pale cordial, made from upslope flowers that bloomed only two weeks a year. Some brides weren’t happy with this generous offer. It was hard work to get each drop of the liqueur.

The medicine worked. The damp thing started to shiver. Old Helia created a wave. Get rid of all her wet clothing

No one could argue with Helia because she couldn’t argue back. So Mirka knelt to work at a metal clasp that fixed to a strap around the woman’s waist. Another strap was slanted to the shoulder. These straps were attached to a type of saddlebag. Mirka managed to remove the bag from her shoulder and gave it to Cossy for him to place aside. There was nothing within — Cossy peeked — but a sodden onion with a bite taken out of it and an elegant whorled seashell, a nautilus. It ran out of alabaster sleeves.

Buttons could not be undone. Bodice ties were broken. If the castaway had had boots or shoes, they’d been lost in the sea. The skirt was plum-black. The chemise and the knee-length pantaloons were in such sad repair there wasn’t much point in trying to keep them intact. Helia fissured her fingers and Cossy ran for the utensil on the workbench.

Helia was accompanied by her sister-brides and leaning over the table, she snipped at the string at the clavicle. They shaved the woman like they would a passion fruit.

Helia snapped her fingers. Kliompte reached for a towel and leaned forward. Helia cleaned the stranger from her neck down to her ankles. Bray transferred the untreated tidewrack onto Bray’s stomach. Helia dried her from the nape to the shins, and then she rubbed the untreated skin with her naked feet. Are you? This Cossy wondered if it was like prepping a body to be buried. It’s not like plucking a hen to roast, or descaling a fish; there’s nothing to pluck or scrape.

The brides avoided nudity among themselves, so Cossy’s interest was as much clinical as morbid.

Now, the sun shined its evening light on the temple. Only a brief gilding of the temple’s interior was seen by the sun before it melted into the ocean. The deep portico protected the rooms from the sunlight for most of the day. The castaway was not visible to the sun, as though it had been there all day. But the lower sun suddenly broke through the clouds.

The water sluicing off the young woman onto the stone floor wasn’t the green water of the sea, as Cossy had thought. The runoff from the water was as clear and salty as tears. Now dried by the administrations of the brides of Maracoor, the traumatized naked form was all over green — except the untempered soles of her feet. These proved to be a delicate and intimate shade of pink.

The book Maracoor’s Brides Gregory Maguire Copyright © 2021 by Kiamo Ko Limited, LLC. Available for purchase from William Morrow Publishers, an imprint HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted with permission.