Ann Dávila' Cardinal’s YA debut, Five Midnights, was released earlier this year, focusing on Puerto Rican teens dealing with El Cuco and the deaths of other Puerto Rican kids at the hands of the campfire-story we’re used to hearing about in our childhoods. It was impactful, to say the least, and I decided I wanted to know more about Ann’s thought-process behind the creation of the book (which is now a duology).
Your book, Five Midnights revolves around the myth of El Cuco in Puerto Rico. What drew you to that sort of entity for your story?
I’m fascinated by the use of stories, fairy tales, as an attempt to get children to behave. Those tales gave me nightmares when I was a kid (as I’m sure they do most children) but I was also enthralled. El Cuco is a perfect example, and the fact that he appears in almost every Latinx culture, with different names, is too interesting. And I wanted to write about addiction having grown up in a family struggling with that. El Cuco then became the consequence.
One of the themes in Five Midnights is that of childhood, and even generational, trauma, with El Cuco taking the shape of it. In a way, you give the characters a “physical” manifestation of trauma. Why was it important for them to confront trauma in this way?
Recovery from trauma is so complex, and so personal. I think as someone who has undergone trauma, particularly in childhood, the simplicity of battling it in a physical form is somehow comforting. However, as is discussed in the book, in mainland culture the goal is always to “thwart” monsters and ghosts, rid the world of them. While in many Latinx and other cultures (I’m thinking about ghosts in Japanese culture as an example) the supernatural is just part of everyday life. Accepted, not thwarted. And as we know, trauma never truly goes away, we just learn to deal with it. It’s all so fascinating to me.
One of your characters is a rapper named Papi Gringo, which is sort-of reminiscent of the artists becoming mainstream at the moment (Bad Bunny, Ozuna, etc.) How much are your stories influenced by Puerto Rican pop culture?
Oh, this book is completely influenced by my love of Reggaeton. I am obsessed with the genre, listen to it every day. Particularly Daddy Yankee’s music has been so important to my connection with the island all these years, so using the music in this book was a way of honoring him and the others. I listened to a steady diet of DY while I was writing it. Carlos’ character is one of my favorites and he has been deepening of late (more on that in the coming months! 😊. Lately I’m listening to a LOT of Bad Bunny. I think his work has taken popular Latin music on a deeper, darker musical journey and I SO respect him.
You have free reins to collab with another Latinx creative and they’re free and on board as well, who are you picking and what are you making?
I LOVE this question! I had a dream about this very thing. Lin Manuel Miranda and Daddy Yankee collaborated on a musical version of Five Midnights. My son Carlos (who wrote the lyrics of the song “El Cuco” in the book), was also involved. The soundtrack was entirely reggaeton, and there was dancing and singing in the streets of Old San Juan, along the wall of La Perla. It was amazing.
I know, an ambitious dream, but you said free rein! 😊
How does your identity affect your writing?
My identity informs my writing. Because I grew up between two worlds and two cultures, I often write about characters who live in the in-between. But because of the support of my Puerto Rican family at the worst time in my life, I feel most connected to them. They were my family when my father had died, most of my siblings had moved out, and my mother was drinking too much to truly parent. That is why my identity is with them, and why I write about the island and its people. It’s the closest to home I found in my childhood.
Who do you write for?
I was clutching my dog-eared copy of Charlotte’s Web the morning they took my father’s body out of our apartment. I read it over and over while my brother and I waited at a nearby restaurant, while our older brother’s girlfriend explained to the waiters in whispers why we were there. I read the words to myself again and again like a litany, despite having read the entire book a dozen times already. I was eight. What I didn’t know then, was that that book was my manual for dealing with death.
That’s who I write for.
If I could provide that kind of comfort to one teen who is dealing with addiction, or loss of a parent, or feeling like an outsider…it will all be worth it.
What movie(s) would you pair your book with?
This is my favorite question of all, because movies are such a huge part of my life. I would have to say, The Babadook by Australian director Jennifer Kent. Like Five Midnights, it is also a horror story that deals with childhood fear, and a monster that symbolizes human trauma. The Babadook is grief, and El Cuco is addiction. And it’s an excellent film, truly scary without resorting to jump scares or tired slasher tropes.
Shoutout a Latinx writer or creator whom you admire!
Just one? Oh Lord, there are SO many! The writer whose work I most admire, who made me want to be a writer is Julia Alvarez. Her writing is gorgeous and evocative, and she is one of the most elegant and kindest humans I’ve ever met.
Anything else you can share about your upcoming projects?
I’m on the second draft of a sequel to Five Midnights. Can’t give away too much, but it includes the characters from the first novel and takes place after the hurricane on the island of Vieques. It will be released in June 2020. I’m also working on an adult eco-horror novel, and an eco-dystopian fantasy novel about a female pirate hunter. I’m afraid both involve WAY too much research into the implications of climate change: talk about nightmare producing!
Five Midnights is available for purchase now!
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Ann Dávila Cardinal
Ann is a novelist and Director of Recruitment for Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA). She has a B.A. in Latino Studies from Norwich University, an M.A. in sociology from UI&U and an MFA in Writing from VCFA. She also helped create VCFA’s winter Writing residency in Puerto Rico.
Ann’s first novel, Sister Chicas was released from New American Library in 2006. Her next novel, a horror YA work titled Five Midnights, was released by Tor Teen on June 4, 2019.
Her stories have appeared in several anthologies, including A Cup of Comfort for Mothers and Sons (2005) and Women Writing the Weird (2012) and she contributed to the Encyclopedia Latina: History, Culture, And Society in the United States edited by Ilan Stavans. Her essays have appeared in American Scholar, Vermont Woman, AARP, and Latina Magazines.
Ann lives in Vermont, needle-felts tiny reading creatures, and cycles four seasons a year.