Holly Black's 2004 debut novel, Tithe, riled up readers both pro and con with its story of a moody, foul-mouthed, cigarette-smoking 16-year-old from Philadelphia who learns that she's not really a blond-haired Asian girl with a drunken rock-musician mom, but a green-skinned pixie from the Unseelie Court of the faeries. Fans loved the book for its unflinchingly visceral look at the angst-ridden lives of teenagers, even ones who've stepped into a world of magic and fantasy; critics assailed it as a too-obvious glamorization of bad behavior. Black's followup, Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie (Simon & Schuster, $16.95, hardcover), invites the same reactions from both sides. Not a direct sequel to Tithe but set in the same universe, Valiant opens with a scene of that most painful of adolescent experiences, betrayal, as 17-year-old Val Russell catches her boyfriend hooking up with her mom. Fleeing her home in a fit of nausea, she ends up living in the New York City subway tunnels -- where she meets Ravus the troll, an alchemist who supplies faeries with an addictive potion called Never, and who's mighty sexy in his own monstrous, trollish way. Earthling correspondent Nivair Gabriel sat down with the author for a chat about the origins of her twisted faerie tales.

When did you first become fascinated with faeries? When I was a little kid, I was really frightened of everything. I thought there were vampires; I thought the trees outside would come in and grab me. Actually, that was pretty realistic, as the trees were entirely untrimmed and would scrape my windows at night. During this time I read Brian Froud and Alan Lee's Faeries -- possibly the creepiest book ever! -- and I realized that faeries were not dignified, cute, little girls with wings. I began to have a sense that they were very frightening, and the more I read folklore, the more puzzled I became that they're portrayed in pop culture as so saccharine. It's really interesting -- they haven't quite made their way into the mainstream as being scary, like vampires have. But faeries can be horribly cruel as well as wonderfully kind, and I was fascinated by what I read about them from all over the world, from Charles de Lint to Emma Bull to Terri Windling.
What was the hardest part of Valiant to write? Writing about the drug use was really difficult, because my sister was a heroin user and she died of an overdose, so I obviously had a lot of personal issues surrounding drugs. When I was coming to this book, I really had to think about how I was going to separate myself. For instance, I very deliberately made it not actual drugs -- I think that changes some of the dynamics of what has to happen and how. It was very difficult, also, to calibrate how much of the drug use I could allow in, because it could have sucked the whole story under until the book was only about that. I didn't want that; I don't want to write a message book, where I'm like, "Hey kids, drugs are bad!" I just wanted to reflect some kids struggling with some stuff. A lot of times I thought: What am I bringing to this table that's my own baggage, and how can I add to the story without clouding it with my own emotions? It can't seem like the world is imposing a message.
The portrayals of children and teenagers in your books are so dead-on accurate -- how do you hold onto those emotions so well as an adult? Did you keep journals? I do have some journals, but I could not crack those open -- I couldn't bear to look back at them! Childhood is a very vivid part of our lives, and I'm not sure I remember it better than anybody else; I think most people just imprint those memories, especially the ones from high school. A lot of things that we decide in high school, or that happen to us in high school, have a profound impact on our worldview. I've had so many conversations with people, both in real life and online, where they'll come back to stuff that happened when they were teenagers. If two people are fighting, they'll always return to, "You are just like those bitches who tortured me in high school!"