About Ivan, Boris and Me by Suze Leonie
Illustrator Elodie Ginsburg and her spendthrift best friend, Boris, are inseparable. Taking care of an audacious yellow-haired clown in a red-and-white-striped onesie and oversized black shoes can be a challenge. However, Boris means the world to Elodie.
He is a handful, but he’s her handful. Their symbiosis is disrupted when Ivan Lennard, a former professional cyclist with a closely guarded secret, moves into the house next door and becomes a regular occurrence in their lives. Each encounter is a catalyst for Boris to spiral more out of control and increase his outrageous demands, until Elodie finds herself at a crossroads and has to make the most difficult decision she’s ever made.
Ivan, Boris and Me Exclusive Interview
Elodie and Boris share such an intricate, complex relationship. How did you approach capturing the subtle emotional dependence and the personal growth they each experience? If you had to choose, is there a particular couple or duo from film or TV that closely resembles the unique dynamic you created between them?
I externalized something that is usually internal when someone experiences abuse and exaggerated it. The inspiration for Boris came from my grandfather, who was a big fan of the clown Popov and loved the circus. Even though Boris is a more polished version of Popov, I used some elements of his appearance.
Elodie’s art feels incredibly personal and vividly detailed. As an illustrator yourself, did you draw on your own experiences when portraying her creative process and the pieces she produces? Did you perhaps even sketch out some casual drafts to help you visualize these scenes while writing?
Ever since I was little, I loved taking on creative projects. When I had to choose what I wanted to do after high school it was a close call between art school and studying literature, but my love for books won by a nose. After I began writing books, I started illustrating because of Elodie. I had so much fun imagining what she was drawing, that I had to start drawing myself.
Your book features a unique writing style that I found particularly compelling, which are the script-like dialogue sections. What inspired you to choose this approach, and what specific effect were you hoping to achieve by incorporating this distinctive narrative style?
Thank you very much for the wonderful compliment. I love to experiment with form and I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could write sketches. I chose this form because in a way circus is showbusiness, so I had the idea to give the reader the feeling my characters are putting on a show for them.
As someone who also studied psychology, I really appreciated how realistically you portrayed mental health issues in this book. Could you share a bit about how you conducted your research to integrate these psychological and mental-health related elements so effectively into Ivan, Boris and Me?
I can’t even tell you how many hours of research I put in. I read as many books on the subject as I could. I also had conversations, drew from experience and asked for advice. There are so many people who struggle much more than we think they are, which is what I wanted to shed light on with this story.
When writing this book, did you have a particular audience or group of people in mind. Perhaps groups of individuals you hoped would connect deeply with your story, or whose lives you aimed to impact on in some meaningful way?
I’m hoping to reach a group of people who appreciate deep, multilayered stories who are looking for a dialogue between the author of a story and themselves.
Who is your favorite philosopher, and based on their philosophy, values, and way of thinking, how do you imagine they might respond if they had the chance to read Ivan, Boris and Me? Would there be elements of your novel that resonate strongly with their beliefs or ideas that they or agree with, or some things that they will disagree with?
There are so many philosophers who are brilliant thinkers, so I’ll answer this question by talking about my favorite philosophical work, rather than my favorite philosopher. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the best books I’ve ever read, because of the beautiful lyrical prose and the fact that there’s so much to uncover that it can be read over and over again without ever coming up with an exhaustive interpretation. I don’t think Nietzsche would have liked Ivan, Boris and Me, as he was critical of practically everyone’s work. It would have been a huge compliment if he’d seen the flaws in my way of thinking and would have pointed them out to me, though.
I noticed some absolutely stunning photographs (and mouth-watering food shots!) on your website. Could you share some examples of how your passion for photography and food influenced or inspired specific scenes or descriptions in Ivan, Boris and Me?
I have an admiration for anything creative and consider good food art. I see an excellent chef as a great artist, so for me these things are intertwined. My food photography is more about making memories than creating my own art, but scrolling through my pictures definitely helps when I’m thinking about ways to describe certain things.
Boris is portrayed as both comic relief and a deeply tragic figure, and throughout the novel, you frequently blend whimsical, humorous moments with emotionally intense and serious themes. Did you ever worry that you are not balancing these elements carefully and don’t want readers to think you were treating serious issues lightly? How did you navigate this delicate this creative direction?
This is such an interesting question. I’m using the contrast between light and dark to evoke emotion and am sometimes pushing boundaries to delve deeper into the subjects I’m writing about. For me personally, humor is important when I’m dealing with difficult situations. I hope that my readers will feel that the humor in my stories comes from a place of love and is there to add intensity and bring them as close as possible to what my characters are going through.
What’s the one message you most hope readers will take away from your novel? Even if a reader doesn’t remember anything else, what’s the single piece of information you want them to remember after leaving the last page of your book?
People are all so beautifully different and you never really know what’s going on inside someone else’s head.
About the Author of Ivan, Boris, and Me
Suze Leonie is a literary fiction and children’s fiction author and illustrator from a Dutch coastal town. She has a passion for literature and philosophy and when she isn’t writing or drawing, she’s usually found with a book in her hand. In the spring of 2024 Suze Leonie made her debut with the novel Ivan, Boris and Me, which is the first book in a collection of literary works that heavily focus on human psychology. When Suze Leonie is able to let go of her precious books she enjoys going to museums, good food, board games and long walks on the beach.
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