SATA
ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.patrickness.com/
CITY: Los Angeles
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 402
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born October 17, 1971, in Alexandria, VA; immigrated to England, 1999; naturalized British citizen, 2005; married, 2006; husband’s name Marc.
EDUCATION:University of Southern California, B.A. (English literature), 1993.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, children’s author, educator, and screenwriter. Former corporate writer in Los Angeles, CA; freelance writer, beginning c. 1997. Oxford University, Oxford, England, instructor in creative writing for three years; Booktrust writer-in-residence, 2009.
AWARDS:London Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and U.K. Booktrust Teenage Prize, both 2008, Branford Boase Award shortlist and Carnegie Medal shortlist, both 2009, and Best Book for Young Adults designation, American Library Association (ALA), all for The Knife of Never Letting Go; Costa Children’s Award, 2009, Carnegie Medal shortlist, 2010, Booktrust Teenage Prize shortlist, and ALA Best Book for Young Adults designation, all for The Ask and the Answer; Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist and Carnegie Medal, both 2011, both for Monsters of Men; Galaxy National Book Award, 2011, and Carnegie Medal, 2012, both for A Monster Calls illustrated by Jim Kay; ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults designation, 2014, for More than This; ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults designation, Carnegie Medal shortlist, and Bookseller YA Book Prize shortlist, all 2016, all for The Rest of Us Just Live Here; Carnegie Medal shortlist, 2018, for Release; Red House Book Award; Jugendliterature Preis.
WRITINGS
A Monster Calls was adapted to film, 2017; the “Chaos Walking” series was adapted to film, 2021.
SIDELIGHTS
A two-time winner of the prestigious Carnegie Medal, Patrick Ness combines fantasy with science fiction in his award-winning novel The Knife of Never Letting Go, the first installment in his “Chaos Walking” trilogy of dystopian thrillers aimed at a young-adult audience. Ness continues his focus on a teen readership in provocative and highly acclaimed novels such as A Monster Calls, More than This, The Rest of Us Just Live Here, and Burn.
The son of a U.S. Army drill sergeant, Ness was born in Virginia but moved to Hawai’i months later. When he was six years old his family moved again, this time to Washington State, where he remained until enrolling at the University of Southern California. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English literature, Ness worked as a corporate writer and honed his fiction writing. Two years after publishing his first short story in Genre magazine, he moved to London, England, to join his future husband, whom he had met while vacationing in Great Britain. He began writing fiction full time in the late 1990s and his first published novel, The Crash of Hennington, was released in 2003. Topics about Which I Know Nothing, a book of short stories, followed before Ness turned his attention to teen readers.
In The Knife of Never Letting Go, Ness takes readers to Prentisstown, a rural community on a newly colonized planet in which no women seem to exist. Prentisstown has another odd characteristic: every thought of every resident—human and animal—is audible to all, resulting in a total lack of privacy and the unceasing, overbearing mental cacophony called Noise. At twelve years of age, Todd Hewitt is the youngest resident of Prentisstown, and he is almost old enough to undergo his “initiation.” When Todd finds a place that makes him immune from the Noise, his adoptive parents help him escape from the town. While pursued by the army of Mayor Prentiss, the preteen discovers the wreckage of a spaceship in a local swamp and finds a young girl named Viola, who is hiding in the woods nearby. Although he assumed that all women have been killed by the Noise, Todd realizes that the actual history of Prentisstown is far more horrific and far more deadly.
In Kliatt, Paula Rohrlick called The Knife of Never Letting Go a “haunting page-turner” featuring “edge-of-your-seat chase scenes” and “moments of both anguish and triumph.” In Horn Book, Claire E. Gross cited Ness’s “subtle world-building” and his ability to create relationships between characters that are “nuanced” and feature “considerable emotional depth.” Calling The Knife of Never Letting Go a “troubling, unforgettable [series] opener,” Booklist critic Ian Chipman asserted that Ness’s “cliffhanger ending is as effective as a shot to the gut.”
Pursued by the army of Prentisstown in The Ask and the Answer, Todd and Viola arrive at the city of Haven, but they are captured by the maniacal Mayor Prentiss and the “Ask,” a heavily armed military unit. Todd must now aid Prentiss’s scheme to create the perfect society, even as this scheme begins to threaten his sanity. Meanwhile, Viola is sent to a female compound where she joins the “Answer,” a loosely formed resistance group that selectively bombs area targets. Ness alters his storytelling approach in The Ask and the Answer, using the alternating voices of Todd and Viola to narrate this installment in his “Chaos Walking” saga.
In Publishers Weekly a contributor praised The Ask and the Answer as a “grim and beautifully written sequel,” noting that it prompts readers to question “the nature of evil and humanity.” Ness’s “Chaos Walking” trilogy “continues to develop a fascinating world,” wrote Horn Book critic Gross, “and its fully formed characters and conflicts draw attention to difficult issues with a rare, unblinking candor.”
Warfare erupts in Monsters of Men, the conclusion to Ness’s “Chaos Walking” trilogy. As another wave of colonists arrives on New World aboard a scout ship, Mayor Prentiss’s army engages in a deadly battle with the Spackle, an indigenous species. Todd and Viola attempt to broker a peace with the Sky, the leader of the Spackle, but they face continued resistance from the leaders of both the Ask and the Answer. Into this mix, Ness introduces a third narrator, 1017, an individual known to his people as the Return and who poignantly recounts the enslavement of the Spackle. Just when peace seems attainable, Prentiss hijacks the scout ship and sets the forests ablaze, killing the Sky. The Return, now filled with hate, prepares the Spackle for battle, leading to a final, violent confrontation.
Describing Ness’s “Chaos Walking” trilogy as “remarkable,” London Times contributor Amanda Craig deemed Monsters of Men “an intensely moral, thoughtful work.” Also praising Ness’s concluding series novel, Jonathan Hunt wrote in Horn Book that it presents a “timely examination of human nature, human society, and the terrible costs of violence.”
Ness’s young-adult novel A Monster Calls had its origins in a story conceived by the late British writer Siobhan Dowd and offered to Ness by an editor at Walker Books. In the novel, readers meet a young man whose life seems to be spinning out of control until he finds a way to make sense of things. Conor O’Malley, a sensitive and lonely thirteen-year-old, is bullied at school and terrified at the prospect of losing his mother, who has been diagnosed with cancer. In nightly dreams, Conor is visited by a monster that takes the form of a giant yew tree and tells him three folkloric tales. Then the monster demands that the lad shares his story, one that reveals the truth behind this long-running nightmare.
Described as “heart-wrenching and thought-provoking” by Horn Book contributor Cynthia K. Ritter, A Monster Calls inspired Booklist contributor Chipman to praise Ness for drawing his story to “a resolution that is revelatory in its obviousness, beautiful in its execution, and fearless in its honesty.” A Publishers Weekly critic wrote that Conor’s story “tackles the toughest of subjects by refusing to flinch, meeting the ugly truth about life head-on with compassion, bravery, and insight.” A highlight of A Monster Calls, according to a Kirkus Reviews writer, is the black-and-white artwork of Jim Kay, which earned the illustrator a Kate Greenaway award. Kay’s art “surrounds the text,” noted the critic, “softly caressing it in quiet moments and in others rushing toward the viewer with a nightmarish intensity.”
In Ness’s More than This, a posthumous narrator “brilliantly plays with contrasts: life and death, privacy and exposure, guilt and innocence,” according to a Kirkus Reviews critic. Teenager Seth vividly remembers drowning, but upon waking he finds himself in his childhood home in England, utterly alone, wrapped in bandages. Bizarrely, Seth is still very much corporeal; he feels cold, warmth, and a hunger that forces him to scavenge for food. Wondering if he has entered a personal hell, the teen eventually meets two other boys. Running from the Driver, a mysterious, evil being, the three must work together to discover the circumstances of their fates. A Publishers Weekly writer noted of More than This that “Ness’s exploration of big questions … will provide solace for the right readers.” As Hunt asserted in Horn Book, the author “is not only a good storyteller but an interesting prose stylist, and his latest effort is as provocative as ever.”
A satirical look at the young-adult fantasy-adventure genre, The Rest of Us Just Live Here “celebrates the everyday heroism of teens doing the hard work of growing up,” according to a writer in Kirkus Reviews. Mikey has little time to befriend the “indie kids” at his high school, those extraordinary classmates who keep the town safe from invading vampires, zombies, and other supernatural creatures. With graduation approaching, Mikey is also dealing with his father’s alcoholism, his sister’s eating disorder, his struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and his crush on his best friend. When Mikey’s pal Jared reveals an incredible secret, Ness’s plotlines diverge in “delightfully constructed ways,” according to Joy Court in School Librarian.
Shortlisted for the United Kingdom’s prestigious Carnegie Medal, The Rest of Us Just Live Here also garnered positive reviews. In Booklist, Lexi Walters Wright praised the story for evoking “a polished, lifelike world where the mundane moments are just as captivating as the extraordinary.” “While Ness packs his pages with wit …, there’s plenty of emotional heft in his turning of the genre tables,” noted Jen Doll in the New York Times Book Review. In The Rest of Us Just Live Here “he reminds us that it’s not a choice to be a chosen one,” Doll added, “but it is in everyone’s power to be a hero, by caring about others, by fighting to become your own truest self.”
Adam Thorn, the protagonist of Ness’s novel Release, is a seventeen-year-old gay teenager who confronts multiple interpersonal struggles as he learns to cope with the demands of his life. He lives, works, and goes to school in a relatively small town where he must deal with his homophobic parents. Raised in an evangelical household, his father is a minister and his brother a particularly pious member of the congregation. Covering one day in Adam’s life, the novel focuses on what happens to him during a single Saturday that is probably the most significant, defining day of his life.
Many of Adam’s activities of the day are mundane. He goes for a run, works at his job at a store, has lunch with his best friend, and spends some time with his boyfriend. Other events of the day have the potential to be life-changing. He finds out that his best friend Angela is moving to the Netherlands for her last year of school. He has an uncomfortable encounter with his boss, who has been sexually harassing him for some time. He recognizing the futility of still holding feelings for his ex. Perhaps most importantly, the always-tense relationship with his religious family comes to a crisis point. While all this is going on in the real world, the ghost of a murdered girl, killed by her meth-addict boyfriend, awakens and sets out to find revenge. Her story parallels Adam’s as her existence also undergoes profound changes.
“Adam is immensely likeable and his story is hilarious, gripping, and viciously insightful throughout,” commented Lisa A. Hazlett in a Voice of Youth Advocates review. A Kirkus Reviews writer called the book “Literary, illuminating, and stunningly told.” Booklist reviewer Maggie Reagan concluded that Release is a “painful, magical gem of a novel that, even when it perplexes, will rip the hearts right out of its readers.”
Ness reverses the story from a familiar literary classic in And the Ocean Was Our Sky. With the structure of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick at its base, the novel tells the story of Bathsheba, a young whale who lives in a complex underwater community of whales. Bathsheba has become a member of a larger crew of whales, working as an apprentice to Captain Alexandra. The group hunts the men who sail on the world’s oceans, much like the men themselves spend time searching for whales. She and the other crew members are particularly interested in finding the much-hated Toby Wick, a man who sails in a white ship and who has committed multiple atrocities and much violence against the whale population. As the whales search for Wick, however, Bathsheba begins to question the intense hatred and obsession that compels the ocean-borne hunters to maintain their quest for revenge against Wick.
The novel is an “otherworldly myth … that feels eerily real,” observed Justin Barisich, writing in BookPage. A Kirkus Reviews writer called it “Wrenching, dark, and powerful—no fluke, considering its model. School Library Journal reviewer Emma Carbone called And the Ocean Was Our Sky an “excellent, stirring counterpoint to the original text, rife with questions about the inexorable nature of belief and violence.”
Burn, set in an alternate 1950s America, features teenager Sarah Dewhurst. As a biracial teen, Sarah experiences racism in her small town of Frome, Washington. Sarah’s mother has recently passed away, and the family is facing financial hardship. Her father hires a Russian blue dragon, Kazimir, to clear his fields, but the dragon soon takes on the job of protecting Sarah from a mysterious killer. Meanwhile in Canada, a teen named Malcolm is part of a cult that worships dragons. Malcolm has been trained as an assassin, and in response to a prophecy, he travels to Sarah’s town in an effort to save the dragons. In this prophecy about an impending war between humans and dragons, Sarah finds herself in the middle.
A Publishers Weekly critic praised Ness’s diverse characters, and stated that “the densely layered, expertly paced plot builds and twists while revealing an alternate universe that cunningly echoes our world.” “Themes of teens coping with racism, homophobia, and grief are interwoven,” observed a Kirkus Reviews critic. The same reviewer considered Burn “a gripping, powerful novel of courage and resilience.” “Ness is on tip-top form here, deftly propelling a complex plot,” declared Philip Womack in the London Guardian.
Patrick Ness’s novella Different for Boys is about a high school boy with the nickname of Ant who experiments sexually with his homophobic friend Charlie. Charlie thinks because the two do not kiss, it means they are not gay. At the same time, Ant is trying to determine his own identity as well as his sexual status (including whether he still is a virgin). Ness makes the bold decision to put black boxes over explicit words and words describing sexual acts, as if he is redacting the material, and he even has the characters aware that there are black boxes over those words. Tea Bendix adds rough pencil illustrations to intensify the emotion of the story.
Inspired by Ness’s decision, a writer in Kirkus Reviews called Different for Boys “[blanking] masterful,” arguing that “the brevity of this story adds to its power, distilling the plot to its most necessary, brutal, loving elements.” Michael Cart, writing in Booklist, declared that the book “superbly blends Ant’s philosophical musings with realistically voiced teen thoughts and dialogue.” Cart also appreciated the illustrations that match the “near-melancholy tone.”
Ness enjoys the challenge of writing for a young-adult audience. The typical teen reader “is interested in a guileless, fresh, first-time-we-talked-about-it way,” he remarked to a London Independent interviewer. “What a great liberation that is. And teenagers, if you respect them, will follow you a lot further than adults will, without fear of being a genre that they may not like or have been told not to like. They just want a story.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, September 1, 2008, Ian Chipman, review of The Knife of Never Letting Go, p. 97; August 1, 2009, Ian Chipman, review of The Ask and the Answer, p. 66; July 1, 2010, Ian Chipman, review of Monsters of Men, p. 62; November 15, 2010, Michael Cart, interview with Ness, p. 42; July 1, 2011, Ian Chipman, review of A Monster Calls, p. 52; January 1, 2012, Ian Chipman, interview with Ness, p. 111; August 1, 2013, Daniel Kraus, review of More than This, p. 80; November 1, 2013, Katharine Fronk, review of The Crane Wife, p. 22; July 1, 2015, Lexi Walters Wright, review of The Rest of Us Just Live Here, p. 59; July 1, 2017, Maggie Reagan, review of Release, p. 52; January 1, 2023, Michael Cart, review of Different for Boys, p. 62.
BookPage, October, 2017, Jill Ratzan, review of Release, p. 27; September, 2018, Justin Barisich, review of And the Ocean Was Our Sky, p. 27.
Bookseller, March 4, 2011, Caroline Horn, profile of Ness, p. 23.
Books for Keeps, September, 2013, Geraldine Brennan, profile of Ness.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, November, 2011, Karen Coats, review of A Monster Calls, p. 161; October, 2015, Karen Coats, review of The Rest of Us Just Live Here, p. 105.
Daily Mail (London, England), May 6, 2011, Sally Morris, review of A Monster Calls, p. 58.
Financial Times, April 26, 2008, James Lovegrove, review of The Knife of Never Letting Go, p. 19.
Guardian (London, England), June 14, 2008, Frank Cottrell Boyce, review of The Knife of Never Letting Go, p. 14; September 27, 2008, Julia Eccleshare, review of The Knife of Never Letting Go, p. 14; May 7, 2011, Frank Cottrell Boyce, review of A Monster Calls, p. 14; April 19, 2013, Ursula K. Le Guin, review of The Crane Wife.
Horn Book, November-December, 2008, Claire E. Gross, review of The Knife of Never Letting Go, p. 712; September-October, 2008, Claire E. Gross, review of The Ask and the Answer, p. 570; November-December, 2010, Jonathan Hunt, review of Monsters of Men, p. 99; September-October, 2011, Cynthia K. Ritter, review of A Monster Calls, p. 93; November-December, 2013, Jonathan Hunt, review of More than This, p. 101; September-October, 2015, Shoshana Flax, review of The Rest of Us Just Live Here, p. 112; September-October, 2017, review of Release, p. 103.
Independent (London, England), May 10, 2011, review of A Monster Calls, p. 18; June 23, 2010, Nicolette Jones, author profile; June 24, 2011, author interview, p. 22.
Independent on Sunday (London, England), May 2, 2010, author profile, p. 38.
Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2008, review of The Knife of Never Letting Go; August 15, 2009, review of The Ask and the Answer; August 1, 2010, review of Monsters of Men; July 15, 2011, review of A Monster Calls; September 1, 2013, review of More than This; December 15, 2013, review of The Crane Wife; July 15, 2017, review of Release; June 15, 2018, review of And the Ocean Was Our Sky; April 15, 2020, review of Burn; January 1, 2023, review of Different for Boys.
Kliatt, September, 2008, Paula Rohrlick, review of The Knife of Never Letting Go, p. 18.
New York Times Book Review, October 16, 2011, Jessica Bruder, review of A Monster Calls, p. 18; November 8, 2015, Jen Doll, review of The Rest of Us Just Live Here, p. 35.
Publishers Weekly, August 31, 2009, review of The Ask and the Answer, p. 59; August 2, 2010, review of Monsters of Men, p. 46; June 20, 2011, review of A Monster Calls, p. 54; July 8, 2013, review of More than This, p. 90; August 3, 2015, review of The Rest of Us Just Live Here, p. 63; July 3, 2017, review of Release, p. 78; December 4, 2017, review of Release, p. S101; August 6, 2018, review of And the Ocean Was Our Sky, p. 74; May 4, 2020, review of Burn, p. 63.
School Librarian, fall, 2015, Joy Court, review of The Rest of Us Just Live Here, p. 184; fall, 2017, Lizzie Ryder, review of Release, p. 190.
School Library Journal, November, 2008, Megan Honig, review of The Knife of Never Letting Go, p. 133; January, 2010, Vicki Reutter, review of The Ask and the Answer, p. 110; September, 2010, Eric Norton, review of Monsters of Men, p. 159; September, 2011, Krista Welz, review of A Monster Calls, p. 164; June, 2014, Amanda Shiavulli, review of More than This, p. 68; September, 2015, Sunnie Lovelace, review of The Rest of Us Just Live Here, p. 170; August, 2018, Emma Carbone, review of And the Ocean Was Our Sky, p. 76.
Sunday Telegraph (London, England), April 10, 2005, Patrick Ness, “It’s Great to Be British … at Last,” p. 5.
Sunday Times (London, England), May 22, 2011, Nicolette Jones, review of A Monster Calls, p. 42.
Times (London, England), November 22, 2008, Amanda Craig, review of The Knife of Never Letting Go, p. 15; May 22, 2010, Amanda Craig, review of Monsters of Men, p. 8; May 14, 2011, Amanda Craig, review of A Monster Calls, p. 25.
Voice of Youth Advocates, October, 2011, Laurie Vaughan, review of A Monster Calls, p. 407; October, 2013, Barbara Allen, review of More than This, p. 85; December, 2015, Samantha Godbey, review of The Rest of Us Just Live Here, p. 73; August, 2017, Lisa A. Hazlett, review of Release, p. 75.
ONLINE
Booktopia, http://www.booktopia.com.au/ (May 30, 2018), Bronwyn Eley, “Patrick Ness: ‘Anybody Can Write a Book but Only Authors End Them,’” profile of Patrick Ness.
Booktrust, http://www.booktrust.org.uk/ (October 1, 2011), Madelyn Travis, author interview; (October 1, 2011) “Patrick Ness and Jim Kay Answer Our Questions about Their Latest Novel A Monster Calls.”
Film in Revolt, http://www.filminrevolt.org/ (May 12, 2018), author interview.
Guardian (London, England), https://www.theguardian.com/ (August 29, 2015), Linda Buckley-Archer, review of The Rest of Us Just Live Here; (May 8, 2020), Philip Womack, review of Burn.
Patrick Ness website, https://patrickness.com (August 22, 2023).
Publishers Weekly, http://www.publishersweekly.com/ (June 23, 2011), Julia Eccleshare, interview with Ness and Denise Johnstone-Burt.
Readings, http://www.readings.com.au/ (February 15, 2010), Andrew McDonald, author interview.
Walker Books website, http://www.walker.co.uk/ (February 1, 2017), autobiographical essay by Ness.*
I’m Patrick Ness. I claim three states in America as my home (as Americans are wont to do): I was born in Virginia, my first memories are Hawaiian, and I went to junior high and high school in Washington. Then I lived in California for college (at USC) and moved to the United Kingdom in 1999, where I’ve lived (mostly in London) ever since.
I’ve written nine books: 2 novels for adults (The Crash of Hennington and The Crane Wife), 1 short story collection for adults (Topics About Which I Know Nothing) and 10 novels for young adults (The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, Monsters of Men, A Monster Calls, More Than This, The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Release, And the Ocean Was Our Sky, Burn and Different for Boys).
For these books, I’ve won the Carnegie Medal twice, the Costa Children’s Book Award, the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Red House Book Award, the Jugendliteratur Preis, the UKLA Award, the Booktrust Teenage Prize and the fabulous, fabulous, fabulous Jim Kay also won the Greenaway for his illustrations in A Monster Calls (so buy that version, would you?).
I write screenplays as well, including for the movie version of A Monster Calls starring Liam Neeson, Sigourney Weaver and Felicity Jones, out January 2017.
I love the Decemberists, Peter Carey and A&W Cream Soda. I dislike onions. Intensely.
Patrick Ness is the award-winning author of The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, Monsters of Men, and A Monster Calls to name just a few of his books. He has won the Carnegie Medal twice, the Costa Children’s Book Award, and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Today I talk to him about his hilarious new book Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody: The Hat of Great Importance!
Before we settle down in The Reading Realm and talk about your life as an author and your books, what’s your drink and snack of choice?
Pineapple juice and a Cadburys Creme Egg. Not together.
As much as I’d love to talk to you about the Chaos Walking series and your beautiful book Release, we’re here today to talk about Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody: The Hat of Great Importance! Without giving too much away what can you tell us about this new story?
The main plot is that Zeke’s friend Daniel starts wearing a hat. And only birds usually wear hats. Daniel is a lizard. There’s no rule, just what everyone has “always done”. Kerfuffle ensues. Also, there’s a Death Ray of Death.
Buy here!
I’m a big fan of your YA books like Different for Boys, so I was wondering about your experiences of now writing for a middle grade audience. What’s that move been like in terms of successes and challenges? What have you learned about writing for this age group?
I actually don’t see any difference in terms of challenges. Every book has a voice, so each book – regardless of age group – is finding the right voice for it. Which is so tricky and halfway mystical. For middle grade, it was finding the right middle grade voice. As challenging as it always is for every book I write, but I put the same effort and work and emotional investment in it, regardless of age.
I love all the quirky illustrations by Tim Miller! Can you remember the first time you saw them? What was that experience like?
First, I would say that I’m no illustrator, so I’m just in awe of illustrators can do. They bring so much to a book that I can’t, and together we make something bigger than both of us. I’ve been very lucky in my illustrators, and I’m hugely lucky with Tim, who captures so much character with these deadpan, deceptively simple lines. I love them. They’re perfect for the book, and that’s what Zeke will always look like to me now.
There’s a point in the story where the lizards watch Miel being hugged by his dad and we learn that Daniel has two mums. What a gorgeous moment! I’m NOT going to ask, “Why do you think LGBTQ+ representation is important?” because the answer is pretty obvious to most people! Instead I’m going to ask how you went about balancing the surreal and funny with the more heart-warming and moving elements in the story?
I never look at either as “balance”. I just see it as writing the accurate world of the story. In this story, it’s realistic for Zeke to have the nation of France on his knee, but that doesn’t mean this world also has to lack emotion and good jokes. It’s really just a matter of creating a universe where your story is completely realistic. That’s all, but it’s also everything.
You manage to weave into the story lots of very interesting animal facts. What’s been the weirdest animal fact you’ve discovered while writing this book?
That wombats poop in cubes. They really do! I have no idea why. But they do. It’s amazing and random, and I would have loved to know that as a kid.
One of the main themes in Chronicles of Lizard Nobody: The Hat of Great Importance is bigotry and prejudice. Would you agree? What other themes do you think are important in the story?
Oh, I pretty much never think of theme when I’m writing. I always feel that if I’m responding to a story, then I’m responding for a reason. If I trust the story, that reason will be all over it. It’s only at the end, looking back to see if I’ve done my job, that I really notice themes. I’m just trying to respond emotionally to this characters and tell their truths. Plus, I think if you start with a theme, you end up writing a sermon. And who wants to read a sermon?
I found the poster in Mr Ephesus’s office very interesting. It says PERFECT PEOPLE HAVE NO FRIENDS. Could you talk to us a bit more about this?
It was something a good friend said to me once, and I believe it’s true. It’s like Sister Michael says to the perfect Jenny in Derry Girls: “You’ll go far in life, Jenny, but you won’t be well-liked.” We love people for their imperfections, so stop trying to be perfect and just try to be good.
Do you have any childhood memories about reading that really stand out for you?
I learned to read from Richard Scarry’s Storybook Dictionary. It was where pictures and letters suddenly matched up. I’ve never stopped since!
What does a day in your life look like when you’re writing?
As much as all writers like to pretend they’re Charles Bukowski, knocking out novels at the bar with a cigarette, we’re not. You’ve got to sit down and put the work in. I schedule mine like a work day, so I can have the rest of my life, too. I’m usually working on two projects at once at different stages. So a first draft of one thing in the morning, then a rewrite of another in the afternoon. It works for me, but however you do it, if you finish writing your book, you’ve done it correctly.
Are there any books you’ve enjoyed reading recently that you could recommend to us?
I really enjoyed Olga Tokarczuk’s huge, epic Books of Jacob, set in 17th-Century Poland. And I really loved Open Throat by Henry Hoke, told from the point of view of a California mountain lion. I just want books to show me something different and unexpected.
Will Zeke, Daniel and Alicia be going on any new adventures after this one? If so, what can you tell us about it?
Looks like it! But no, I cannot. More when I can!
Finally, can you describe Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody: The Hat of Great Importance in three words?
Lizards wear hats!
Patrick Ness
USA flag (b.1971)
Patrick Ness is an American author, journalist and lecturer who lives in London. He holds both American and British citizenship (British since 2005). He published his first story in Genre magazine in 1997 and was working on his first novel when he moved to London in 1999. Since then he has published four novels.He taught creative writing at Oxford University and has written and reviewed for The Daily Telegraph, The TLS, The Sunday Telegraph and The Guardian. He currently reviews for The Guardian.
Awards: Carnegie (2012), Costa (2009), Otherwise (2008) see all
Genres: Young Adult Fantasy, Science Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Romance, Children's Fiction
New and upcoming books
April 2026
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Piper at the Gates of Dusk
(New World , book 1)
Series
Chaos Walking
0.5. The New World (2010)
1. The Knife of Never Letting Go (2008)
2. The Ask and the Answer (2009)
2.5. The Wide, Wide Sea (2018)
3. Monsters of Men (2010)
3.5. Snowscape (2018)
4. Monsters of Men & Snowscape (2024)
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Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody
1. Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody (2024)
2. The Hat of Great Importance (2025)
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New World
1. Piper at the Gates of Dusk (2026)
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Novels
The Crash of Hennington (2003)
A Monster Calls (2011)
The Crane Wife (2013)
More Than This (2013)
The Rest of Us Just Live Here (2015)
Release (2017)
And the Ocean Was Our Sky (2018)
Burn (2020)
Different for Boys (2023)
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Collections
Topics About Which I Know Nothing (2004)
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Series contributed to
Doctor Who 50th Anniversary E-Shorts
5. Tip Of The Tongue (2013)
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Doctor Who
12 Doctors 12 Stories (2014) (with others)
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Omnibus editions hide
A Monster Calls / More Than This (2016)
Three Novels (2020)
Patrick Ness
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the early 20th-century English traveler, see Mrs. Patrick Ness.
Patrick Ness
FRSL
Ness in 2025
Ness in 2025
Born 17 October 1971 (age 54)
Fort Belvoir, Virginia, U.S.
Occupation
Authorwriterproducer
Nationality American-British
Alma mater University of Southern California
Genre Young adult
Spouse
Unknown
(m. 2013, divorced)[1]
Nick Coveney (m. 2022)[2]
Patrick Ness FRSL (born 17 October 1971) is an American-British author, journalist, lecturer, and screenwriter. Born in the United States, Ness moved to London and holds dual citizenship. He is best known for his books for young adults, including the Chaos Walking (2008–2010) trilogy and A Monster Calls (2011).
Ness won the annual Carnegie Medal in 2011 and in 2012, for Monsters of Men and A Monster Calls.[3][4][5][6][a] He is one of seven writers to win two Medals, and the second to win consecutively.
He wrote the screenplay of the 2016 film adaptation of A Monster Calls, and was the creator and writer of the Doctor Who spin-off series Class.
Early life
Ness was born near the Fort Belvoir Army base, near Alexandria, Virginia, where his father was a Sergeant in the US Army. They moved to Hawaii, where he lived until he was six, then spent the next ten years in Washington, before moving to Los Angeles. Ness studied English Literature at the University of Southern California.
After graduating, he worked as corporate writer for a cable company. He published his first story in Genre in 1997 and was working on his first novel when he moved to London in 1999.
Career
Ness's first novel, The Crash of Hennington, was published in 2003,[7] and was followed by his short story collection, Topics About Which I Know Nothing, in 2004.[8]
Ness's first young adult novel was The Knife of Never Letting Go. It won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 2008.[9][10] The book was followed by The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men. Together, the three books make up the Chaos Walking trilogy. Ness has also written three short stories set in the Chaos Walking universe; the prequels "The New World" and "The Wide, Wide Sea", and "Snowscape", which is set after the events of Monsters of Men. The short stories are available as free-to-download ebooks,[11] and have been included in the 2013 UK print editions of the novels.[12]
A Monster Calls originated with the Irish writer, Siobhan Dowd, who had been diagnosed with cancer and was unable to complete the story before she died in 2007. Dowd and Ness shared an editor at Walker, Denise Johnstone-Burt, and after Dowd's death, Walker arranged for Ness to complete the story from her notes. Ness says his only guideline was to write a book he thought Dowd would have liked. Jim Kay was hired to illustrate the book, and the two completed the book without meeting. Ness won the Carnegie and Kay won the companion Kate Greenaway Medal, the first time one book has won both medals.[13][14]
Ness was the author of Tip of the Tongue, an e-short featuring the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa as part Puffin's eleven Doctor Who e-shorts in honour of the show's 50th anniversary, released on 23 May 2013.[15][16]
His fourth young adult novel, More Than This, was published on 5 September 2013.[17] It later made the Carnegie Medal shortlist of 2015.[18]
The Crane Wife, Ness's third novel for adults, was published on 30 December 2014.
In 2014, Ness delivered the keynote speech at the Children's and Young Adult Program of the Berlin International Literature Festival.
The Rest of Us Just Live Here was published 25 August 2015 in the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, and 5 October 2015 in Canada and the United States.
On 1 October 2015, the BBC announced that Ness would be writing a Doctor Who spin-off entitled Class.[19] The resulting eight-part series aired on BBC Three's online channel toward the end of 2016. The BBC cancelled Class after one series.
Release, was published on 4 May 2017, described by Ness as a "private and intense book" with more personal inspiration than any before it.[20]
In June 2021, Ness was said to be preparing a prequel script to the Napoleonic sea adventure movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, based on the works of Patrick O'Brian.[21]
Personal life
Ness was naturalised as a British citizen in 2005. He entered into a civil partnership with his partner in 2006, less than two months after the Civil Partnership Act came into force.[22] In February 2023, Patrick disclosed on Instagram that he had married Nick Coveney in Las Vegas in October 2022. He also stated that within the previous "4 or 5 years" he had gotten divorced.[2]
Ness taught creative writing at the University of Oxford and has written and reviewed for The Daily Telegraph, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Telegraph and The Guardian. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, and was the first Writer in Residence for BookTrust.[23]
In 2023, Ness was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.[24]
Awards
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (April 2024)
Year Title Award Category Result Ref
2008 The Knife of Never Letting Go Booktrust Teenage Prize — Won [25][26][27]
Guardian Children's Fiction Prize — Won [9]
Tiptree Award — Won [26]
2009 Carnegie Medal — Shortlisted [28]
The Ask and the Answer Costa Book Award Children's Book Won [29]
2010 Carnegie Medal — Shortlisted [28]
2011 Monsters of Men Arthur C. Clarke Award — Shortlisted [30]
Carnegie Medal — Won [28]
2015 More Than This Carnegie Medal — Shortlisted [28]
2016 The Rest of Us Just Live Here Carnegie Medal — Shortlisted [28]
YA Book Prize —
2017 Rhode Island Teen Book Award —
2018 Lincoln Award —
2024 Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody Nero Book Award Children's fiction Shortlisted [31]
The Rest of Us Just Live Here received many awards, including six starred reviews and the Kirkus Best Book of the Year.[32]
Works
Novels
—— (2003). The Crash of Hennington.
—— (2013). The Crane Wife (hardcover ed.). Canongate Books. pp. 1–311. ISBN 978-0857868718.
Novels for young adults
Chaos Walking series
The Knife of Never Letting Go (2008)
The Ask and the Answer (2009)
Monsters of Men (2010)
Short stories
1.5. "The New World" (2009)
2.5. "The Wide, Wide Sea" (2013)
3.5. "Snowscape" (2013)
The New World Trilogy
Piper at the Gates of Dusk (Spring 2026)
Standalone
—— (2011). A Monster Calls (paperback 1st ed.). Walker Books. pp. 1–215. ISBN 978-1406334906.
—— (2013). More Than This (hardcover ed.). Walker Books. pp. 1–480. ISBN 978-1406331158.
—— (2015). The Rest of Us Just Live Here (hardcover 1st ed.). Walker Books. pp. 1–348. ISBN 978-1406331165.
—— (2017). Release (paperback 1st ed.). Walker Books. pp. 1–287. ISBN 978-1406377279. (2017)
—— (2018). And the Ocean Was Our Sky (hardcover 1st ed.). Walker Books. pp. 1–160. ISBN 978-1406383560.
—— (2020). Burn (hardcover 1st ed.). Walker Books. pp. 1–383. ISBN 978-1406375503.
—— (2023). Different for Boys (Hardcover ed.). Walker Books. pp. 1–104. ISBN 978-1536228892.
—— (2024). Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody (Hardcover ed.). Walker Books. pp. 1–208. ISBN 978-1536235937.
—— (2025). Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody: The Hat of Great Importance (Hardcover ed.). Walker Books. pp. 1–208. ISBN 978-1536241266.
Short stories
"Different for Boys", collected in Losing it (2010)[33]
"Doctor Who: Tip of the Tongue" (2013), collected in Thirteen Doctors, 13 Stories (2019)
"This Whole Demoing Thing", collected in Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales, ed. Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant (2014)
Collections
Topics About Which I Know Nothing (2004), collection of 11 short stories:
"Implied Violence", "The Way All Trends Do", "Ponce de Leon is a Retired Married Couple From Toronto", "Jesus' Elbows and Other Christian Urban Myths", "Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?", "Sydney is a City of Jaywalkers", "2,115 Opportunities", "The Motivations of Sally Rae Wentworth, Amazon", "The Seventh International Military War Games Dance Committee Quadrennial Competition and Jamboree", "The Gifted", "Now That You've Died"
Filmography
Year Title Credited as Notes Ref.
Writer Executive Producer
2016 A Monster Calls Yes Yes Based on his novel A Monster Calls (2011) [34]
2016 Class Yes Yes Doctor Who television spin-off; also creator (8 episodes) [19]
2021 Chaos Walking Yes Co-screenwriter (with Christopher Ford). Based on his novel The Knife of Never Letting Go. [35]
See also
When Daniel arrives at the school bus stop sporting a salmon-colored hat, Zeke is shocked. Don't only birds wear hats? As if this isn't strange enough, the school suddenly has a new student--a fish of all things--and a mysterious new guidance counselor. Meanwhile, Zeke's friends seem to have ditched him, and even his old nemesis won't give him the time of day. So when somebody melts his house with the Death Ray of Death--twice--Zeke has had enough.
A Death Ray of Death?! We needed to get to the bottom of this, so we went straight to author Patrick Ness to give us the 411 on our reptilian heroes.
Tell us a bit about your background/life growing up.
My father was in the Army, so I lived in a lot of places. I mainly consider Hawaii and the state of Washington my homes.
Hawaii was all my first memories, and Washington was where I went to most of my schooling. Two very different places, both beautiful and very rugged.
Tell us about your career and where you've worked before you became a writer.
I worked a lot of office jobs, including doing public relations at a cable company. Nothing super interesting, I'm afraid, and then I became a full-time writer in 2001 when I sold my first book. I never looked back.
What inspired you to become a writer?
Is it weird to say that I found out--to my surprise--that I was good at it. People reacted the way I'd want them to react when I wrote, which I didn't expect. Plus, I love reading above all else. I never thought I could ever make a living at it, but I always say, real writers don't write, they write anyway. I didn't think anyone would publish my first book; I wrote it anyway. And someone did! That was a pleasant shock.
Tell us about Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody: The Hat of Great Importance! What inspired this book series?
The real inspiration was simply the pun of Hall Monitor Lizards, which is just terrible. Puns are the worst, but I couldn't resist it. I just laughed about it at first, but then a real sweetness started to emerge, which was such a surprise. I never expected to love them so very, very much. In this one, the whole plot is that Daniel wears a hat in a place where only birds usually wear hats.
There's no rule or law or anything, just the convention. So when he puts one on, kerfuffle ensues, though perhaps not the one he was expecting. Daniel is probably my favorite character in these books, so it was a joy to write about him.
What is the best time of day for you to write? Are you a day writer or a night writer?
I try to keep office hours for writing; otherwise, it takes over your life a little. It's got to be managed like anything else. I'm lucky that I get to do it full-time, so I can really have the day to do it. When I was working a full-time job, I'd often get up an hour earlier for work and write for that hour. That sounds exhausting. It was!
What are some of your interests/hobbies outside of writing?
I'm a distance runner, and I've run a bunch of marathons. I also go to the theatre a lot, and I love going to the movies. Other than that? Naps.
What is your favorite writing snack?
Dessert-flavored Skittles. And snickerdoodle cookies.
What are one or two of your proudest moments in life, whether personal or writing-wise?
In my career, it was genuinely holding the hardcover of my first book in my hands. That book did NOT sell well, but in a way, it didn't matter. My dream was to hold a book that I'd written myself in my hands, and I got to do it. It's still the best moment of publishing, but that first time was irreplaceable.
What are the most challenging aspects of your writing when you start a project?
Honestly, it's getting the words of the first draft down on the page. I'm not a joyous blank page writer. It always feels like a slog, and then when I finish, no matter how messy, I can start turning it into a book. That's when it gets exciting. But blank pages are my biggest challenge.
What's next for you?
I've got a new YA novel out next year, the first in a new trilogy of Chaos Walking books, which is exciting. And looks like there's going to be a couple more Lizards books, which I'm thrilled about.
What book are you reading now (aside from your own)?
Currently reading Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov. No other stylist like him in the English language.
What advice would you give a first-time author?
Write a book you want to read yourself, no matter how strange. You'd be amazed at how many people don't; they write for what they think a publisher wants or the market wants. But all the successful books in the world (every single one) were written by people who were dying to find out what happens. So no matter how weird your story seems, write it, and that's the one people will respond to.
For more information about Patrick Ness and his work, visit patrickness.com.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Story Monsters LLC
www.StoryMonsters.com
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"Patrick Ness: Pulls a New Chronicle Out of His Hat." Story Monsters Ink, June-July 2025, pp. 8+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A848997778/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6f50bc9f. Accessed 8 Nov. 2025.
Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody: The Hat of Great Importance. By Patrick Ness. Illus. by Tim Miller. June 2025. 208p. Candlewick/Walker, $18.99 (9781536241266). Gr. 3-5.
Ness and Miller continue to explore the challenges of friendship and trust in this sequel to The Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody (2024). Monitor lizard Zeke is one of only three lizards at his recently integrated school, but neither being a hall monitor nor having recently defeated a supervillain is boosting his popularity. When his lizard friend Daniel shows up wearing a hat (a fashion normally reserved for the school's bird clique), Zeke gets nervous. How will the other students treat Daniel, Zeke, and their fellow lizard friend Alicia? What does the new exchange student, a fish named Peggy, think of Daniel's hat? Can the new guidance counselor be trusted? And who keeps firing a Death Ray of Death at Zeke's house? Miller's droll, expressive cartoons add to the wry atmosphere. Smart, funny, whimsical, and full of heart, this speaks directly to middle-grade readers' concerns about fitting in, keeping friendships, and navigating the world's unfairness despite well-meaning adults who haven't a clue.--Dani Ryskamp
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Ryskamp, Dani. "Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody: The Hat of Great Importance." Booklist, vol. 121, no. 19-20, June 2025, p. 85. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A847198116/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=58bd4f6c. Accessed 8 Nov. 2025.
* Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody.
By Patrick Ness. Illus. by Tim Miller.
Sept. 2024. 208p. Candlewick/Walker, $17.99
(9781536235937). Gr. 3-5.
Ness and Miller, the dream team you never knew you needed, deliver an exceptional chapter book that explores bullying, stereotyping, grief, and friendship. Zeke the monitor lizard has been made a hall monitor, and his duties put him in the path of bully pelican Pelicarnassus, who swears revenge on the kindly--and possibly even heroic--Zeke. There's a delightful absurdity to the BoJack Horsemanesque world building, through the animal dynamics and the fact that Zeke literally has the country of France on his knee (the rules of which are fully defined and, somehow, work). Miller's illustrations are very Tim Miller, a high compliment, delivering the trademark cute, (visually) deadpan humor through simple black-line drawings, and they soar when juxtaposed with Zeke's heartbreaking backstory about a dead father and a mother still despondent in grief, represented by a black dog that shadows her, a barrier between her and everyone else. The melting pot of animal species serves as an opportunity to explore stereotyping, though it's an underdeveloped theme thus far. Attempts at inclusivity fall a bit flat as well, as Zeke's large size, while shown as a strength, is made fodder for fatphobic bullying, and a blind falcon classmate is largely defined by his disability, serving too often as a punch line. Still, future installments promise room for development to this strong foundation that is sure to amuse and even move young middle-graders.--Ronny Khuri
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Khuri, Ronny. "Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 21, July 2024, p. 80. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A804615992/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=c67c4dd5. Accessed 8 Nov. 2025.
Ness, Patrick CHRONICLES OF A LIZARD NOBODY Walker US/Candlewick (Children's None) $17.99 9, 3 ISBN: 9781536235937
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them, as this monitor lizard soon learns.
Soon after Principal Wombat assures Zeke that she hasn't selected him to be a hall monitor just because he's a monitor lizard, he proves fairly inept at the job. He almost immediately punches local bully Pelicarnassus in the beak after a nasty encounter. Unfortunately, Pelicarnassus is the son of a supervillain, and after that fact is revealed, some of the wilder elements of this anthropomorphic school story come to the fore. For instance, because of an ancient family curse, the entire country of France appeared on Zeke's knee after the death of his father. Ness clearly has a talent for balancing heart with mind-blowing silliness and whimsy. Such elements combine perfectly when Zeke's mother, suffering from depression after the passing of Zeke's father, is followed by a literal black dog at all times. All this is punctuated by Miller's ink drawings of the characters, perfectly matching Ness' equally deadpan recounting of the action. Yet in the end, it's Zeke's slow growth into a hero that will touch readers' hearts, gargantuan pelican robot suits and tiny fighter jets notwithstanding.
Heart and weirdness in equal measure prove you should never underestimate the power of a lizard!(Fiction. 8-12)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Ness, Patrick: CHRONICLES OF A LIZARD NOBODY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A801499515/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=769cdf12. Accessed 8 Nov. 2025.
Ness, Patrick CHRONICLES OF A LIZARD NOBODY Walker US/Candlewick (Children's None) $18.99 6, 3 ISBN: 9781536241266
Sometimes, even the calmest monitor lizards have their limits.
Though Zeke, Daniel, and Alicia saved their school from their evil avian classmate Pelicarnassus inChronicles of a Lizard Nobody (2024), the reptilian trio still remain at the bottom of the popularity pecking order. Maybe that's why Zeke's so unnerved by Daniel's choice to wear a pink hat to school. Subsequently, his friends stop talking to him, he becomes convinced that the school's guidance counselor is trying to ruin his life, and someone begins using the local death ray to destroy his school bus and house. In the same vein as its predecessor, this tale keeps the clever quips and funny situations coming (as when Pelicarnassus can't keep from complimenting Daniel's hat), but this second book in the series leans further into Zeke's interior life, his frustrations, and some serious questions about how we can inadvertently hurt the people closest to us. Once more, Ness offers probing explorations of a prejudiced status quo: Zeke and the other lizards, who live in the poorest parts of town, are bused into school as part of a program designed to get different species to mix. The reveal of who has it in for Zeke is legitimately surprising, even if the villain's plan feels simplistic. Happily, Miller's art continues to give every scene a pitch-perfect feel, with illustrations that wring both understated hilarity and pathos from the pages.
Should more chronicles ensue, let us hope they maintain this superior blend of humor and heart.(Fiction. 8-12)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Ness, Patrick: CHRONICLES OF A LIZARD NOBODY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A835106555/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a053f0d0. Accessed 8 Nov. 2025.