What happened to young Elphaba before her witchy powers took hold in Wicked ? Almost 30 years
after the publication of the original novel for the first time Gregory Maguire reveals the
story of prickly young Elphie the future Wicked Witch of the West--setting the stage for the
blockbuster international phenomenon that is Wicked : The Musical. Elphaba the Wicked Witch of
the West will grow to have a feisty and somewhat uncompromising character in adult life. But
she is always a one-off from her infancy Elphie is the riveting coming-of-age story of a very
peculiar and relatable young girl. Young Elphie is shaped and molded by the behaviors of her
promiscuous mother Melena and her pious father Frex. She suffers ordinary childhood
jealousies when her sister saintly Nessarose and brother junior felon Shell arrive. She
first encounters the mistreatment of the Animal populations of Oz which live adjacent to but
not intertwined with human settlements haunted by a Monkey and receiving aid from Dwarf Bears.
She thrashes through her first bruising attempts at friendship a possible lifeline from her
tricky family life. And she gleans the benefits of an education haphazard though it must
be--until she arrives at the doors of Shiz University about to meet the radiant creature that
is Galinda. Elphie is destined to be a witch she bears the markings from childhood--most
evidently in her green skin but more obscurely and profoundly in her cunning and perhaps amoral
behaviors as she seeks to make do to slip by to sneak out to endure and to aspire.
