We Wish You a Morbid Christmas
Here is a little holiday tidbit for you. It’s not to do with vampires, precisely, but it has ghosts and death in it, so I figure it’ll fit right in.
“Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it.” –Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Well, Charles, I can now tell you why doornails are dead. A nail that is driven entirely through a piece of wood (so that the pointed end sticks out) and then has that pointed end hammered down to hold the nail in place, is called “dead.” In the old days, hinges were always put on door with dead nails, to hold them extra firmly since they got so much use. There you go. Doornails are dead.
Happy holidays to all!
Read MoreThanks, Santa!
Mercy is one of Barnes & Noble’s Best Young Adult Books of 2011!
Who knew Santa could fit that into his sleigh!
Amy Benfer, the B&N reviewer, says of the ten books on this list:
Read More“They are simply good books. They are books for people of all ages who appreciate what makes a story work on the page: fresh storytelling, a distinctive voice, and compelling use of language.”
Odd Things
New England does seem to have more than its share of quirky legends, and Mercy Brown is only one of them. Witches in Salem, haunted lighthouses; there’s even a cursed town (supposedly) in Connecticut, about which more anon. Is it our long, chilly winters? Is it a need to come up with more and more tourist attractions as fish stocks decline and manufacturing moves overseas? Who knows? Actually, the guy who knows seems to be J.W. Ocker. His book, the New England Grimpendium, is the last word on the weird, the wacky, and the spooky in the Northeast. And his blog, O.T.I.S (“Odd Things I’ve Seen”) take us even farthest afield: Rome, Chicago, New York–you name it.
I appreciated finding Mercy Brown on O.T.I.S., and was taken back to my own rainy, chilly trip to the Chestnut Hill Cemetery, where you can still see the graves of Mercy and her family (including poor Edwin), plus the crypt where her body was held. It’s a quiet little cemetery, not anywhere near as spooky as I made it in the book (creative license–I needed some atmosphere, plus a crypt or two for my heroine to hide behind during the chase scene). Apart from the occasional tourist wandering by, you’d never know that America’s last vampire is buried there. Unless somebody like J.W. tells you.
Read MoreTest Your Vampire IQ
Think you know your Angel from your Edward? Find out just how sharp your stake is here.
If you can identify the sources for all of these famous fictional vampires, I’ll send you a free Mercy tattoo. (Actually I’ll send you one if you just ask. To be honest.)
Read MoreHanging Out
One of the nice things about book signings is that not only do you get to meet and chat with readers; you also get to hang out a bit with your fellow writers. Swap stories, discuss how blocked you are, compare signing pens, all that fun stuff. Here is Pierce, who signed books (with his mom, Jessica Kinney, author of the enchanting Pig Scramble by Islandport Press) next to me at the MWPA book signing on Black Friday, where I was promoting Mercy. Pierce has been working on a screenplay which will likely be produced sometime next fall.
The Dawn Is Coming
So, the movie of Breaking Dawn is out this Friday, which inspires me to offer a few thoughts on the topic: Why are vampires so sexy?
They’re not.
I realize I’m in the minority here, although how much of a minority, I’m not sure. I do know that I tend to introduce the topic of Mercy to people by saying, “I have a new book out; it’s a vampire story; it’s not a romance,” (with that last part spoken very quickly). I see my listeners’ eyes glaze over but then brighten as they process the fact that my vampires do not sparkle, stalk teenage girls, or moon over their human love interests/meals. Now, I’ve got nothing against a good paranormal romance if that’s your thing, but lately it seems like everyone assumes anybody with fangs must be Mr. Darcy in disguise.
It’s Bram Stoker’s fault. Nobody thought vampires were sexy or even handsome before Dracula. All that repressed Victorian sexuality came boiling over (even more rabidly in the movies than the books, although it’s there in the book, too, right under the surface), and biting virginal young woman became a metaphor for deflowering them. All well and good, it made for a great story, but–
–BUT–
–it was fiction.
There was a time when people did not see vampires as fiction. They saw them as fact. Rare, odd, not something to be spoken of openly, but real. The vampires of folklore, the vampires that people truly believed in–vampires like Mercy Brown–were not seductive, alluring, or wickedly attractive. People did not want to have sex with them. They wanted to kill them, many times over if possible. They wanted to destroy them. They were scared to death of them.
That was the vampire tradition I wanted to get in touch with when I was writing Mercy.
I respect Bram Stoker, I like Dracula, but I think it’s time to shake off his deathgrip (as it were) on the vampire theme. Vampires, after all, are about death much more than they are about sex. The central vampire question isn’t “Are you dying to have sex with me?” It’s “How scared are you of dying? What would you do to live forever?”
Read MoreMercy Is Famous!
If you’re in Trumbull, CT, on Tuesday, Nov. 15th, drop by the Trumbull Library to hear a discussion of the New England vampire tradition in general and Mercy Brown in particular. The Smoking Gun Research Agency will be giving a presentation on the homegrown vampires of the Northeast.
The Smoking Gun Folks are researchers into the paranormal, the spooky, and the strange. Should be a chilling evening! I have to give them credit for what sounds like an informed look at the New England vampire tradition. You can believe or not believe in the actual undead–me, I’m entirely on the skeptical side. But the history of the belief, and the questions of why our ancestors believed the things they did, are always fascinating to hear about–which is, of course, why Mercy came to be.
Look here for a bit more information on the event.
Read MoreSarah L. Thomson
A children’s book author publishing award-winning nonfiction, poetry, picture books and novels including…
“Thomson focuses on newfound connection, magic, and suspense to conjure a fast-paced, heartwarming mystery. Thomson’s world is populated by resourceful protagonists, fanciful creatures, and quirky supporting characters.”
—Publishers Weekly