All About Mercy
The Literary Traveler swings by Exeter, Rhode Island, with a nice post about Mercy and the many literary explorations of New England’s vampire tradition.
Nope, I wasn’t the only one…
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The Vampire’s Disease
If you’ve read Mercy, you’ll know that tuberculosis was tightly linked to the vampire tradition as it existed in New England. Understandable. In this age of antibiotics, it’s hard to understand how frightening this illness must have been to witness. Imagine watching somebody wasting away, sometimes lingering for years, but almost never recovering. Imagine doctors (if they were honest) telling you that nothing could be done. Wouldn’t you be tempted to look for some sort of explanation, even if it was–supernatural?
To the right is a photograph of a young woman named Charlotte Bronson. It was taken around 1850. She could have been about Mercy’s age.
And below is a photo of Charlotte six years later, a few months before her death. She probably had tuberculosis. Easy enough to see how someone desperate for an explanation could think of her as a vampire’s victim.
Mercy on YouTube
Fabulous book trailer for Mercy here, created by Aurora Dolman (Doesn’t that marvelous name sound like a character in a vampire novel? Hey, Aurora, do you mind if I name a character after you?). Shared by Melissa Orth of the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick. Thanks to you both!
Read MoreI Admit It
It’s embarrassing, but true. I have a total girly-fan crush on folklorist and author Michael Bell. I know that proper vampire 
bloggers should have crushes on, say, Robert Pattinson, but my tastes tend to run in other directions, I guess.
Michael Bell knows all about vampires–the historical ones, anyway. He is also the author of Food for the Dead, which is a fascinating study of the New England vampire tradition, and on which I leaned heavily while writing Mercy. Here he’s interviewed in an excellent article about said tradition in Smithsonian Magazine, with many details about Mercy (or, as her family called her, Lena).
My favorite bit is where the contemporaries blamed the “neurotic modern novel” for the practice of digging up dead people, cutting out their hearts, and eating them.
Read MoreSarah L. Thomson
A children’s book author publishing award-winning nonfiction, poetry, picture books and novels including…
“Readers will treasure the blossoming friendship between opposites in this whimsically illustrated tale. Short chapters and plenty of action make for an accessible and appealing reading experience. . . . Touching and inspiring.”
—Kirkus Reviews