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 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