Gothic Defined, and a Portal to a Mysterious Place

Gothic is an interesting word.

You know who the Visigoths were: those unsophisticated, crusty and crude pre-Germanic types who swooped down on the slothful, stuttering remains of the Roman Empire in the fourth century and gobbled them up. They were fairly illiterate victors, so they've gotten a bad rap in history. (Pardon me if I'm a little defensive. You know that my cultural/ancestral totem is Viking Barbie, yes?) They remain unpopular to this day.

Fifteen or twenty years ago, the most recognizable use of the word was connected to architecture. Think the cathedral of Notre Dame, all pointed arches and flying buttresses. Medieval (roughly 500-1450 CE) European castles and monasteries may also come to mind. When folks were building these magnificent edifices, they didn't identify them as "Gothic." That came much later, around the Renaissance (roughly 1350-1600 CE), when light and life returned to the earth, superstition was (almost) banished, and the artists and intellectuals rediscovered classical (read: Roman and Ancient Greek) architecture and ideals. The word "Gothic" was, in effect, a dis upon those benighted times. If those buildings from the Middle Ages hadn't been built to withstand the Apocalypse, I daresay they would've all been knocked in disgust. (Read more about Gothic Architecture here. But do it later, okay?)

How far that little word has come, and what a delightful change of fortune it has had. Sort of.

The phrase "Gothic Literature" conjures thoughts of ghostly encounters, mystery, and a general air of dread. Possibly romance, as well. I blogged about the original Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto, at some point here at the Handbasket--but I must have left tags off, and I'm way too lazy to go back through hundreds of posts. That novel was more horror-driven, and definitely lacked romance. (It's worth a read and certainly in the public domain.) There was a long period in the 19th and 20th centuries where Gothic novels were decidedly equated with spooky romance--dark stories, but not particularly horrific.

Gothicism seems to have come full-circle, though. In the contemporary vernacular Gothic is all about the scare. Horror stories are called Gothic with impunity. And there are those who relish the physical trappings of the genre: black clothes, indoor (even ghostly) pallor, grim manners. (I'm teasing of course. I think Goths are cute.) There's mystery, yes, but it's of the dark and/or supernatural type. Once again Gothic refers to The Other, or The Outsider. They who must be despised or feared.

We never wander far from history, do we?

Okay, history lesson over! Time for something more fun, less educational, and not a little self-indulgent.

One of my favorite people in the lit business, Janet Hutchings, the editor Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, invited me to contribute to their blog, Something Is Going to Happen. She let me choose the topic, and I chose Gothic fiction. Not just because I'm working in the genre these days, but because it's one of my favorites.

Please come by Janet's blog and comment and look around the place. If you love mystery, you'll be right at home.

Here's the post: For Love of Gothic: When Home is the Most Mysterious Place of All

In the Handbasket: Debut Novelist Meredith Cole

I recently met filmmaker and mystery writer chick Meredith Cole at the Love is Murder mystery conference in Chicago and knew immediately that you would love her inspiring, incredible publishing story. She got started in June 2008 when her short story, Exercise is Murder, was an Ellery Queen Department of First Stories selection and now she's a regular blogger at The Debutante Ball. Her novel Posed for Murder came out just last week. But there's more....

Weigh in with a comment and you'll be eligible to win a signed copy of Posed for Murder!

(If you don't win, or want a copy for a friend, you can order Posed for Murder here or here.)

Welcome, Meredith!

How wonderful for you that Posed for Murder was the winning submission for the St. Martin’s Minotaur/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition! Did you have a literary agent when you first submitted the manuscript? Did a hundred agents call you immediately after the announcement?

I didn't have an agent when I entered, and luckily the contest doesn't require one. Winning the contest certainly did open a few doors for me (although I can't say the phone was ringing off the hook...). A friend recommended her agent to me. After the agent read my book, and revealed what a classy smart lady she was, I signed on with her.


Did you set out specifically to write a traditional mystery when you wrote Posed for Murder? What is it about the form that you find appealing?

I set out to write the kind of mystery I enjoy reading. I subsisted on a diet of Agatha Christie as a teenager, and then branched out to Dorothy Sayers, PD James and Ruth Rendell. I thought the artist community where I live was interesting, and I imagined it would be a great setting for a mystery. I don't enjoy super violent books as a rule, and I like fair play mysteries (knowing as much as the characters do about the killer). I want life to be just and fair, so the killer will never get away with murder in my books.


Now that you've been around the mystery and thriller literary community for a while, how would you compare it to the film community?

The mystery and thriller community has been incredibly nice and welcoming. The film community always felt a bit cutthroat to me. There was definitely an awareness that there were limited amounts of money out there for movies, and if someone's film got made or into a festival, then another film wouldn't, etc. But in the mystery community, it feels like everyone is rooting for one another. And since most writers love to read, we're always looking for great new authors and books.


Have you written an accompanying screenplay for Posed for Murder? If you could have any director that's ever lived direct the film of the novel, who would it be--or would you want to do it yourself?

I made a TV proposal for it, but I haven't attempted the script yet. I've been too busy writing sequels. But it's a pretty visual story, so I think it would translate easily to the screen.

Choosing a director--that's hard. I don't think I would want it to be me right now (my son is still pretty young). I would be interested in offering the job to Mary Harron. She directed "I Shot Andy Warhol" and "American Psycho"--films about crimes and art. What could be better? Besides--there still aren't very many women directors, and there should be more.



Is there a writer whose career you'd like to emulate?

I know a lot of great writers who have been amazingly generous with their time and energy on my behalf. Julia Spencer-Fleming and Donna Andrews both won the same award as I did and have had remarkable careers since. If I could follow either one of their career trajectories, I would be in great shape. I think I would also enjoy being a "Dame" like Ruth Rendell, churning out books into my eighties and nineties.


I read in another interview that one of the reasons you turned to writing novels was because of the demands of parenting. What's your daily schedule like now that writing novels is your full-time job?

I take my son to school, swim, and then try to sit down and write (or do one of the tasks that pop up daily--like marketing my book). I still freelance in TV promotions (perhaps by book three or so I can quit that), so occasionally I have to push everything aside for a paying gig. After I pick up my son in the afternoon, I don't usually get back to work on my writing until after his bedtime. But if I'm under a deadline, I somehow figure out a way to squeeze it all in.


Tell me about the most fun you’ve ever had writing.

I enjoy those moments when the writing feels effortless. That often happens when I'm writing scenes with some of my secondary characters that are really great--like Mama D'Angelo, or Emmanuel (a car service driver in the second book), or Candi Stick (a drag queen--also in the second book). I feel like I'm more of an observer then an architect, and I can't wait to hear what they're going to say next.

I also have fun writing about art and clothes, and putting lots of details in about my neighborhood.


Now, here's a question from my nine year-old son Bengal:

Do you like Spongebob or Squidward better?

Definitely Spongebob. He's always so cheerful.

Thanks, Meredith!

Stopping By THE HANGING WOODS

Revisions on CALLING MR. LONELY HEARTS continue apace--I wrote an entire chapter yesterday, which may be a record for me. When it was finished, I realized it had filled a large hole in the manuscript. But it put me a bit behind on the rest of the revision, which is due tomorrow. (Oh, Mr. Editor....)

Today I'm excited to introduce Scott Loring Sanders and his debut novel, THE HANGING WOODS. Like Charlie Hustons's THE SHOTGUN RULE, it's a vibrant, gritty portrait of boys struggling to become men. But at the bookstore, Huston's novel sits on the Fiction shelf, and THE HANGING WOODS is classified as YA. The distinction is complicated--I'll leave it to you (and Scott) to figure out, because the lines are so frequently blurred and tough to discern.

Like me, Scott is a refugee from the corporate world. We both felt a call to shed those golden shackles and take a chance on this risky fiction-writing thing. And we also both had our first major short story publications in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. He's like a literary little brother to me! (Okay, kind of a scary little brother, but then I wouldn't have any other kind!)

Bridging the Gap

by Scott Loring Sanders

If you’re like me (or at least how I used to be) you probably don’t frequent the teen section of your favorite bookstore too often. Up until recently, I would have never considered going there. Mainly because I assumed (pompously, I admit) that I’m a far too advanced reader to bother with literature for young adults. I assumed it must all be fluff. Must all be about teenage girls trying to date the cute, dreamy football player. Maybe I assumed this because that is generally all I ever see on bestseller’s lists within the genre. But that same trend seems to permeate adult fiction too—fluff seems to sell. Discerning readers know they have to dig a little deeper to find hard-hitting quality fiction. For example, you generally don’t find Cormac McCarthy or Denis Johnson at the top of bestseller’s lists. Well, the same holds true in young adult fiction. However, if you’re willing to sift through the fluff, there are some excellent literary gems to be found.
Take for example M.T. Anderson’s The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. This is a novel that is extremely complex, even for the most advanced adult reader. I’ll be the first to admit that some of the vocabulary was over my head, yet this was published as Y/A. I challenge any adult to read that novel and then say afterwards, “Oh, that was just a kid’s book.” Anderson’s novel just happened to win the National Book Award in 2006 for Young People’s Literature. Before I began writing novels, I didn’t even know there was a Y/A category for the NBA. But there is. Each year, the NBA chooses one winner in four separate categories: fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and young people’s literature. There’s a reason why a committee as prestigious as the NBA bothers to take the time to give an award in Y/A. That reason? There’s really good stuff being written. The Edgar Awards have a category too. Again, there’s a reason.
Imagine if Mark Twain started publishing in present times. Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, The Mysterious Stranger—those titles would be published as Y/A in today’s market. In 1948, William Faulkner wrote a novel called Intruder in the Dust which was narrated by a fifteen year old boy. It wasn’t one of his better novels, but the point is, in today’s publishing world, it would have been slotted as teen literature. What about works like The Catcher in the Rye or To Kill A Mockingbird? If the Y/A category had existed then, think of all the adults who might have missed out on some fantastic reads. And the logical argument might be, “Yeah, but those were deep books with a whole lot of other things going on.” My answer: “Exactly. Nothing’s changed except the category.”
I never set out to write a Y/A book—I just wanted to write a novel that packed a punch while maintaining a high level of literary integrity. The fact that my narrator was fourteen is the only reason my agent initially leaned in that direction. As my editor says about The Hanging Woods, and also about my next novel, “Your work is at the extreme edge of young adult.” And I like that. I feel my work is absolutely crossover literature. It’s appropriate for older, more advanced teen readers, and equally apropos for adults. I want to bridge that gap and get people of all ages to start reading more Y/A.
And I guess that’s my point. By avoiding the teen section, by not keeping an eye out for the reviews in the most respected journals, it’s the adults who are ultimately missing out. There is great writing going on in the Y/A world, a lot of wonderful stories being told, a lot of mature, edgy fiction that unfortunately gets overlooked because of the “teen” stigma attached to it. Give Y/A a try. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.