Fiction Fragments: Patrick Freivald

March 26, 2021March 25, 2021Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Last week, I spoke with Carol Gyzander about how she’s adapted to the challenges of writing during the pandemic and she gave a little backstory about Writerpunk Press.

This week, Girl Meets Monster welcomes Patrick Freivald, who I affectionately refer to as a belligerent nerd. Patrick is a writer, teacher, gourmand, and bee keeper who makes honey that will burn your soul, among other things.

Patrick Freivald is a four-time Bram Stoker Award® nominated author, a high school teacher (physics, robotics, American Sign Language), and a beekeeper specializing in hot pepper infused honey. He lives in Western New York with his beautiful wife, parrots, dogs, cats, chickens, and several million stinging insects. A member of the Horror Writers Association and the International Thriller Writers, he’s always had a soft spot for slavering monsters of all kinds. He is the author of eight novels and dozens of short stories, from hyper-violent kickass thrillers and teen zombie melodramas to science fiction, horror and fantasy. Find him at Patrick.Freivald.com, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and at www.FrogsPointHoney.com.

Three Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Patrick. Your Instagram account is one of the most interesting ones I follow because it gives a tangible snapshot of many of the different aspects of your life: bee keeping, honey making, cooking, teaching, your pets, your wife, and occasionally promotions for your writing. Has social media helped with the promotion of your books? Your honey business? Were you using social media as frequently as you do now before the pandemic? Do you view your social media accounts as an outlet for creativity?

PF: I handle my Instagram rather differently than my Facebook. Instagram is all about food, family, cute critters, maybe a little about teaching (though I try to keep my teaching and my social media very, very separate, ESPECIALLY given the level of vulgarity and cannibalism jokes I’ve actively cultivated on my Facebook page), while Facebook is a mind-dump of whatever’s bouncing around in my skull. Social media has definitely helped with marketing both books and Hot Honey, though by and large I think that’s because it’s been an effective way of marketing myself. I post about whatever I want–science and technology, writing, funny gifs/memes, articles about science or politics or gaming or religion or whatever strikes me as interesting. I sometimes get caught out by people thinking that just because I’ve shared something means that I believe it hook, line, and sinker, but that’s a “them” problem, not a “me” problem…usually my commentary is enough for a reasonably astute person to realize that it’s unlikely I’m fully onboard with whatever I’m sharing. And I’m rarely fully on-board with something someone else wrote.

Facebook has been awesome at promoting Frogs Point Honey (www.FrogsPointHoney.com) — a good number of people hate food posts, but lots of people love them, and I love them, so when I post delicious food things that feature Hot Honey or Rubbit or what-have-you, it draws new and existing customers often enough. The business has built up quite nicely over the past five years, and that’s with pretty much entirely word of mouth advertising, and almost all of that coming from Facebook.

I’m not using Facebook any less than before, and no more, either. I post way too often, to the extent that some people think it must be a managed page rather than just one dude with an obsessive streak and a smart phone, but I’ve been that way with online interactions since the bulletin boards of the early 1990s. When it comes to Facebook as a marketing tool, if all you do is post your own stuff then no matter how interesting you are you’re not going to get a lot of oomph out of your effort–you’ll share a bunch of stuff and get crickets in return. You have to like other people’s stuff, comment, share, etc.; and don’t do it just to game the algorithm, do it because you’ve surrounded yourself with interesting, cool people worth engaging with. It’s an opportunity to be social, to be creative, to share who you are and what you find interesting with the world.

GMM: Tell me about your latest release, Murmur. What is the premise of the book, and what inspired the story? Some of the words used to describe the book include “magical, disturbing, erotic…”. I tend to combine horror and erotica in my own fiction, and I’m always curious about writers who do the same. Why do you think horror and sex make a good pairing in fiction? Is it more difficult to write the sex scenes or the horror? Do you combine the two, or keep them separate in the narrative?

PF: Murmur is, fundamentally, about an affluent New York socialite being sexually stalked by a demon while trying to contend with the one bound to him, that he keeps in a prescription bottle. The inspiration is a combination of an old roleplaying game character and being really disappointed with a movie I’d just watched about demonic possession–it turned out to be very much the same-old same-old, extraordinarily Catholic-themed Exorcist riff, and there’s just so, so much of that out there. So I wrote a book about a kind of half-possessed guy who’d been that way for over a decade and was at a sort of détente with his “pocket demon”, Murmur.

Sex and horror make a good pairing because sex is often beautiful and wonderful and sometimes horrific and awful (at the time or later), we’ve all got our own experiences to bring to the table when we read or watch, and both lend themselves to a great deal of catharsis. I absolutely combine the two–I was somewhat inspired by David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence (starring Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello, with amazing support from William Hurt and Ed Harris). There are two sex scenes in that movie, the first very playful and loving, and the second very raw and downright angry, and they’re between the same two people, who are husband and wife, after some rather serious revelations upend their relationship. I don’t know that I’ve seen sex used to portray the evolution of characters and their relationships done that well anywhere else, and after rewatching it on cable I started chewing on the idea of sex as a storytelling device. The book is kind of smutty, but oh yeah do the sex and horror merge as things progress. Davis is an unreliable narrator who sees Hell and the real world overlapped all the time, and that lends to a lot of opportunities for really trippy body horror and gore amid the naked wumpledance. I took those opportunities, with gusto.

GMM: You mentioned that the flash piece you submitted as your fragment was written during Borderlands Boot Camp. Can you tell me about your experience participating in that program? What initially drew you to enroll? What did you learn about your own writing? Did you come away with some new skills or tricks to improve your writing? Would you recommend the Borderlands Boot Camp to other writers, and why?

PF: Borderlands is awesome–it’s three days cooped up in a hotel with a bunch of other writers, with workshops specifically tailored toward making you a better writer, run by absolute giants of the genre. The year I went they had the three regulars of Tom Monteleone, F. Paul Wilson, and Doug Winter, and also the recently-retired editor Ginjer Buchanan and some guy you may have heard of named Peter Straub. They, and all of the attendees, each read your work and gave targeted, specific feedback–and then you had basically overnight to bang out a story using what you learned. It’s pretty grueling, but you make a lot of friends and learn a lot of things you didn’t realize you needed to learn.

I enrolled because almost all of my beta reading group are alums, they’re all fantastic writers, and they all said it was 100% worth the time and money. I learned that the only person who hates words more than I do is Doug Winter–I have a rather terse style, and he cut the bejeezus out of my manuscript, which was awesome. Ginjer had some really insightful points about the evolution of society between now and the future setting of my work, which threw my perspective on science fiction off-kilter a bit in all the right ways; in particular she asked, “Why would these people be married? I don’t believe that the institution of marriage would have survived, at least not in any form we’d really recognize”–and it was a fantastic question, and made me question a lot of assumptions I hadn’t thought to previously.

If you have the money and the time, Borderlands is absolutely worth it.

A Spiteful Man
By Patrick Freivald
“I am a sick man…I am a spiteful man.”
Anna muttered the words again and blinked away tears that obscured her daughter’s image through the scope. She took her finger off the trigger, then tossed the rifle, wig, and sunglasses in the trunk. Squeals of panic and laughter scattered across the field; a boy had plopped a toad onto Sally Walker’s lap.
“Stupid bitch. Stupid coward bitch.” Henry’s words spilled from Anna’s lips as she peeled off the latex gloves and stuffed them into her pocket. Real change took courage. Boldness. All those things Henry never let her be.
She got in the car.
4:28 pm.
Godfuckingdammit.
Twelve minutes home, twenty to clean up and get dinner on the table.
He trudged in on cue, scowled at the kitchen table.
Through sheer will her wince became a smile.
“How was work, Sweetie?”
His tools clanked against the floor, canvas bag toppling against the mound of yellowing newspapers she’d take to the dump some day.
“The fuck is this?”
“Dinner.” She patted his chair. “Stephanie’ll be down in a minute.”
He scowled, opened the fridge and popped a beer. With a grease-stained hand he scooped the fish sticks from his plate, then plucked up the rest from Steph’s.
“She doesn’t need ‘em.”
Anna grabbed his wrist. “Those’re for—”
Light shattered her equilibrium, white hot. Pain spread, red and warm across her jaw. Beer spattered the floor, the wood cool on her cheek. Henry’s boot dug into her back, steel toe a knife in her kidney.
“Your. Daughter. Don’t. Eat. Stop throwing good money after that stupid kid.”
With another beer he disappeared into the living room.
Spiteful man. Hated his wife, hated her daughter. The kind of man ain’t worthy to raise a child, ain’t worthy to walk free. Too stomach-sick to eat, she mopped up the mess and threw her dinner in the garbage before shuffling next to the TV, careful not to block the game.
“You need anything, Baby?”
Henry drained his beer and dropped the can on the floor. She took it and fetched another. And another and another. Drunk past sulking, he’d sleep, and they’d be safe.
#
“Jesus, Anna.”
She jerked away as Frank touched her cheek.
“I fell.”
“He can’t—”
“I said I fell. That badge make you deaf and stupid?”
He leaned against his patrol car, gave her the same cute scowl she’d loved in high school.
“Press charges. I’ll help.”
“I ain’t calling social. They kill families.”
“C’mon, Annie. You got to get out of there. He’s gonna hurt you. I mean, worse.”
“Oh, we’re getting out. I got a plan for me and Steph.”
Frank kicked dirt. “You can stay with me and Bev a while. We got a spare room, car you can borrow when I’m at work. Maybe get you a job down at Lucky’s?”
“I said I got a plan. Henry gon’ shit what’s comin’ his way.”
“Don’t get too clever, Babe.”
“I ain’t. And I ain’t your babe no more.”
“You fuck with him he could really hurt you.”
She met his gaze. “Oh, he ain’t never hurting us again. Bank on it.”
“What’re you—”
She wagged a finger. “A lady don’t kiss an’ tell.”
“Lady?” He ran his tongue over his teeth. “Tell me when you find one, would ya?”
#
“I am a sick man…I am a spiteful man.” The stupid wig slipped. A year’s worth of hair rubber banded to a shower cap, some of it had to end up on the ground.
The tick-tock of the swing brought the blond boy into sight at regular intervals. Anna’s bruise throbbed against the wood stock, every pulse a reminder of that sickness, that spite.
Four-fifty. Time enough for Henry to get here, not enough to get home.
“Fuck him.”
She breathed out, held it, and pulled the trigger. The rifle jerked, impossibly loud. Ears ringing, she watched straw-yellow hair puff red before she cycled the chamber.
Red hair, blue shirt. Ben spun to the dirt as the round hit him high-right.
Timmy gaped at nothing until Anna sprayed his guts across the gravel next to the swing.
Running, now. Panic. Bridget’s mom dragged her behind the tractor tire sandbox. Anna took her knee with the fourth shot, rolled, and bolted for the car.
#
Flushed, breathless, she sat at the table, hands folded. Henry’s rifle lay in its case, bullets in their box. The gloves and wig and spent brass drowned at the bottom of Frog’s Point, weighed down with lead from Henry’s reloader in case the cops found them. Dinner sat on the table, three plates of all-day roast she’d have had to baby hours and hours if she hadn’t have cooked and frozen it three weeks earlier.
Henry kicked the shit out of her anyway, and she managed not to smile through it.
Upstairs, Steph slept. Safe.
#
“You okay?” Frank hugged her, maybe too tight for proper, them standing in his guest room with his wife at work.
“I’m good. Real good. First time in a long while, you know. You?”
He scowled. “I had—doesn’t matter. We nailed the bastard. That’s what counts. He…what kind of sick fuck does that?”
She shrugged, looked away. “Don’t know, you know? A monster, the real kind. I’m just…I’m just glad Stephanie weren’t there. We’re free. Finally free.”
Frank frowned. “Steph’s dead, Annie.”
“Dead? No, she’s right…” She scanned the empty room.
“Gone. She’s gone.” Frank squeezed, his embrace warm and welcome and full of poison. “I’m sorry, Sugar.”
“Nonononono. She ain’t dead. Not dead. She can’t, I only shot, it was just the boys. Ain’t no way she’s…She’s okay. Steph’s just fine. It was just boys.” Frank stiffened, stepped back. He plucked the picture from her bedside table, ran his finger down the image of her daughter’s soft cheek. “She’d have been beautiful, our girl. But it’s been nine years, Honey. We’ve both moved on. You got to let this go.”

Do you have a fiction fragment? How about your friends? Would you like to recommend someone to me aside from yourself? Drop me a line at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

Fiction Fragments: Kenya Wright

October 5, 2018October 3, 2018Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Last week, Girl Meets Monster had a visitor from across the pond, Frazer Lee. This week, Kenya Wright stopped by to talk about whether or not women of color have a responsibility to include deeper messages about racism, sexism and other social justice issues in their fiction even when they are writing romances about vampires with double penises. That’s right, I said vampires with double penises.

Kenya Wright wrote her first novel during her third year at UM Law school. She dropped out a month after the release and never looked back.

Words are power, and Kenya wants to be the greatest wizard that ever lived.

It’s an audacity to inspire and teach the healing of love through arousal.

It’s this crazy idea that love can not only help a reader escape, but the story can also teach the person about being human, while making them laugh, cry, and hot for more sex.

Three Questions

GMM: The opening of your story feels like a thriller with a promise of some horrific scenes, but is this story a romance? Is it part of a series? Without giving too much away, which characters form the main love interest? Is there a triangle, or does it get more complicated like one of Laurell K. Hamilton’s novels with too many lovers to keep track off throughout the series?

KW: This is a second chance romance, but on a softer note than what I usually write. A large focus is the mystery. However, there’s tons of steamy sex sprinkled in. There’s several twists, but i would say Shadow and Lyric have a strong possibility of a fun romance.

There is a love triangle forming. I’m writing the second book in the series. For the Masque of Red Death, I’m doing revisions. So, I do see a love triangle happening, although I do try to avoid those. I can never figure out who the heroine should be with in the end.

I love LKH, but there is a harem quality to her story, and I’m not really into harem romances. I should check a few out though. I wouldn’t mind an actual harem in real life.

GMM: As a woman of color writing erotica and speculative fiction with steamy romance, do you feel obligated to have a deeper message in your stories? You mention that race and police brutality are elements of this story, but do you ever simply write a romance or speculative fiction story that examines the relationships between people without a broader message? Can writers of color write books without broader messages about race and class and racism? Is it possible to divorce yourself from that ongoing narrative within our culture when you set out to write a story?

I’m hoping to change someone, when they read my stories. I’m trying to get a person to think of something differently as they’re aroused and scared at the same time.

KW: I definitely feel obligated to have a deeper message in my stories, but then that’s how I am in life. So, even when I’m trying to write a straight romance, somehow themes of gentrification, colorism, and rape culture seep into the story. I also think my readers expect stronger messages from me with each novel as well as show of growth. I make it a point to learn something new with each story–whether a new mechanism with storytelling or different pov.

I honestly can’t think of an erotica or romance of mine where I didn’t share some message. Even my first erotica trilogy of vampire romances explored the idea of slavery and dictatorship. Being that there were a whole lot of vampire kings in the story with double penises, no one seemed to mind the speculation on enslavement.

Basically, I always like a story with a deep exploration of humanity, sprinkled in between some hot orgasms and colorful dark characters. I think with broken heroes and mind-battered heroines, it’s hard to not dissect what is wrong with that character as I’m writing the story. It’s hard to not further wonder. . .how society might have been the cause for this character’s background. And then this message begins to spill onto the pages.

Writers of colors can totally create stories without broader messages of race and class. I think every creator has a special reason for why they are on this planet. Even if this particular black guy likes to write books on hats–just hats and nothing more. Who knows what that can spark in the person’s mind that reads it?

Books are awesome because they can inspire. They have this ability to ripple. Poe is a great example of this.

I can divorce myself from certain narratives, but it’s pretty difficult. I prefer to be an artist that has something to say, whether anybody wants to hear it or not. I think that the most important thing in this world is how the internet creates a marketplace for ideas. If you can shift one’s thoughts, you could change their life. I’m hoping to change someone, when they read my stories. I’m trying to get a person to think of something differently as they’re aroused and scared at the same time.

GMM: In some of our conversations, we discussed my love of monsters and touched on the idea of the eroticism of evil. What, in your opinion, makes monsters sexy? Why write about them in the romance/erotica genres? Are any of your romantic leads monsters? Why did you choose them?

KW: A monster is an element of horror. And, horror is very therapeutic. When a person reads a story about a woman getting tortured and killed, they finish the story with a new sense of relief that they’re not that woman. They have a brighter pep in their step. They look at the world a little bit better. But then there is some fear that comes to them too. And fear is good too. It protects. It teaches. It makes you choose your behavior differently, so that you don’t become that poor woman that was tortured in the book.

So, here we have monsters. And they’re these dangerous promises of death. And we’re so scared by them, but then. . .if it’s my story. . .we’re also aroused by them. Because even though that monster is killing everyone else in the book, for some reason the monster loves this heroine. And the reader is the heroine. So she or he is loved by a monster. And for some sick ass reason, that shit feels great! It’s a high. Addicting. Like a flame to a crack pipe. You want more monsters to love you! You want more to kill and protect for you.

So, the majority of my heroes are contemporary monsters in many ways. I love Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie films. Most of my heroes are on the bad side of the law. The majority of my heroines have been broken in some way, but are strong survivors. I’ve found that this combination of man and woman is addictive for me to write. Thank God, people like to buy these books too, because I don’t believe I could stop writing dark horror romance.

The Masque of Red Death, by Kenya Wright is a second chance romance that unites the exploration of race and police brutality from THE HATE U GIVE with the twisted Poe-inspired serial killer plot line of THE FOLLOWING.

*************************************************************************

Chapter 1: Lyric

5:00 p.m.

I sat on the ledge of Eureka’s justice building and watched the city burn below my feet.

That Saturday evening, the riots had continued. The sun was setting, yet everyone on the street was just beginning their day.

When will it stop?

Black smoke rose in the air. Even high up, it was hard to breathe. Glass shattered. Tires screeched. Mothers cried. The police stormed the streets, threatening to tear gas citizens, but their words drowned in the screams and the drops of blood being splattered on concrete.

Tears streamed down my face.

I almost didn’t notice Shadow’s signature scent as it filled the air.

“How can you sit up here and watch all the rioting?” Shadow asked.

“How can you not? This is your city as much as it’s mine.” Wiping away my tears, I looked at him. Designer from head to toe, he wore a purple blazer over a white buttoned shirt and charcoal gray slacks. Not many could pull the look off, but he did.

I glanced over my shoulder and past him. Four of his goons stood by the roof’s entrance. Shadow liked them colorfully uniformed as if he was a character out of a comic book—black suits, white hats, and red ties. He thought he was a hero.

He’s the villain in the story. Never forget that.

Shadow stepped closer to the ledge. “I need your help, Lyric.”

“You always do, but I’m done helping heartless people.”

“I’m many things, Lyric, but I do have a heart.”

“Shadows don’t have hearts. They’re just cold, shapeless, dark things that black out all the light.”

People called him Shadow because he moved like one—sneaking around unnoticed and blending in and out of the darkness. They should’ve called him killer or thief, but his money and looks kept him out of trouble. He towered over most, wielded power like the devil, and held the city in his hands.

The real danger lay in his words. They flowed smooth like a saxophone, trapping the average soul and squeezing until the essence bled out. He had a knack for getting people to do fucked up things, especially me.

With no sign of fear, Shadow stepped closer to the ledge. “Someone sent me a box. Two things were inside. A mask made out of human skin and a letter written in blood. ”

“Sounds like Wednesday.” I closed my eyes and returned to humming, but I could no longer catch the melody. Shadow had seeped into my pores and disturbed my peace.

He continued, “The person signed the message with three big bloody letters. He called himself Poe.”

“Interesting.”

“This isn’t a joke. I need your help.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m not playing about the box. It was all black with a red velvet bow and a tiny clock dangling from the center. Whoever sent it is a sick motherfucker.” Shadow frowned. “The letter talked about a game that I had to play or more people would die. And the whole thing was written in blood. This person is threatening to kill me.”

Next week, David Day stops by to talk about writing short horror fiction and to share a fragment. Do you have a fragment collecting dust that needs to see the light of day? Send it my way to chellane@gmail.com.

Battling Our Demons: Fighting the Influence of Evil

October 14, 2016August 20, 2018Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

The other day, while looking through some of my folders of old writing and abandoned projects, I stumbled across an essay I wrote back in May 2015 for my Readings in the Genre: Contemporary Mysteries course at Seton Hill University as part of my MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program. Of late, I’ve used this blog as a way of kick starting myself into writing on a more regular basis; something I struggle with on an almost pathological level. My friends will tell you that I’m writing all the time. This year, since February I have written a total of 27 blog posts about fictional characters I find sexually appealing, and since around May, I’ve written over 120 haiku poems. I’ve drafted chapters in a novel I’m writing, and I’ve written a few short pieces of fiction here and there. So yeah, I guess I have been writing. But, I don’t feel like I’m writing enough.

And, although I had a short story published in an anthology back in November 2014, I haven’t been able to sell my first novel, Invisible Chains, acquire an agent, or get any other bites on the poetry I’ve been submitting. I currently have poetry out to three publishers and I’ll be submitting three short stories within the next month to different publishers. I’m going to participate in NaNoWriMo 2016 in the hopes of completing that second novel I mentioned, A Marriage Made in Hell. I WILL finish the first draft of Marriage by November 30, come Hell of high water.

Anyway, if you’re interested in reading some of my writing that doesn’t involve lewd comments about my favorite fictions characters, read on…

demons

Battling Our Demons: Fighting the Influence of Evil in Charlaine Harris’s Dead Until Dark and Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

In his famous study on human behavior, Beyond Good and Evil, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche warns us to take care to not be influenced by the intrinsic and often seductive nature of darkness when confronting our demons. He proposes, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you” (Section 146). Sage advice, but is it possible to confront Evil and not be somehow changed by it? Can you keep company with monsters without becoming like them? This is the dilemma faced by both Sookie Stackhouse in Charlaine Harris’s Dead Until Dark and Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Each character must face her demons. Tempted as they may be, each character still manages to avoid becoming Evil.

Evil can be a very subjective concept. Each of us defines it a little differently based on our own personal experiences, but we can usually agree on the difference between “right” and “wrong.” The mystery genre uses this dichotomy as one of its central themes or plot points, and while an amateur sleuth or police inspector may be driven to solve a crime in order to uphold the law, at the heart of most mysteries is the desire for Good to win out over Evil. “Crime fiction in general, and detective fiction in particular, is about confronting and taming the monstrous. It is a literature of containment, a narrative that ‘makes safe’” (Plain 3). The battle between Good and Evil has been fought in fiction since before written communication. In the oral tradition, people told tales of epic battles between men and monsters – Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh. With the advent of writing, the popularity of monster tales never waned – The Odyssey, The Iliad, and The Inferno. Monsters have always been with us. They are creatures of myth and legend, and they often stand in as metaphors for the less palatable human behaviors and emotions. Judith Halberstam suggests in her book, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters that even though our desire for stories about monsters and villains never seems to fade, the appearance of those monsters evolves to meet cultural needs. She says, “The body that scares and appalls changes over time, as do the individual characteristics that add up to monstrosity, as do the preferred interpretations of monstrosity” (8). Monsters change as our society changes, and the monsters of our current fiction, which is especially true in the mystery genre, tend to be humans more so than the beasts of Homer and Dante’s creations.

Like Sookie and Lisbeth, we sometimes find ourselves in less than ideal situations and come face to face with monsters. For some of us, the monsters we must face are people we thought we could trust who later betray us, or worse, cause physical as well as psychological damage in the form of abuse, rape, and ultimately murder. In her essay, “Vivid Villains,” Sandra Scoppettone tells us that “the nature of the villain, and how absorbing a character he or she is, will affect the flavor of the whole rest of the story” (86). The nature of the villain should definitely determine the nature of the protagonist. Whether we’re talking about a serial killer, someone seeking revenge, or jilted lover who commits a crime of passion, as we gain a better understanding of human psychology, we also understand that we are the monsters represented in the fiction we read. Darkness lurks within all of us, but for most people, it will continue to lie dormant until some violent act or traumatic experience awakens the beast within. The real challenge then for any protagonist facing such a worthy opponent, as Nietzsche warns, is to avoid becoming a monster. Sookie and Lisbeth are sexualized others who both fall victim to violence at the hands of human monsters.

rapacerevenge

“Forty-six percent of women in Sweden have been subjected to violence by a man” (Larsson 139). In his novel The Girl with Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson wishes to make it very clear to his reader that violence against women is a cultural reality in Sweden, and to most Swedish women, much like his protagonist, Lisbeth Salander, the threat of violence, sexual or otherwise, is an expectation if not an inevitability. Lisbeth is a ward of the state and becomes the victim of rape at the hands of a man assigned to her case. She is an adult, but due to her designation based on a history of aberrant behavior as a youth, she is treated like a child, mentally deficient, and then taken advantage of due to her abuser’s belief that she is somehow stupid. While Lisbeth has experienced quite a bit of emotional and psychological trauma, some of which is not revealed to us, she is far from stupid, and definitely not mentally ill. In fact, she is uncannily smart and more than capable of looking out for herself, except at the hands of the sadistic monster Advokat Nils Bjurman. Over the course of several meetings, Bjurman makes it very clear to Salander that she is at his mercy if she would like access to her bank accounts. Each encounter with Bjurman becomes more and more inappropriate until he forces Salander to perform oral sex on him in his office. Larsson reinforces his point about the violent nature of Swedish society by making Salander another statistic. “In her world, this was the natural order of things. As a girl she was legal prey, especially if she was dressed in a worn black leather jacket and had pierced eyebrows, tattoos, and zero social status” (249). Later, when Salander seeks revenge for this assault, Bjurman restrains and rapes her at his apartment. It is this second act of violence that pushes her to her limits and flips a switch that begins her own transformation. She falls prey to the desire to do monstrous things herself. “Bjurman felt cold terror piercing his chest and lost his composure. He tugged at his handcuffs…He could do nothing to resist when Salander bent over and placed the anal plug between his buttocks” (282). Salander reverses the tables on Bjurman. She assaults and humiliates him much like he did to her. She attempts to restore balance through an act of revenge, pushing her closer to the edge of the abyss. Lisbeth unleashes her darkness to reclaim her power and walks a fine line that could easily transform her into a monster worse than Bjurman. She threatens Bjurman with blackmail and bodily harm to prevent him from hurting her again—an act of self-preservation. By marking him, she hopes to save other women from becoming his victims. Justice is served.

On the surface, Sookie Stackhouse and Lisbeth Salander couldn’t be more different as protagonists go, but when you take a closer look at these two strong female characters, you’ll begin to notice some commonalities. First, they are both amateur sleuths with unique abilities that allow them to have access to information others aren’t privy to in the narrative. Salander’s abilities are half-heartedly explained through the eyes of Salander’s lover, Mikael Blomkvist, who assumes that the young hacker has a form of Asperger’s. Since Sookie’s world has paranormal elements, she has the benefit of being able to hear other people’s thoughts. Calling this ability a benefit is debatable, as Sookie herself sees it as a handicap.

Second, both women often find themselves at the mercy of men who threaten them with violence. Or, at the very least, objectify them sexually. Although they come from very different cultural backgrounds, they both have “zero social status” (249) in the economy of sexuality and gender equality. In Dead Until Dark, a serial killer targets young women who seek out vampires as sexual partners. Sookie not only shares this in common with the victims, but she also fits the profile with her high school education and minimum wage job.

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Monsters exist in Sookie’s world – vampires, weres, and shifters – all of which can be quite dangerous. In fact, her boyfriend is a vampire. Despite the fact that there is trend in fiction romanticizing relationships between vampires and humans, vampires are still monsters. Even if they don’t kill you outright, there is always the chance that things might get out of hand, and a moment of passion may end with the human’s funeral. Even if the vampire poses no direct threat to his partner, the secret lives of vampires seem to be violent by nature – ancient enemies, unresolved love affairs, power struggles with other supernatural beings. All of this adds up to danger for any human who meddles in the affairs of monsters, much less falls in love with them.

Sookie could literally become a monster if she continues to drink vampire blood. Bill Compton gives Sookie his blood several times to speed up the healing process. But when Sookie is recovering in the hospital after her encounter with the serial killer, she refuses to accept Bill’s blood for fear of losing her human qualities. “‘I’ll heal you,’ he offered. ‘Let me give you some blood.’ I remembered the way my hair had lightened, remembered that I was almost twice as strong as I’d ever been. I shook my head” (Harris 310). Sookie resists the urge to become monstrous by refusing to act like one. Sookie reclaims her power by maintaining her humanness.

Sookie and Lisbeth are victims of violent crimes. Both women fight back to protect themselves. They are survivors and each play an important role in vanquishing the monster, or at the very least, identifying the villain. They both realize there are too many villains in the world to fight. Even though they have temporarily restored the balance in their worlds, they know the fight between Good and Evil will continue. Not only externally, but internally as well. Each time you gaze into the abyss, the abyss changes you. So, to answer my earlier question, is it possible to associate with monsters and not become Evil? Yes, but only if you remain vigilant to protect your humanity, and in Salander’s case, the humanity of others.

Works Cited

Halberstam, Judith. Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. Print.

Harris, Charlaine. Dead Until Dark. New York: Ace Books, 2009. Print

Larsson, Stieg. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2009. Print.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good & Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. New York: Vintage Books Edition, 1989. Print.

Plain, Gill. Twentieth Century Crime Fiction: Gender, Sexuality and the Body. New York: Routledge, 2014. Kindle.

Scoppetone, Sandra. “Vivid Villains.” Writing Mysteries: A Handbook by the Mystery Writers of America. Ed. Sue Grafton. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2002. 86-90. Print.

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Fuckable Fictional Characters: Francis Dolarhyde

February 25, 2016August 22, 2018Michelle R. Lane 4 Comments

Last weekend I had an interesting conversation with one of my really good friends (don’t worry, Stephanie, those posts we talked about are coming, so stay tuned). We talked about a personality quirk (disorder?) that we share in common. The desire and attraction we feel toward all things that dwell in darkness. No one should have to make apologies for what they find attractive or erotic. We all fall somewhere on the spectrum of sexuality and desire, Honey. I’ll try not to judge you if you don’t judge me, unless you’re hurting people (physically, mentally, or emotionally) without their consent.

Darkness promises mystery, adventure, and fear, an unburdening of the perception that we must always remain on the straight and narrow, and yes, even pain. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, some folks just aren’t happy unless they’re unhappy. I know I’m not alone in this troubling and confusing state of being. I don’t like the fact that I continually seek out inappropriate relationships. At least I don’t climb into cars with strangers anymore. I’m trying to break myself of these self-defeating and potentially life-threatening habits. It’s a work in progress.

I like monsters. A lot. But I don’t want to date them in real life. That still won’t stop me from getting all hot and bothered for them. Vampires? Love ‘em. Werewolves? I’d hit that. Fallen angels? Do you have a few hours to talk over coffee or Bourbon? I’ll admit that my taste in fictional characters might be a little unsettling to some people, but once again, I’m not going to apologize for what turns me on.

February 25: Francis Dolarhyde

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Francis Dolarhyde is a glorious monster. When you talk about Thomas Harris’s work—his novels, the films and TV show they have spawned—most people automatically think of Hannibal Lecter. Actually, most days I find it hard NOT to think about Hannibal Lecter. In the novel Red Dragon, Harris masterfully created a character who, in my opinion, is just as scary as Dr. Lecter. Without a doubt, the monster at the end of this book is the Red Dragon, Francis’ alter ego and the driving force behind his well planned, cleverly executed serial murders.

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At first glance, I didn’t like him very much. Every slight, every dirty look, every unkind word gets tallied up by Francis, as if he’s some maladjusted, compulsive, vengeful bean counter and the rest of humanity are the beans. I hated when he spit on the woman in the convertible simply because his gaze made her uncomfortable, self-conscious. I hoped he wouldn’t end up being just another emotionally crippled misogynistic jerk.

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Do you want WWIII? Because this is how we get WWIII.

Thankfully, as the story unfolded and I learned about Dolarhyde’s unbelievably traumatic childhood I became more interested. And, with every new horrible discovery about his past, I grew to love him more and more. I mean, come on, this serial killer has it all. He is physically deformed at birth, abused and abandoned by his mother and grandmother, sexually repressed, and a voice inside his head tells him to kill families that remind him of the family his mother formed without him. The family he was allowed to visit, but never welcomed to join. He is an outsider that many readers can relate to, and if not empathize with, at least feel some sympathy toward.

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He seemed like such a nice, quiet man.

Dolarhyde’s childhood was wonderfully atrocious, and Harris’s descriptions of his life in Grandma’s house reminded me of several dark Victorian classics. Dolarhyde’s two personalities made me think of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, especially toward the end of the novel when Francis tries to stop the Dragon and form a relationship with his love interest, Reba. His two sides struggle for dominance as Francis tries to protect the woman he believes he loves. At other times I thought of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with his physical deformities and inability to join “polite” society. Francis is filled with rage and envious of the “normal” people around him. He kills them to ease his pain and take revenge on the people who abused him. The Dragon is essentially the end result of Grandma’s psychological experiments on Francis that further transformed his already damaged psyche.

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And then, we have Grandma’s dentures. Quite possibly one of the most disturbing images I have encountered in a novel, the dentures almost have a life of their own, which ramps up the body horror aspects of this tale. Grandma’s choppers allow us to venture down several literary paths. We could go Big Bad Wolf here, “oh Grandma, what big teeth you have.” Or we could take the Gothic Horror path since Dolarhyde makes a pretty convincing Dracula with false teeth filed into sharp points. He literally bites his female victims to death.

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As I said, Francis Dolarhyde has a lot going for him as a character designed to make us check under the seats before turning the key in the ignition and double deadbolt the doors at night. Thomas Harris created an amazing killing machine that commits unspeakable acts and yet somehow convinced me to cheer for him when he fights against his murderous urges. I hoped he would escape capture at the hands of the FBI and Will Graham.

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This is my design.

There are elements of romance in the novel. Apparently Thomas Harris believes that even serial killers deserve love. Or maybe he’s suggesting that if they received love in the first place they may not have chosen to murder people. Harris elicits even more sympathy for Francis when he meets a woman who is attracted to him. He reciprocates and they begin dating.

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Lucifer offering Eve an apple.

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This is how a grown man reacts to being shown love for the first time.

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He’s never seen anything more beautiful.

They are the perfect fairy tale couple, a blind princess (literally, not just too dumb or unwilling to see the truth) and her prince who is magically transformed into a dragon by an evil wicked witch. Bryan Fuller made all of my dreams come true with the intense emotional and physical connection between Francis and Reba in season 3 of Hannibal. Their sex scenes were gloriously erotic. I must have rewatched the sex scene at least six times after I watched episode 10. So effing hot. Seriously, when he grabs her, picks her up, and carries her to his bedroom, I was like SPLOOSH!

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I hoped Reba’s affection would be strong enough to rescue and redeem him in the end. His own delusions and lack of impulse control ultimately lead to his demise. Rather than trusting that Reba cares for him, he listens to the Dragon. His immaturity, lack of experience with live women, and delusions prevent him from achieving a normal and healthy life with Reba. Like most of us, our faults and bad habits tend to undo our efforts to improve ourselves no matter how hard we try to overcome them.

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You should probably let someone get to know you a little better before you show them your dark side.

I don’t just like this monster. I am sexually attracted to him and find him totally fuckable. He’s fuckable in the novel and as portrayed by Ralph Finnes (Red Dragon, 2002) and Richard Armitage (Hannibal, 2015) (especially Richard Armitage), but the thoughts I have about him make me a bit uneasy. Why? As I said, I love monsters. I have no problem with the idea of liking Dracula or the Big Bad Wolf. Maybe my feelings of unease come from the fact that I know those monsters are fictional, make-believe, fairy tales, but serial killers are very real. While I’m fascinated by their crimes and their motivations to commit them, I do not idolize real serial killers. I want the police to catch them and punish them to the full extent of the law. Serial killers cause me to waffle about my stance on the death penalty.

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Francis Dolarhyde is a fictional character, but Harris breathed so much life into him that he seemed disturbingly real. Serial killers are real. Dracula is not. Monsters that are created to represent the darker aspects of the human psyche or to examine and comment upon questionable societal norms are safe. The aging Goth teen queen inside me craves stories about monsters who prevail despite their physical deformities and emotional immaturity. Weird and horrifying is acceptable as long as it has a message or a purpose. But here is the Red Dragon standing before me, engrossed in his own gloriously terrifying acts of violence against women and their families, and somehow I find beauty there. My adoration of this character gives me pause.

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Even his death is beautiful.

Typically, I would use the excuse of Hollywood’s knack for putting attractive actors in horrifying roles. The Devil is tempting not only because he encourages you to do the sinful things you crave, but also because he shows up as the thing you want most, and probably wearing a nice suit. Even before Bryan Fuller provided us with a visual buffet of horrific beauty on Hannibal, I desired Francis Dolarhyde.

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Sometimes you can’t ignore the voices.

But Bryan Fuller cranked up the voyeurism, spectacle, and the eroticism of evil by making Francis exceptionally desirable and giving him an object of desire that I could relate to. I could imagine myself in her place. Eroticism is subjective, but when erotic images and art mirror your own fantasies, that’s not only psychologically satisfying, it’s magical.

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They make a beautiful couple.