Warning Signs

There is something perverse about horror fiction, whether you’re writing it, or voluntarily picking it up off a bookshelf. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s anything extreme enough to qualify as a mental illness. (So you just tell those men in the white coats to stay back!) It’s just… slightly less than socially acceptable in some circles.

Most people like pleasant things. Pleasant smells, pleasant sounds, pleasant books… you get the picture. Whatever else you could call my writing, it isn’t pleasant. That’s not what I’m going for, but apparently because I gave up the black trench coat and eyeliner that were my go-to fashion accessories in high school, people are sometimes surprised when I start reading my novel and nothing about it is pretty, sweet, or nice. Many times, someone comes up to me after a reading and says, “I didn’t expect to hear something like that from someone who looks like you.” It has never been presented as a criticism, but I get the feeling the other person and I both leave a little bit confused about what just happened. It seems so funny to me, the thought of having some visual aide on my person to warn potential readers about the graphic nature of my writing. Like a poison dart frog warning away would be predators with its bright, poisonous skin. What should I look like, then? Should I start wearing my Mrs. Lovett Halloween costume every time I read at Auntie’s? Brandish my plastic meat cleaver as I step up to the podium, so anyone who is uncomfortable with disease and decapitation, can go to the bathroom, or browse, and then come back when I finish reading? Perhaps a sign. Or something printed on a tee-shirt. “Warning: contains homicidal fiction?” I think I could have fun with this…

For a while, when this first started happening, I did go back to my old way of dressing. Black on black on black with heavy eye make up and boots, but that doesn’t really feel like me anymore. Well, not most days. And anyway, I’m not sure that’s really what’s tripping people up. I’m still relatively young, and I’m female, and I can write fight scenes that make grown men say, “Oh, man! That is so gross!” Maybe this is unusual. Being from Deer Park, where lots of high school girls go hunting,* and help butcher livestock, it’s sometimes hard for me to say what’s normal. In any case, if I can give my dad, a police detective, or my brother, a fellow horror movie connoisseur, the heebie-jeebies, I feel like I’ve done my job.

* I don’t mean just tagging along. I mean they have the gun, they do the shooting, and they do the field dressing.