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Interview With
Tamara Thorne
DB: Where did you grow up, and was reading and writing a
part of your life?
TT: I grew up in southern California, in a pleasant suburb
outside of Los Angeles. My mother read to me every morning
from infancy on. I have memories of sitting in her lap at
the breakfast table, my legs so short they ended at her
knees, and looking at the books as she read. She went straight
for the classics -- all the Oz books, other books along
those lines. I remember early on being fascinated by the
Gump -- the creature made out of a couch and a moosehead,
among other things, in one of the Oz books. It was marvelously
scary. I'm told I could read at a very early age. I don't
know if it's true, but I never remember a time without books.
I loved them. By early elementary school I was collecting
ghost story books, fiction and non-fiction, and digging
into folklore. By second grade, I was into Bradbury, and
starting to write stories of my own. Early on, I'd discovered
how much fun it was to scare other kids with stories about
local haunted houses, haunted storm drains, haunted trees.
For me, everything was better if it was haunted. DB: Who
were your earliest influences and why? (By this, I mean
non-writing related influences)
TT: Non-writing related influences? There weren't many.
My mother, my brother, Houdini, Daniel Boone. Anyone who'd
tell me a ghost story.
DB: Why do you write? More specifically why horror.
TT: I write because I write. I can't help it. I'd do it
whether I was paid to do it or not, and I'd rather not write
for income if it meant writing something I wasn't interested
in. Fortunately, I'm paid to write what I love. Horror is
sort of an all-inclusive word. I don't run from it, but
I do think of it as frequently more genre-oriented than
I am -- werewolves, vampires, and Frankenstein's monster.
My primary interest is the ghost story. It always has been
and always will be. I'm probably more interested in haunting
on a scientific level than on a spiritual level. Someday
quantum physics will likely legitimize lots of things today's
scientists deny. That's the problem with science. If it
can't be explained, it doesn't exist. That would make me
a Fortean because I think there are things that occur that
can't be explained at this point. But they do occur. To
deny that is as closed-minded as to say, all creaking steps
and cool winds are haunt-related.
Growing up, I wrote lots of science fiction, but in sixth
grade, I happened on Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill
House. After that, there was no going back. The eternal
search for good ghostly novels had begun.
And I did do lots of satire (very political by high school)
and bad punning. I still do indulge in the bad puns, even
in very serious books. They creep in. They make me smile.
I like to smile.
DB: Who are your favorite writers and why?
TT: Ray Bradbury for writing so vividly that I'm still nostalgic
for my imagined boyhood in 1930's Greentown, Illinois. Shirley
Jackson, Richard Matheson, Mark Twain, from the early days,
plus a host of science fiction authors. Oh and two huge
influences were Arthur Conan Doyle (I nearly had Sherlock
Holmes memorized) and H. Rider Haggard -- the Alan Quatermain
books. Later, I discovered a great master of fear: Fritz
Leiber. And then came Stephen King. I think he's wonderful.
Gore Vidal. Nelson DeMille, Jeff Long. Whoever wrote Andersonville.
I love Neil Gaiman -- American Gods is on the all-time favorites
list. Christopher Lamb and James Blaylock give me great
pleasure.
DB: Do you have any hobbies? What are they? How do they
enhance your writing?
TT: Ghost hunting, folklore researching. I guess it's not
truly a hobby, since it's also research for the books I
write, and now I'm planning a non-fiction book on hauntings.
We like to explore lesser-known haunted places (but will
settle for well-known ones) and if we're spending time away
from home, we hunt down the best "haunted" hotel room we
can find to stay in. We take lots of photos. Sometimes things
happen, sometimes not. I seek out ghost stories professionally
now, but that's been my hobby since I was maybe five years
old.
My particular interest is in western and southwestern haunts
and folklore, and that takes me into old gold rush areas,
mining camps, and things like that. So that's a special
interest. I'm also a fiend for American music, primarily
ragtime, which dates from the late 1890's to about 1930.
I have a 1913 player piano (cut down to have a mirror since
it lived in a tavern and the piano player need to keep an
eye on drunken patrons) that I restored and play, badly.
But I only restored one piano, so that's not a hobby. I
have a nice collection of rags and early jazz on CD.
I (along with my like-minded husband) collect certain horror
movies (ghostly or funny ones, we're not into slashers,
unless they're oozing over-the-top goofiness ala Evil Dead
II). We also collect humor -- we're endlessly entertained
by movies like Airplane! and Blazing Saddles.
DB: The characters in Sorority seem to jump off the page
with realism, are you a follower of the let the charters
go where they may method of writing. Who were your favorite
characters and why?
TT: My characters often disagree with what I have planned,
and they know best. Sometimes they do things that blow me
away -- things I'd never choose for them. But they have
free will, so I always let them do what they want and develop
their own interests, even if I think they're nuts.
My favorite characters in Sorority are Merilynn and Professor
McCobb. Merilynn fascinates me because she never does what
I think she'll do. Professor Dan S. McCobb is John Houseman,
raised from the dead. He -- or rather his wife, Vera McCobb,
originated as a very minor character in THE FORGOTTEN. I
fully expect the McCobbs will be on the road in an RV when
I get around to doing the road-trip oriented sequel to CANDLE
BAY. Of course, characters don't do what I expect. That
brings me to a surprise favorite -- Brittany. I'll refrain
from spoilers, but she originated as a jab at a certain
similarly named singer. Then she went and became her own
person . . . or something. What she does in the final half
of Samantha, the last book in the trilogy, shocked me so
much that I ended up giggling and scratching with glee.
I had no idea she was so, uh, clever.
DB: Was there any characters that were not intended to have
such a big role but just decided they had more to be said?
TT: I don't think I've ever written a book where minor characters
haven't come to the forefront on their own. Professor Tongue
was supposed to be a walk-on, but he became quite the fixture.
And Kendra. She just appeared in the first few pages. I
had no idea she existed, but she's the glue -- the storyteller
-- of the trilogy. The subconscious mind is a lifesaver!
DB: Is the story based on any truth? If so, did you do hands
on research and could you tell me about it? If not, can
you tell me what inspired it?
TT: The lake story -- the vision of the lake containing
a long-ago flooded town -- is entirely based on stories
my mother told me. She lived in a town in northern California
(not too far from Icehouse Mountain in the book, ETERNITY)
as a girl. It was rebuilt on higher ground in order to create
a reservoir. Years later, my parents returned to the dam
and swam above the drowned town. My mother describes the
eerie spectacle of the treetops. The sight of the church
steeple spooked her so much that she waited on the banks
while my father explored some more. There are hundreds of
drowned towns across Northern America. They're fascinating.
The heavy research was into Skull and Bones type secret
societies. That's something I simply enjoy -- all that New
World Order conspiracy stuff. Both Bushes were in Skull
& Bones, as well as other US presidents and many other high-powered
types. Fata Morgana is a feminine Skull & Bones. The only
vaguely overt reference, though, is a story Professor McCobb
tells about Shawkinaw, an old tale told by local tribes
about a trickster raven that loves to blow things up. Many
other resources added to the fun, not the least of which
was the movie Animal House.
The heaviest research was into Arthurian legends. Lots of
them, from various sources, ancient and modern. The epic
poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight provided me an excuse
to go at green man mythology from a new slant. Sir Thomas
Malory's L'Morte de Arthur paid off, as did everything from
The Once and Future King to movies like Excalibur and Camelot
-- and let's not forget Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
I loved the Arthurian myths as a kid, so it was grand to
have an excuse to dig back in.
DB: You mentioned that you do research of haunting can you
tell me a little about your real beliefs on ghosts and hauntings?
TT: Yep. It's a case of life-long interest becoming a real
part of my work. I love it when that happens. I began collecting
folklore books and books of ghost stories in the early primary
grades. I've never stopped, just expanded my areas of interest.
Next year's THUNDER ROAD takes on the mythology that has
evolved into modern myth -- ufology. I've stayed at the
Little Al-ie-Inn (not sure if that's spelled right) by Area
51 in Nevada. Oh, what a great, Hunter S. Thompson-style
adventure. I explore the vortices and other alleged anomalies,
but it's always really been about the ghosts.
Personally, I'm a Fortean. That's a skeptic, but the word
is being abused so much that if I say it people think I
mean I'm a debunker. Not at all. But I'm not a believer
either. I'm an observer. You have to rule out all the logical
reasons for something strange before you can consider the
peculiar. And I've seen plenty of things that are peculiar.
(That doesn't mean some or all don't have rational explanations,
just that I'm pleasantly surprised I haven't found some
yet.) I gave David Masters, the ghost-hunting hero of HAUNTED,
all my personal opinions. He really tries to stick to them
. . . but he sees too much. He reappears in THE FORGOTTEN
briefly and he's rationalized things down a bit again. He's
also got a part in the book I'm working on now. We'll see
how things work out for him there.
I've never seen anything that leads me to think I'm dealing
with a thinking spirit. I've seen things that I believe
to be fueled, even manipulated to some degree, by emotionally
upset living humans. And I've experienced things that are
obviously just imprints, reruns. I don't believe in demons,
I've never seen anything that would lead me to believe --
but I do think we create our own realities to some extent
and that someone who believes may well encounter something
that fits the mold. I would experience something different.
Priestly exorcisms work if people believe in them and put
their intent behind them. My version -- Rude Sailor -- works
just as well to keep leachy anomalies off me when I'm messing
with them. Everything is energy. Anomalies are virtually
always energy-related. Hauntings take on new life (or death?)
under the influence of a sent of mega power lines nearby.
It feeds them. Ores in the earth play a part, especially
magnetic ores. I think quantum physics will legitimize parapsychology
to a great extent, but the mystery will always be deliciously
lurking in dark corners. We can never know for certain.
That's what I love.
DB: I notice that you managed to slip humor into the work
as well, which definitely added to the compulsive readability,
is this generally the case with your works?
TT: I can't help it. If I try to be dark and serious for
long, my inner child (pretty much a rude 10-year-old boy
that would love hanging with the Southpark kids), gets annoyed.
He starts whispering bad things to me. They get out. Mostly,
the humor is from the characters, not from me. I just write
down what they say. However, I'll take responsibility for
all the horrible pun names (most have to be spoken aloud
to be caught, but some are overt) and sleazy street names
(see BAD THINGS for the best of those -- they sound so nice
in Spanish!), and so forth. I live for puns. There aren't
so many in SORORITY -- since it's pretty light to begin
with, I don't have the urge as strongly as I do in a more
serious book like THE FORGOTTEN, BAD THINGS, or ETERNITY.
Oh, those are shameless. No apologies. I love shameless.
Basically, I write to amuse myself. So I just do what I
love to do.
DB: Malory, is my favorite villain in a very long time can
you tell me what it was like for you to write her?
TT: Oh, how I love to be in evil minds. Even though I don't
like the word "evil" -- it's too religious. But then Malory
is evil. (You'll find negative and positive things in most
of my work -- but when I pull out the supernatural stops,
good and evil can exist too.) My favorite characters are
bad guys who have good qualities. In SORORITY, the Force
is nature -- the Forest Knight form of green man. Nature
is neutral. It can be used for good or ill. Malory draws
on it for evil. Running around in Malory's -- or any nasty
character's head -- is wonderful and freeing. It's an outlet
for all sorts of aggressions. After maiming and torturing
characters all day, I'm relaxed and happy in real life.
Then some bible-thumpers knock on the door, my inner Jack-Nicholson-in-The-Shining
comes to life, and must be fed more characters. If it's
not fed, I become incredibly rude to those who dare disrupt
me to try to force their beliefs on me. Dammit Jim, I'm
a heathen, not a Mormon!
DB: Did you intend for the book to have an erotic flare
to it?
TT: I wouldn't call it intent, exactly. It just happens
sometimes, especially in the lighter books. (Serious leads
in my books are rarely shown doing anything beyond foreplay
-- I feel like I'm intruding on their privacy.) But the
baddish people and the light more-supernaturally inclined
stories are usually loaded with sex. I like sex. It keeps
me amused. I love to come up with kinks and try to write
them un-obscenely. It's a challenge. And sex and bad puns,
well, that's just about the best thing on earth. In fiction
and in real life!
DB: What are your thoughts on the sub-genre of erotic horror?
TT: Um, fine with me. What I like to read tends to be massive
stuff with lots of elements of all sorts of things in it.
I get bored with just romance or just R-rated sex or just
cowboys riding the range or just cops patrolling. I want
a little of everything in a big fat novel. When I read or
watch porn, it's seriously dirty stuff, with my honey. The
lightweight stuff, ala Cinemax, just annoys me. As the great
Tom Lehrer wrote in his song, Smut, "I like it more when
it's hardcore!" Tom Lehrer is on my most-admired list, along
with George Carlin, Jacques Vallee, Roald Dahl, Ray Bradbury,
and Carl Sagan.
DB: What's next?
TT: In October, Cemetery Dance's Devil's Wine will appear.
It's poetry by horror writers, including King, Straub, and
Bradbury, which explains why I decided to write some poetry!
(Usually my poetry is of the Nantucket variety.) Next summer
THUNDER ROAD appears. It came out under my previous name,
Chris Curry, originally, but hardly anyone saw it. It's
a favorite of mine, definitely doesn't fit the genre. It's
a modern-day western with UFOs, serial killers, and an old
west touristy ghost town. And religion. It's sort of a mini-apocalypse
book and it let me explore modern ufology lore in relation
to older folklore. Today's aliens are yesterday's leprechauns.
That sort of thing.
The next new novel is cloaked in secrecy for the moment,
but I'm hard at work on it, and there's a lot of reality
in the fiction. Yes, ghosts are involved. The real ghost
stories that go with the locale I chose are so good, that
they've infiltrated my fictional ones and I'm having a blast
writing it.
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