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.