Vintage LKH

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

For all I know, this has been discussed here before, so forgive me if I'm being redundant, but I recently came across this:

VAMPIRES AND WEREWOLVES AND WITCHES- OH MY! How a nice Midwestern girl got caught up in the macabre and developed a cult following

It's an LKH interview that appeared in the Chicago Tribune in mid-October of 1996. It is also kind of hilarious.



Laurell Hamilton was watching Walt Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" at home with Trinity, her 2-year-old daughter. The horror writer panicked: Was Hunchback going to die? "I was thinking, 'Please don't let me have to explain permanent night-night,' " Hamilton groaned.

First off: wow, Trin really is a big girl now. I actually didn't know her exact age, just estimations based on things I read here, but this puts her at at least fourteen. Still, I'm not sure how good a grasp a two-year-old is going to have on life and death. And as a Victor Hugo geek, I'd like to point out that the hunchback actually does die in the book...

If she finds it tough to explain death to the toddler set, it is clear that she is having no trouble explaining the facts of life- and death- to grownups.

Heh. No, she certainly doesn't. Cross-referenced with: multiple baby-daddies, psychological castration, penis envy, blonde-hating, and all that "only as graphic as it needs to be" sex.

Laurell Hamilton has made herself quite a comfortable niche. Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore in Minneapolis put "Bloody Bones" on his 'recommended' shelf. Last month it was the top seller at the mega-store.

Remember this, guys? Back when the series was struggling and starting out and still kind of, dare I say, quaint? Before LKH got too big for her superhigh britches and became a totally batshit bat-shitting tower of megalomania and gawthik-lite?

Dear sweet Jesus, how times have changed. It's interesting to look back this far and try to pick out the warning signs, though. For example:

"You can't arm yourself against a quirk of fate," she said. "We are a dice roll away from disaster for no reason. I find that very hard to accept. The world is so harsh that I prefer to see it through a patina of fantasy and horror, where the monsters are not as savage or grim as the monsters in real life."

Okay. She sounds a little like an emo fortune cookie, but I think I get it. The whole mentality of nothing ever being as terrible as reality, blahblahblah. She actually sounds like she knows what the hell she's saying, which is refreshing, but at the same time it's hard to look at this and not think of the high-and-mighty infodumps of advice she dispenses on her blog these days.

After the family was notified [of her mother's death], Hamilton remembers walking to an uncle's house through tiny Sims [Indiana] with her grandmother hysterically "wailing and keening."

Sucky as this particular situation is, has anyone ever seen LKH say anything positive about the woman who raised her? All I can recall are put-downs and, at best, backhanded remarks.

"When the neighbors asked what had happened, I was the one who said, 'My mommy died on the way home from work.' "

Hamilton's uncle subsequently took the 6-year-old to see the wrecked car. She remembers crawling inside, "touching the bloodstains. No one protected me from that. I did not flinch. I remember all the details."

...come to that, has anyone seen this mentioned anywhere else either? It sounds like the kind of "woe, my bloody childhood made me old and wise before my time!" anecdote that she'd slip into conversation as often as possible.

TRAUMA SHAPED HER

Um. Capslock and bold not mine. The enthusiasm is alllll the interviewer's.

And...well, not to belittle the strain an event like that must have been on such a young child, she's really not the only person who faced tragedy as a kid, and I really wish she'd talk more about working past said tragedy instead of reveling in it like it gives her street cred or something.

The trauma taught her immediately that adults could not protect her from disaster, Hamilton said.

"It made me who I am today. The false sense of safety that all children have, the idea that their parents can protect them from everything, was taken away from me at such a young age. It leaves a hole that is never filled."

Oy vey, this poor-me schtick is older than dirt.

I've worked with foster kids whose relatives would beat them, neglect them, accuse them of causing cancer, and make them shit on the lawn. At least Laurell had what sounds like a loving relationship with her mother and, what's more, also had family members who took her in and brought her up. But that isn't the kind of story LKH likes to glorify.

ETA: The character she created at least in part on her own self-image, is an resilent as Raymond Chandler character and as much of a feminist as Sara Parentsky's V.I. Warshawski- albeit more chaste. Both Hamilton and her character believe sex is best after marriage.

Gah, how could I leave this out? Again, look back and weep. Or laugh hysterically.

Comments

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

Well this tags Trin as at around 14ish. I know there have been some comments in the past as to how old the kid was. I would be embarrassed that my mom was screening pg-13 movies for me at that age.

[estllechauvelin.livejournal.com]

The main reason my mom was screening R-rated movies (on video, of course) for me at that age was because my asking if she would check them out first seemed like the most likely way to avoid a flat-out "No."

[booster-blue.livejournal.com]

R is not the same as PG-13, though.