Is It Healthy to Write Violence, Or, in the Words of My Host Family, "Are You a Murderer?"

Recently, Warren Ellis - author and commentator - posted an article on the need for violent literature. You can find it here: http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/warren...

Ellis essentially states that, rather than leaving horrific acts outside of the societal set, it is necessary to write about them, to understand them. In other words, it is necessary not to /repress/ them. I am genuinely curious what you think about this. Do you agree with Ellis and believe that violent literature is a way of understanding a perhaps ever-increasingly violent culture? Or, do you believe that violent literature creates that violent culture?

I am going to make a confession. This summer, I went to Germany and stayed with a host family for two months. I was there to teach their daughter conversational English. Many of the aspects of the visit were wonderful. The family was welcoming and gracious, and I have nearly no complaints about staying with them. Except for one. In one of our first discussions, the father of the family asked me, "Are you a murderer? Are you thinking about murdering?"

Unbeknownst to me, Pivot - which I had self-published just one to two months prior to arriving - the host family father had found, purchased, and started reading. He surprised me with this information as soon as I landed in Frankfurt - again, note, I haven't even told my friends or family yet that I have self-published this novel - and so it was a double surprise that he was into the fifth or so chapter.

Many of the questions he asked me in concern with the book were leading and always dealt with my state of mind while writing the novel. Confronted with his, what I felt to be unwarranted, suspicions, I entered a state of shock. I was wondering for weeks if they were actually wondering if I was a murderer.

This still disturbs me.

The father did not bring up this type of question once, or twice, but four different times, and I really did not know what to tell him, except, "It's important to keep a firm divide between fantasy and reality." His main concern, I think, was that there were deaths of children in the novel. I can kind of see that concern, but at the same time, horror is always associated with childhood. Look at The Exorcist, Poltergeist, The Omen, Orphan, Let the Right One In, Silent Hill, Children of the Corn, Children of the Damned, Pet Sematary, The Good Son, Firestarter, Insidious, Interview with the Vampire, Carrie, and on and on... Childhood is the safest time, and the most horrifying moments are when the safest points in one's life are no longer safe. This is why horror is always connected with childhood innocence.

I suppose I could have told him that. I also could have told him that in grad school we are taught Burke's "Death of the Author" - the theory that essentially says a work authors the writer, not the other way around. In other words, a writer can never be entirely and wholly responsible for that which is written. There is always something beyond, something that transcends what the author intends. This is why in grad school, we are not supposed to discuss the author's connection with the work, but rather the work itself, and only the work itself. Yes, I could have told him this.

I did not, however. I was in too much of a shock to say anything. The idea that I could be unwanted or a burden on a family I was supposed to stay with for two months was daunting. Not only this, but from the very beginning of our relationship, it seemed as though I started at -50 points. I had to prove to them that I was not malicious, not a murderer. I still ask myself when I think back on this, "What the hell?"

I am not the only one to experience this phenomena, of course. I simply did not /expect/ to experience a reader reaction such as this... ever. I am a small, fairly unknown, self-published author. But, nevertheless, surprise. It was my first experience with a reader.

Laurel K. Hamilton in a blog post recently discussed such negative comments by readers. You can find her post here: http://www.laurellkhamilton.org/2006/...

Perhaps the most surprising thing in Hamilton's blog post was that she says there are some readers who will stand in line for three hours at a book signing merely to come to her table and say, "This book is horrible, and you are a horrible person for writing it." Either the work is too graphic, too sexual, or too uncomfortable for them, and they feel the need to tell her this and smile at her while they do it, while she signs the book. But these people wait in line for HOURS to tell her this. "Why?" she asks. "Why?" I ask, as well.

The father that asked me, "Is it that you are a murderer, or that you are thinking about murdering?" also connected his own daughter, whom I was supposed to teach, to Jack's youth. In addition, he told me, "I let my friend take a look at your story, and he asked, 'How can you let her around your children?'" Later, he explained he was joking, when he said this. Still, there is a reason the father chose to relate this joke to me, just like there is a reason this was all he ever asked about the book. It was never about the plot, the prose, the mixture of action with dialogue, the pacing, or anything else. It was, instead, "Why did you write it?" as though there was something wrong with me. "Is this your dark half?" Yes, he literally asked me that, just two days after I arrived.

Frankly, I've seen much darker movies and read much darker works. Just look at Pahlaniuk's book /Haunted/, for instance. It's good, it's gory, it scares people. And guess what, that's horror. If it didn't disturb you, well, we would call it fantasy.

I am not sure if it is good or bad that I had this experience with the father of my German host family. It was a horrible experience, of course, but it is also perhaps one that I should maybe learn early and come to expect. One that every horror author has. Perhaps it is best for me to know now that author and work, much like actor and character, become blurred for some.

I also ask the question of you and of myself, "Would you react any differently?" If you are a host to an English teacher, and you discover that he or she has written a book you would deem dark or disturbing or horrific - if Pahlaniuk was living in your house for two months - would you confront him or her? Would you be concerned? Would you say anything?

Personally, I'm not sure how I would react in such a situation. I do not have children, and I am sure that being a father or mother makes some people far more cautious, far more paranoid.

At the same time, I also wonder if the fact that Pivot is self-published had anything to do with his hesitation, his questions. Do people feel they are given permission to enjoy novels from, or can give permission to, authors who are published by one of the big five? Would you feel safe with Pahlaniuk, but terrified with a self-publisher? What is the difference between amateur and professional? Is a "professional" work less likely to be made by a murderer than an "amateur" one? What I'm getting at is that there are biases against self-publishers, and I do believe I have stumbled upon one of the ugliest ones out there.

"You are not Stephen King. It is not as though you can go to a police station and ask for tips or stories. So, how did you come up with this work?" Yes, the father of my host family asked me that as well. Do you think he would have believed me if I said, "I made it up. I sat there, at my desk, or chair, or couch, or bed, and I made it up."? No, I don't believe he would have. Otherwise, he wouldn't have asked me in the first place.

I repeat this story to so many people because, truly, I don't understand it in its entirety, and each time I repeat it, I hope that all will become crystal. Those nights in their backyard, when he questioned me, marked the moment when I realized I could be deemed outside the societal set with the very horror that I write. That's hard. But, maybe inevitable.

Writing horror is what I want to do. This is what I want more than anything. And maybe I have to accept that I'm going to get strange reactions to that which I love to do.

At least I don't have to live with those readers if I don't want to. Now I understand why Stephen King wrote Misery. Living with a fan, or a negative fan, or a reader who thinks you might be a murderer is the purest form of misery. Even though this host family was fairly good, kind, helpful, and maybe realized they had hurt my feelings, the father of my host family never apologized for asking or saying these things - denied them entirely when I brought them up with him - and so there was always a tension strung in the air... for two months. That, I have to say, was more horrifying to me than any of King's or Koontz's or Pahlaniuk's novels. The host family's father had not even finished Pivot when he said these things. How was I to know how he would react when he reached the middle or the end? I gritted my teeth and got through the experience, but I am still unsure just what the experience was all about, why he said those things. Most of all, I still am not sure if I should have simply left the family at the beginning of my stay.

How would you have reacted? What do you think about the relation of author to work, of actor to character, of violence to society, of horror to reader? Do you fear self-publishers who write horror? What kind of permissiveness, if any, is there in professional publication? How should horror writers deal with these uncomfortable situations?