A year and a half ago I blogged about how living in Boston inspired my Wyndham werewolf stories. It started out as simple book PR, and ended up as a love letter to Boston and the Cape. In the wake of this week's tragedy, I wanted to re-post because nothing, not one. Damned. Thing. Has changed. Boston is still wonderful, and I still feel so lucky to have lived there.
* * *
My publisher asked me to talk
about WOLF AT THE DOOR for an upcoming newsletter, and ignoring her sensible
suggestion of a page, I wrote six. So I'm posting the thing in its entirety
below, whether you like it or not. How 'bout THAT (um,
seriously, thanks in advance for your attention)?
The characters in WATD have been
trapped in my head for years, poor bums. When I wrote my first single-title
werewolf novel, Derik’s Bane, I
had no idea readers would be so intrigued by the idea of werewolves living on
Cape Cod, and would want to read more about them.
I was
intrigued, sure, but that was because I was putting my husband through Harvard
with a series of wretched temp jobs, and for the first time in my life was
living 1500 miles away from my family. (Irony: as an Air Force brat, I swore
when I hit 18 I’d never, ever move again. Then I met someone who lived 1500
miles away. Thanks for nothing, irony, you jerk.)
Massachusetts was an eye-opener
for a former Midwestern trailer-park inhabitant. Noisy, fast, fuming, and
noisy. For some reason, nearly everyone I talked to out there seemed to be
furious with me. I found this puzzling, since usually people needed to be with
me for at least half an hour before the Hulk rage overwhelmed them.
I can hear it now, so shush: “That’s
a stereotype! I live in Boston and I’m super-nice, ya vapid dumbass!” I’m sure
you are super nice. I’m sure you’re super delightful. And I did meet many
people from Boston and the Cape who I adored and are friends with to this day.
But I also met a lot of people who seemed to be enraged by my very presence.
So there I was, trying to learn
the subway system, getting trampled at Filene’s Basement sales (“Please...I—I
just want to see if that shirt’s a twelve...please get off my neck...ow...”),
and adjusting to a society that had little use for cars.
Of all of them, the car thing was
the most amazing. When my then-fiance told me I could sell my car before we
moved to Massachusetts, I flat-out didn’t believe him. It sounded impossible
and dangerous. You’d die in
Minnesota or North Dakota if you tried walking to work without a car. You could
die checking the mail. If the elements didn’t get you, the wolves would.
But he’d been right, and I sold
my car. After some nervousness (“Is this the train to Harvard Square? Also,
please don’t rape or kill me.” “Kiddo, I’m 82, and you’re not my type.”), I
learned to appreciate the T...it was nice being able to let someone else drive
while I read or snacked, or snacked. The trains were (relatively) clean, and I
was never bothered. At worst, some poor idiot would assume I knew what I was
doing (“Is this the train for the Aquarium?” “Kiddo, I gotta get ready for my
83rd birthday
pahty, whyncha leave me alone?”), and ask for directions. I went through lots of books during my commute, and listened to lots of Ace of Base on an ancient tool once called a Walkman by my
people.
I was homesick for the Midwest,
sure, but Boston and Cape Cod quickly grew on me. I found myself grazing at
Faneuil Hall, spending hours browsing the Barnes and Noble on Park Street and
the Wordsworth at Harvard Square, and being morbidly aware that the letter R
was usually nowhere to be found in the mouths of the people around me.
“Anothah stereotype, ya useless
hack! I’ve lived in Bawstahn my whole life, I been to Fenway Pahk, I grew up in
Chahsten an’ if you do that thing, that ‘pahk the cah in Havahd yahd’ thing I’m
gonna smack ya upside ya big fat head! All that’s nothin’ but hate-mongerin’,
jerk!”
Like I said: surrounded by
awesome food, gorgeous beaches, and people I didn’t know who were super-pissed
at me. I started wondering why: something in the water? (This was before we all
started carrying our own clear fluids in Aquafina bottles.) Something in the
subway? Something in their...nature? Their genetics? (I actually heard the
light bulb blink to life over my head: ding!). Thus, I got the idea that
werewolves lurked among us, werewolves who were always fighting their natures
and trying to hide in plain sight. Werewolves who would lash out when the stress
got to them. And a ton of them lived on the Cape.
So Derik’s Bane was born, and it was such fun. I really liked the
Cape Cod characters, because I was a born tourist and once I got over my
apprehension, loved the museums, loved the parks, loved the beaches, loved the
peanuts and lemon ice you could buy on the street. I loved how I could shatter
the kneecap of the woman lunging for the same jeans I was at the annual Filenes
sale. Best of all, I loved the sense of history. I had to walk past Benjamin
Franklin’s grave every day on my way to work. I lived within walking distance
of the Mount Auburn Cemetery. I sat in the Old North Church and tried to
imagine “one if by hand, two here by me”, or whatever Paul Revere was supposed
to have figured out.
By the time I sat down to write
Chapter One, I’d come to love beauty of Boston and the Cape, the friendly and
straightforward people, the truly awful driving that gave me a new appreciation
for life every time I returned safely from the grocery store...and don’t start
with the stereotypes again. That one’s true and you all know it. Boston drivers
are more dangerous than a baker’s dozen of serial killers.
True to my frivolous and contrary
nature, I cried when it was time to move to Boston, and I cried when it was
time to move back to Minnesota. In five years, I’d embraced and admired a part
of the country that was wholly different from anything I’d experienced the
first twenty years of my life. They could have seafood as fast food
out there! They thought nothing of dropping everything and heading to a beach, sometimes without sandwiches! They
fearlessly crossed the street during rush hour and lived to tell the tale!
All this to say, I was homesick for Minnesota and confused when I wrote Derik’s Bane,
and writing that book helped me get over myself and appreciate Boston.
Fast forward a few years, I asked
my editor if I could write another single-title about the Wyndham werewolves,
since readers had been asking for that book for years. She agreed at once, and
I got to work. By then I’d been back in Minnesota for a few years and was
writing full-time. And though most of Wolf
at the Door takes place in Minnesota, the few bits in Boston reminded me
how afraid I’d been to move there, and what I dumbass I’d been to be afraid,
and how much I wanted to see the area again.
So I finished the book, talked to
my hubby/writing partner (we co-write the Jennifer Scales series), and as it turned out, this year we’ll
be having Thanksgiving on the Cape. What can I say? It’s gorgeous out there,
and the people are great. Anyone who says different is an idiot. A blonde,
six-foot tall, vain, klutzy idiot.
So that’s the scoop, and I thank you
kindly for your attention. But I’m closing the laptop now...gotta go pahk my
cah. Did you know you can actually get your point across more quickly if you
omit needless consonants?
