Thursday, September 6, 2018

Real Tales of Gothic Creep into Eric Rickstad's Writing


HALLIE EPHRON: Settling in to read one of Eric Rickstad’s Canaan Crime series novels is like accepting an invitation to listen to a scary tale, told as the embers of a campfire fade. Reviewers have called his novels “diabolical," "haunting," and (my favorite) "creepy." They're also praised as literary page turners.

Even the title of his brand new series novel, What Remains of Her,  and the cover with its cottage surrounded by dark woods and shadow, conjure ghost-like apparitions. Today Eric talks about where his inspiration comes from.

GATHER 'ROUND THE CAMPFIRE...
 
ERIC RICKSTAD: I’m often asked what inspires me to write crime and suspense novels so steeped in elements of the Gothic and horror traditions. Why do my books possess the haunting and claustrophobic atmosphere of isolated woods, fog, snow and rain, of derelict cabins and farms, cobwebbed attics and dirt cellars?

It is true that as a boy, I devoured the dark tales of Poe, King, Jackson, Hawthorne, Irving, and so many others. Who of us does not love a good old macabre tale of murder and terror set in the woods or an isolated town on the edge of the woods? These books influenced me, but it was an actual place that most spurs me. Since grade school, when the writing fever first infected me, I’ve written about these themes because of one locale.

Growing up in Vermont, I was drawn—one might even say lured—to the desolate and bucolic woods of the Northeast Kingdom. The Kingdom is the northeastern most region of the state, a remote area with Canada as its northern border, and the Connecticut River and New Hampshire as its eastern border. A region with town populations of 62 and 24 and 106. A place that, even today, may not have cell phone service for a 500 square miles. A place where if one gets in trouble, help is not coming for a long time, and perhaps far too late.

As a boy, I explored the Kingdom’s woods and its abandoned farms and mills, its hidden streams and crumbling stone walls. Up there, even on the sunniest days, the woods could remain in a perpetual dusk, their ancient cedar, spruce and hemlock trees blotting out the sunlight.

The Kingdom was a place of mystery and tranquility; a place where I believed nothing bad could befall me. This was a naïve notion, of course. Nature itself can offer up its dose of danger. In an instant, a calm sunny day turns fierce, the temperature plummets, a lacerating wind drives rain or snow sideways, a fog settles in, and a person is left at the mercy of now deadly elements on what was supposed to be an ideal day for a nice hike. And, of course, wherever people reside, danger lurks; as remote as the Kingdom is, it has its share of people who have committed heinous crimes.

Even as that naïve boy exploring The Kingdom, I could sense, as dusk fell on the Kingdom or the skies blackened with storm clouds, that the woods changed when shadows fell across the land. The beauty of the woods was overtaken by an ominous and haunted air. I would feel as if I were being watched and followed, as if something awful was always just about to happen to me. Within the pastoral woods, there now lurked potential violence, even death. 

This is an old story, perhaps the oldest. The woods have always frightened us. And that fear triggers two other elemental and primal fears:  fear of the dark,  and fear of the unknown. Put all three together and…what dark tales can unfold. From classics such as Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, to In the Woods and In a Dark, Dark Wood, we’ve told stories of the woods and our fear of it and the unknown. At times, we also seem to revel in that fear of what perils the woods may hold for us, whether it be another human, a beast, or a legendary ghoul of our collective imagination. We understand that no place, however beautiful, is safe.

In The Silent Girls I wrote:  
Violence lurked here as it did the world over... [Rath] had always wondered why people in rural areas, when interviewed after horrific violence, said, "This isn't supposed to happen here." As if violence had forgotten to keep itself within some prescribed geographic boundary.
This unpleasant truth, that acts of malevolence and violence can strike any of us, anywhere, at anytime, even in the most idyll settings, allows me to examine the nature of good and evil, of suspense and dread and tension, all of which are at the heart of crime novels, as well as  horror and Gothic novels.

I don’t go about the writing of my books with a genre in mind, I don’t even agree with the concept or definition of “genre.” Far too many wonderful books overlap. What I write are dark, gritty, realistic tales set in or near the woods, hopefully with original prose and twists, and with characters to whom readers can relate.


As a reader, I’ve always loved staying up late at night, immersed in novels that scare me and make me wonder what caused that creak on the stairs and if I left a window open. It harkens back to those nights I camped with friends in the woods of the Northeast Kingdom.
Of all the stories we could tell in the dark night of the woods, stories to calm our nerves out there in the dark woods, we chose
scary stories. We told and listened to ghost tales and gruesome horror stories around the campfire, our faces carved into macabre masks by the flames’ light and the night’s shadows, our spines stiffening at a crack of the branch.

We loved telling those tales. I still love telling them. How, as a writer, could I possibly resist writing about all of this rich terrain I adore and know so well?

HALLIE: Yikes. Just reading this in broad daylight had me spooked.  

I vividly remember ghost stories told around a campfire Anyone else know the one that ends,"Bring me back my bones!"

What's really scary is when a truly spooky tale feels as if it could happen, which are the kind of tales that Eric tells. 

Today we're sharing memories of tales told around a campfire, and what spooks us most.

30 comments:

  1. Eric, I’ve enjoyed your stories and agree with Hallie that creepy is a perfect description.
    I don’t remember telling eerie tales around a campfire, but those menacing fairy tale woods always felt quite sinister. Darkness is, to my mind, just as ominous . . . .

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    1. Dark woods can be terrifying; easy to get disoriented. And after dark? The only place to be is around a campfire with other people.

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    2. Thanks very much for reading, Joan. I recall telling spooky stories around the campfire, as well as in the basement of friends houses, and giving each other the creeps in general. Yes, the dark woods can be terrifying for sure.

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  2. Once, around a campfire in the mountains of Wyoming, a group of young Cheyenne kids asked for a ghost story. I told them the tale of my headless ancestor buried in a cave, whose ghost arose to frighten a couple working in their field on a night of full moon. Then, I asked them to share a story. And their ghosts were present-day apparitions, who came at night when kids were alone, who had to be appeased with gifts of tobacco and kept at bay with the burning of sage--those stories haunt me still.

    And no, I'm not going camping in the Kingdom of the East. Like Hallie, I can scare the pants off myself reading something scary in broad daylight. I'll read your latest, Eric, with one eye closed and the book held at arms' length....

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    1. Tobacco and burning sage... that is so evocative. Eric, do you use smells to create a creepy atmosphere?

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    2. Those are haunting stories. Those remote locales add to the entire atmosphere. The New England woods (and Catskills too) in general have lent themselves to frightening lore for millennia. From kitchen window I can see Glastenbury Mountain, a place that has a ghost town, and where many people have literally vanished over the decades.

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  3. I agree with you, Hallie! Just reading that post gave me the willies! Eric, do you start with a particular setting within the Kingdom, like a creepy cabin in the woods, or does the plot/crime come first?

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    1. Setting can be SO powerful used like this.

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    2. I usually start with an image the pesters me. With The Silent Girls it was someone hanging a carcass (human or animal I did not know... ha) and the image of a child in a monster mask on a dark porch of a rural house on Halloween. With Lie In Wait, it was the image of a girl who hears something or someone in the cellar of an old creamery where she's babysitting. The latest, WHAT REMAINS OF HER, was of the protagonist on the porch of a grain and feed, then up in a cabin. Never outline myself. I discover much as the reader does, often where readers are surprised most, so was I when I came upon a twist or reveal. Thanks!

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  4. Welcome Eric. Your books sound as if they should not be read when alone.

    In the night. In the dark.

    I can't recall such a feeling of isolation as when driving through the Kingdom of the East on our way home from Three Pines. Those mountains folded in on me, and I'm pretty sure I heard dueling banjos.

    Camping? Never. Didn't stop until I hit the New York border.

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    1. thanks Ann. Camping in those dark woods, which I have done entirely alone, is yet another fun adventure. So much of what scares us about the woods is in our minds and imaginations, though not all of it...

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  5. Stories around the fire at Y camp in the Poconos usually involved campers gone missing in the night and random body parts scattered in the woods. I remember the remnants of stone farmhouse foundations in the woods covered with poison ivy.

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    1. I love all this abandoned farms and houses, imagining who lived there, who were the first people to build the place, what their hopes were, what happened to them...

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  6. Eric, even your post here has a foreboding feeling about it. I will definitely look up your books!

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  7. Camping involves mosquitoes, so I have avoided it since I was a child. The woods, however, are a whole different story. I grew up surrounded by trees, out on the edge of town, and have always enjoyed exploring the wilder corners of my world. When I moved to Texas, I spent 25 years in a small house in the woods, miles from reliable cell phone coverage or high speed internet. I've walked my dogs in the woods at night, with rattlesnakes underfoot, and coyotes howling on the bluff. Piece of cake.

    But there was this one patch of redwood forest, somewhere northeast of Half Moon Bay out in California, that seriously creeped me out. My aunt and I happened through on a sight-seeing trip, and stopped at an old lodge for a bite to eat. History said the lodge was built on land sacred to the native tribe, and it had burned down at least twice, always taking a lot of wealthy white people with it. There had been murder there, as well, and by the time my aunt and I stopped for pie it had to be haunted two or three times over. It felt bad from the moment we stepped out of the car, and we didn't linger over coffee. Eeek!

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    1. Sounds like a good opening to a book. What kind of pie?

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    2. Mosquitoes (and gnats and deer flies) are the most horrifying of all, ha! It is strange how some woods can instill peace and a sense of tranquility and calm, and other tracts of woods a dark sense of lurking menace.

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  8. First of all, I love a good Gothic tale. They are my very favorite really. Comes from reading that type as a kid and never getting over it. I've been aware of your books, Eric, but haven't read one yet. And, yes, that is about to change. What is it about Vermont and that area that really sparks authors to write 'all the creepy'? I've read several in the last year with Vermont settings. I think that it's fascinating to me as a Texas person used to the wide open spaces. Woods are creepy and I love reading about them.

    As to campfires, etc - well, I'm not much of a camping person, but I do remember telling ghost stories at slumber parties. The one that got to me was the one about the babysitter who got the call and person on the other end said, 'have you checked the children?'. I babysat a lot and I think it scared me because it seemed like it could actually happen. Ha!

    Good luck with your new book, Eric! It's going on my list for sure.

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    1. thank you Kay! Yes, a good old Gothic tale just feels right, ha. I am a big horror movie buff, too. That movie, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, is terrifying!

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  9. I'm 100% behind the essentially creepy nature of, well, nature. Written properly, it can be character, setting, metaphor and theme all at once.

    As for campfire stories, I can't believe no one has mentioned, "...and there was a hook hanging from the door handle!"

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  10. Shalom Reds. I love sitting around a bon fire with a group of good friends. I love camping, though I don’t get to do it very often. I don’t generally watch “horror films” but I’ll read a good scary story. Forty years ago, I heard on the radio, a story called THE WILLOWS by Algernon Blackwood. I have a copy of this story in a book published by the Modern Library. The book is called FAMOUS GHOST STORIES and edited and introduced by Bennett Cerf. The book has the copyright of 1944 by Random House. The reader read the story in segments and at the breaks played some cello music by Bach played by Maurice Gendron. It was my first time to hear them. Those suites for solo cello remain my favorite piece of music to this day.

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    1. The Willows! I will have to seek out that one. I loved listening to spooky stories on the radio late at night. Or, now, podcast such as LORE.

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  11. I love creepy stories! I'm sure we told some at camp in the Piney Woods of east Texas eons ago, but the woods themselves aren't thick and dark enough for the appropriate creep factor. My parents sent me a book of ghost stories when I was there and I still remember two: They Bite and The Wendigo. Oh, my burning feet of fire! At my grandparents' ranch in Hamilton County, Texas we older kids stayed in the bunkhouse. No facilities unfortunately so it was a case of walk to the house or hold it. Out the back windows of the bedrooms you could see the tall grasses and the arms and branches of oak trees and mesquite. Wonderfully scary looking in the moonlight. My brother told me one night that a gorilla had escaped from the Fort Worth zoo and was seen in our area. I could just see that gorilla creeping in the moonlight, shadow to shadow. Curse older brothers.

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    1. They Bite is another I'll have to try to find. The Wendigo is a great tale!

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    2. Anthony Boucher is the author.

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  12. Eric, I love a good page turning, spine tingler of a tale. I am really looking forward to reading your books. I grew up in rural Connecticut, poking around abandoned barns so I am sure I will feel right at home in your stories. Thanks for visiting the Reds today.

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  13. Thank you, Jenn! Yes, rural Connecticut certainly has its Gothic places and settings!

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  14. I've always wanted to visit Vermont, but now I'm creeped out. lol. I'll be reading your stories from the safety of my house, not out in the woods.

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