Why Gothic? Conversations With Lisa Greer Part 1

I met Lisa Greer in the early fall of 2010 when I was surfing the internet and landed on her Gothicked blogspot. One of the first things I liked about Lisa’s reviews was that, while she clearly had a love for the vintage Gothic Romance novels that were all the rage in the 1960s and 70s, she didn’t take them or her reviews too seriously. I’ve read numerous blogs and message board posts where readers of these books raved without restraint. Not so with Lisa. When a book disappointed, she wasn’t afraid to say so. She also wasn’t afraid to venture into other forms of Gothic fiction, namely Southern Gothic and Gothic Horror. When we realized that we were both writers finishing the first drafts of our first novels, and that we were working on opposite ends of the Gothic spectrum, the friendship was sealed.

I have a clear recollection of seeing my first Gothic Romance paperback novel. I was eight or nine years old which would be about 1968, and a guest in a large, classic Victorian house. On the book shelf in my room I found a paperback with a picture of a dark mansion with an orange light in a solitary window like some ogre’s watching eye, with a frightened woman fleeing from the house, most likely peering back over her shoulder in fear. I just knew the house harbored terrible secrets and something bad would happen to this poor young woman if she could not escape. Lisa, how did you first discover Gothic Romance and was it in a way that you knew you had stumbled on something truly special in your life?

Barrymore, this is really great. We've talked so much about Gothic Romance and the Gothic genre over the last year. It's a pleasure to do it now. I feel a special kinship with you because of our love of the genre, one that is overlooked in my opinion.

I guess my first inklings of gothic romance happened with Nancy Drew books. Many of them have Gothic overtones, for sure, and the covers qualify as gothic romance in some cases. 

I remember reading my first Barbara Michaels gothic romance in early adolescence. I loved how smart these novels were. Around that time, I also came across Wuthering Heights for the first time. That novel still fascinates me with its mixture of the macabre, desire, and obsession. I'll never forget learning the word solipsism with regard to the novel as well. I was hooked on the Gothic genre from then on, and my love expanded beyond Gothic Romance as I got older. Gothic romance, though, is my first love.

In 1970 I saw a made for TV movie starring Barbara Stanwyck called The House That Would Not Die, probably my first exposure to a ghost story for grownups. I caught the "based on the novel, Ammie, Come Home by Barbara Michaels" line and the next day made a beeline for the library down the street.  I agree that it's not a large leap from Nancy Drew mysteries to the types of mysteries that we discovered between the covers of these thin paperbacks with their deliciously spooky covers. Ammie, Come Home is now considered a classic ghost story, and no small wonder that it has never gone out of print since first published in 1968. Do you remember which Barbara Michaels title was the first that you read? What elements of her writing kept you coming back for more, and more importantly, have stayed with you over the years and ultimately influenced your own writing?

I think Wait for What Will Come was one of the first that I read, and I loved the merman legend and the hero/dancer in it, as well as the spooky ending. The elements of her writing that kept me coming back for more were and still are her sharp wit and willingness to take on religious and social. To me, she does so much more than write a great ghost story. She writes about the real world and how the injustices that are perpetuated lead to disturbances we don't always understand. In my own writing, I try to do something similar. I want to write about things that matter, at least to some extent, even as my books work as entertainment. I tend toward controversial themes, at least for some subsets of my readership. Just like Michaels tackled racism in Patriot's Dream, I tried to do that in an open way in Magnolian. I guess it worked. I've had folks tell me they wanted so and so to read it but were worried about her reaction to the mixed race relationship. I think that by making my characters sympathetic, it opens minds. I've had people who I thought would really dislike the novel say they enjoyed it, so I hope it does, anyway.

How about you, Barrymore? Which authors in the Gothic genre most influence your work, and why? How does that influence manifest in your novels?

I’d have to say the early novels of Victoria Holt, especially in my second book, The Haunting at Blackwood Hall, although reading them as an adult I’ve come to think that they are more romantic mysteries than Gothic Romances. Holt doesn’t seem too concerned with creating atmosphere in her works, and atmosphere is a huge deal for me. I think the Gothic template in general has stuck with me for the past forty years. My first two novels begin with this template: due to circumstances beyond her control, an innocent woman is forced to enter a sinister house which triggers a descent into her subconscious where she encounters various dark and light aspects of herself in the form of other characters, and no one is ever quite who they seem. The climax is usually some sort of face-off with the Wicked Father (and in the case of your first two books and many other Gothic Romances, the Wicked Mother). It’s not much different than The Hero’s Journey as outlined by Joseph Campbell and explored over and over in our more popular hero myths from Arthurian legends to Star Wars. I think a primary difference between Gothic and Fantasy Adventure is that the Gothic mindset is highly introverted. The action is more cerebral than physical.

Beyond that, my stories are chock full of any number of paranormal shenanigans from séances and ghosts to Ouija boards and Tarot cards. Again, going back to my childhood in the late 1960s, Astrology and the Occult were all the rage. It was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius after all. I grew up in a Christian household where these types of things were highly taboo, so of course that made them all the more appealing. As I grew into my teen years I moved from reading Gothic Romance to Gothic Horror, Rosemary’s Baby, The Mephisto Waltz, Burnt Offerings, The Other, all of which heavily influenced my first book, Night of the Pentagram.

In future installments, Lisa and I will continue our exploration of why we are entrenched in this business of writing Gothic fiction. We will continue to examine the archetypes as they appear in Gothic tales, with a juicy discussion on the use of taboo, along with plenty of shameless self-promotion and, you guessed it, more adoration of Barbara Michaels.

Lisa Greer is almost single-handedly reviving the Gothic Romance one book at a time. February saw the release of her third full length novel, She Walks the Shore, as well as the first chapter in a new Gothic Romance serial entitled Menace atMistwood (with an awesome cover by the multi-talented Barrymore Tebbs.)

An Appreciation of Barbara Michaels Part II – Prince of Darkness

“Black Masses, pacts with the devil,” proclaims the hero in Prince of Darkness, Barbara Michaels’ second foray into the occult, “that’s the thing nowadays.”

And how right he was. First published in 1969, Prince of Darkness came out as America’s love affair with the Occult reached its zenith, fueled in part by the runaway success of Ira Levin’s novel and Roman Polanski’s brilliant film adaptation of Rosemary’s Baby, as well as a burgeoning use of Tarot cards and renewed interest in Astrology, and ultimately, dabbling in magic, both white and black.

I admit I have a weakness for these kind of books, what I call quasi-satanic hooey, for as much as Michaels tries to lend authenticity to her tale of witchcraft in the idyllic countryside surrounding suburban Washington D.C. by name dropping Margaret Murray’s pioneering witch-cult theory, she still manages to confuse black magic with white. For someone with my tastes, it makes the cheese factor all the more delectable. Thanks to Michaels' consummate storytelling skills, Prince of Darkness never veers into the downright silliness of something like Fred Mustard Stewarts’s The Mephisto Waltz or Peter Lorraine’s nearly incomprehensible plot of Day of the Arrow.

I’d be curious to learn if Michaels one and only novel of contemporary witchcraft was her own idea or the suggestion of an agent who, like everyone else in the entertainment industry, saw dollar signs when the devil reared his horned head.

As in Ammie, Come Home, Michaels once again attempts to subvert the Gothic Romance genre, this time making the shady male lead into the vulnerable hero. Part of my perennial fascination with Prince of Darkness is its deliberately oblique plot. The opening prologue reads like a set-up for a low key spy novel, and then more than half the book follows our hero’s antics as he stages some elaborate apparitions and hauntings in an attempt to drive the already fragile minded heroine further insane. What our hero doesn’t count on is his efforts being trumped every step of the way by any number of nefarious characters ambling about quaint Middleburg, Maryland. He also doesn’t count on falling in love with the heroine herself (especially as he has already been panting like a dog in heat after the heroine’s little honey of a niece.) But male readers shouldn’t be put off by this mild romantic diversion. As in many of Barbara Michaels’ books the romance takes a back seat to the suspense, the ghosts, the chills and thrills, and in this case, the unmasking of a certain character during the book’s climax which finally makes sense of the novel’s overly long set up.

Prince of Darkness is not regarded as a favorite even among the most die-hard Barbara Michaels fans, but it manages to be, like so many other fictional forays into the occult during the final days of the 1960s prior to William Peter Blatty unleashing The Exorcist on an unsuspecting world, a fascinating time capsule of a specific time and attitude in America.

Harry Bennett's voyeuristic cover for the 1970 Fawcett Crest paperback edition.

Stalling For Time

Part of my collection of vintage Gothic Romance paperbacks displayed in a vintage paperback book rack.

An Appreciation of Barbara Michaels Part I: Ammie, Come Home

After finishing my first novel (a lurid, over-the-top occult potboiler) I decided I wanted to try my hand at a more traditional Gothic romance, so I spent a few months rereading a number of old paperbacks from my collection. Of course, I had to start with Barbara Michaels. I had reread her first two books, Master of Black Tower and Sons of the Wolf, about a year before, so I picked up Ammie, Come Home, and was reminded once again what an underrated gem of a ghost story this little book is.

First published in 1968, a full two years before William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist made this type of old fashioned ghost story all but obsolete, Michaels’ tale of avenging ghosts and spiritual possession pushed the envelope for the Gothic romances of the era. The bona fide supernatural was not a popular theme among Gothic romance purists, and despite her continued popularity forty-odd years later (Michaels’ back catalog has never gone out of print), readers of old school Gothics still have difficulty embracing Michaels as the premier American Gothic novelist of her day. Ammie, Come Home was to be the first in Michaels’ unofficial occult trilogy.

Beginning with Ammie, Come Home and continuing throughout the rest of her career under the name Barbara Michaels (she is better known as Elizabeth Peters of the best-selling Amelia Peabody mystery series), Michaels makes a concentrated effort to subvert and expand the conventions of the Gothic romance genre which was enjoying it’s heyday in the late 60s and early 70s. Here, the protagonist is a middle aged, widowed aunt, and the romantic lead an irascible red-headed anthropology professor in his early fifties, but the romance takes a back seat to the ghostly manifestations.

 Original 1968 hardcover edition by Meredith Press, jacket illustration by Charles Geer

Our heroine, forty-something Ruth Bennett, takes a casual romantic interest in her niece Sara’s anthropology professor, Pat McDougal, and soon Ruth has scheduled a séance in her historic Georgetown home after meeting a famous society medium at a fancy soiree. First mistake. Before you know it, niece Sara is speaking in an otherworldly voice and violently attacking her aunt with no recollection of her actions in the morning. Said anthropology professor plays the devil’s advocate throughout, eager to cart Sara off to an asylum to have her checked out for multiple personality disorder. But Sara’s boyfriend, Bruce, and Aunt (and of course, we readers) know better. It seems Ruth’s home was the scene of a Civil War era domestic drama, and not only Sara, but Bruce, Pat, and Ruth are all players in the necessary reenactment of the crime and its vengeance.

No one will ever mistake Barbara Michaels’ books for being high brow Gothic literature of the Shirley Jackson variety, but Michaels has clearly done her research, managing to tell a rollicking tale of the supernatural judiciously sprinkled with arguments, both pro and con, to support the theory of ghosts and possession.

Whether you have or have not experienced Ammie, Come Home for yourself, late autumn is prime time to snuggle up on the couch with a classic late 60s ghost story while the November winds rattle the windows and icy tendrils snake their way across the floor. And if you listen carefully, you just might hear a voice calling to Ammie in the lonely darkness outside your window. ”Ammie…come home!”

Harry Bennett cover for the 1969 Fawcett Crest paperback edition