January, 2010Dave F. said...The Gentling Box is not what I expected.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Dave, what were you expecting?
Dave F. said...Maybe more paranormal and less horror. I know that doesn't sound logical but it's like you don't look at all like your voice sounded.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Dave, I'm not sure what you mean...
sylvia said...It was somehow not at all what I expected either. I somehow hadn't realised it was horror fantasy (is that a genre?)
Lisa_Mannetti said...I never thought of it as horror fantasy...more like literary horror, but that's an interesting take.
Robin S. said...I never thought about the genre of literary horror until recently, and I like it.
Evil Editor said...The best literary horror comes from small presses.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Yes, it's mostly small presses putting out literary horror.
Xiexie said...I agree with the horror fantasy moniker.
Robin S. said...To me, the best literary horror (and I do count some of Stephen King here) is introspective, at least in places. That's what I liked about yours as well. Lisa.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Thanks, Robin...I really despise books that are "popcorn" in any genre--getting inside the character is key for me--in films, too.
sylvia said...That was good in a way though, because I shared Imre's sense of disbelief.
Lisa_Mannetti said...I'm glad you identified with Imre.
sylvia said...I guess I expected something more typically classic - gypsies and Dracula and evil nearby. Evil within us thus caught me unawares. I was pulled in from the start, hoping with Imre that sanity would prevail.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Oh, no, never typical...that wouldn't be any fun for me or for readers!
Dave F. said...I usually pass any novel that I read on to my relatives, mostly my mother who's in her late 80's. I don't think she will read this one.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Yeah, might be rough--although my mother read it as a ms before it was published and she loved it.
Evil Editor said...Anyeta: among the most horrible characters of all time. Which I mean in a good way.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Anyeta was a boat load of fun to write!
Evil Editor said...Those who would want to be friends with Anyeta, raise your hand . . . the one you didn't cut off.
Xiexie said...*Raises hand* I found Anyeta delightfully evil. She was truly despicable and sad too though.
Judy said...I loved Anyeta, EE. Her characterization was subtle, nuanced, yet terrifying.
Evil Editor said...Anyeta was terrifying, true, but she was also great in the sack.
Lisa_Mannetti said...I loved Anyeta, too, Judy...she's so cunning and clever and so single-minded at the same time. Classic sociopath!
Dave F. said...It's a throwback to the lurid novels of Poe and that other guy... Florid in style and with a plot that has lots of ill-at-ease images. But that's what horror is, in a literary sense.
Lisa_Mannetti said...That's an interesting perspective, Dave. Though I'd amend it slightly and say literary horror can be very quiet, too--as in the Turn of the Screw or anything (practically) by Peter Straub or someone like Robert Dunbar.
Dave F. said...I can't read Peter Straub. I just don't have the patience. That being said, I think GHOST STORY is a great scary movie.
Evil Editor said...I kept thinking of the narrator as female for several chapters. It's a 1st person/female author thing. Got over it.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Yes, EE, I know what you mean! I really love writing from a male perspective--it's even easier to become the character most of the time...and if you're going to write about horrific stuff, slipping into a male p.o.v. is the least difficult thing...
sylvia said...I was somewhat concerned at the start when I saw that it was a male narrator written by a woman. But it was fine, from my point of view. (But then, I've noticed that I have a much greater tolerance for men written by women than women written by men. Funny that.)
Dave F. said...I noticed that too. Imre is not a manly man. He's quite different than that. And they seem to be drawn to disaster and ugliness. More than once I thought "Why don't they just leave Romania" but of course, that's the nature of tragedy -- the protagonist can't help but fall.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Yes, Dave...tragedy can't be adventitious--and story tellers are always backed up against the wall at some point plotwise--if the hero(s) do the logical thing, the story ends...LOL
sylvia said...It was darkly disturbing and the incest as a weapon was difficult to read.
Evil Editor said...You'd think Imre would tell Anyeta, hey, that's your daughter and your granddaughter. Pick on someone else.
Lisa_Mannetti said...EE, yes but if Anyeta picked on someone else, the stakes would be a lot lower for Imre...
sylvia said...I took it that Anyeta was simply evil. Her daughter (and granddaughter) were easy victims because she had access to them and a position of trust (the latter one stolen). Imre was a target because he was affected by what she did to her daughter. She didn't care about Mimi but she was certainly going to take advantage of anyone who did.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Exactly Sylvia...remind me to consult you as a preliminary reader for my next book!
Dave F. said...I had trouble with the hallucinations until I figured out what was happening and why and then every time I got the "huh?" feeling, I figured it was another vision/hallucination or dream. My understanding is that Imre now has the power of the "hand of death" as owner of the box and that Anyeta and Mimi died together.
sylvia said...And my silly question of the month is whether gentling boxes (for horses) existed in reality?
Dave F. said...I seriously hope no one ever did that to a horse. As much as I think they are big, smelly beasts, my brother just lost a magnificent stallion. It's death made me tear up.
Lisa_Mannetti said...S, I'm going to let you in a big secret: no, gentling boxes never existed--it's one of the great thrills in my life that readers (and I include even savvy ones like agents here) can't tell if it's real or not.
Dave F. said...a cheer from me!
sylvia said...I really wasn't sure.
Robin S. said...Well, it seemed like something that did exist, so kudos to you for that! I thought maybe it had been some Dark Ages torture device, for animals or humans.
Dave F. said...By the way, when I reached that chapter of Imre with his father and the horses, I knew that someone had to die that way. After that, I was along for the ride.
Evil Editor said...The gentling of people didn't involve an actual box, right? Is the copper box the gentling box of the title?
Lisa_Mannetti said...Well, not to confuse boxes, it is referential to the copper box, but the tools are carried in a special sort of kit which Imre knows (starting from his childhood) as a gentling box...
Robin S. said...What gave you the idea for your novel, Lisa? Were you always interested in horror?
Kathryn Magendie said...Lisa, I don't generally read this genre, but I could very much appreciate the beauty in the writing, the character development - you do have a gift!
What are you doing now?
Lisa_Mannetti said...Hey Kat! Thanks for coming by and thank you for the compliment!
Evil Editor said...Did Mimi cut off her arm and then the healing power of the hand was used, or was that a hallucination?
Lisa_Mannetti said...No, Mimi definitely cut her arm off, EE...
Evil Editor said...Did she have one arm the rest of the book?
Lisa_Mannetti said...No, EE, Mimi definitely has two arms--she uses the power when she claims the hand to heal herself.
Evil Editor said...Okay. I figured a missing arm would have led to several remarks, so I assumed she had two again.
sylvia said...Funny, I never doubted that she really cut her arm off. Thinking about it, it's because at that point, Imre was still looking for rational explanations for everything and we didn't yet know that he was seeing a vision for his old flame (I've forgotten her name, Zahara?). So I trusted his judgement that it was real, because he was so convinced it couldn't be happening.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Yes, Sylvia, that's correct.
Dave F. said...That two magic things were involved is almost a necessity. It gave the story complexity. Anyeta would always have been a witch and the box was the power that corrupts beyond all reason. The power to see the future. Wotan gave up an eye, ya know.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Well, I like complexity in stories and I like combining things...so that said we wind up here with the hand of the dead (which was actually a wiccan superstition for lighting one's way in a grave yard, though it was known among gypsies, too) and the gentling.
Dave F. said...The people who claimed the "hand of the dead" all had a scar on their forearms. It is the sign of the box.
Kathryn Magendie said...Does your work give you nightmares? or did the nightmares give you your work or none of above?
Lisa_Mannetti said...Kat, I think it works both ways, though when I dream about my work it's not usually a nightmare--it's more like a peak into the story. That said, I did have a scary gypsy dream after I finished wherein I was held down captive or something--I figured it was just revenge by a group that was going to be pissed off at me...LOL
Dave F. said...I had very little reference to the countryside they lived in. After a chapter or so, I just gave up and envisioned it as the Bram Stoker Transylvanian visions and let it go at that. In the end, I didn't need anything more than that.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Dave, I've visited a lot of places, but never been to Romania or Hungary beyond a few seaport towns...research was my key...I love doing it anyhow.
Dave F. said...It is convincingly gypsy. You did a good job with that part of the story.
sylvia said...How did you end up writing about gypsies rather than random witches or fairies or beings from another planet?
Robin S. said...True- gypsies are an interesting departure from the norm.
Lisa_Mannetti said...I did tons of research on the language, etc...the only other thing really fudged is the caravan, which is probably a little larger than it would be in reality.
sylvia said...The caravans actually morphed into shacks in my mind and then I had to give myself a mental shake when it became important that they were caravans again.
It came across that Anyeta was always evil - I suppose because Imre from the start wanted to stay away. But only at the end did I think that she embodied the evil having taken the hand, it wasn't really her. On the other hand, she gave up her secrets, allowing Mimi and the rest to be trapped. Mimi never did the same although she was under the same thrall.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Always had a thing for gypsies, Syl..for one thing, there were all those old Lon Chaney movies with Maria Ouspenskya (sp?) and for another, my mother sort of scared me by telling me not to go to a certain street and a certain house because gypsies lived there...to this day, it never dawned on me before that 'gypsies' might have been a euphemism for something else...LOL...but I do remember whenever we chanced to drive past the house, there were ragged curtains and it always scared me. At the same time, I think my mother (and by extension, me) liked gypsies--she dressed me up as one for Halloween about 3 years running! (I hardly every outgrew clothes, I'm still only 5 feet tall)
Evil Editor said...You're probably not the shortest person here.
Robin S. said...I measure in at 5'0 myself, Lisa. We're small but mighty. Sylvia is tiny, too.
sylvia said...(I usually claim I'm 5'0 but as I've stood next to Robin, I suppose I have to admit that I'm a quarter inch under. *sigh*)
Xiexie said...Also, all these 5' ppls, you'll make me feel like a giant. I'm 6'2"ish.
Lisa_Mannetti said...X, tall people are big in my book...*(what a wretched pun) LOL
Evil Editor said...What would have had to happen for Anyeta to move out of Mimi and into Lenore?
sylvia said...Lenore would have had to take the hand (i.e. cut hers off and claim the power)
Dave F. said...No, Sylvia, Imre did that. He took the power of the hand. Mimi had to die for Anyeta to move out of her body. Somehow, the gentling device prevents that. At the end, Imre has all the power and it might corrupt him, might not. Anyeta was a true witch capable of possessing others.
sylvia said...Right but for Anyeta to take Lenore, Lenore would have had to take the hand as well, no?
Dave F. said...But I got the impression that Mimi wasn't strong enough to hold off Anyeta for too long. Eventually the old witch would subsume or (whatever) her mind and then Lenore would be vulnerable.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Yes, Dave...Lenore recognizes that she won't be able to fend off Anyeta and that Lenore (certainly one of the most trusting characters in the book) will definitely jump on the copper box bandwagon!
Evil Editor said...If they had thrown the copper box into Mt. Doom, would that have made Lenore safe? Of course that would have taken immense will power.
Lisa_Mannetti said...I'm not sure EE...somehow I don't think they could throw it away...it's partly compulsion (even without the lure of the hand itself and its mind-bending games, partly like being a murder who wants to keep the evidence--but also hide it (sometimes from fear that they will lose control over the evidence, sometimes from wanting reminders and trophies) and partly being drawn to the hand's powers...Anyeta, of course, was very creative in that department...but I'm not sure it can be thrown away...unless it's passed on, the person who claims it has all that eternity to face..and that's a hell of a long time....LOL
sylvia said...You'd have to cut off the arm that was holding the box so everything fell in at once.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Mimi is trying to avoid eternal torment--lying awake and aware forever--that's for sure...and to do everything to keep herself (and Imre) away from Lenore...I personally don't think Imre will be corrupted (though it might make a great sequel)....
Judy said...Sequel! Will there be one?
Lisa_Mannetti said...Judy,I hadn't really considered it, but Dave sort of gave me a great idea...so, you never know!
Dave F. said...What's the idea if you wish to share?
Lisa_Mannetti said...Imre as corrupted by the hand of the dead...who knows, might get a nifty little novella out of it, would need more ideas for a whole book.
Evil Editor said...Dave will give you more ideas. He's got a million of 'em.
Dave F. said...A Prospero on an island with his good and bad angels. A King Lear who lost it all (ala Kurasawa's RAN). He is currently Othello (in a sense). Possibly a MacBeth. That power to see the future through the eyes of the dead is quite possibly unresistible.
Evil Editor said...See?
Robin S. said...Ha!
Kathryn Magendie said...Just a comment: this is a wonderful idea! :-) Have never been to a chat like this before!
Evil Editor said...We'll expect you to become a regular now, Kat. There's a link to the schedule in the sidebar.
Kathryn Magendie said...Thank you EE- I am going to look for that schedule!
sylvia said...(I love these book chats. I've started describing them to people when they question the benefits of "wasting time online")
Robin S. said...(I love 'em too, Sylvia. I think I'm addicted to 'em. EE, don't go anywhere, please.)
Lisa_Mannetti said...Yes, Sylvia, I love writers book chats, too...try writers chat room if you haven't already...
Evil Editor said...Do you now have an agent? Will you submit your next novel to DarkHart?
Lisa_Mannetti said...No agent now; they are all waiting to jump on the next book, EE...so must get it done! Probably won't submit to DarkHart--I'd like to try for a larger venue if I can.
sylvia said...Isn't pretty rare these days to go straight to a publisher without an agent? Can you talk about how that came about? It certainly has worked out well!
Lisa_Mannetti said...Small press is your answer to the "I don't have an agent" syndrome...anyhow, most agents don't even want to deal with small presses (not enough money). I did have an agent (a couple in fact) who was very well known. The first one, told me to junk the book. The second one sent it around to the New York houses--lots of editors loved it, but felt it wasn't going to go anywhere because (perennial excuse) the market was crappy....I sometimes wonder if either agent or any of the editors know it won the Stoker...talk about vindication--whew!
sylvia said...I bet you feel vindicated! Did the small press do the marketing or did you or a combination?
Lisa_Mannetti said...I did about 90% of the marketing, Sylvia...which brings me back to a sudden recall that it made it through the editorial round at one of the big houses, but the marketing people gave it the chop. LOL I forget which publisher it was, though.
sylvia said...I suspect the marketing issue is the incest conflict, it's such a hot-button subject.
Robin S. said...Wow, Lisa. That Marketing Dept. story is crummy. But you ended up fine, so there!
Judy said...What are you working on now?
Evil Editor said...According to the about the author page, she's working on The Everest Hauntings, which I assume is about an abominable snowman.
Lisa_Mannetti said...Judy, the next book is tentatively titled THE EVEREST HAUNTINGS but no abominable snowmen (that thought never crossed my mind). It's about a hypnotherapist who (is afraid of heights, btw) who plans to be the first person to climb Everest using self-hypnosis. Her goal is to come back and get on the very lucrative lecture circuit..
Evil Editor said...I'm planning to be the first person to blog from the top of Everest. Just waiting till I have an Ipad.
Kathryn Magendie said...I will tell you all that Lisa is such a cool woman- met her at the Pen to Press Writer's Conference in New Orleans - she's full of energy and ideas and talent and is just a really nice person, to boot.
Dave F. said...How do you write? anytime you can get? Mornings? away form everything? In the middle of everything?
Lisa_Mannetti said...Thank you, Kat! Dave, when I'm on track (having been thrown from same recently due to a bunch of kidney stone attacks and nasty, unpleasant surgeries) I write every day. My day job is in the evenings, (usually) I read tarot cards professionally...I was teaching at Mount Saint Mary and also at SUNY New Paltz, but gave it up when I had to care for my mother...also there was no time to write while teaching--not with 300 papers to grade every semester!
Judy said...What do you feel is the difference between "literary horror" and "commercial horror"?
Lisa_Mannetti said...For me the difference is more a degree of quality...I forget who said it here, but I'd certainly count Stephen King as literary--and no one can argue with his financial mega-success. I tend to think of "commercial" fiction (in any genre) as stuff that's cobbled together for no other purpose but to make money...the books and stories are shallow--there aren't going to be reverberations or echoes--interestingly, there's a lot of true crime that's written as well as what I'd call literary fiction...starting with Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD, of course.
Evil Editor said...I think Lisa's been more than generous with her time. We should let her go.
Lisa_Mannetti said...I would like to let you all know that in just a few weeks, my macabre gag book, 51 Fiendish Ways to Leave your Lover will be out from Bad Moon Books. Glenn Chadbourne did the illustrations!
Evil Editor said...Tell us one of the 51.
sylvia said...Yeah, what's a random one of the 51 sounds like a good last question :)
Lisa_Mannetti said...Buy her (your soon to be ex-lover) a cemetery plot as her big gift for Valentine's Day...
or
Use his beloved retriever as a living voodoo dog...
You get the idea...
Judy said...LOL!
Lisa_Mannetti said...Glenn's illos really make it pop...for anyone who doesn't know his work, check Doug Cleggt's ISIS and Stephen King's SECRETARY OF DREAMS, for starters...
Evil Editor said...It sounds like a perfect Valentine's Day gift.
Lisa_Mannetti said...I'm hoping BAD MOON gets it out in time for Valentine's Day... they should...it's very close to done--nothing left but the back cover. (Which may be done, for all I know, even as we speak). I don't have the ISBN memorized, but it should show up fairly soon on the Bad Moon Books site and of course Amazon, etc...
sylvia said...I'll definitely keep an eye out for it!
Lisa_Mannetti said...Well, thank you all and happy reading, happy writing!!
