Women in Horror Month: Part Six
Today we are joined by Catherine Jordan, author of Saving Samiel. Here she considers the darker side of Women’s horror fiction…
February is Women in Horror Month. For me, this means I have a great opportunity to learn about other authors as well as 
promote myself. It was learning about Mary Shelly and her long ago gathering that inspired me to challenge myself and write a scary novel. I had to sit and think about what scares me.
What came to mind were the bad-ass female characters that I admired, but feared, such as: Gillian Flynn’s Adora in Sharp Objects, Helen Oyeyemi’s Tilly Tilly in The Icarus Girl, Shirley Jackson’s Merricat in, We Have Always Lived In the Castle, Anne Rice’s Claudia in Interview with the Vampire, and Dauphine du Maurier’s Rebecca and Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca.
Most people don’t expect horror from a woman. We are not supposed to like violence or gore, or be overly aggressive. Women are usually the victim, the weaker sex, sensitive—the victim. Do women write horror because we are tired of these stereotypes, or because we seek to desensitize ourselves by reading and watching frightful stories?
We want to feel something in our pulse and up our leg, down our spine and through our hair. And no, I’m not talking about a man’s appendage. I’m talking about a good scare, something that will make me say, “No way!” or “Eww…” Horror novels give a rush of adrenaline and the thrill of adventure in a safe forum, because we know the characters and their circumstances aren’t real.
As a mother of five, I often get told I don’t look like a horror writer. That begs the question: What does a horror writer look like?
Gillian Flynn is a mom, and she’s attractive with her long, dark blond hair. She doesn’t look like the psycho-hose-beast-bitches that infiltrate her novels.
Helen Oyeyemi is young, pretty and sweet. She looks like someone who should be reading to young children, not writing about the myths and mysticisms that pervade her haunted characters.
Shirley Jackson looked like the mother and teacher she was with her glasses and pearls. I can’t imagine her conjuring children who practice sympathetic magic and who are capable of patricide and matricide, using something as innocuous as Arsenic-tainted berries at the dinner table.
Ann Rice wrote about vampires and witches, and her young, detached, blood thirsty Claudia throws fits worthy of a good spanking. But, I can’t imagine Anne Rice with her proper hair and soft eyes ever spanking a child, much less creating one vicious and cruel enough to deserve one.
The very proper and very English Dauphine du Maurier, with her innocent beauty reminds me of an English princess. I envision Dauphine sitting for tea and biscuits, not pounding out a novel about a treacherous woman who tormented her husband while her skull-faced housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers (whom I would argue was possessed by the dead Rebecca) stood loyally at her side.
Which brings me to my novel titled, Seeking Samiel, where a woman is the anti-Christ. The female antagonist, Eva, is the self proclaimed anti-Christ, the Lamia. She is based on the Lamia folklore and is half serpent, half female, demon and human. Men play a role in her life as surrogate chumps and wind up on her dinner table when she is finished with them. Burp.
Eva is seen by her victims as beautiful and powerful. She makes them want her for diabolical reasons and conceals her true identity and appearance. Here is an edited version of how Jeffrey, her soon-to-be-lover sees her:
Head and shoulders above the tallest man there, she moved with the grace and class that would elude any woman of such stature.
Wheat coloured hair gathered on Eva’s head in a loose knot. The gauzy white dress embraced her from chin to bare feet. She lowered her dress’s neck, sinking a slim finger deep into the collar, flashing her throat.
Her green irises swallowed up her pupils and whites as they bled together into a bright green pool. I tried to look away. She tilted her chin and her stare went through my insides, all the way down to my falling gut.
Now compare that to what she really looks like when seen by Nkumbi, a detective wanting to bring her in for murder and kidnapping, and other charges. He has pulled her over in her car:
The red-blotched neck of a woman sat high above Edward’s (her father and enabler). Scabbed hands shielded her face. Her fingers, grotesquely long with thick, pointed nails, stretched from her cheek all the way up to the top of her balding head. Sores ran through her scalp and he heard a hiss from behind her hand.
Eva is a horrible woman. I loved writing about her and fleshing out her character. As a horror writer, I don’t know how successful I am at scaring, but I know what I like to read—the subtle, unexpected creep. My favorite female authors and their female characters have given me that creepy sensation and have influenced my writing. I will continue to read them and ponder their flawed and fabulously evil characters.
With my long blond hair, petite build and perky attitude, I may not look like a dark minded, introspective horror writer. But when the kids all come home from school at once and curl their lips and cry like banshees because we’re out of potato chips, I can’t help but feel like one!
Catherine Jordan is a Pennsylvania author who enjoys writing in different genres. She strives to put down thought-provoking, consequential stories. Ms. Jordan lives in central PA and is a wife and mother of five children. Her debut horror novel, Seeking Samiel, is followed by a soon to be released sequel in the fall of 2014. Her work has been published by a variety of on-line publications and she has two short stories: The Green Eyed Monster, in an anthology, A Community of Writers, edited by Ann Elia Stewart, and The Supreme Race, in an anthology, Undead Living, edited by Thomas Malafarina.
Her books are available at www.sunburypress.com , www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com and through her website, http://www.catherinejordan.com
Like Catherine on http://www.facebook.com/CatherineJordanBooks
Follow on Twitter @CatherineBooks
I’m quite sure that all mothers, myself included, feel like that from time-to-time!
Join us tomorrow where we hear from Julianne Snow who talks about the gender differences of horror reading…same time, same place!
