Please welcome Somer (pronounced just like the season; I
asked) Canon, an exciting new voice in horror and fellow refugee Samhain
Publishing author.
SRW: What’s up, Somer? Thanks for darkening my doorstep.
SC: Thanks so much for having me, Stuart! I wiped my feet on the mat, I promise!
SRW: SO…Vicki Beautiful. Your first published novella. When
I read it, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into. Once I saw where
it was going, I dang near fell outta my chair. Tell everyone what they’re in
for.
SC: When I wrote
this, I printed out multiple copies and I wordlessly handed it to a couple of
friends and my mom. They all had this
really spectacular reaction and they said that it starts off looking like
something you’d see in a Woman’s Day magazine but then things go horribly,
horribly wrong. I love that, and it is
very accurate.
The story is about lifelong friends who are just getting
into their 40s, so they’ve got quite a bit of history and affection between
them. As life can tend to go, things go
wrong and one of the friends ends up dead and she leaves behind a set of last
wishes that are so bizarre and awful that the remaining friends have to decide
if they want to fulfill those last wishes.
They have to decide if they can even stomach the act.
SRW: Somer, I know you. You’re a very nice person. But where
in the world did this warped idea come from? Fever dream? Food poisoning?
SC: I’m a nice person?!? Stuart, you’re going to kill my
career with a slanderous declaration like that!
But really, thank you!
This book came from a dream.
It was a dream where I went to a fancy dinner party and I was there to
see a dear friend, a lovely woman with a distinctive beauty mark on her
cheek. I was sitting at this beautifully
adorned dinner table wondering about my friend when a waiter in a white jacket
placed a plate before me and on the plate was this pale, gelatinous piece of
meat with a very recognizable beauty mark.
That dream stayed with me for days and I eventually sat down and wrote
out a letter to fictional friends stating last wishes that might explain how a
crazy dinner party like in my dream might have come about.
SRW: I love how the book is played straight. Temptation
would’ve led me to write it as a dark comedy. But I think the fact you wrote it
seriously is why it’s more effective. Extremely confrontational horror. Nicely
done. Constantly, I found myself wondering what I’d do in such a surreal
experience. Um, Somer, have you been to some strange dinner parties?
SC: I’ve hosted some strange dinner parties, Stuart! Are you angling for an invitation?
SRW: Depends on
what’s on the dinner menu. Somer, you’ve expressed to me your trepidation about
Vicki Beautiful not being considered horror. Um, what else would it be? And if
you didn’t intend it as horror…WHAT were you thinking?
SC: There is almost no blood and gore to this book. The horror in this book is very cerebral and
understated, I think. I’m working from a
place where hindsight is telling me how wrong I was originally, but because of
the sort of light touch this book takes, I was convinced that it wasn’t good
enough for the horror genre. I originally
tried selling it as a thriller until an editor was nice
enough to tell me that I was very wrong.
SRW: In today’s
culture where advertising beauty is the standard that we’re being brainwashed
by, Vicki stands out as a rather ghastly banner for artificiality. Honestly, in
her quest for money-bought and surgeon-enhanced beauty, she’s quite an ugly
character. What are your thoughts on our superficial culture? Is the book a
statement against enhancements?
SC: Not at all. I’ve
known a Vicki or two in my life, and they were people who, despite that
preoccupation, managed to still be wonderful people. Yes, it made an ugly side to them in terms of
being judgmental towards others, but they were still PEOPLE. I think that if we’re talking about the
faults of our superficial culture, I tend to think it puts an awful lot of
pressure on those of us who, at best, are just average people. There’s a sort of nudge to look smooth and
poreless and polished that throws any sort of natural features out of the
equation. But I also think it’s
important for us lowly average people to remember that the people who buy into
that look are still people with personalities and inner-selves. Books and covers, you know.
SRW: I loved the
ending. A scene of Hitchcockian worthy suspense. We’ve discussed this before,
but do you see the ending as satisfying?
SC: I know there are going to be people who yell at me about
the ending. It’s not the original ending
that I had written, but I thought that ending it with a question, with a
truckload of anxiety attached to it, was so much better than throwing an
all-questions-answered ending in your face.
You decide if they do or if they don’t.
I think that’s better and much more satisfying leaving you groaning and
yelling at your e-reader than just telling you what happens.
SRW: Okay, now I’m curious. What was the original ending?
SC: He did it.
Sloppily and tearfully, juices going everywhere. He did it.
SRW: Alright, curiosity and appetite satiated. What’s coming out of Somer’s keyboard and mind now?
SC: I’m working on a
book about a woman with questionable morals.
She’s rumored to be a witch and her new neighbor finds that title too
cute by half and asks her about it. The
woman admits to being a witch and to doing something horrible in her past to
earn her hateful name. Yes, she did
something horrible but maybe, just maybe, it was justified.
SRW: There you have it folks! Go buy Somer’s
book, Vicki Beautiful now! Thank me or curse me out later. Just don’t eat
while reading it.
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