The dark and the twisted

A while back, I promised to write about some of my favorite books. Virtually all of them are dark and twisted. And because today is Halloween, I thought I'd give you a glimpse into some of the darkest and twistiest. Note: These are all adult novels, so consider yourself warned.

Why I love it: When the LA Times said this about MARA DYER, I almost fainted. Because I love Carrie very much--so much there's even a reference to it on p. 194 the book. I love everything by Stephen King, so playing favorites with his novels is nearly impossible, but I can say that there is something particularly appealing--and disturbing--about Carrie to me. I first read the book when I was in high school; maybe that's part of why it resonated so fiercely. In King's introduction to the book, he discusses the two real teenage girls who helped inspire Carrie White, and of them he says: "...[T]here was something else, as well. Something that broadcast STRANGE! NOT LIKE US! KEEP AWAY! on a wavelength only other kids can pick up. It is like a pirate radio station of the heart. I can no longer pick up on that wavelength, but I can remember it very well."

The excerpt:

"News item from the Westover (Me.) weekly Enterprise, August 19, 1966:

RAIN OF STONES REPORTED

It was reliably reported by several persons that a rain of stones fell from a clear blue sky on Carlin Street in the town of Chamberlain on August 17th. The stones fell principally on the home of Mrs. Margaret White, damaging the roof extensively and ruining two gutters and a downspout valued at approximately $25. Mrs. White, a widow, lives with her three-year-old daughter, Carietta.

Mrs. White could not be reached for comment.

(Now that's a first paragraph).

Next up:

Why I love it: The novel begins like a romantic drama, and then gut-punches you with WTFery. To say the book is extremely disturbing is an understatement, but the build-up is so masterfully subtle that you don't realize you've been holding your breath until it's all over.

The excerpt: 

"Aoyama's palms were moist with perspiration. He was surreptitiously wiping them on his trousers when something very strange occurred. A young man in a wheelchair had entered the cafe, accompanied by an older woman who was probably his mother. They were laughing about something. Still smiling, the youth turned his head slightly, and his eyes widened as they locked on Yamasaki Asami. The smile froze, the blood drained from his face, and he made as if to rise up from his wheelchair. Seeing his distress, the woman leaned over and asked him, presumably, what was wrong, but he merely shook his head. Averting his gaze and hunching his shoulders as if cowering, he wheeled himself on toward the far end of the room. There was no change whatsoever in Yamasaki Asami's expression as she watched this peculiar little scene play out."
Bonus: Gender role subversion. Saying anything more will spoil it for you.

(Note: this one is very, VERY adult--by YA standards, I would say there's graphic sex and violence. By adult standards, I'd call it...intense).

Why I love it: I've been fascinated by plagues for a long time (I am weird. This should not be news) and in this lyrical and gripping novel, a government experiment gone wrong unleashes a plague of vampirism. The 786 page book is so taut that I finished it within a day. I think THE TWELVE (the sequel) is my most eagerly anticipated novel of 2012.

The excerpt:

“Something was wrong with Subject Zero.

For six days straight he hadn’t come out of the corner, not even to feed. He just kind of hung there, like some kind of giant insect. Grey could see him on the infrared, a glowing blob in the shadows. From time to time, he’d change positions, a few feet to the left or right, but that was it, and Grey had never seen him actually do this. Grey would just lift his face from the monitor, or leave the containment to get a cup of coffee or sneak a smoke in the break room, and by the time he looked again, he’d find Zero hanging someplace else.”

Why I love it: See e.g the previous fascination with plagues? It all started with a 1995 Newsweek article about Ebola. Then I ran out and bought this book made my mom drive me to B&N so I could buy this book, and an obsession was born.

The excerpt:

"The seats are narrow and jammed together on these commuter airplanes, and you notice everything that is happening inside the cabin. The cabin is tightly closed, and the air recirculates. If there are any smells in the air, you perceive them. You would not have been able to ignore the man who was getting sick. He hunches over in his seat. There is something wrong with him, but you can't tell exactly what is happening.

He is holding an airsickness bag over his mouth. He coughs a deep cough and regurgitates something into the bag. The bag swells up. Perhaps he glances around, and then you see that his lips are smeared with something slippery and red, mixed with black specks, as if he has been chewing coffee grounds. His eyes are the color of rubies, and his face is an expressionless mass of bruises. The red spots, which a few days before had started out as starlike speckles, have expanded and merged into huge, spontaneous purple shadows: his whole head is turning black-and-blue. The muscles of his face droop. The connective tissue in his face is dissolving, and his face appears to hang from the underlying bone, as if the face is detaching itself from the skull. He opens his mouth and gasps into the bag, and the vomiting goes on endlessly. It will not stop, and he keeps bringing up liquid, long after his stomach should have been empty. The airsickness bag fills up to the brim with a substance known as the vomito negro, or the black vomit. The black vomit is not really black; it is a speckled liquid of two colors, black and red, a stew of tarry granules mixed with fresh red arterial blood. It is hemorrhage, and it smells like a slaughterhouse. The black vomit is loaded with virus. It is highly infective, lethally hot, a liquid that would scare the daylights out of a military biohazard specialist. The smell of the vomito negro fills the passenger cabin. The airsickness bag is brimming with black vomit, so Monet closes the bag and rolls up the top. The bag is bulging and softening, threatening to leak, and he hands it to a flight attendant."

(Note: That is from page fourteen. This book has the most intense first chapter ever.)

Bonus: This is non-fiction, and that makes it the most terrifying thing I've ever read.

So there you have it--some of my most favorite frightening reads. In the YA realm, I recommend:

ASHES by Ilsa Bick (which I discuss here)
CRYER'S CROSS by Lisa McMann
I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER by Dan Wells

What are some of your favorites? Are you going trick or treating tonight? Are you bringing Timmy?

You have questions?

 
So. By now, you might have heard the news: MARA DYER is out there. And PEOPLE I DON'T KNOW are reading it!

 

Those are fainting goats and that is Darth Vader, yes.

What you may or may not have heard is that many people have questions. Like: was Chapter 50 real? Is Jamie right about Noah, or is Mara? Did the thing that happened at the end really happen?! And most critically, WHAT IS UP WITH THE ALLIGATORS???? What is the most dangerous spider in the world? Whatever happened to that kid from Jerry Maguire? And what is the answer to life, the universe and everything?

NEVER FEAR! Because next Tuesday night, on 11/1/11, I'll be answering your questions in a VERY special, I'm-only-doing-this-once-and-there-will-be-no-transcript livechat, with the extraordinary Lori from Pure Imagination and Casey from The Bookish Type! Also! I won't be spoiling the sequel, but this chat WILL be filled with spoilers from the first book, so, be forewarned. And stuff. 

There you have it. Next Tuesday. 8PM EST. Bring your unanswered questions and your theories and BE THERE or BE a rhombus but not slanty.


The black widow; he is still acting in indie films; 42

I'm just happy to be here

It's been four weeks since THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER appeared in bookstores everywhere. And in those weeks, I've traveled to seven cities, celebrated five Jewish holidays, saw the names of characters I made up for a book I wrote appear in the LA Times, learned that MARA DYER was nominated as for YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults list, met hundreds of new friends and one very handsome pug.

It has been a whirlwind, clearly. And much of that amazing, awesome whirlwind has been happening behind the scenes--for all of the above and for things I can't talk about yet. All told, since August 25th, I've spent a total of 8 days at home, and though I've missed it (and my beasts) like crazy (CRAZY), I have loved every second I've spent traveling for #maradyer. I wanted to soak up every minute of the tour. I wanted to see everything and eat everything and spend hours talking to each person I met and write something wholly original and perfectly clever in each book each wonderful, lovely person bought. I've also wanted to share every second of it with you, in person, on Twitter, on the blog, via email--everywhere. I've wanted to shout about every good thing that happens from the top of my lungs because it hit me at one point, I think while I was on a very, very long car ride after a very long plane ride to get to one of the events wearing wrinkled clothes and having no time to eat anything but airport food I'd bought that morning that I am so f*cking lucky.

Did this stuff land in my lap? No. Did I work hard? Yes. Very. But hard work does not guarantee an agent and an agent does not guarantee a book deal and a book deal does not guarantee such wonderful reviews and such wonderful reviews do not guarantee a book tour and--you see where this is going. My life is utterly unrecognizable from what it was on October 25, 2008. If anyone told me then that less than seven months later, I would begin writing a book I would have laughed and bet high against it. If anyone told me then that a year later, agents I met at a writer's conference would ask for it even though it wasn't finished, I would have asked: "What is a writer's conference?" If anyone told me that two years later, my book would sell to Simon & Schuster at auction to an editor who loved it so much she fought tooth and nail to get it and would be given a cover that would take the internet by storm, I would have asked whether a) you were high or b) you were insane. As of three years ago, not only had I never thought of the characters Mara Dyer and Noah Shaw but I'd never entertained the idea of writing a novel. And here I am now, writing this after returning from a book tour. A book tour.

I know better now than to ever say never again.

We only get one life, and every single one of you have changed mine for the better.

Maggie

I met Maggie in June of 2001, when I was 19 years old, on summer break before my junior year of college. I was visiting volunteering at a local kill shelter in Ann Arbor, MI, and one day, we got a call to prepare 5-6 kennels for a cruelty case- the wife called in, said her husband beat her dog bloody, and they had "five or six" dogs. The alarm bells went off, but when the police and cruelty investigators went to seize the animals, they did not expect what they found.

There were 42 animals in the home. Every surface was covered in feces and urine, including the beds of his three children. Two of his dogs were locked inside one of the cars in the garage and living there. Still others were locked up in closets, and living there too. Every nook and cranny revealed more animals; dogs, cats, birds, and even two guinea pigs and a rabbit. Maggie was found in a tiny crate she couldn't even turn around in, covered in her own filth, on top of his television, with scars on her feet from trying to escape. She was ten pounds underweight (and therefore in better shape than virtually all of his other dogs, some of which were so starved they were drinking their own blood and urine).

Her report said she was incredibly fearful, and timid, and she was likely a fear biter (proven to be not true!). All dogs had to be held by the humane society for six months, because no one could track the defendant down, so technically, the animals were still his pending a judgment. 

Maggie did not do well in the shelter. She pressed her head against the wall, in a corner, and wouldn't even respond if you clapped near her ear. She was so, so sad that I took her home to foster her, just for the summer because I was returning to NYC in the fall and would be living in the dorm. Before school began, bringing her back to the shelter was the saddest day of my life.

After the trial, the shelter won custody but they didn't adopt out pit bulls at the time--many shelters still don't. But luckily, a pit bull rescue got word that there were a number of sweethearts that survived extreme cruelty and neglect and took as many as they could from the case. Maggie was put up for adoption. But no one wanted her.

She had epilepsy. She was neurotic. She couldn't be crated, wouldn't go to the bathroom on a lead and couldn't be on a tie-out or she would scream. I was dealing with school and exams and life and I didn't know any of this, but I was desperate for a dog--I missed my childhood dog and started planning to move to an apartment for my senior year so that I could adopt a dog of my own.


I finished my junior year. I signed the lease on an apartment, a 400 sq. ft. studio on the 2nd floor of a walk-up on the Upper East Side across the street from one park and about three quarters of a mile from a dog park. I started browsing Petfinder and realized the dogs I was looking for were all smallish pit bulls. I remembered Maggie, and wondered how she was doing, and if by some miracle, she might still be available. So I called the rescue and asked, but she wasn't. She'd been adopted out just two weeks ago. I was happy for her but sad for me. I resumed my search, but halfheartedly.

And then I got the call. The call that said Maggie had been returned because her epilepsy was just too much for the family to handle, and was I still interested?

Hell yes I was.

She moved in with me in August 2002. Maggie and I had an amazing year.  I didn't realize that she wouldn't go to the bathroom on a leash but thanks to the parks, we made it work. I also didn't realize that Maggie was petrified of NYC buses and wouldn't walk on the streets of NYC so I'd have to bribe cab drivers with $40 (for just 10 blocks) to get her to the vet as often as she needed to go. But we made it work. I also didn't realize before I adopted her that it would be $65 just to walk in to the vet, before they drew blood, prescribed meds, and did any diagnostic exams on her, so I found myself having to work two jobs (in addition to my full course load) just to pay her vet bills. But we made it work.

Since then, there have been more vet bills. In the last ten years, she developed food allergies, and went on a special diet. Her seizures weren't fully controlled on just one epilepsy medication, so I consulted neurologists and added another. She developed hypothyroidism and then added another medication to manage it. She tore one of her ACLs (a ligament in her knee), so she had surgery and physical therapy to fix it, then tore the other one in the next six months and had surgery and physical therapy to fix that one, too. She came down with pancreatitis, so she got two days of inpatient supportive care to heal. She developed a mass on her eyelid and I was terrified it was cancer, but she had surgery to remove it and it was benign. This August, she developed a mass on her hock and I was terrified that was cancer, too, but a week before I left on tour, she had surgery to remove it and it was benign, too. Five weeks ago, her bloodwork was great and overall, she was in awesome, amazing shape.

But two hours after my flight landed last week, after being away for about four weeks, I took one look at her and knew she wasn't right. The sitter said she hadn't wanted to eat all day, and she was having trouble staying on her feet. So at 2AM, I admitted her to the hospital with a distended abdomen, labored breathing, a severely enlarged liver, anemia, and a fever. I thought she had pancreatitis again. So when I got the call the following morning from the internal medicine specialist telling me that the oncologist was 100% certain she had lymphoma, that she was dying, and I needed to decide whether I wanted to proceed with chemotherapy or euthanize her, to say I was in shock doesn't even cover it.

Maggie has a different life than most dogs. She was never interested in toys or playing or walks but loves food. She would rather snuggle and sleep next to you than jump up on you. But those things? She loves those things. And when I saw her Tuesday night, I didn't think she was done yet. Sobbing, I told the oncologist "I want to do the chemo, but don't let me be cruel." She said that she wouldn't and that I wasn't, because for dogs, chemotherapy isn't administered in doses toxic enough to kill cancer--it's given to manage their cancer and extend their quality of life, so they have none of the miserable symptoms that humans experience with it. Maggie has stage 5B lymphoma; the worst possible kind, but the oncologist said that IF she responded to the chemotherapy, she'd have the same chances as a dog with a less severe stage would.

And so Maggie started treatment. First, her fever broke. Then, her liver values decreased by half, and her liver went back to it's normal size and stopped pushing on her diaphragm and her kidneys (which caused her to leak urine for 24 hours). She received a blood transfusion to help her recover even faster, and then things really progressed; her values decreased by half again and her red blood count skyrocketed, then held. She got her second dose of chemotherapy and her platelets went up, too. She was responding. And she went from this:

To this:

And this:

And this:

She is eating everything in sight, cruising around the yard, licking marrow bones and snuggling close to me on the couch and in bed. In a word, she is happy.

And because it looks like I am going to be able to get another good year with her, so am I.

Thank you so, so much for your good thoughts, your prayers, your support, and your understanding while I've been away.  We aren't out of the woods by any means, and her medication schedule is, in a word, intense:

9AM: Sucralfate
10AM: Denamarin/Pepcid/Clavamox/Phenobarbital/Levothyroxine/Keppra
11AM: Breakfast, prednisone, cerenia
5PM: Sucralfate
6PM: Denamarin/Pepcid/Clavamox/Phenobarbital/Levothyroxine/Keppra
7PM: Dinner
1AM: Sucralfate
2AM: Keppra

So things are going to be hectic and hard for me for a while as I take her to chemotherapy, cook her food, give her meds, and try to work, shower, and sleep every now and again. But every day I have with her is a blessing, and it means the world to me to know you all understand. 

Utah, In Pictures

HEY! Did you have a GREAT week, friends? I did. I'm still recovering from the GREATNESS of it, in fact, and therefore I shall be brief. So brief that I'm just going to post the awesome pictures of the awesomeness that was Utah, and deconstruct the events with Becca Fitzpatrick, Moira Young, Elana Johnson & Simone Elkeles another day. Contest results from ALL THE CONTESTS shall be forthcoming soon--as in, once I am home and have clean clothes :D Can't waaiiiiiiitttttt!

ETA: I signed lots and lots of stock at the Hastings in Ogden, Utah and at Books, Inc. in San Francisco. Which means that they might still have some on hand IF you would like to order a signed copy. Here are the deets:

Hastings: 83 North Harrisville Road, Ogden, UT - (801) 399-2090
Books, Inc: 601 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, CA - (415) 776-1111

  

REALLY QUICK NOTE!

MOAR Jewish holidays, so I am offline until next week. Will try to get to your tweets/emails/messages and suchly then.

HEARTS for all of you. Also chocolate.

San Francisco, In Pictures

Because I am too exhausted to write about the awesome, awesome events at the ever amazing Keplers with Becca Fitzpatrick and Books, Inc, with Becca and Moira Young, this will have to do for now:

Provo, Utah, here we come!

QUICK NOTE!

I AM LEAVING FOR TOUR PART DEUX IN...FOUR HOURS! I SHOULD BE SLEEPING BUT I AM NOT I AM WAY TOO EXCITED!

Also I wanted to tell you somefing. I got an email recently from a lovely, lovely lady who wanted to buy a signed copy of #maradyer for her daughter in law school (w00t) but couldn't make it to the launch party @ Books & Books. I did some stock signings while I was in NYC this past week and so I told her to call the stores I signed at and she was able to get one! Which was happy making for us both!

It made me want to tell you, though, that IF you have not yet bought #maradyer and IF you would like to and IF you would like to buy a signed copy, I am going to be here:


SUNDAY, October 9th (aka, today)

Keplers Books with Becca Fitzpatrick

1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025
650-324-4321

(ETA: Keplers sold out) 




MONDAY, October 10, 7:00pm (aka tomorrow)
Books, Inc with Becca Fitzpatrick and Moira Young
601 Van Ness
San Francisco, CA 94102 

TUESDAY, October 11th, 3:30PM (aka Tuesday)

Hastings Bookstore with Becca Fitzpatrick, Moira Young, and Elana Johnson

340 EAST 525 NORTH
Ogden, UT 84404

Phone: (801) 399-2090

Phone2: (801) 399-2091

In case you want to call the stores and see if you can snag a signed book and have them ship it. When I get home next week, I'm going to collapse a heap of pets/laundry/pillows and I do not know when I shall resurface. So! Bottom line! For a signed #maradyer, you now know where to go. 


Will update more sooooooon :D

The MLF

It's been a whole week since MARA's been out there in the big, wide world. I...have been completely overwhelmed by all of the joy and joyness that coincided with the launch. In part, I have celebrated it by eating my way through each tour stop:

Malta & mariquitas in Miami

 Mara enjoying a foodgasmic Italian pastry thingy in Soho

Also! Outside of my amazing NYC hotel room:

There is a giant metal chicken on someone's balcony. I tried to take a picture, but it's too far away to capture. But it makes me happy every morning.

New York is already amazing, and I am super excited for the public event I have tomorrow night at the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library with Jocelyn Davies, Anna Godbersen, Anne Heltzel, Kody Keplinger, Micol Ostow, Leila Sales, and Cecily von Ziegesar. I hope you are coming. You are coming, yes? YES?

Anyhoodle! I shall update with food pictures once I'm in CA, but for now, I wanted to just post, say hi, and say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

OH. AND: I've been told that the pictures of #maradyer EVERYWHERE have been streaming in for The Big Contest from just about every state and many places OUT of state and out of the country, in fact. And I heard there are lots of pictures of her with dogs and cats, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy <3

But. I've also gotten comments and emails from sadfaced readers who ordered the book but haven't received it in time to play with the one week contest deadline. And that made ME have a sad face. Like this:

And then I realized: Maybe I can SOLVE this issue by extending the deadline. By another week, perhaps?

So this is your mission, should you choose to accept it:

1) Free Mara Dyer. Liberate her from bookstore shelves (legally! No nighttime raids on your local B&N, please and thank you) and take her home with you.

2) Have your way with her. Pose her in a jaunty little hat. Next to your angry parrot. In front of the Eiffel Tower. Looking wistfully at Times Square. Like so:

Except replace the gnome with MARA DYER.

3) Then snap a photo.

4) And mail it to maradyer at gmail dot com

Who knows. Mara might even write you back.

ASIDE from the STUFF that you can win, watching you all #freemaradyer warms the cockles of my heart. I don't see the pictures that come in from the contest, so if you DO want me to see them, join the Mara Liberation Front, tweet with the hashtag #freemaradyer and make my day :D

Love love love you.