Every day is Halloween for me here on the death/horror/ghost AND SOCIETY beat, but Fall is obviously like, go time. I’m booked and busy (see us in the Mission and Oakland in October!!) but I’m also designing little themed movie watches for myself. Just like a girl who played professor as an 8 year old would.
This year I started off with Sinister, which is one of my all time favorite horror movies. It’s from 2012 and stars Ethan Hawke as a writer who has fallen on hard times, lacks inspiration, and is fucking desperate for a hit. He wants to write about a serial killer, so he MOVES INTO THE HOUSE WHERE A FAMILY WAS KILLED, doesn’t tell his wife, discovers a box of home movies of multiple grisly family murders, and doesn’t give them to the police. Because he wants to write a hit novel about it! Obviously! Needless to say, he gets his entire family killed in the process. And if you’re like – he’s a dude, many such cases – welllllll, I have some books for you.
I just finished RF Kuang’s Yellowface, and I’m right in the middle of Fruit Fly, and holy substack jackpot, have I got a thesis about it all. Both of these books are about female protagonists who steal other writers’ work and/or other people’s stories. We’re neck deep in book gossip about Rachel Cusk allegedly stealing Natalie Portman’s life for her own story, and this feels really relevant. As you all know I am allegedly writing a book myself and I’m also like, borrowing a story from history. Dead people can’t sue for libel! Or can they? IDK kids, I hung up my bar license to write these little essays for you.
If you haven’t read Yellowface, it’s about a writer who steals her dead friend’s manuscript and publishes it as her own. The thief is white, her friend was Chinese, and the manuscript is about an event from Chinese history. HENCE THE TITLE. The book is fucking savage and I loved it. Fruit Fly is being called “the gay Yellowface” because its protagonist is a writer who pretends to be gay on apps (using a photo of her husband’s torso, also savage), meets a young gay addict, and uses his life as the basis of her next novel. Again, THE TITLE. Fruit Fly takes a crazy turn in the middle and I’m not going to spoil the book, but it does do its own thing. Needless to say I loved this one too. It seems like Rachel Cusk is being accused of this IRL, though I haven’t read the book.
Sinister is this on steroids with a dash of true crime brain. Ellison – the main character- is even less likeable than June (YF) or Mallory (FF), and the consequences of his actions are way worse. Yellowface has been called too scoldy, and Fruit Fly seemed to take the premise and add in some vindication. Sinister takes it up to a ten, but movies need to do that – it’s shorter, more visual, and most of horror is not subtle. Many times the purpose of a horror movie is to expose this shit we don’t want to see. As a genre, it can be savage in the way that comedy is, because it makes super precision examples out of its characters. Ellison’s wife asks him “Is there anything you wouldn’t do for this goddamned book??” and when the answer is no, shit gets really rough.
Ellison, June, and Mallory are all shooting their last shot. They are chasing the high of their success, they are trying to avoid obscurity. June seems pretty lackluster as a writer and wants to prove otherwise. Mallory is genuinely talented but blocked by her shitty domestic life. Ellison has been at this for a minute – a huge true crime hit followed by one that got the case wrong and set a murderer free. Every one of these writers is looking for some kind of assurance that they’ve still got it, and in a tale as old as time, they’ll do anything to get back. This isn’t a phenomenon limited to writers – most artists suffer a flavor of this, but there’s something gratifyingly meta about writing and reading a book about a writer who gets busted. It’s voyeuristic on all levels, in the story, in the creation, and in the consumption. AS A WRITER I LOVE IT.
All three of them also include an interesting aspect as to how choices are made, how a choice could be a different, more ethical choice. June could have turned the manuscript in and maybe gotten a role editing or introducing it. Mallory could have done a lot more to help Leo and also to change the damn story. She could have actually mined her own pain over her dead brother and turned it into art instead of leeching it out of a stranger. And Ellison could have turned over the murder tapes to the cops and I don’t know – helped the investigation? I mean, the killer is a demon so no but you get the point. They all justify their own choices, but June is delusional, Mal is crazy, and Ellison is an ego maniac. The trifecta of unlikeable characters!
The other thing I love about these stolen story narratives is how propulsive they are. These idiots are in way over their heads and they just can’t stop. As a reader/viewer, you’re experiencing that feeling along with them and it’s terrifying and exhilarating. The shit keeps you hooked! I think there’s an element of dread in there too. You know they’re going to get caught, just like they do.
I guess at this point I should admit that I’m doing a little of this myself. I’m using a kind of obscure story from history to craft a revenge novel. I’m researching real humans who lived out some crazy, crazy shit and like, conjuring them back to life. Part necromancy, part thievery, part exploitation. All rooted in real history but filtered through my own imagination. Does that make it mine? Do I have a right to embody these people that died 150 years ago? Am I creating some hybrid monster tulpa that’s going to come back and bite me in the ass? Stay tuned to find out, lol.
xoxo
Court