FEARNET - Elizabeth Massie http://www.fearnet.com/tags/elizabeth-massie en Book Review: Elizabeth Massie’s 'Desper Hollow' http://www.fearnet.com/news/review/book-review-elizabeth-massie%E2%80%99s-desper-hollow <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <div>Back in November of last year, I reviewed an Apex Publications anthology called <a href="http://www.fearnet.com/news/news-article/mountain-living-and-dying-isn%E2%80%99t-easy-appalachian-undead" target="_self"><em>Appalachian Undead</em></a>. It was one of my favorite books of 2012, but thanks to a strange set of circumstances the project was shelved, leaving me as one of the few who actually got to read it. Fortunately, Apex has refused to let the project disappear altogether. Like any self-respecting zombie, that collection will live again &ndash; in a couple of different ways.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The anthology itself will be resurrected more or less intact as a new release called <em>Mountain Dead,</em> and I hope to have a look at it when it&rsquo;s ready to go. In the meantime, Elizabeth Massie has transformed her <em>Appalachian Undead</em> short story &ldquo;When Granny Comes Marchin&rsquo; Home Again&rdquo; into a full-fledged novel called <em><a href="http://www.apexbookcompany.com/collections/all-books/products/desper-hollow/" target="_blank">Desper Hollow</a>.</em></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><em><img alt="Desper_Hollow" src="http://cdn.fearnet.com/sites/default/files/images/News/GSB/bludesperhollowcover.jpg" style="width: 400px; height: 619px;" /></em></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The DNA of Massie&rsquo;s original story is mostly intact. There&rsquo;s no widespread zombie apocalypse &ndash; the trouble is instead confined to the area around an unassuming mountain town called Beaver Dam. Said trouble didn&rsquo;t begin in a government lab, and it didn&rsquo;t initiate with a passing meteor or some strange mutated virus; it begins in the kitchen of a crotchety old moonshining witch named Granny Mustard. Granny is nearing the end of her natural life span, but she&rsquo;s got too much meanness left to spread to quit now. She&rsquo;s been experimenting for a while now, mixing her strange mountain magic with her locally-acclaimed moonshine, looking for the right combination of incantations, home-grown ingredients and distilled spirits to enable her to fight off death. After a run of minor successes with rats and chickens, she&rsquo;s ready to give humans a go &ndash; with disastrous results.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The debacle that follows leaves a town burned flat and a handful of &ldquo;hollows&rdquo; roaming the mountainside. These poor souls are gathered up by Jenkie Mustard, who herds them into a trailer deep in the woods while she continues her grandmother&rsquo;s experiments and tries to figure a way to capitalize on what she&rsquo;s got. She hits on the idea of a reality TV show, and the idea actually attracts a couple of Hollywood wannabe-hitmakers out to investigate the possibility further.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>What follows is a mix of familiar story elements: the fish-out-of-water tale, as the Hollywood types (one of whom is a Tennessee transplant with at least a passing familiarity of what they&rsquo;re getting into) head into the hills; the local girl who escaped her small town only to be called back to deal with a family tragedy; the clash of old world vs. new world; and, of course, some classic gut-munching zombie action.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The first half of the book is a long, slow burn as we get to know the various people heading into Desper Hollow. Massie does a solid job of setting up these people and their stories, giving us time to get to know them and get invested in their fates. There are a couple that are easier to latch onto than the rest: Sam, the Tennessee native accompanying Jack Carroll on his fact-finding trip about Jenkie&rsquo;s potential television show, is a solid guy with an unassuming nature. Kathy Shaw, back in town to deal with the loss of her mother, is another one you&rsquo;ll be rooting for; in fact, Kathy&rsquo;s strained relationship with her father may be a side story to the main attraction, but it&rsquo;s arguably the most compelling piece of the puzzle. In addition there&rsquo;s a &ldquo;hollow&rdquo; named Armistead who&rsquo;s just a little different from the others, and that difference remains a compelling mystery all the way up to the story&rsquo;s end.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Some of the characters, unfortunately, never get as fleshed out as those mentioned above. In particular, a couple of Granny&rsquo;s backwoods relatives aren&rsquo;t much more than cardboard cutouts, immoral hicks straight out of a casting session for<em> Deliverance.</em> There are also a handful of tired horror clichés that muddy up an otherwise breakneck, breathtaking ending &ndash; car keys get dropped at inopportune times, ankles are twisted during getaways, cars get stuck in the mud. Some of these happen more than once. And there&rsquo;s the expected epilogue, that final stinger that lets you know things may appear to be over, but they&rsquo;re really not.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>These aren&rsquo;t exactly minor quibbles, but they didn&rsquo;t keep me from enjoying<em> Desper Hollow.</em> I love stories that tarnish the glossy coat that&rsquo;s often applied to country living, showing the real shadows that exist under those wraparound porches and in the deepest parts of those peaceful woods. The kind of desperation that drives someone like Jenkie, who wants to get out of her dead-end existence and live the kind of glamorous life she reads about in<em> People </em>magazine, is very real and very sad. So is the suspicion that people in regions like Desper Hollow feel toward outsiders &ndash; suspicion which is more often than not reciprocated.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><em>Desper Hollow </em>isn&rsquo;t perfect and doesn&rsquo;t really break new ground, but neither of those things are absolutely necessary for a story to be good. It&rsquo;s entertaining, sometimes chilling and occasionally funny, and if you can overlook a couple of stumbles along the way, you&rsquo;re in for a fun ride.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><em>Blu Gilliand is a freelance writer of fiction and nonfiction. He covers horror fiction at his blog, <a href="http://theoctobercountry.wordpress.com" target="_blank">October Country</a>, and contributes interviews to the <a href="http://www.horrorworld.org" target="_blank">Horror World </a>website. Follow him on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/BluGilliand" target="_blank">@BluGilliand.&nbsp;</a></em></div> </div></div></div><div id="comment-wrapper-nid-413373"></div> Wed, 03 Jul 2013 22:00:00 +0000 Blu Gilliand 413373 at http://www.fearnet.com http://www.fearnet.com/news/review/book-review-elizabeth-massie%E2%80%99s-desper-hollow#comments Exclusive: Interview with Elizabeth Massie, Author of 'Abed' http://www.fearnet.com/news/interview/exclusive-interview-elizabeth-massie-author-abed <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Elizabeth Massie is a Bram Stoker Award-winning writer of short stories and novels, and she is also a humanitarian who has come up with some creative ways to give back. Elizabeth was gracious enough to take time out of her schedule to answer a few questions about the short story, &quot;Abed,&quot; and her Hand to Hand Vision Fundraising work.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong><img alt="" src="http://cdn.fearnet.com/sites/default/files/images/News/abed_film_poster.jpg" style="width: 197px; height: 255px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; float: left; " />&quot;Abed&quot; has been called &quot;one of the most disturbing horror stories ever written.&quot; What inspired you to write the story?</strong><br /> Necon is a fantastic horror convention in Rhode Island, a convention I attend as regularly as possible. One year, back in the early 1990s, John Skipp and Craig Spector were in attendance. Skipp had read some of my other works and invited me to submit a story to the second of the Book of the Dead (zombie) anthologies, <em>Book of the Dead 2: Still Dead</em>. He basically said, &quot;Send us something that will blow our minds.&quot;</p> <p><br /> Having never written a zombie story before, I went home and rolled ideas around in my mind. I wanted it to blow their minds. But I also wanted to blow my own mind. I&rsquo;m not one to write gore or graphic imagery for gore and graphic imagery&rsquo;s sake. To me, there has to be a reason. There has to be some depth. There has to be emotion beyond just fear. And so I considered what would disturb me most. What would terrify me most. To me, isolation, alienation, unchecked power, and desperation are the springboards for the world&rsquo;s worst horrors. And &quot;Abed&quot; was born.</p> <p><br /> <strong>&quot;Abed&quot; was recently adapted for film. How did that all take place, and what was the process like for you?</strong><br /> I heard from friend and producer Phil Nutman that Ryan Lieske was interested in creating a film version of &quot;Abed.&quot; Several have expressed interest before but it never happened &hellip; with one big reason being the extreme graphic nature of the content. I was willing to agree to a film being made as long as I got to have script approval. I didn&rsquo;t want a bloodbath film. I didn&rsquo;t want a porn film (though I know the content skates really close to the edge there). &quot;Abed,&quot; as horrific as it is, is a quietly and claustrophobic-ly desperate story. I didn&rsquo;t want blaring music and screams and cats being tossed into frame with screeching yowls. I wanted the heart of the story to be ever-present &hellip; a story of love banged up and bruised and twisted into something almost unrecognizable, but still there, still clinging to life by a thread. Ryan&rsquo;s script hit those marks very well.<br /> As to the filming, I live in Virginia and it was filmed in Michigan. However, I did go to the premiere party in Grand Rapids and the energy and reception was incredible. The actors, the music, the special effects, the props, the filming locations &ndash; it all came together just right. And the audience clearly &quot;got it.&quot;</p> <p><br /> <strong>Are there any plans in the works for future adaptations?</strong><br /> No plans, but I&rsquo;m always open to discuss movie options!<br /> &nbsp;</p> <p><strong>You also started a charity program called Hand to Hand Vision Fundraising. Can you talk a bit about that?</strong><br /> I believe we, as humans, are here on Earth to help care for each other. I believe it&rsquo;s the biggest lesson we are supposed to learn. It&rsquo;s heart-breaking that some are suffering so much while others are detached and can&rsquo;t even see the need. Back in January 2011 I starting thinking of ways I could help others who, during this difficult economic time, could use a hand. Though things are often tight here, too, I want to do <em>something</em>.<br /> <img alt="" src="http://cdn.fearnet.com/sites/default/files/images/News/hand_to_hand_vision_scarf.jpg" style="width: 300px; height: 301px; float: right; " />I like to knit in the evenings when my brain is too tired to write. I don&rsquo;t do anything fancy, just warm, colorful, often very long scarves. So I started thinking &hellip; if I knitted warm, colorful scarves and offered them for sale, I could use that money to help someone who needs it. It would be a bit different from donating to Habitat for Humanity, or Food Banks, or other charitable organizations, though I heartily commend them for all the wonderful things they do for others. My idea would be different in that instead of providing items to others, I will provide some cash. There are a lot of people who could use some extra cash for a tank of gas, a birthday present for their child, an extra bag of groceries, or money toward a heating bill. These people could be the hard-working waitress at a little restaurant, a motel maid, a guy who carries groceries to the car (if his store allows tips), or just someone whose need becomes apparent. I would like to be able to pass cash on to that person, no strings attached, keeping it low-key, matter-of-fact.</p> <p><br /> A first scarf was completed and sold to a top bidder on January 15th. The money &ndash; $140 &ndash; was given as what we now call a &quot;hand off&quot; to a man who works at a local dump and collects cans to supplement his minimum wage income.<br /> Since then, I&rsquo;ve made and auctioned more scarves, and others have donated quality handmade items of all kinds that have likewise been auctioned. So far, Hand to Hand Vision has given money to 38 people, an amount totaling over $4,000. To find out more, or to take part or get updates on auctions or &quot;hand offs,&quot; visit the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hand-to-Hand-Vision-Fundraising-and-Sharing-With-Others/296251410408197?fref=ts" target="_blank">Hand to Hand Vision Facebook page</a>.</p> <p>---</p> <p><strong>Nancy O. Greene</strong> started writing at the age of nine. Her short story collection, Portraits in the Dark, received a brief mention in The Year&#39;s Best Fantasy and Horror 2007. Other works have appeared or will appear in ChiZine; Lovecraft eZine; Cemetery Dance; Tales of Blood and Roses; Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror; Shroud Publishing&#39;s The Terror at Miskatonic Falls; Dark Recesses; Flames Rising; Smile, Hon, You&#39;re in Baltimore!; and others. She has a BA in Cinema (Critical Studies) and a minor in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Southern California, and is a Film Independent: Project Involve Fellow.</p> </div></div></div><div id="comment-wrapper-nid-373728"></div> Wed, 31 Oct 2012 23:00:00 +0000 Nancy Greene 373728 at http://www.fearnet.com http://www.fearnet.com/news/interview/exclusive-interview-elizabeth-massie-author-abed#comments