The Vanishing of Katharina Linden: fifteen year anniversary!

Fifteen years ago today - on 2nd April 2009 - my very first novel The Vanishing of Katharina Linden was published in the UK. It seems incredible to say that - I can't believe so much time has passed! The book was inspired by the real life history, legends and topography of the little town of Bad Münstereifel in Germany, where I and my family had been living since 2001. The locations in the novel are all real ones, and in fact if you want to see them, I did a video walking tour of the town a couple of years after the book came out. You can see it here: YouTube tour

I absolutely loved living in Bad Münstereifel. We originally moved out there for 2 years for my husband's job, but ended up staying for 7, and even so, I cried bitterly when we left. It turned out that our new home in Flanders would inspire three more books, but that's another story...

Anyway, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden is a tribute to one of the places I love best in all the world, and to a large extent it is also a portrait of the place at the time we lived there. Much has changed since. After we had departed for Belgium, the town became a "City Outlet", which no doubt brought in many commercial benefits but also meant that some of the shops and cafés in the book no longer exist. Then in 2021 there was appalling flooding which caused widespread damage in the town. I believe restoration work is still going on. Also, of course, a period of fifteen years brings other changes - it's hard to imagine the young heroine Pia and her sidekick Stefan not having mobile phones if the book were set now. And the dangerous turret in the ruined castle on the hill above the town now has a huge metal cage over it to stop people falling in. 

The folk character "Unshockable Hans" who appears in the novel and inspires Pia's investigation is a genuine one. Back when I was writing the book, I came across him in several books written about local Eifel legends, and so I went to the Eifel Club library in Düren and read up about him from very old issues of the Eifel Club newsletter. I recall that in addition to being written in rather old-fashioned German, they were also published in an eye-watering Gothic type which made my progress through them very slow! 

The book was - and is - categorised as YA, at least in the UK (in other countries it was sold as an adult title), but I didn't write it with a specifically young adult audience in mind and I know that it has had at least as many adult readers over the years. It went on to be shortlisted for the Cilip Carnegie medal and the Booktrust Teenage prize, and won an ALA Alex award in the USA (Alex awards are given to books written for adults with a special appeal to young adults). 

Since the book came out, I have had a further nine novels published, plus one short story collection, with more works in the pipeline. My most recent novels have all been firmly aimed at an adult audience, and set in Scotland, where I have lived for well over a decade. But The Vanishing of Katharina Linden will always have a special place in my heart, and I'll be raising a glass to it this evening. 

Below: the US cover

 

5 novels about lost movies

I'm an absolute sucker for lost movie stories, especially when they're old ones. Vintage technology has an eldritch quality all of its own, a topic touched on some years ago by Aaron Worth of Boston University in his talk about M.R.James's Uncanny Cinematography, at an M.R.James Conference in Leeds. Film technology is now long established, and grainy footage or crackling audio can be just as creepy to modern audiences as dusty books and ancient manuscripts were to Victorian ones.

Anyway, I couldn't resist adding my own contribution to the trope with my latest novel Jump Cut. Obviously it’s not the first book on these theme, nor will it be the last, so I thought I'd put together a short list of lost movie novels. This is not an exhaustive list! Goodreads has one with 31 books on it, though it's lost films and cursed movies, which is a wider definition. But these are the ones which sprang to my mind. 

Of these five books:

- I have read two

- I have written one 

- There are two I have not read (yet!) but which look intriguing 

Here are the books in publication date order!

Ancient Images by Ramsey Campbell (first published 1989, now available in a new edition from Flame Tree Press)

I read Ancient Images when it first came out, but over 3 decades later I mainly remembered scenes of the heroine driving through endless fields of wheat, accompanied by a lowering feeling of dread. So I ordered a new copy and read it again. 

Here's the blurb: "Tower of Fear is a lost horror film starring Karloff and Lugosi. A film historian who locates a copy dies while fleeing something that terrified him. His friend Sandy Allan vows to prove he found the film. She learns how haunted the production was and the survivors of it still are. It contains a secret about Redfield, a titled family that owns a favourite British food, Staff o’ Life. The Redfield land has uncanny guardians, and one follows Sandy home. To maintain its fertility Redfield demands a sacrifice, and a band of new age travellers is about to set up camp there…"

It's an interesting contribution to the lost movie trope because – at least to me – the lost film isn't the most frightening thing about this book. The unnerving element comes from Sandy's frequent sightings of vaguely ominous creatures seen out of the corner of the eye: a tramp, a dog, a workman on all fours, a scarecrow – or are they? These manifestations don't always pierce Sandy's upper consciousness, being half-noticed and then dismissed, but they recur so frequently that they amount to a subtle and horrible pursuit. 

When Sandy finally watches the lost movie, the viewing takes place in a semi-derelict cinema in the midst of renovation, and the projectionist goes off site for the second reel, leaving her alone with the film, the smell of brick dust, and the shifting shadows. Very creepy. 

The Last Days of Leda Grey by Essie Fox (2016)

This novel is, I suspect, the most literary of my list of five, though I'm taking a bit of a flier since I haven't read two of them yet! It has a vivid, to me almost poetic style. It's a fever dream of a book. 

Here's the blurb: "During the oppressive heat wave of 1976 a young journalist, Ed Peters, finds an Edwardian photograph in a junk shop in the seaside town of Brightland. It shows an alluring, dark-haired girl, an actress whose name was Leda Grey.

Enchanted by the image, Ed learns Leda Grey is still living – now a recluse in a decaying cliff-top house she once shared with a man named Charles Beauvois, a director of early silent film. As Beauvois’s muse and lover, Leda often starred in scenes where stage magic and trick photography were used to astonishing effect.

But, while playing a cursed Egyptian queen, the fantasies captured on celluloid were echoed in reality, leaving Leda abandoned and alone for more than half a century – until the secrets of her past result in a shocking climax, more haunting than any to be in found in the silent films of Charles Beauvois."

I absolutely loved the fact that one of the long-unseen movies was based on H.Rider Haggard's She, which was a great favourite of mine when I was a youngster. The other memorable aspect of this book was the blurring of real and unreal, and whether we can believe the evidence of our eyes. 

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (July 2023)

Alas, this is one of the books I haven't read yet. Silvia Moreno-Garcia has written ten novels, although the award winning Mexican Gothic, which is on my bookshelf, is the one a lot of people have heard of. 

Here's the blurb: "Montserrat has always been overlooked. She's a talented sound editor, but she's left out of the boys' club running the film industry in '90s Mexico City. And she's all but invisible to her best friend Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, even though she's been in love with him since childhood.

Then Tristán discovers his new neighbour is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he has a way to change their lives - even if his tales of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.

Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her.

As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán might just find out that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies…"

Ah, that volatile nitrate film. The BFI website says: "Simply put, once alight, it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to extinguish until it has burnt itself out and no film (fuel) remains. One burning poundweight of cellulose nitrate can reach temperatures of around 4,444°C, and is 15 times more combustible than a similar weight in wood. This heat, combined with the production of toxic gases from the combustion process, can present an immediate threat to life." This is a characteristic of vintage film which did not escape either myself or Essie Fox…

Jump Cut by me, Helen Grant (September 2023)

Like my previous novels Ghost and Too Near The Dead, Jump Cut is set in rural Scotland, and the isolation in which my heroine finds herself is the backdrop to a grim game of cat and mouse. Film researcher Theda wants to know all about lost movie The Simulacrum, but she can only obtain the information by paying for it with the details of her own tragic past. Pitted against her is 104-year-old former film star Mary Arden, one of the characters I have most enjoyed writing, ever. She's a joyously malicious, brazen old besom. 

Here's the blurb: "The Simulacrum is the most famous lost movie in film history – would you tell someone your darkest secrets, just to lay hands on a copy? 104-year-old Mary Arden is the last surviving cast member of a notorious lost film. Holed up in Garthside, an Art Deco mansion reputed to be haunted, she has always refused interviews. Now Mary has agreed to talk to film enthusiast Theda Garrick. In return she demands all the salacious details of Theda’s tragic past. Only the hint of a truly stupendous discovery stops Theda walking out. But Mary’s prying questions are not the only thing Theda has to fear. The spirit of The Simulacrum walks Garthside by night, and it will turn an old tragedy into a new nightmare..."

And finally… 

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay (due out 2024)

Obviously I haven't read this one (yet), but it has all the gripping ingredients: a notorious film never properly released, real life tragedy, and a single surviving cast member. I await it eagerly! 

Here's the blurb: "In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick.

The weird part? Only three of the film’s scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot.

The man who played “The Thin Kid” is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he’s going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions—demons of the past be damned.

But at what cost?" 

So those are my five lost movie novels, and if you can think of others (I'm sure there are lots) do let me know in the comments. 

I'm also interested in movies about lost movies (John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns springs to mind, with its madness-inducing film La Fin Absolue du Monde) so would love to hear of any recommendations in that line. There is also, in a reversal of the books-about-lost-movies theme, room for a list of movies-about-lost-books, but that is one for another day. 

"The great terror of Abercrombie Smith" - Lot No. 249: some thoughts

(Spoiler alert! Best read after watching.) 

"Out of the darkness he had a glimpse of a scraggy neck, and of two eyes that will ever haunt him in his dreams..."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Lot No. 249 has long been a favourite of mine, so when I heard that Mark Gatiss was making an adaptation of it as this year's Ghost Story for Christmas I was absolutely thrilled. I very much enjoyed his previous adaptations of M.R.James, especially Count Magnus, which I thought was really wonderful, maintaining as it did some of the key parts of the story such as the innkeeper's tale, but also adding some new layers to it. My feeling is that Mark Gatiss is a safe pair of hands but not too safe; none of the adaptations feel stale or too slavish to the original texts (which are texts after all, devised to be read rather than watched). Lot No. 249 is no exception.

If you know a story very, very well, you inevitably have a mental film of it, but I try to set that aside when watching an adaptation. In my mind's eye, for example, "Old College" is based on New College, Oxford, but Rothamstead Manor, where Lot No. 249 was shot, does very well, especially the interiors; I liked the detail of the "true son of Old Nile, a great, hanging-jawed crocodile" hanging from the ceiling in Bellingham's sitting-room.

One thing I was slightly sucking my teeth about before I actually saw the adaptation was the casting of Freddie Fox as Bellingham, since Fox is young and good-looking, and the Bellingham of the original story is "strange and most repellent" looking, as well as very wrinkled, which implies mature age. I'm generally not very fond of film versions prettying characters up for the sake of it (one of the reasons I love some older horror films like The Fog (1980) is that the people look like real, ordinary people). However, it is also the case that the original story equates unattractive looks (and fatness) with a villainous personality, and that is something I would like to think we are moving on from. Having now seen the adaptation, I feel it does a tremendous job of portraying Bellingham instead as a person of moral ugliness - someone prepared to murder on very slight grounds. His tempting good looks and charisma are simply a lure.

And now to the nitty-gritty: the mummy* itself. This worked superbly for me - as in the original story, the first glimpses of what is going on are oblique and indistinct: the mummy case which is empty one moment and filled with a grisly occupant the next; the mysterious tread on the staircase. I watched Lot No. 249 with my adult children and we all agreed that the chase scene, which is the high point of the story for me, was really frightening. "He was a famous runner, but never had he run as he ran that night" wrote Conan Doyle, and believe me, you would, if that thing were after you. The moments when Smith sees a distant silhouette were also deeply sinister and yet ambiguous; his friend's explanation  that "Some gaunt, half-famished tramp steals after you, and seeing you run, is emboldened to pursue you" might be right - except that we, like Smith, have seen every detail of the approaching horror.  

This brings me to the friend in question - "Peterson" in the original, and in the adaptation, very clearly Conan Doyle's most famous literary creation. I have seen some online objections to this, on the grounds that Conan Doyle came to resent the way Holmes's popularity overshadowed his other work and would not therefore have appreciated his trespassing upon it. This is certainly true, however his appearance does presuppose a Doylian universe in which all his creations co-exist, which I rather like. 

I was also delighted to see that the confrontation between Abercrombie Smith and Edward Bellingham towards the end of the story was perfectly recreated. It is rather jaw-dropping to think that an undergraduate could, at that period, go to a gunsmith and buy a heavy revolver and ammunition, and that is not to mention the amputating knife he adds to his armoury! Would Smith actually have shot Bellingham if he refused to destroy the mummy and papyrus? In spite of his asking his friend to sign and date an account of recent events "in case I am arrested" (for murder), I can't help thinking that his main object was to convince himself that he would do it, so that he could threaten it with utter conviction; in fact he was banking on Bellingham complying. Either way, it is a marvellously tense scene, as Smith marks the passing minutes with his watch, until Bellingham finally cracks at the last moment. 

This brings us to the final scene (and I re-iterate for the unwary, spoilers are incoming so look away now if you haven't watched). In the original story, a brief paragraph tells us that Bellingham leaves the university immediately after the events described, and is "last heard of in the Soudan", presumably looking in vain for a new copy of the burnt papyrus. This has always struck me as a perfectly adequate ending, especially since the existence of other copies of the papyrus would undermine its aura of sinister power. However, there may be other expectations from filmed horror - the final twist in which the evil forces suddenly retaliate is an established trope. I assume this is behind the new ending, with a new mummy and a new papyrus. I regret to say that we did rather chuckle over it - "Lot 250: this time it's personal" suggested my daughter. However, overall we thoroughly enjoyed the adaptation and look forward to watching it again. 

Finally, I am very sorry to read about the difficulties in obtaining funding for Ghost Stories for Christmas, and would like to add my voice to those pleading for them to continue. There are a great many BBC programmes throughout the year in which I have no interest, but the Ghost Story for Christmas is one single half hour for which I drop everything. Is that too much to ask?

Above and below: my copy of The Conan Doyle Stories, this edition published in 1949. 

* Some museums are now moving away from the term "mummy", preferring terms like "mummified remains" to avoid depersonalising the dead person. An article on the Museums Association website dated January 2023 and quoting a CNN report adds: "Institutions are also keen to distance their collections from popular culture depictions of mummies as supernatural monsters..." 

 

Christmas trees for book characters

 

Christmas is nearly upon us and I am horribly disorganised - still driving around frantically picking up last minute presents and food and drink items. While I have been doing this, I have been pondering the back stories of some of my book characters. I am sure I am not the only author who does this. What, I ask myself, are they doing when they are not appearing in my book? My over active brain has sometimes concocted entire lives for my characters - lives which have never appeared in print nor ever will do. 

Anyway, just this morning I was thinking about Angus out of my latest book Jump Cut, and how he would celebrate Christmas. Clearly he would spend the day with his father, the peppery old Mr. Fraser, and I am fairly convinced that the pair of them would have a long running fiction that Mr. Fraser was going to cook the Christmas dinner. In the event, he would always forget things, start on it too late or generally mess it up, so Angus would end up cooking and then the pair of them would pretend it was all Mr. Fraser's work. They would also go to church, not because either of them is particularly religious, but because the late Mrs. Fraser always went at Christmas, so now Mr. Fraser goes in honour of her, and makes Angus go along too. Angus would have a Christmas tree too, and it would either be an outdoor one which he decorates with lights every year, or a real one which he drags in at the very last minute, having been occupied with other things; sometimes it would get decorated and occasionally it wouldn't. 

This led me to consider what the other characters in the book would have in the way of Christmas trees. (Have you nothing better to do, I hear you cry.) Well, here's what I came up with. 

Max would definitely have a huge, beautiful, "perfect" Christmas tree, probably a sparkling white artificial one, completely regular and decorated in a strict palette of colours and shapes. No tatty inherited baubles, purple tinsel or mismatched colours for him. 

Mary Arden would have an equally large tree, but probably a real one. It would be a Norway Spruce because she likes something traditional, but this would also mean a lot of needle drop. Mary wouldn't care two hoots about that, because it would be somebody else's problem. She'd probably also be incredibly fussy about how it was decorated (again, by someone else), and as soon as it was finished she'd lose interest. 

Lillian Velderkaust (the 1930s film director) would have something chic but not particularly Christmassy. I'm not sure whether arty Art Deco Christmas trees were ever a thing, but that's what she'd have. I imagine it as being something like the one in the pic (left) - colourful and minimalistic. I mean, she has other things to worry about; she can't be doing with sweeping up pine needles. 

Hugh Mason would definitely have something ultra traditional, so it would be a real tree - perhaps a Douglas fir, though my daughter suggested a Fraser fir with real candles on it: "a proper fire hazard", she said. That sounds about right. 

Richard Foster would have something low maintenance and modern for his city apartment - maybe one of those sets of pre-lit decorative cones with LED lights. 

And Mrs Harris? I think she'd have a mini tree in her housekeeper's quarters at Garthside. On Christmas Eve she'd eye it with disfavour, while allowing herself a single festive gin. You can't get drunk if you're always on call, after all...

Dream antho launches in London

Honestly, I don't get out much; I sometimes tell people I'm "a bit of hermit" and that's probably true. My old agent used to suggest that I could drop in at the agency when I was "next in London" - and I never was in London! It's not that I don't like London - I was born there, after all - but it's over 400 miles away so you can't really "nip" there from Perthshire. Anyway, this month I did actually make one of my rare visits to the capital, for a multi-author signing event at the Forbidden Planet Megastore on Shaftesbury Avenue. The book in question was Dark Academia anthology In These Hallowed Halls, published on 12th September by Titan Books; my particular story was called "The Professor of Ontography". I was signing alongside Kate Weinberg, Tori Bovalino and editors Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane: illustrious company, so I dressed up a bit with my favourite Gothic blouse and an antique brooch which seemed to fit the mood. 

Fans of classic ghost story writer M.R.James will recognise the title "Professor of Ontography" from "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad". The story opens with, "'I suppose you will be getting away pretty soon, now Full term is over, Professor,' said a person not in the story to the Professor of Ontography, soon after they had sat down next to each other at a feast in the hospitable hall of St. James's College." Although the Professor is the protagonist of the story, his subject is not key to the tale nor is it ever explained. If you Google it, you will find varying definitions, and I am doubtful that it is sufficiently established for there to be a Professor of it!! Anyway, that was the starting point for my story - the existence of one such a person, and the unfortunate curiosity this obscure discipline arouses in a pair of students. 

Aside from the Ontography angle, the story also references another classic tale: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Gothic horror "Lot 249", which is a great favourite of mine. Although Dark Academia in the modern sense of an internet subculture and attendant aesthetic was not around when Conan Doyle penned that story, "Lot 249" prefigures Dark Academia very strongly (as well as being very scary). Anyway, the institution featured in "Lot 249" is, like the college in my story, called "Old College". There is no Old College, Oxford, but I have always supposed that it was based on New College (which was founded in 1379 and is not therefore all that new anymore...). The one in my story is named after its founder, whose surname was Oldys, but it is popularly known as "Old's". 

I'm pleased to say that "The Professor of Ontography" has had some great Netgalley reviews:

"I want to give a shout out to The Professor of Ontography by Helen Grant which was one of the more page-turning-ly horrifying stories I have ever read… Legitimately scary in sort of a fun way" (Jessica L.)

"This story will live in my mind for years to come. It is one of the best short stories I have ever read in my life. It has such a strong atmosphere, so unique and eerie" (Ketelen L.)

"Easily the creepiest story out of the bunch!  This started off as a love story and devolved steadily into horror" (Kayleigh W.)

Reviewer Samantha T also commented "The ending of this story was actually nauseating" which amused me very much! "Nauseating" wouldn't be great feedback for a romance story but for horror it's sort of an accolade...

Other tales in the volume include Tori Bovalino's "Phobos", about a sinister secret society, and Kate Weinberg's "1000 Ships" in which a student takes revenge on a Lothario professor, as well as stories by Olivie Blake, M.L.Rio and a host of others. As well as some fabulous stories, this book also has the most gorgeous cover. I'd get one, if I were you...