Yesterday I was looking through an old copy of Milan Kundera’s The Art of the Novel when came across this form rejection tucked between the pages. I forget what story I submitted to The Quarterly but I remember that this form letter, which tries so hard to cushion the blow, didn’t make me feel any better about being rejected. Why is that? If anyone has a theory, let me know.
Sorry it’s so huge. The type gets very blurry when the size is reduced.
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I’ve just received the kind of review every writer dreams of. Not only does the reviewer love Talion but he appreciates what I’m doing in the novel. He notices style. And has style!
Lu Jakes doesn’t have a chance.
She never had one. She’s a teenager trapped in a Utah trailer with a drunk for a dad and a sadistic slattern for a stepmom. Her only friends are phantoms in her head.
And now she’s attracted the attention of a sexual torturer and serial killer…
Lu is the protagonist of Eastern Illinois University English professor Mary Maddox’s thriller “Talion” (now available from Amazon), a dark gem she has polished to a purple luster.
Peer inside. You’ll see a crime novel, and something else lurking there in the shadows. “Silence of the Lambs” meets “The Turn of the Screw.”
Please read the rest of Dan Hagen’s review of Talion in the Charleston Times-Courier: Dan Hagen%sq243%s review
Here is a brief excerpt of my interview with Norm Goldman of Bookpleasures.com:
“I’m not quite sure why the macabre draws me. It’s probably a combination of temperament, personal history and literary preferences. I see darkness in the world, in people, most of all in myself. But there’s light as well. I hope readers will see the light in Talion as well as the darkness. In the macabre as a literary form I see two elements – fascination and dread. Edgar Allen Poe’s stories have these elements. His neurasthenic characters are obsessed by the things they fear most. The black cat, the beating heart of the murder victim, the horror of being buried alive. And the reader willingly participates. Why? I guess for the same reason that people can’t drive past a car wreck without slowing down to gawk. It’s strange, gawkers hoping to witness a gruesome injury that will haunt their dreams. Yet they can’t seem to resist the fascination of the accident scene.”
To read more, follow the link below:
http://www.bookpleasures.com/websitepublisher/articles/2732/1/Meet-Mary-Maddox-Author-of-Talion/Page1.html
Mighty Bear Woman (a.k.a. Daiva Markelis) poses incisive questions on my writing and career. Check it out. And while you’re there, enjoy the thrilling and unpredictable Adventures of Mighty Bear Woman!
