The Deadhouse
How do you see me?
Eeeh, I wonder how secure you really feel …
Have I’ve mentioned before the practice a small number of authors have adopted of offering the opportunity to have a character in a book named after you in exchange for a donation to a charitable cause or some such worthy return? Helps increase circulation as well, of course! Relatives, friends, neighbours, chance acquaintances … Hey, d’you know I’m in a book?!
Anyway, Linda Fairstein is one such writer. As she says: Some are good guys, some are suspects, some are perps – that’s the chance they take.
Would you be equally happy with any identity allocated to you? How robust is your personal sense of self esteem?!
In her novel The Deadhouse, for example, would you want to be cast as
the sleazy academic, or
the workman on the scaffolding peering in windows, or
the student who hangs himself, or
the one who vanishes without a trace?
Would you rejoice seeing your name attached to
the nosey neighbour, or
the paranoid schizophrenic with a history of drug taking, or
the incomprehensible psychiatric patient with learning difficulties, or
the professor found lying at the bottom of a lift shaft?
Would you feel privileged to be identified with
three generations of men, or
the bright spark who solves the crimes?
I kept wondering just what the real owners of all these names would be thinking as the fictional versions got into all kinds of nastinesses. Hmmmmm ….