Sarah Langan ('The Keeper', 'The Missing')

Sarah Langan is one of those young authors whose debut novel, The KeeperThe Keeper, soared to new heights on bestseller's lists everywhere. It also won the 2007 Bram Stoker awards for Outstanding Novel. Her follow-up, The Keeper">The Missing, takes place in the same small town of Corpus Christi, Maine where people starts suffering from a mysterious illness that 'changes' them internally as well as externally in ways no other sickness has ever affected human beings. This young outstanding horror author is also a Master's candidate in Environmental Health and Toxicology, from which her novels derive much of their major underlying horrors. Her third novel, Audrey's Door, is not related to The Keeper and The Missing but will still make your head explode from the horror.

'I'm not so sure I'm famous, but I love that people read my books. Meeting fans is a trip. I love it when they come out to conventions just to say hello, or have me sign a first edition. I feel very lucky to have that experience.' - Sarah Langan'Mostly what I hear from non genre readers when they finish my books is that they're surprised they like them,' exclaims Sarah Langan in our interview. 'They've never read horror, or haven't in years, and had assumed that it was still static, 1980s, misogynistic slasher stuff. Most of us, the above women authors included, work pretty hard to avoid that crap, and tell well-crafted stories with believable characters. The horror label is so toxic because of people's negative associations with the genre that it's not always a bad idea to drop it, and call the work suspense or thriller. Hopefully, though, readers will come around, and see that the genre is vibrant, and much improved from the schlocky 80s and dull 90s.'

Sarah does agree that using the term 'horror' still has a stigma for most publishing companies. Unless you're Stephen King, you're better off using a euphemism for your genre. 'Those who sell better tend to use the label 'literary' or 'supernatural suspense', but we're all mining American nightmares from the same dark vein.'

In the last several decade, women have been able to rival the Barkers and Kings with their genre novels. 'It's harder for women,' acknowledges Langan, 'but I think that's changing. Jennifer Egan, Sarah Gran, Liz Hand, Deborah LeBlanc, Erika Mailman, Joyce Carol Oates, Sarah Pinborough, Alice Sebold, and Alexandra Sokoloff are all successful authors of dark fiction.'

How did this woman in particular make the transition from a student writing short stories to a successful, published, and New York Times respected author?

'For my own success, timing played a role. After seven years looking for an agent, I found somebody great, who sent my first novel, The Keeper, to the only editor in New York willing to take a chance on dark fiction. When the book was released, it had a lot of support from the writing community, specifically the Horror Writers' Association, and because I got my MFA in fiction writing from Columbia University, critics reviewed it, too. I'm pretty indebted to my hero Peter Straub for giving the book some advance praise, and to Terrance Rafferty at the New York Times for reviewing it, and making it an editor's pick.'

After the unexpected success of her first novel, Sarah knew her second novel had to be just as good. 'I worked hard to make the second book, The Missing, live up to the hype, and keep the momentum going. Hopefully, I succeeded.'

One of the major things keeping back women from the writing business is the fear of rejection and the lack of gumption to stick to something that seems like a pipe dream. 'At the end of the day, it's a crap shoot,' admits Sarah. 'Writing is a very tough business. You can improve your odds by writing every day, and submitting your completed work for publication to markets you've researched. Before The Keeper sold, I had so many rejection slips that I couldn't fit them into my file cabinet. My mailbox was literally crammed with them, and often the crazier editors in the pack would write nasty notes in handwritten pen, about how I had no idea how to construct a story since someone ought to die on the first page, or that the words I used were too big. This assumption that the five percent of Americans who read books are going to be turned off if their requires an attention span is so self-defeating. Readers want new experiences, and when stupid books are foisted upon them by editors who have contempt for their own consumers, they're less likely to bother buying a second book. But that's a whole different rant, and in the end, even when the rejections letters I got were mean, they were thrilling. It meant somebody had read what I'd done, and in that way, my work had already come to life.'

Something fascinating about Sarah is her commitment to getting a master's degree in Environmental Health. She's already gotten an MFA in Writing from Columbia University. She decided to go into Environmental Science to work in a field she liked while having time to write.

'Bad day jobs are soul killers. For a while I was an office manager for a Park Avenue plastic surgeon. It was like a frontal lobotomy, only more painful. Not surprisingly, a lot of old people didn't want to admit they were getting old, and spent a lot of money to look like aliens. They creeped me out, and so did the doctors, who presumably swore as physicians to do no harm, then sliced into healthy women just for a paycheck, or worse, so they could feel important. I decided to go into environmental toxicology, so I'd feel good when I went home, which would make me more happy in my writing life, too.'

If it sounds easy – you're wrong.

'The work was really tough,' admits Sarah. 'I had very little experience with it. I took classes like thermodynamics and biochemistry, which were tough, but also wonderful. It's too bad our culture doesn't allow people to continue with school, just for the fun of it. I think we'd have a much happier population, if any time we felt like it, we could decide, hey, I want to take a medical school anatomy class, just to see what it's like. The experience was wonderful. I always wanted to be a doctor, but I knew I wouldn't have the time to write and also work a residency. This was a great peek into that world. I admire all the brilliant research scientists, whose jobs are thankless, but who are the sole voices of reason in the global warming debate.'

Much of the science in The Missing comes directly from the classes she took at NYU. 'The virus affects the nervous system, which I think is a fun concept, and in fact does happen. You can catch a bug, and literally go crazy, just like some of the people who recovered from the 1918 influenza epidemic, but had permanent brain damage that mimicked psychosis.'

Like Stephen King's novels set in small towns, The Keeper and The Missing take place in imaginary towns in Maine. 'I based Bedford, where The Keeper takes place, on the town where I went to college in Maine. It's partially an homage to Stephen King, in the way that any modern dark fiction should acknowledge his work, but it's also just coincidence. When I started my first novel, Maine seemed the perfect place to set it, since I'd recently lived there. The Missing is set in a fictional town called Corpus Christi, Maine that doesn't exist. It's not really based on any town in Maine, but on my hometown in Garden City, Long Island.'

Her female characters tend to be very lonely, unhappy, unfulfilled, or disturbed people. Where does she get the inspiration for what drives these women?

'Oh, sure. I'm a nut, and so are all my characters.' She laughs. 'Writing about Susan Marley and Lois Larkin is cathartic—I purge feelings I'm too civilized to express, so my characters voice them instead. But honestly, I think everybody goes through tough times, and when that happens, even the best of us have moments of darkness.

Most television, movies, and cocktail parties parade a sanitized version of human nature. That's fine, but the danger is that we begin to believe it, and think that any emotions that deviate from those of the pretty people on television must be evidence of psychosis. We're afraid to admit that sometimes we get angry, or self-destructive, or violent, because maybe, when people see that side of us, they'll withhold their love. But that's stupid. I want people, when they read what I write, to know it's okay. They're normal emotions. Most of these things we think we're hiding anyone looking can see, anyway.

Shame is the enemy here. People who carry that shame instead of letting it go turn into cocktail party smiles, and lose just a little of their humanity. I think that's when bad decisions get made, and courage is lost. Shame turns people into liars; they'll do anything to keep people from finding out that they're not perfect.'

In the rest of 2008/2009, Langan has a disturbing amount of stuff coming out. 'The Lost' was a limited edition chapbook published by Cemetery Dance earlier this year.

''Independence Day' is about a thirteen year-old girl living in Astoria, Queens in the near future, where no big apocalypse has happened, but creeping stupidity has turned the county into a totalitarian dictatorship embroiled in civil war, with air so dirty that the poor breathe through cheap, plastic lungs. Our girl, in a fit of rage, reports her father to the authorities for not complying with thought control. She soon regrets that decision.

I think people will really like this story. It's going to be in an anthology called Darkness on the Edge: Tales Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen, edited by Del Howison, and including stories by Lee Thomas, and the very underappreciated Tom Piccirilli. Publication date is Spring, 2009, through the United Kingdom publisher PS.

'Fenstad's End' upon which The Missing is partially based, should be in the next edition of Cemetery Dance Magazine, and 'Dark Matter' should make the issue after that. 'The Burn Victim' will be in the anthology Shivers IV, 'The Changeling' will be in the anthology The Best Horror, 2007, and 'The Caretaker' should be in the Dark Scribe Magazine Anthology.'

Langan's most exciting upcoming project is the HarperCollins novel due out in 2009 called Audrey's Door. 'It's about a women with a troubled past, who's so afraid of getting hurt again that she breaks up with her fiancé, and moves into a haunted apartment. Once there, her obsessive-compulsive disorder flairs up, and in her sleep, she begins to build a door.'

If fans are curious about a sequel to The Keeper and The Missing that gives the reader some closure in the world of Bedford, Maine, they can expect some sci-fi elements and the novel 'is going to involve a complicated science fiction/ fantasy plot, and I want to allow it time to percolate, so I probably won't finish it until 2009 or 2010. It picks up about five years after The Missing ends. There will be one more book after that, which will resolve the Lois Larkin plotline. I think fans will be happy with what I've done. It's been a lot of fun so far—I really love setting books in that Lois Larkin/Susan Marley world. It's very close to the world we currently inhabit, but just a little more stylized, and darker.

Audrey's Door is due out in 2009, and it's definitely my best. I get scared writing it. It will fuck you up!'

www.sarahlangan.com

(Watch Sarah accepting the 2007 Bram Stoker Award).