Welcome back to The Cauldron! (Puff… puff… poof!)

This issue’s got a whole lotta opinions, so grab a drink and settle in…

Last month, I bestowed THE INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE booktail upon you all as a Halloween treat, ya welcome. The cocktail is derived from the original 1976 novel, but it’s the new AMC series that’s getting a lot of attention right now. Therefore, I would be remiss if I didn’t dissect a key difference between the series and the original text, thereby ruining it for you completely because that’s what writers do, no applause necessary, please. And brace yourself for spoilers…

The first few episodes of Interview with the Vampire were entrancing, riveting, and so beautifully gay. I was in gay vampire heaven! Then Claudia entered and made a mess of things for a bit, and not in a cute way. Young Claudia’s mannerisms, voiceover, and behavior are annoying AF. Violence at her hands is comical and almost slapstick at times, which undermines the dark, liquid-sexy vibe of the show. Initially, she has nothing in common with Claudia of the book, who looks like an innocent babe but is actually a ravenous, unrepentant killer with all the knowledge and sophistication of an adult, as suits her decades of experience in the world. Book Claudia is a classy killer, ok? AMC’s young Claudia is a child trapped in an adult world, with little understanding of how it works, not an adult trapped in the body of a child. Rice’s version is of course much more complex, compelling, and sinister.

Claudia is the center of the original text, the gold-haired handcuff that binds Louis to Lestat, per the latter’s design. This is how it happens: overcome with desire and hunger, Louis feeds on a defenseless 5 year-old who’s been trapped alone for days with a rotting corpse. If that isn’t a grim portrait of evil, I don’t know what is! When Lestat discover’s Louis’ terrible indiscretion, he leverages Louis’ guilt and love against him by forging a bond between a killer and his almost-prey. But that plan backfires when Claudia determines she will have her revenge on Lestat for turning her with such callous indifference to her suffering.

In AMC’s version of the story, Louis loves Lestat above all else. Claudia doesn’t bind him to Lestat, she’s an impediment to their relation, an accident, caused by Louis’ sympathy for a child in need of rescue, resulting in rifts and hurt feelings, just as actual children can stress and fray the marital connection. Meanwhile, Louis and Lestat’s relationship imitates the domestic abuse cycle, riding highs and lows of conflict and tenuous resolution, vacillating between hatred and attachment.

Rice’s Louis, in contrast, is contemptuous of his maker. Strangely enough, the show even quotes from the passage below, though it does not follow through on the sentiment:

“ ‘I understood now the difference between us. For me the experience of killing had been cataclysmic. So had that of sucking Lestat’s wrist. These experiences so overwhelmed and so changed my view of everything around me, from the picture of my brother on the parlor wall to the sight of a single star in the topmost pane of the French window; that I could not imagine another vampire taking them for granted. I was altered, permanently; I knew it. And what I felt, most profoundly, for everything, even the sound of the playing cards being laid down one by one upon the shining rows of the solitaire, was respect. Lestat felt the opposite. Or he felt nothing. He was the sow’s ear out of which nothing fine could be made. As boring as a mortal, as trivial and unhappy as a mortal, he chattered over the game, belittling my experience, utterly locked against the possibility of any experience of his own. By morning, I realized that I was his complete superior and I had been sadly cheated in having him for a teacher…”

Of course, Louis is now revising this story with an older, more jaded, and decidedly sober journalist who at times seems as irritated with the show’s bullshit as I am. The writer’s disbelief is refreshing. Louis as an out and proud gay man has lost the chance to truly be a gay vampire, with a vampire’s characteristic lack of sentiment and disregard for mortal convention. (For a stellar example of unsentimental vampire queerness, see Pam on True Blood. Or just watch What We Do in the Shadows.)

Though Rice’s Louis also starts out as the most human of vampires, Claudia’s loss hardens him. Finally, long after his mortal death, he turns cold. Finding his humanness intoxicating, Armand is utterly disappointed by the unfeeling Louis and dumps him via the coldest move I have ever READ. If you don’t remember, or have never read it, do yourself a favor and spend some time with the original INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.

Overall, I give this show a B-, not because the script altered the original text. A film adaptation is just that, it’s not a clone of the original. Indeed, the very best adaptations create something new—works of art in their own right. My objection to the televised version of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE is that it fucks with one of the most successful aspects of the original, and the gamble does not really pay off. The show is different for sure, but it’s not equal to the book’s careful structure or moral complexity.

And with that, we’re on to the next season of shenanigans, and more unpopular opinions…

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Not into holidays rooted in oppression? Try Wolfenoot instead!

You’d think a gluttonous heathen like myself would love Thanksgiving. Food! Themed drinks! But this mixology mistress is not a fan. The history, for one, is a big glob of flour in my vegetarian gravy. According to Smithsonian Magazine:

When the pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620, the sachem (chief) Ousamequin offered the new arrivals an entente, primarily as a way to protect the Wampanoags against their rivals, the Narragansetts. For 50 years, the alliance was tested by colonial land expansion, the spread of disease, and the exploitation of resources on Wampanoag land. Then, tensions ignited into war. Known as King Philip’s War (or the Great Narragansett War), the conflict devastated the Wampanoags and forever shifted the balance of power in favor of European arrivals. Wampanoags today remember the Pilgrims’ entry to their homeland as a day of deep mourning, rather than a moment of giving thanks.

The cloyingly sweet mythology of Thanksgiving fed to schoolchildren every year pastes over the brutal and bloody history of US colonization, oppression, and genocide of the peoples already occupying this land. When such crimes are hidden, the opportunity for restorative justice is eliminated.

Of course, you can hold this truth in your heart and still get together with family on the third Thursday of November anyway, but we can’t deny we’re contributing to the perpetuation of this holiday and its mythology by doing so, especially if we are making purchases, traveling, or otherwise putting our money and energy into it. Yet if we refuse to participate in family gatherings, hurt feelings and even estrangement can ensue. What to do?! Well, we could solve the whole thing by celebrating Wolfenoot instead!

Wolfenoot: it’s for the dogs!

What’s Wolfenoot? So glad you asked! Wolfenoot is not a “real” holiday in the sense that it’s relatively new, largely unknown, and spawned from the genius of a little boy in New Zealand. (But let’s be honest, all holidays were new at one point! Some of them were even invented by greeting card companies.) Personally, I think all future holidays should be designed by children, though I may regret saying that on Minecraft Day. On Wolfenoot, “the Spirit of the Wolf brings and hides small gifts around the house for everyone. People who have, have had, or are kind to dogs get better gifts than anyone else.” Roast meat is the customary meal for obvious reasons, though vegetarian and vegan substitutes are always an option. For dessert, a cake like a full moon. And might I also suggest a MOONFLOWER cocktail?

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MOONFLOWER, NIGHTSHADE, ALL THE HOURS OF THE DAY

NEW! Brewing Books

Updates on the potions priestess’s next projects and future books!

As some of you know, I’ve been working on a new novel for (mumble mumble) years, called QUEENS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. Heavily inspired by Sumerian mythology and currently weighing in at over 115,000 words, QUEENS is my biggest and most ambitious project yet. The manuscript is currently in the hands of three beta readers—thank you to Elana White, Deb Steinberg, and Jensen Sikora for a previous read that spawned some major improvements. In the meantime, I’m noodling around with elevator pitches and synopses. Come AWP in March, this book WILL be ready to pitch to small presses accepting unagented submissions! That is my solemn and overly ambitious vow!

What’s QUEENS about? Well…

Short Synopsis, QUEENS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH:

Gold is an ultra-literate high school dropout in a struggling Midwestern city. Raised by a drug-dealing hoarder who exploits her unearthly powers of perception, Gold is drawn into a strange, magical world of witches and pagan divinity, at the center of which is The Wheel, a secret queer bar where the bottles replenish themselves and there’s never a line for the bathroom. Accepting a job at The Wheel sends Gold on an odyssey of pain and self-discovery, culminating in the fated arrival of a far-away woman Gold knows only as the Empress–a magical figure in her own right, trapped in an alternate reality forged by domestic abuse. To fulfill their destinies and satisfy an ancient goddess of sex and war, these two will have to find the path to freeing themselves, and each other.

Want more? Stay tuned for sneak peeks. In the meantime, enjoy the QUEENS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH playlist on Spotify!

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News from the Library

Featuring news and updates on authors and their booktail-ized books!

Jamie Gehring’s MADMAN IN THE WOODS wins the PenCraft Book Award in the Non-Fiction Memoir category! Congrats!

Alyssa Songsiridej’s scintillating novel LITTLE RABBIT is on the shortlist for the Center for Fiction 2022 First Novel Prize! Wow!

THE LOCKHART WOMEN by Mary Camarillo is the winner of the California Author Project contest for Adult Fiction! Woohoo!

The hilarious and platform-savvy Aileen Weintraub, author of the booktail-ized memoir KNOCKED DOWN, has teamed up with Megan Margulies to found The Witches of Pitches, helping writers find their voice and publish their best work. The Witches of Pitches offer editing, writing, and coaching services. Sign me up!

And now, a potion for Día de los Muertos!

The American conception of Día de los Muertos is largely drawn from the celebrations of our neighbors to the south, which makes a lot of sense since the earliest iteration of this holiday appeared among the Aztecs in what is now central Mexico. According to History.com,

“The Aztecs used skulls to honor the dead a millennium before the Day of the Dead celebrations emerged. Skulls, like the ones once placed on Aztec temples, remain a key symbol in a tradition that has continued for more than six centuries in the annual celebration to honor and commune with those who have passed on.”

Once the Catholic influence came into play, Día de los Muertos merged with All Saints Day.

Of course, Mexico is not the only Latin American nation to honor the spirits of the departed on this day. I lived in Quito, Ecuador from 2006-2010 and looked forward to the Ecuadorian version of this holiday every year, which includes guaguas de pan—bread shaped like “babies,” with frosted faces—and colada morada, a thick, warm drink made with blue corn flour, blueberries, and other fruits.

It’s funny how food nostalgia works: you can fall in love with a country’s cuisine, but you’ll always miss certain foods from home. Then you leave, and you wish you could take all those new-to-you dishes and snacks with you. So I included guava in this drink as a nod to the guava paste candy I enjoyed so much in Ecuador, among many other treats. Marigold-infused tequila is traditional in Mexico, and pomegranate represents the fruit of life and the food of the dead. Salud brujas!

Desde Lejos

Ingredients
Pomegranate juice
1 c tequila blanco
1/4 c dried organic caléndula (edible marigold)
1 oz guava nectar
0.5 oz agave
0.5 oz lime juice
Generous dash chocolate bitters

Instructions
Add the caléndula and tequila to a jar. Cover and let marinate for 3-7 days. Shake occasionally. Meanwhile, fill the ice mold of your choosing with pomegranate juice, preferably a flower or skull shape. Set in the freezer. When the tequila and ice are ready, strain and discard the marigolds. Add 1.5 oz of the infused tequila to a shaker with fresh ice, along with the guava nectar, lime juice, agave, and bitters. Shake and strain, then add the pomegranate ice.

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Not feeling Thanksgiving? Try Wolfenoot!