The Shining Girls by South African author Lauren Beukes is one of this summer?s hottest books, and was recently optioned for television by Leonardo DiCaprio?s production company Appian Way. The story centers around a violent drifter named Harper Curtis, who stumbles on a house that travels through time. Harper then embarks on a killing spree, murdering women in Chicago throughout the twentieth century. But in contrast to suave Hollywood psychopaths like Hannibal Lecter and Patrick Bateman, Harper is more pathetic than debonair, which Beukes feels is closer to reality when it comes to serial killers.
?A lot of them have major issues with impotence ? whether that?s actual sexual dysfunction or just feelings of powerlessness,? says Lauren Beukes in this week?s episode of the Geek?s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. ?They?re actually just violent losers.?
She also wanted to push back against the tendency of crime stories to present murdered women as sex objects. Each of the victims in The Shining Girls is a unique, well-developed character, and together they convey a fascinating portrait of the lives of strong-willed women. It?s that very promise that puts them in the sights of Harper, who?s drawn to their sense of potential. The murder scenes are gritty and visceral, and all are written from the point of view of the victims, focusing on their horror and outrage.
?I specifically tried to avoid writing torture porn,? says Beukes. ?And actually, my editor is one of the leading experts on violence against women in South Africa, so if she said a scene was OK and passed muster, I felt like it was probably OK.?
Listen to our complete interview with Lauren Beukes in Episode 89 of Geek?s Guide to the Galaxy (above). Then stick around after the interview as guest geek Ross Lockhart joins hosts John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley to discuss psycho killers.
Lauren Beukes on the power of Twitter:
?Twitter is amazing. I advertised for the position of research assistant on Twitter, and both of my researchers came from there. Adam approached me ? and he?d actually named his company Skyward Star ? [which] is a character in Moxyland. And it was amazing to have someone working with me who knew me and knew my work, and knew what I was interested in ? There was one timeline mistake where Zora ? the African-American welder ? was a little too young in one scene, and I had to age her up ? and when I aged her up she was making paper planes for her little brother. And I thought, wait, did they even have paper planes in 1932? And I Googled it, and I went through about five pages of search results and I couldn?t find anything, so I asked Twitter. And within five minutes somebody had responded with a Daily Mail article about paper darts recovered from the eaves of a chapel that dated back to 1899. The hivemind is phenomenal.?
Lauren Beukes on TV under apartheid:
?The TV series V came on ? and the first episode aired, and I was really excited because it was science fiction and there were aliens, and it was very cool. And the next thing I know it?s been pushed to a really, really late time slot. It had been on Mondays at 7 p.m., and suddenly it?s been moved to Wednesdays at 11:30 p.m., which meant because I was a schoolkid I couldn?t really stay up and watch it ? I only found out years later that the reason it got pushed to such a late time slot when no one could watch it was because the state president, whose nickname was ?the Big Crocodile,? had freaked out completely, phoned the head of the SABC that night, after the first episode had aired, and demanded that it be taken off the air immediately, because the aliens were reptiles, and he was so vain he thought this TV show was actually about him.?
Ross Lockhart on American Psycho:
?It always kind of surprises me when I?m in a place like a Target or a Walmart or some mass media store, seeing that on the shelf and knowing that something that was really kind of a transgressive book when it came out, that the idea has mainstreamed as much as it has, to the point that there was recently a parody with Huey Lewis in it recreating the Huey Lewis scene from the movie with Weird Al Yankovic ? In the film Patrick Bateman, as prelude to killing someone, puts on the Huey Lewis CD Sports and explains how the album is such a great metaphor for the 1980s ? The weirdness of that scene resonating to the point that a parody can so cut to the heart of it really does indicate that scene works on a chilling level, and yet it?s about the superficiality of popular music.?
David Barr Kirtley on Se7en:
?The killer leaves quotations at the scenes of the crime, and Brad Pitt says, ?Just because [this guy]?s got a library card doesn?t make him Yoda.? And I?ve always thought that was just one of the most perfect lines at revealing character, that this is Brad Pitt?s idea of a great thinker, that that?s the only thing he can come up with. But so then that gives Morgan Freeman the idea that if he could just see what books people are checking out of the library, maybe he could do some data mining and identify the killer. And I saw this movie with my friend Pete, who grew up in the Soviet Union, and I was trying to explain to him that, no, the government can?t just go and look at what books you?re reading, that?s totally unconstitutional. That?s just sort of sadly ironic in retrospect, that I used to think it would be totally unimaginable for the government to be looking at what library books you?re reading, whereas now they?re listening in on your phone sex just because they?re bored at the NSA.?
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wiredunderwire/~3/u1YAOnwQkx0/
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