One develops an instinct for letting silence do the heavy lifting. In the three, four, five seconds that passed without either of us speaking, the many ways the conversation could go came and went like time-lapse film of flowers blooming and dying.
Glen DuncanYour ideal possession candidate's a thirteen-year-old recently orphaned schizophrenic girl three days away from her period on her way to see the shrink with whom she's romantically besotted.
Glen DuncanI'll tell you something,' she said. 'I'm not sure I ever really liked him.' Adam?' I said. 'I don't blame you.' 'Not Adam,' she said, struggling to swallow a greedily chomped chunk. 'God.
Glen DuncanShe understood the genre constraints, the decencies were supposed to be observing. The morally cosy vision allows the embrace of monstrosity only as a reaction to suffering or as an act of rage against the Almighty. Vampire interviewee Louis is in despair at his brotherโs death when he accepts Lestatโs offer. Frankensteinโs creature is driven to violence by the violence done to him. Even Luciferโs rebellion emerges from the agony of injured price. The message is clear: By all means become an abominationโbut only while unhinged by grief or wrath.
Glen Duncan