Louisville as the Setting. I chose my old hometown simply because it is the urban area I know best. Hence, my novel does not target any current or past Louisville clergymen. The obnoxious Bishop Freddy Wade is a compound of obnoxious traits of bishops and clergymen I have known through the years, particularly those individuals who have not allowed Christ entry into their innermost souls.
The Exorcist. Any relationship to The Exorcist is purely coincidental. If there was any influence, it must have been totally unconscious. I did not think of the basic similarity until the first draft was well underway. By the way, I love The Exorcist, in both its novelistic and cinematic versions.
The Madonna and UFO’s. During a series of emails about this book, Naomi West, one of my former students, informed me that there is a large body of writings by UFO enthusiasts linking the passage from Genesis (along with verse 4) with extraterrestrials. To these aficionados the passage reveals that flying saucers visited our world in ancient times!
An Allegory? I have not tried to construct a consistent allegory. However, I may tread close to that literary species in creating the Dark Madonna. Quite obviously, she parallels the Whore of Babylon in Revelation. But actually, she was inspired by the Renaissance enchantresses of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, and Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, which in turn were inspired by the Whore of Babylon.
Shakespeare’s Dark Lady as an Evil Spirit. As some of you may know, during my teenage years, I avidly read science fiction and fantasy magazines, even ordering musty back issues from used book dealers. For years I could have sworn that in my late teens I had read a short story in which Shakespeare’s Dark Lady was portrayed as an evil spirit. I recalled that the magazine was Weird Tales, and I could have sworn that the author was Richard Matheson, but I had long ago discarded that issue. Several years ago, I found a copy of the issue I had in mind offered on eBay. I bought it and read Matheson’s story and found “nary a mention” of the Dark Lady. I was surprised indeed. I suspected, then, that the Matheson story had inspired me to consider writing a short story about the Dark Lady and that, through the years, my subconscious had somehow assigned a nonexistent completed version of it to Matheson. At the time of my discovery, I had already marked out the basic plot of Madonna and decided that if Matheson had not written such a story, I would be the first to do so and added the Dark Lady to the stew pot of ingredients that became the novel.
While the manuscript was at the publisher’s, I blundered upon another copy of Weird Tales on eBay. A buzzer went off in my head as I studied the photograph of the cover. Lo and behold, I recalled that issue and was immediately sure the story I had thought I had imagined was in it. I bought the copy and discovered that I had indeed read in my teens a story about the Dark Lady as a supernatural being. The tale is P. Schuyler Miller’s “John Calder’s Wife,” in the May 1943, issue of Weird Tales. (I doubt that the story has been reprinted.) The Dark Lady is portrayed as an immortal spirit who has involved herself with a number of famous and powerful men! So, alas, I was not the first one to write a horror story about Shakespeare’s Dark Lady. Of course, I suspect that someone must have used this plot device before Miller. If you know of any such stories, please let me know.
Oh, by the way, my book has nothing to do with rock star Madonna! Buying it as a gift for a Madonna fan might get you crossed off the guest list.
