Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

Andie put the weirdness that was Alice and Carter out of her mind and spent the next hour unpacking and settling into her new room. It was surprisingly charming: white paneled walls and high, sculpted ceilings and long stone-lined windows. The drapes were blue damask that clashed with the incongruously cheap silver-patterned black comforter that somebody with a lot of romance in her soul and no money in her checking account had bought to cover the large walnut four-poster bed. The rest of the furniture in the room was a mixture of styles probably inherited from different parts of the house as hand-me-downs, and the crowning touch was a cheap wood plaque over the bed that said, ALWAYS KISS ME GOODNIGHT. There was something a little obsessive about that which, given Andie’s surroundings, leaked over into creepiness. She put her pajamas on, brushed her teeth in the bathroom, put Kristin’s folder about the kids on the bed, and then, looking at the “Archer Legal Group” label on the folder, went to get her jewelry box from her suitcase. Buried at the bottom in a small manila envelope was her wedding ring, pretty and cheap, now painted and varnished to keep it from tarnishing again, the last thing she had left from her marriage. She should have thrown it out since it was worthless, but . . . read more >>

Andie followed Mrs. Crumb into a short dismal hallway with faded wallpaper and a worn wood floor. The housekeeper turned to go up a narrow flight of equally worn wooden stairs that were probably the servant stairs, and then she stopped on the first step, her watery, protruding eyes even with Andie’s now.

“I hope you didn’t get the wrong idea,” she began. “I’m sure Mr. Archer just forgot to tell me—” She looked past Andie and scowled. “Now what are you doing out here?” she snapped, and Andie turned and saw Alice standing behind her, looking even smaller and thinner than she had in the kitchen, her neck festooned with all that jewelry, the headphones from her Walkman still over her ears.

“Hello, Alice,” Andie said. read more >>

The first chapter to Maybe This Time is up on the website, but since I want to go that extra mile for the Argh People (that would be you), I’m posting the three scenes from the second chapter here for the next three days.

Chapter Two

“You’re late,” a voice snapped from behind Andie, and she turned and saw a plump, overly powdered, elderly woman, her pale, watery, protruding eyes hostile under her improbably red-orange updo, her red cupid’s-bow mouth obviously painted on with a brush.

“Yes,” Andie said, putting her suitcase down on the floor. “You must be Mrs. Crumb. I’m–” read more >>

Many, many years ago, I was working on a masters in feminist criticism and I did a journal entry on how I’d fix the classics. Evangeline would stop her ceaseless searching for the boy she’d left behind and open a fast food franchise with her face on the sign so he could find her. Madame Bovary survey the men around her, decide that there must be more to life than these guys, and strike out for new parts. Hester Prynne would look around town and say, “What a bunch of hypocrites,” and make everybody pay through the nose for embroidery. And the governess in The Turn of the Screw would send a letter to the kids’ guardian at the first sign of ghosts that said, “Get your butt down here, this place is haunted.” As the years passed, I lost my interest in saving Evangeline, Emma, and Hester, but the governess haunted me. She didn’t even have a name. It was so wrong. “I’m going to do my version of The Turn of the Screw,” I’d tell people. Nobody said, “Oh, goody.” They probably thought the original version was holding up pretty well. I did, too, but something had to be done about that governess. Finally I decided it was time. “I’m going to write my version of The Turn of the Screw,” I told my editor. She didn’t say, “Oh, goody.” Well, all great artists are misunderstood. I persevered, my editor said, “I trust you,” I signed a contract, and then I had to actually write it. read more >>

No, I did not forget the Gothic Book Club. Some other stuff came up. We’ll start Oct. 31 (because that’s creepy) and then meet on the first of every month in the Cherry Forums Gothic Book Club thread. The first nine months schedule is below, and then along about month six when we have a firm grasp of what we’re doing, we’ll choose the last three. Or four. Whatever.

The books are:

1. Intro to Course, Mysteries of Udolpho, Radcliffe (1794)
2. Northanger Abbey, Austen (1818)
3. The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe (1839) [Link is to book of short stories that "Usher" appeared in.]
4. Jane Eyre, Bronte (1847)
5. The Turn of the Screw, James (1898)
6. The Circular Staircase, Rinehart (1908)
7. Rebecca, DuMaurier (1938)
8. Nine Coaches Waiting, Stewart (1958)
9. Mistress of Mellyn, Victoria Holt (1960) read more >>