
Now, on with the show!
This week we're discussing whether or not we've ever worried about our family's reaction to a scene we'd written. Short answer: Yes...sort of. Let me explain why.
I'm a native of southwestern Mississippi. I grew up in a rural area with conservative values. Crime, sex, and the supernatural were not topics discussed around the family dinner table. Sex was especially taboo. When I asked my mother were babies came from, as all children do, she changed the subject. So I asked my older brother. His answer was that I'd been found under a dirty cabbage leaf in the garden. (For those who haven't heard this before, I grew up what was essentially a 40-acre farm.) I then asked my older sister, the nurse, and well, let's just say that I was the most well-informed six-year-old in first grade.Mom is everything you would expect to find in a sweet, Southern lady. She raised her children to
sit up straight, be polite, mind their manners, and eat their vegetables. When we misbehaved, we had to stand with our noses in a corner of the kitchen in her version of Time Out. Having her daughter write about vampire cops tracking vicious serial killers through the streets of small Mississippi towns was not a subject for which Mom ever considered she'd need to be prepared. Naturally, I have discussed certain aspects of BLOOD LAW with her, just to give her a "head's up." I'm not worried about the murders, or even the sex. She's already said she'd skip over the sex scenes. No, I'm worried about "The Shower Scene."
I'm sure we're all familiar with Alfred Hitchcock's "shower scene" in Psycho, one of my all-time fave films. It's masterfully filmed and the transition from the blood (actually chocolate sauce) swirling down the drain to the unblinking, lifeless eye of Janet Leigh's character lying on the floor gives me shivers. Then comes Norman's cry of "Mother! Oh God, Mother! Blood! Blood!" Oh, yes, Hitchcock knew how to create tension and chills.
For me, "The Shower Scene" is a key scene, but it's also the one I worry about the most when I think of my mother reading my book. I'm hitting a couple of different taboos in that one scene, and depending on her reaction, I think there's a kitchen corner with my name on it in my future.




































