Interview with award-winning horror author, Deborah Sheldon

by Robyn O’Sullivan

When I think of Deborah Sheldon as an author, the term sui generis comes to mind; her work is in a class of its own. Unafraid to plumb the depths of human experience in all its extremes, Sheldon’s writing often breaks through the accepted genre frameworks. Her latest novel is released by the American small press, Undertaker Books. Bodily Harm is a gripping crime thriller shot through with psychological horror. A daunting read, the plot pivots on what is, sadly, a not-uncommon event. Curious to know what may lie behind a book of this nature, I sat down with Deborah to ask a few questions.

This story is challenging and confronting. Where did it come from?

My novel is based on a screenplay, BODILY HARM, that I wrote in 1994. I had just completed two seasons with the TV true-crime show, AUSTRALIA’S MOST WANTED, as researcher and scriptwriter of the crime re-enactments. For 18 months, I had liaised with about 400 detectives from Melbourne and Adelaide, and immersed myself in some of the most violent, heinous, unsolved crimes in the country.

I was proud of my work. I felt honoured that I could help catch criminals, and get some measure of justice or closure for victims and families of victims. For what it’s worth, I’m still proud and honoured. But to say that my job affected me is an understatement.

I was in my mid-twenties and just a kid. It wasn’t long before I realised that I didn’t have the right stuff. Week after week, the relentless exposure to such graphic violence took a heavy toll on me: nightmares, drinking, stupid risk-taking. I found out years later that my flatmate had taken to humming songs whenever I was at home – so I could always hear where she was – because my startle reflex was off the charts. Just about anything could give me a fright, an adrenaline rush, a feeling of suffocating panic. While my flatmate realised the extent of my distress, I stubbornly refused to acknowledge it and tried instead to self-medicate with bravado and booze.

I wrote BODILY HARM in an attempt to exorcise the armed robberies, rapes and murders from my system. The screenplay was optioned in 1997 by the production company Crawfords Australia, but it was never made into a film. The story always stayed with me. Years later, I decided to adapt the screenplay into a novel.

 

Your novel has a mixed bunch of police departments. What did you draw on to create them? 

I have great respect for anyone who works in law enforcement. It’s a demanding, harrowing and often dangerous job. My time on AUSTRALIA’S MOST WANTED provided some level of verisimilitude, but all police departments in Bodily Harm are fictional. Generally, while writing the novel I meticulously researched the ethics, operations and protocols across various Australian police forces, but used artistic licence to create my own milieu, which hopefully feels genuine to the reader.

Police officers get a lot of flak for the occasional bad apple. That said, some of the characters in Bodily Harm are bad apples, simply because a story filled with nothing but good guys doesn’t make compelling fiction.

 

This book incorporates the worst of human behaviour. How would you categorise it?

Bodily Harm is a savage, merciless story, and potential readers should take that as a warning. Unlike most of my novels and novellas that include fantastical horror elements such as dinosaurs or vampires, the horror in this story is set firmly in the real world. There are scenes of vicious beatings, violence and brutality, and one scene of sexual assault. I don’t want to sugarcoat it; in fact, I decided that “Warning: Mature Content” should be put on the book’s cover to alert those who might be triggered upon reading. Novels, unlike films, don’t come with advisory ratings. To their credit, Undertaker Books agreed to this unusual move.

 

Your characters are believable. How do you write them so convincingly?

I relate to all of my characters as three-dimensional people. One thing I dislike in books, films and TV shows is the stereotype of the “evil villain”, who is evil for reasons unknown. To write my characters – both good and bad – I first dig around to find splinters of them inside my own personality, which I then build upon with a mix of imagination, memories and research.

Bad characters are more difficult to write, yes, but I relish the work that’s required. For example, the furious part of me wanting to yell at a driver who cuts me off? I use that part. Flashes of jealousy or envy? Ditto. Pain of betrayal? More grist for my writer’s mill.

 

This can’t have been an easy book to write. Were any aspects of it worse than others?

By far, the most difficult scenes to write were the sex scenes. For my overall story to work, I needed these scenes to be sensual, loving, evocative. I’d often spend a day’s writing trying to perfect a brief scene of sexual attraction, or the sex act itself.

Okay, full disclosure: the Literary Review’s “Bad Sex Scenes in Fiction Awards” kept flashing through my mind whenever I had to get down to brass tacks. Which is a good thing! Who wants to write a crappy sex scene? Not me, that’s for sure. Hopefully, readers find my scenes not just well-written but emotionally genuine in their depiction.

 

You’ve written quite a few stand-alone books. Might there be a sequel for this one or any of the others?

Readers often ask me to write sequels. However, I’d never consider writing a sequel; not just to Bodily Harm, but to any of my novels or novellas. I’m simply not that kind of writer because I’m not that kind of reader.

For example, The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith is one of my favourite crime novels. With some trepidation I read the first sequel, Ripley Underground, and hated it. One of the things I loved about The Talented Mr Ripley was discovering, right alongside the main character, the lengths he would go to. In Ripley Underground, the surprise was gone for both of us. I prefer self-contained novels, which is why I avoid books-in-series.

 

The publisher of Bodily Harm is American. Why not publish in Australia?

It took a long time to find a publisher for Bodily Harm because my story deals with sexual violence. The scene itself is only a few paragraphs long. But if you take a look at the submission guidelines for most Australian publishers, you’ll find a blanket refusal to accept stories about rape. Somehow, writing about rape glorifies or condones it, apparently. The fact that most women will experience some form of sexual assault in their lives is of no importance here. Gatekeepers have decreed that every writer – whether female or male – is not permitted to tell the truth via fiction.

This infuriates me!

Right now, Australia is experiencing an epidemic of violence against women; so much so, that even the federal government is getting involved, trying to think of ways to mitigate the crisis. Well, I can think of one: let us tell our stories, please, and let people read them. Publishers, stop using suppression to cover up the fact that bad things can happen to women. Ugly things fester when swept under the carpet. 

 

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BODILY HARM 

 

BACK-COVER BLURB:

 

Survival has a price… Is Cara ready to pay it?

From the moment she feels a gun barrel shoved into her back, Cara Haynes is thrown into the brutal world of vicious criminals and the police officers tough enough to pursue them. 

Cara has lived in Melbourne just a few weeks when she survives an armed robbery at her local pizzeria. Traumatised, afraid and alone, Cara’s lifeline is Mick Thompson, a detective from the Armed Offence Squad, whose compulsion to find these violent offenders keeps him awake at night.

But soon, Cara doesn’t know the difference between safety and danger…

Written by award-winning author, Deborah Sheldon, Bodily Harm is a fast-paced, savage and disturbing read where one woman’s nightmare becomes a detective’s obsession.

“Sheldon has an uncanny gift for unnerving imagery and story” – Aurealis Magazine

 

Bodily Harm Amazon URL: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D19PXYWB

Direct from publisher, Undertaker Books:

Paperback – https://undertakerbooks.myshopify.com/products/bodily-harm-a-crime-horror-novel

EPub – https://undertakerbooks.myshopify.com/products/bodily-harm-a-crime-horror-novel-epub

 

Release date: October 11th, 2024

 

AUTHOR BIO:

DEBORAH SHELDON is a multi-award-winning author and anthology editor from Melbourne, Australia. She writes poems, short stories, novellas and novels across the darker spectrum of horror, crime and noir. Her latest title is her crime-horror novel, Bodily Harm. Award-nominated titles include the novels Cretaceous Canyon, Body Farm Z, Contrition and Devil Dragon; the novella Thylacines; and collections Figments and Fragments: Dark Stories and Liminal Spaces: Horror Stories. 

Deb’s collection Perfect Little Stitches and Other Stories won the Australian Shadows ‘Best Collected Work’ Award, was shortlisted for an Aurealis Award, and long-listed for a Bram Stoker. Her short fiction has been widely published, shortlisted for numerous Australian Shadows and Aurealis Awards, translated, and included in various ‘best of’ anthologies.

Deb has won the Australian Shadows ‘Best Edited Work’ Award twice: for Midnight Echo 14, and for Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies. As a senior editor at IFWG Publishing, she specialises in horror anthologies.

Other credits include feature articles for magazines, non-fiction books (Reed Books, Random House), TV scripts such as NEIGHBOURS, stage plays, award-nominated poetry, and award-winning medical writing. Visit Deb at http://deborahsheldon.wordpress.com

 

DEBORAH SHELDON’S SOCIAL MEDIA:

Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/people/Deborah-Sheldon/100063653647844/ 

Amazon Central Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Deborah-Sheldon/author/B0035MWQ98 

Goodreads Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3312459