When not caring for her children or teaching literature classes online for Homeschool Connections, Eleanor Bourg Nicholson can be found digging into the gothic genre and crafting a tale of her own. Eleanor is a second-generation homeschooling mother and received her Master in English Literature, where she specialized in the effects of the anti-Catholicism of the British Victorian Period. Along with other works, Eleanor has written three gothic novels, A Bloody Habit, Brother Wolf, and Wake of Malice, which was just released this past September.
What follows is an interview with Eleanor Bourg Nicholson and Katherine Gerring …
What first inspired you to write gothic literature?
I was reluctant to read gothic novels as a teenager because I am easily terrified. My introduction came through writers like Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë, along with a host of mystery novels, all of which appropriate a great deal of the atmospherics of the Gothic (though they handle them differently in the end). I formally delved into the genre in college, and found that it was both thrilling and unintentionally hilarious, as well as containing those deep and fascinating themes. I began to play with the genre because I found it so entertaining and rich.
Do you recall the first gothic novel that you read? Or rather, what was the first gothic novel that had a lasting impact on you?
I was particularly struck by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. By the time I read it, I’d read a long line of Gothic and Gothic-influenced works, including authors I mentioned before, as well as The Castle of Otranto, Frankenstein, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. I was particularly struck by the recurrence of Catholic symbolism and characters, usually counterbalanced by a strong vein of anti-Catholicism. I was fascinated by the way English Victorians worked to appropriate a Catholic aesthetic, all the while making sure they weren’t tainted by “villainous Popery”. Stoker, of course, goes in a very different direction, since he wasn’t threatened by Catholicism. He was a genial Irish Protestant, and his wife converted to Catholicism. He threw Catholic elements into his novel with reckless abandon, and the result is brilliant (and often bizarre)!
As a literature teacher, and no doubt as a mom, you get to introduce many stories and characters to new readers. What are some of your personal favorite books and literary characters?
Lists like this always make me panic, because I’m too likely to forget someone! My favorite novelists are Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, P. G. Wodehouse, the Golden Age of Mystery Fiction novelists (Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, along with a host of others), J. R. R. Tolkien, the Brontës, Wilkie Collins, Bram Stoker, Josephine Ward, Karen Ullo, and Tim Powers. (And now I’ll lose sleep thinking of other names!)
Obviously, your writing is inspired by classic gothic novels and the Victorian era, however, where else do you pull inspiration from for your writing?
I read a variety of genres, and find they can all offer inspiration. I also draw a great deal from life—a passing moment or an encounter can put me in mind of a scene in a story. Human beings are an endless source of inspiration! For my most recent book, Wake of Malice, I found I had strayed more heavily into the mystery realm, and drew on decades of study—which began when I was a middle schooler, lazing about the top floor of my grandparents’ house, reading through my grandmother’s massive collection of paperback mysteries.
Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wuthering Heights are some of the best-known gothics. Compared to these classics, what sets your novels apart?
The most obvious characteristic is humor. Many Gothic novels are really very funny, but the authors probably didn’t intend them to be. Laughter is one of my awkward coping mechanisms. As a reader, I find it very funny when a Gothic hero leaves the heroine in a thoroughly unprotected situation (and without telling her anything so she can take steps to protect herself!). As a writer, I can create that situation and make the heroine conscious of the fact—which adds some lovely romantic tension into a relationship too! In addition, my books don’t break any philosophical or theological rules. There’s a coherent Thomistic moral theology there—less because I’ve deliberately worked it into the story, than because I can’t think outside that comprehension of reality.
Unfortunately, due to modern interpretations of the gothic genre many Catholics may see gothic novels as glorifying the evil and the monstrous. However, as a Catholic Gothic novelist, how do you see the gothic?
I have no stomach for modern horror. It’s usually grotesque, nihilistic violence. Properly understood, the central tension in the Gothic is the question of redemption. Will the soul of the protagonist be saved or not? In addition, the mechanism of the Gothic should end up working like a funhouse mirror: it ends up reflecting the reader. We are called to a degree of understanding for the monster, because we live with ourselves. Because of concupiscence, we are monstrous. Do we accept God’s gratuitous gift of grace, or do we run headlong toward destruction? It’s really fascinating to watch how the genre plays with these deep and profound themes like life and death, damnation and salvation, sin and grace, and so on. You really can’t heavily introduce those themes in other genres without lapsing into preachiness or dullness.
As someone who has read your previous books, I must say some of the scenes can be startling. Do you ever find yourself jumping at an unknown noise or clutching a Saint Benedict medal when you are researching for your book?
Absolutely. I’m very easily terrified. Late one night, many years ago, while I was teaching a course on Dracula, I was researching irregular burial practices in London during the Victorian period. (The graveyards in the city were notoriously overcrowded and unsanitary.) I was just patting myself on the back for being brave enough to research such a topic in the dark when something—likely a bird—fluttered in our chimney, by which I was sitting. I squealed and raced to find my husband. I made him search the entire house, including the closets. And our house is well stocked with St. Benedict medals!
You have described your novels as dealing with the preternatural instead of the supernatural. What is the difference?
The supernatural relates to God. The preternatural is outside the natural realm, but not on par with God. The preternatural encompasses angels and demons—and vampires, demonic werewolves, ghosts, fairies, and whatever else I want to throw into a novel.
How do you see your faith stringing together and unifying all the areas of your life into one?
There is a quotation from St. Faustina’s diary that captures this beautifully: “O life so dull and monotonous, how many treasures you contain! When I look at everything with the eyes of faith, no two hours are alike, and the dullness and monotony disappear. The grace which is given me in this hour will not be repeated in the next… Time goes on, never to return again” (St. Faustina, Diary, 62). Faith provides us with the narrative that makes all of the disparate pieces of life coherent. The narrative of my life is really God’s Narrative. When I can keep that in mind, I am at peace in writing, child rearing, and the endless cycle of laundry.
Often in our day-to-day lives we can become immune to the beauty around us. What are some ways you nurture and grow your imagination and sense of wonder?
The children help with that a great deal. They see the world so joyfully, and their joy is infectious. In practical terms, I try to weave in small things that will provide leisure and recreation within daily life—prayer, working in the garden, reading (often by listening to audio books, which are easier to track when I am busy around the house), cooking, and baking. Those all give me a great deal of joy, and I can incorporate them into life without distracting me too much from the mountain of tasks to be accomplished each day.
Can someone who has never read your other novels, A Bloody Habit and Brother Wolf, start with Wake of Malice, or should they be read in order of publication?
They can be read individually or in any order. The primary exorcist is a recurring character, but the plots aren’t dependent on each other.
Since you are a busy mother and teacher, how do you make time for writing? Where do you go or what do you do when you hit writer’s block?
Like everything else, writing has to fit into the context of domestic duties. Sometimes I’ve been able to set aside a day as a “writing day”, and we can work to accomplish all other tasks through the week to enable it. Other times, I’ve written in the evening when children are asleep, or in the early morning. It really depends on what the children need and what the season of life is for the family. That homeschooling training and years of freelance work have stood me in good stead—I’m used to a degree of flexibility in my working habits. If I hit some sort of writer’s block, I either switch to editing, work on something else, or reach out to someone I trust to discuss what I’m working on and try and find a solution.
Do you have any advice for other busy writers?
The most important advice (and the hardest to live out) is to write because it gives you joy. To that end, don’t ever have an expectation of remuneration, since most writing is not lucrative. Pace the image of the starving artist in the garret, I don’t ever recommend relying on writing to pay the bills. (On the other hand, the years I’ve spent freelancing and the range of projects I’ve worked on—including technical writing and editing to ghost-writing!—have helped develop me as a writer.)
Where can your books be found?
You can order from me directly (www.eleanorbourgnicholson.com), via my publishers (Ignatius Press and Chrism Press), or via any major online bookseller (Amazon, Barnes and Noble). If you want it signed, order from me!
About Wake of Malice by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
When Father Michael Walsh, a Jesuit priest on the western coast of Ireland, faces a charge of embezzlement, a London newspaper sends expatriate Irish reporter Hugh Buckley home to deliver a story—or else. Buckley and his photographer colleague Frederick Jones arrive in the village of Doolin to find themselves embroiled in a tangled mess of parish politics, occult practices, and bloody murder. By night, as wicked things rise from the earth, Buckley faces his own long-repressed struggles with his country, his abandoned faith, and his dead family. By day, he finds help, both professional and personal, from English Dominican friar Father Thomas Edmund Gilroy, OP, who has come to Doolin to support his friend Father Michael and to aid in the spiritual battle against the occult. Can Hugh and Freddie save their employment—and their skins—as the grotesque violence intensifies? Or will they and the rest of the village of Doolin be consumed by dark powers lurking within the mysterious landscape of Ireland?
