Passion Play: Author's Notes
The Process
Passion Play was first drafted in 17 days in February of 1987. Most of it has been revised ten times or more; a lot of the better stuff has been interpolated at a much later date. For those who wonder where authors get their ideas, the emotional dynamic of the warehouse scene was suggested by the scene with the man on the ledge threatening to commit suicide in Lethal Weapon.
I have also written what I feel is the definitive parody of Passion Play, a one-page piece of doggerel published in the first issue of the Canadian magazine Transversions (who, somewhat to my dismay, did not mention that it was a parody).
Most Frequently Asked Questions
Q: (surprised tone) This isn't a cyberpunk book at all. So why is there circuitry on the cover painting?
A: 1. Aargh!
ΚΚΚΚΚ2. Because no one had ever heard of me, but I had a quote from William
Gibson. How would you sell the book?
Q: Why did you decide to write from a first person female point of view?
A: I honestly felt more at home writing from a woman's point of view. I was going to write a character whose life was bound up with emotions. The women I knew spent more time thinking about and articulating what they felt. Then, too, I was raised by a single parent mom, had very close friends who were women, and, in fact, married one.
The literary language of feeling is also more women's territory than men's. That is, when we talk about a feeling voice in this century, we think of the work of Woolf, Lessing, Atwood, or, in sf, Le Guin.When you reach for that kind of voice, a woman's point of view seems to come more naturally to hand.
The third part of the answer being, as always, I dunno -- it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Unsung Heroes
I had a rare, wonderful experience with my editor on this book, Laurel Bernard, who made many excellent suggestions (such as playing up the role of TV in the narrative). I am deeply grateful to her.
I should also mention Jeff Kuipers, who did the cover painting for the Canadian version of PP; Ace used a lot of his ideas. He also won my heart by agreeing completely with my view that Diane should be rendered from a real model, rather than being another assembly line sf cover art rent-a-babe.
Most Frequent Comment
"I expected all the fundamentalists in the book to be monsters, but they weren't."
When someone says that a book is set in a fundamentalist America, people automatically assume that the novel is political at heart, designed to take the piss out of fundamentalism. As it happens, that would be putting the cart before the horse with this book.
I wanted to write a book about moral choice. Starting from that point, I decided to take advantage of the freedoms sf offers, and create a society in which everyone cared passionately about moral choice. While such concern was viewed as deeply unhip in the university crowd I moved in at the time, moral questions were front and center in another sub-culture I knew quite well; my extended family comes from the Bible Belt south. I disagree with many of my relatives on practically any issue you could name, but I respect many of them as people. Though an atheist, I was very tired of the way religious people were often depicted in sf as stupid, crazy, or at best misguided. They are people, just like everyone else.
Things Only The Author Would Ever Notice
I have been waiting almost ten years for someone to notice that the second time Diane says the Lord's Prayer she omits two crucial lines. At first I waited with anticipation; now I wait with dread, as what seemed clever to me then, seems maybe a bit too clever to me now...
"Most Tasteful Award" Award
The Crime Writers of Canada each
year give out the Arthur Ellis Awards, one of which is for Best First Novel.
The award is a wooden puppet with articulated limbs hanging from a gibbet
(you know, that wooden frame they hang people from). When you pull on the
string, he jerks and thrashes in a wholly gruesome fashion. It's great.