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xiphiasSo, you all know about Gypsy Rose Lee, right? Burlesque superstar, title character of a musical by Arthur Laurents with lyrics by Sondheim, author of a couple of mediocre detective novels, and so forth?
Fascinating woman. Sources of information about her life are her own autobiography, her sister's two memoirs, and her son's book. All of which are . . . suspect. If any of Gypsy's own biography is true, it's probably largely coincidental. June Havoc's books are probably more accurate, but are about her own life, and touch on Gypsy only tangentially.
But a new books has just been published which has more actual research to it . . . and the Havok family is just way, way more weird and interesting than we knew. Lis has been reading it, and reading bits of it out loud to me, and I said, "Neil Gaiman needs to write this."
She said, "What could he do to make it more interesting than reality?"
I said, "He could come up with a context in which it made sense."
Okay. So, the Hovick family was a matriarchy, in which men were used for procreation then discarded. Rose and June knew their grandmother, called "Big Lady", but their grandfather was a nonentity. Nobody remembered their great-grandfather. They never had much to do with their father, and the other father figures were used for as long as they were useful, then discarded.
Mama Rose may have murdered one of her lesbian lovers.
Big Lady traveled the Old West selling corsets embroidered with things like angels telling dirty jokes to prostitutes. And the occasional altar cloth to a convent.
Big Lady's grandmother came from Norway, and traveled West on the Oregon Trail, but her group was snowed in, attacked by wolves, and starved. When they were rescued, the woman was not only healthy, but had apparently put on a couple pounds. When she was checked out, they found a whole bunch of steaks strapped to her body -- the original assumption was that they were horse meat.
They weren't.
This story was told to Rose and June as an important lesson of how to act. Mama Rose was very clearly a sociopath.
I suspect the family was part troll. June managed to actually learn human societal ways, and was less sociopathic than the rest of the family -- but she DID have superhuman stamina, which she must have gotten from troll blood: she holds the world record for marathon dancing -- 150 days of dancing, 60 minutes on, 15 minutes off.
Lis thinks it might be Valkyrie blood instead of troll blood, but there was clearly some sort of nonhuman influence in the family. And I think that Gaiman would be good at writing a story about what it was.
Lis thinks that EBear would be a better choice, though. Because, well, "troll" and/or "Valkyrie", and she naturally thinks of Elizabeth Bear when she thinks of trolls and Valkyries.
Fascinating woman. Sources of information about her life are her own autobiography, her sister's two memoirs, and her son's book. All of which are . . . suspect. If any of Gypsy's own biography is true, it's probably largely coincidental. June Havoc's books are probably more accurate, but are about her own life, and touch on Gypsy only tangentially.
But a new books has just been published which has more actual research to it . . . and the Havok family is just way, way more weird and interesting than we knew. Lis has been reading it, and reading bits of it out loud to me, and I said, "Neil Gaiman needs to write this."
She said, "What could he do to make it more interesting than reality?"
I said, "He could come up with a context in which it made sense."
Okay. So, the Hovick family was a matriarchy, in which men were used for procreation then discarded. Rose and June knew their grandmother, called "Big Lady", but their grandfather was a nonentity. Nobody remembered their great-grandfather. They never had much to do with their father, and the other father figures were used for as long as they were useful, then discarded.
Mama Rose may have murdered one of her lesbian lovers.
Big Lady traveled the Old West selling corsets embroidered with things like angels telling dirty jokes to prostitutes. And the occasional altar cloth to a convent.
Big Lady's grandmother came from Norway, and traveled West on the Oregon Trail, but her group was snowed in, attacked by wolves, and starved. When they were rescued, the woman was not only healthy, but had apparently put on a couple pounds. When she was checked out, they found a whole bunch of steaks strapped to her body -- the original assumption was that they were horse meat.
They weren't.
This story was told to Rose and June as an important lesson of how to act. Mama Rose was very clearly a sociopath.
I suspect the family was part troll. June managed to actually learn human societal ways, and was less sociopathic than the rest of the family -- but she DID have superhuman stamina, which she must have gotten from troll blood: she holds the world record for marathon dancing -- 150 days of dancing, 60 minutes on, 15 minutes off.
Lis thinks it might be Valkyrie blood instead of troll blood, but there was clearly some sort of nonhuman influence in the family. And I think that Gaiman would be good at writing a story about what it was.
Lis thinks that EBear would be a better choice, though. Because, well, "troll" and/or "Valkyrie", and she naturally thinks of Elizabeth Bear when she thinks of trolls and Valkyries.
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Date: 2011-06-24 08:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-24 10:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-25 07:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-25 02:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-25 05:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-25 05:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-27 02:31 pm (UTC)True, Gaimen is good at reframing while staying within canon; but he mostly writes about ideas and conmen or cons as characters / plots; and that doesn't seem like the major, or most interesting, aspect of Gypsy Rose Lee's story.
Elizabeth Bear writes about status dynamics and how people do or don't connect with each other, and how these too things interact. That sounds a lot more like what's going on in Gypsy Rose Lee's story.
So I think, ultimately, the Elizabeth Bear story would be cooler / better / more satisfying.
Kiralee