Charlaine Harris : The Trades

Vampires. Sex. Sexy vampires. Sex with vampires. And gruesome murders committed by monstrous killers. This is the stuff of True Blood, the HBO series starring Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer, and this twisted, addicting horror initially sprung from the mind of...

...a sweet little Southern charmer of a lady from Magnolia, Arkansas named Charlaine Harris? Really? Not Jeffrey Dahmer?

Charlaine Harris has written a string of mystery novels, but her most prominent claim to fame has to be the Sookie Stackhouse novels, which serve as the basis for the hit HBO series, True Blood. With the publication of her tenth novel, Dead in the Family, to hit shelves within days, we sat down with the sweet Magnolia blossom to discuss books about bloodsuckers.

RJ - The first question I always ask of authors who write paranormal romance is, "Why vampires?" The genre seems so full of them. But with you, I also have to ask, "Why vampires, and why Louisiana?" -- that seems such an audacious move after the ground seemed to have been so thoroughly "staked out" by Anne Rice.

Well, that's exactly why I set my books in Louisiana. I loved Anne Rice's books, but she had already used up the southern parts. So I thought it would be funny to set my books in the northern part, and to bounce off of her brooding romantic vampires, and be a little more prosaic in my approach.


RJ - So where would the real Bon Temps would be located? South of Walkerville, around Shongaloo?

Probably more like Minden.


Carrie - The new book seems to focus on Sookie's family and friends. Are you surprised about how popular Eric's character has become, and is it because of that popularity that we continue to see Sookie in a relationship with him rather than with Bill?

That's a complicated question. The book is about families of all sorts, not just Sookie's. It's about the different kinds of families that you can have, and how much trouble they can cause you. I think that we're all familiar with that, probably.

Eric turned out to be more popular than I expected, but the books are still going the way I planned on them going, regardless of the popularity of one character over another.


Carrie - Has the television show had any influence in your approach to the books?

You know, I don't think so. If it has, it's unconscious on my part, because I'm way ahead of the storytelling in the TV show. I'm writing Book Eleven, and Alan [Ball] is on Book Three.


RJ - Do you have any level of input into the show?

Only in having written the original books. I am probably the last concern they have. (Laughs)


Kim - Going back to Carrie's question about Sookie's relationship with Eric or Bill, I was intrigued right at the end of Dead in the Family that you kind of touched on the character Alcide, and I thought, "Oh, there's hope there." So I'll be interested to see what happens there.

You've also introduced a new character, Hunter -- Sookie's nephew, into the story. Will we find out where Sookie and Hunter get their telepathic ability from?

Well, I haven't divulged that in the books yet. He's not really her nephew, he's her cousin's son, but they stand in the same relationship, and he calls her "Aunt Sookie" just because that's easier than saying "Second Cousin Sookie."

I'm not actually sure that I'll ever fully explain that -- not in the next book, anyway.


RJ - Do you have the ultimate ending -- however far out -- already planned for Sookie and whomever happens to be the right vampire for her?

Yes, I do. It's interesting that you say it's going to be a vampire.


Kim - (Laughs) That's what I was thinking. I'm not sure it's going to be a vampire. I guess I have a hope it's not. It's funny, we all work together, and we'll sit around and talk about it like it's part of our personal life when we start talking about the books.

That's always gratifying to hear. I like to think that people are talking about the books, because it makes me feel like it's kind of a family thing.


Carrie - Throughout the books there's been quite a bit of change in several of the characters. Claude was egotistical, Jason used to be a ladies' man, and Andy hated vampires. Now Claude is more interested in family and having that "fairy kinship," Jason is settling down, and Andy is more understanding. Why so many changes?

Well, people do change. I think it would be strange if everyone stuck to the same point of view throughout all the books. It would sure make it easier to write if they did. But I think people do show different -- if they don't really change, and I'm not sure people do -- they at least show different aspects of themselves, and they're able to show better and worse parts of their characters the more you get to know them.


RJ - Can you tell us about when you got the notice that HBO was optioning the book series for the screen?

Actually, this was not the first time I've had a book optioned. I had a book optioned many years ago -- one of my Aurora Teagarden books. So it wasn't a totally new experience for me, and the option Alan took out on it was not the first option on the Sookie books.

The first time, I was super super excited, and I thought it was a done deal. After that, I got older and wiser, and I understood that getting an option on the books is only a very tentative beginning to something that probably won't come to anything.


RJ - When you finally saw True Blood on HBO, were you surprised at all by how much more... uh... graphic...

(Charlaine: Laughs! Kim: That's a nice way to put it.)

RJ - ...the show is in relation to the books?

Oh boy was I surprised! (Laughs)


Kim - I have to admit, I watched the whole first season of True Blood before I read a single book. So when I went back and read the books, I was surprised at the difference.

There is a difference. But I knew there would be -- Alan and I had discussed it extensively ahead of time. For one thing, the books are in the first person, and obviously you can't film a television show that way. For another thing, I knew it was HBO, and I also knew that things I had said in the books, but the reader hadn't seen them... It's just a completely different experience. I mean, you know Jason is a horndog in the books, but that's very different from seeing him do it! So I was very startled at first, until I thought, "You know, that's really the truth of the character I'm seeing."


Carrie - In Dead in the Family, Sookie learns a lot more about vampire politics. Are you hinting at a chance that Eric is planning to make a play for King of Louisiana?

Well... You know, there are some things I just can't talk about because they're going to happen in different books. That's a good question, but one I simply can't answer right now.


Kim - You were saying that you're on your eleventh book. Are you at the halfway point? Are you getting close to finished?

Well, the thing is, I'm signed up through thirteen books. But I'm sure they would extend that if I wanted to write more. I'm going to have to decide in the next year how many Sookie books I want to write -- because I can take my time getting to the end; I'm still having fun writing it, and I still have things I want to say about Sookie and the other characters. But I don't want to extend the series past its prime, because that's just not fair to the readers.


RJ - Do you have any more non-Sookie books coming out in the near future?

I didn't have a chance to write another book last year. My last Harper Connelly came out. And I will be editing another anthology of short stories this year, of which Toni Kelner have been doing together for the past three or four years, and that is fun -- I get to wear a different hat.

But I'm hoping later this year I'll get a chance to write a different book about something else. I haven't made up my mind yet. I have a couple of projects I'm considering, and I just have to decide which one will refresh me and be the most fun for me.