The Black Hand, vol. 38
A Light in the Dark
We pay an awful lot of attention to serial killers in our culture – we cover their lives in documentaries, make films about them here and here and here, and write books about them, both non-fiction and fiction (hello, None Shall Sleep!). They suck all the air out of the room, and we rarely – if ever – give the same kind of acknowledgment to their victims.
But in this article, Kathy Kleiner – a survivor of Ted Bundy, a real life final girl – explains how she recovered after the attack that changed her entire life. On a Saturday night in January 1978, Bundy snuck into the sorority house where Kleiner lived, assaulted and murdered two other young women, Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy, then beat Kleiner herself almost to death; Bundy only ran when he was spooked by the headlights of a car coming into the parking lot nearby. Kleiner was left with horrific injuries, went through multiple surgeries, and never returned to university.
But she fought hard to get her life back. Without the benefit of therapy, she devised her own healing strategies, and eventually got a job in a lumberyard. She married, and testified against Bundy in pre-trial hearings and gave evidence in court. She had a son, got divorced, remarried, and lived her life to the fullest. She finally told her now-adult son about what happened to her back in 1978, and most recently, she published a memoir called A Light In The Dark which detailed her experiences.
Reading Kleiner’s story is a testament to her survival, and actually gave me a great deal of insight into the psychology of a serial killer survivor, something I’ve used before when writing my own survivor character, Emma Lewis. I’d like to see more focus on survivors and victims of serial crime – let’s know their names, see their faces, hear their stories, as a rebuke to the ‘sad little men’ who have wormed their way into the media, and our collective attention.
Sales news
There are still some special deals to take advantage of – you can still get None Shall Sleep and Some Shall Break on special at US Target, and None Shall Sleep is currently on Kindle Unlimited, if you’re a KU borrower and you’d like to check it out.
But the big news is that Some Shall Break ebook is now on Kindle Unlimited, and it will be the Kindle Monthly Deal from June 24 (June 25 in Australia/Oceania) through to June 30, so maybe get on that!
While we’re at it, here’s another button to encourage you to subscribe (without a caption, which I’m apparently still not allowed to add? *shakes fist at Substack* Give me my silly captions back! Anyway, please subscribe! I promise not to be too annoying 😊)
Aurealis! And Comic Con!
Some Shall Break missed out on winning the Aurealis award for Best Horror – but the field for the award was very strong this year, so I wasn’t disappointed (go check out all the finalists and add them to your TBR!). It was still really cool to attend the award night (which was super casual) and I was over the moon for my friend Katya de Becerra who won Best YA with her amazing book When Ghosts Call Us Home! Katya is a great writer and a lovely human, and she deserves all the recognition so I was really stoked for her 😊
And I was at Melbourne ComicCon this month, and it was amazing! Once again I set up a table in Artist Alley with books for sale, giveaway swag, merch, and I happily signed every book that people wanted to buy or bring my way (and people came with books they’d bought last year! 😊)
If you’ve never been to ComicCon before, let me encourage you to give it a try – it has a friendly, welcoming vibe which I love so much, and I’ll definitely be showing up again next year!
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None Shall Sleep 3 – what’s happening
Lots of people have been asking me about the progress on None Shall Sleep Book 3, and what the timeline will be on that book, so I thought I’d take a moment to give you the full story.
I’ve spent some time in my paywalled newsletter Nailbiters explaining how my publisher is still on the fence about releasing Book 3 (ikr? Publishing is like this sometimes, what can I say). They wanted to wait until after October – the month of the scheduled paperback release of Some Shall Break – and look at sales receipts before they made a call on it. Yes, it’s been very frustrating!
But…after a lot of back and forth, we’re hoping to receive word about it this month. If I don’t get a yes from my publisher, I still have something lined up for you, which I think will be just as exciting! So please stay tuned here, because shit is about to get real for None Shall Sleep 3 😊
What I’m watching
Omg, you HAVE to see Monkey Man – I have been absolutely raving about this film since I saw it in the cinema late last month, please allow me to go on an unhinged rant about it here. I loved it so much!
Written, directed, and starring Dev Patel, it is one of the most astonishing, hardcore, energetic, progressive, heart-wrenching, gorgeous action films I’ve seen in ages. It’s been described as the Indian John Wick, but I sincerely believe Monkey Man transcends Wick: The action is electric, the fights are brutal, the background music is fantastic – I’ve been playing the soundtrack for nearly two weeks – and the emotional highs (and lows) feel genuinely heartfelt and earned. It’s a virtuoso directorial debut from Patel, who pulls together fluid fight choreography, clever camerawork, and a stunning neon urban-Bollywood aesthetic that gives everything a shocking lustre. If you can, try to see it in the theatre, it’s very much worth it.
Patel has called this a revenge film about faith, and his character’s heroic journey is modelled on the legendary figure of Hanuman the monkey god from the Ramayana – if you have any understanding of this Hindu epic, your appreciation of the film will be even greater.
I had a rant about Western movie reviewers not really being able to negotiate some aspects of the film without an understanding of context…anyway, don’t mind me! Just obsessed with this film now!
Monkey Man is also really political – it makes some barbed points about Hindu nationalism and the current state of Indian government (the corrupt ‘leader of the Sovereign Party’ character is clearly a direct satire, so there’s been talk about the film being banned in India). And it addresses attitudes toward trans people by featuring an entire side cast of hijra/third gender characters who play prominent roles, an aspect of the film that felt organic and thematically relevant.
Look, it won’t be for everyone – it’s incredibly violent and bloody, so ymmv – and I’m probably not allowed to say that it’s a perfect film. But as a storyteller, I appreciated the classic hero’s journey narrative that gives the entire film a mythic quality: It feels like it was created to resonate universally with film-goers, especially in Asia. Monkey Man seems destined to be either a cult film, or the start of an incredible new franchise (I’m hoping for franchise! I want part 2 so bad!), or both.
It’s certainly destined to be one of the highlights of my film year, so I encourage you to have a look. And if you’re on the fence, Dev Patel is incredibly, incredibly hot in this film, omg, in a way that seems completely unselfconscious, which I personally find wildly attractive 😂 😍
If you’re an action film fan, please don’t miss this one!
And that’s it from me for June – but I really hope you enjoy next month’s exciting None Shall Sleep book 3 news! I actually cannot wait for you all to read that book 😊 The journey for book 3 has been a wild ride, and it’s been amazing to have you all with me for the trip.
Happy reading and see you then!
xxEllie
I will literally do a fifty slide power point on why none shall sleep 3 needs to be published!!! just tell me when and where!!
Hi Ellie. Regarding Hindu nationalism you should also watch this week’s episode of 4 Corners on ABC TV…