In Which Writers Are Speakers.

Multiple thanks to Mike Whybark, whose blog directed me to Journalista just in time to discover that one of my favorite comic artists was coming to town this week. Gabrielle Bell has no real website that I can unearth, but her journal comics are among my favorite of the genre. I love her sense of humor and the understated way she draws.

The other night at Reading Frenzy, she used an ancient slide projector to show/tell us an unpublished story, "My Affliction." It was a meandering narrative "based on actual events" that involved giants, levitation, foul-mouthed magpies, a houseboat with a crow's nest and waterslide, and miraculous acne cures. She did different voices for the different characters, and barked and squawked for the dog and bird. It was extremely entertaining. Then she signed my copy of Lucky and made a little sketch in it (of me!), and I went home so very happy.

* * *

Earlier that day, I got to hear a published novelist speak to some college students about writing and stories. It was... eh... it was okay. The most interesting part of the lecture, for me, was the two stories of the Hanging Doll.

Apparently, in some small town in Minnesota, there is a big white farmhouse right next to the main road, and all the cars slow down when they drive past it. They slow down because, in the attic window of this farmhouse, you can see a battered antique doll strung up by its neck. When this writer guy was in college, his friends took him by the house and told him this story about it:

A long time ago, there was this girl who lived in that house, and she was what people politely refer to as "special." She had this doll she always carried with her everywhere she went, and she never spoke a word. Everyone treated her like a freak; kids laughed at her and adults whispered about her. One day, when she was maybe 16 or so, her mother couldn't find her... she looked for her upstairs, she looked for her downstairs, and finally she found her in the attic. The poor girl had hanged herself, and the doll that was her only friend lay beneath her feet. Well, after the funeral, her heartbroken parents used the very same rope she had hanged herself with to string up her beloved doll in front of the window, so that the town would always remember what their cruelty had done to a poor innocent girl.

That story got around; a lot of people in the area accepted it as truth. But years later, the guy went back to research the story, and he found out this instead:

Once the owner of the house was reading an article in National Geographic, and it had a picture of some house in Mississippi where there was a doll hanging in the window. And he said, "You know what? It would sure be cool if I hung a doll in the window of my house." And so... he did.

Then the speaker asked for a show of hands: how many of you found the first story more compelling? And most of the audience raised their hands. But I didn't. And while he went on to make some points about humanity's need for story and yadda yadda, I spent the next several minutes thinking about why.

The first version was a standard-issue ghost story. It was too pat,* too heartstring-yanking to be believable. It left no loose ends; it was in itself a resolution, a closed compartment.

The second version was an open door, a crossroads. It left a hundred questions unanswered: Why did the doll-hanger think it was cool? What kind of guy does this sort of thing? What was it about hanging a doll that appealed to him? What did he think would happen as a result? Did he know about the urban rural legend, and if so, did it make him laugh? Did he start the legend himself? Were his motivations really as simple as they seemed?

And why was there a doll hanging in a window in Mississippi? Do they tell stories there about a girl who hanged herself? Are there other dolls hanging in other windows elsewhere? Could this catch on, start a Hanging Doll movement? Is there already a Hanging Doll movement, of which we urban dwellers are blissfully ignorant? What does that say about our culture? What does it all mean??

Now that's what I call compelling.

*No offense to Pat, who is entirely credible.