Authors Interviewing Characters: Michelle McGill-Vargas

AMERICAN GHOUL

You can’t kill someone who’s already dead.

That’s what Lavinia keeps telling her jailer after—allegedly—killing her mistress, Simone Arceaneau. But how could Simone be dead when she was taking visitors shortly before? And why was her house always so dark?

Lavina, a recently freed slave, met Simone, a recently undead vampire, by chance on a plantation in post-Civil War Georgia. With nothing remaining for either woman in the South, the two form a fast friendship and head north to start a new life. However, Lavinia quickly learns that teaming up with this white woman may be more than she bargained for.

Simone is reckless and impulsive—which would’ve been bad enough on its own, but when combined with her particular diet Lavinia finds herself in way over her head. As she is forced to repeatedly compromise her morals and struggle to make lasting human connections, Lavinia begins to wonder is she truly free or has she merely exchanged one form of enslavement for another? As bodies start to pile up in the small Indiana town they’ve settled in, people start to take a second look at the two newcomers, and Simone and Lavinia’s relationship is stretched to its breaking point …

MMV: Thank you for giving me this interview, Simone. 

Simone (sniffing): Your name, McGill. What is that? Scottish? You’re not Scottish, are you? 

MMV: What’s wrong with being Scottish?

Simone: You don’t look Scottish.

MMV (smiling): I’m sure I don’t. I have no idea where my father’s surname comes from. The people who bought my African ancestors might have been Scottish.

Simone (stroking her neck): African and Scottish. What an interesting flavor profile that must be.

MMV (leaning forward): What was that?

Simone: Nothing! Just a silly little thought flitting through my mind. Where were we? Oh, yes! Thank you for coming all this way from…where was it again?

MMV: The year 2024.

Simone (smiling and nodding): Yes, 2024. You penned my story, writing that Lavinia supposedly murdered me one hundred and fifty-eight years ago.

MMV: Supposedly? You won’t reveal to the readers what actually happened to you at the end of the novel?

Simone: Don’t you know?

MMV: No. I mean, Lavinia was accused of murdering you. But you never actually told me whether you for-real died in the end, so I couldn’t include that in the story. Lavinia thinks– 

Simone: Lavinia? You spoke to her? (Narrows her eyes). What did she say about me?

MMV: We didn’t really talk about you. 

Simone: But she mentioned something about me, right? What did she tell you? That I’m not trustworthy? That I make up stories to suit my needs? That I ruin all of her relationships because I want to (uses air quotes) eat every human she meets?

MMV: We talked about whether she would have made a different decision regarding leaving that plantation in Georgia and traveling north with you, a vampire, after everything that happened.

Simone: And what did she say?

MMV: What would YOU say? Looking back, would you still have journeyed north with Lavinia?

Simone: Certainly! No one else would have taken the time to learn I wasn’t a monster. She saw me when no one else did. It was probably because, for her whole life, no one bothered to see her, either…until I came along, of course.

MMV: So, no regrets?

Simone: The only thing I regret was depending on her too much for my survival. She neglected to hunt for me a few times because of those humans she insisted on associating with. Especially that man, King, who filled her head with all sorts of nonsense about me. But I think things might have been different if I took more ownership of my feedings. 

MMV: I think Lavinia would be pleasantly surprised to hear that.

Simone: See! (leans over, and raises her voice) I CAN sit here and talk like a NORMAL person without hearing the dinner bell ringing. (lowers her voice and smiles) Let me show you. (extends her palm). Give me your hand.

MMV: My hand? Umm…

Simone: Let me prove to you and your readers that I’m not like the vampires they may have encountered in other stories. Please. Give me your hand.

MMV: (slowly places hand in Simone’s gloved one)

Simone (brings interviewer’s hand to her nose and inhales deeply): Yes, there’s some Scottish there. Not much, but it’s there.

MMV: I… um… have a few more questions to ask, if you don’t mind. I need my hand– 

Simone: I knew it! (fans the air toward her nose). There it is. That same “je nais se quois” wafting from Lavinia and King. You have it, too. It hit me when you first walked in. A signature aroma. Ambrosia from the dark continent.

MMV: What the– “Dark continent?” You mean Africa?

Simone (squeezing my hand): Yessss! That scent makes my toes curl!

MMV (attempting to pull away): Uh, maybe we should finish this another–

Simone: But why? You can’t leave now. Don’t you hear it?

MMV: Hear what?

Simone: The dinner bell, of course. 

BUY HERE.

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Michelle McGill-Vargas writes speculative historical fiction, short stories, and flash fiction. Her work has appeared in Splickety Magazine, the Copperfield Review, and Typehouse. She is a member of the Highland Writers Group and the Valparaiso Writers Group, has served as vice president of the Indiana Writers’ Consortium, and is currently on the board of Midwest Writers Workshop and the Historical Novel Society. She currently resides in the Midwest with her husband and fur babies. American Ghoul is her first novel.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews, On Writing