Автор бестселлера «Один из моих пациентов — вампир» рассказывает о влиянии города Херши на сюжет и любви к готике

Abigail Moyer loves a gothic mystery. The author’s debut thriller, One of My Patients is a Vampire, concerns a jaded psychiatrist who finds a body drained of blood on his office doorstep. We talked to Moyer about how her childhood in Heshey, Pa., has inspired her work, her love of chocolate and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and why she’s often compared to a Tim Burton character. You were raised near Hershey, Pennsylvania, the book's setting. Why did you want to set the story there? Hershey is a very strange place. The lampposts are shaped like Hershey's Kisses, and the park gives free rides on singing carts past animatronic mooing cows wearing pink boas. The place is screaming, begging, to be a character. It's part dreamy Americana, part company town, part middle-of-nowhere. I spent so much time riding rollercoasters that the roaring sound of the tracks is almost the same as the baseline silence in my head. It's calming to me, in a way. There are the beautiful Hershey Gardens, a zoo called ZooAmerica, and then, of course, Hersheypark. The place is one of the most significant characters in the novel—beautiful and strange, but with a bit of whimsy. Your protagonist, Dr. Ian Greyson, is a disillusioned psychiatrist with a strip-mall therapy practice. Who is Ian? And did you have to do any research into psychiatry to write the character? Ian was supposed to die after a chemical accident at his lab when he was thirty—he's now just over sixty. And he hasn't really decided to start living. We meet him when he's most jaded about everything: psychiatry, his health, his friends. Then Alexandra Abrams shows up, and she's the first person to wake him up in decades. But then he finds out she is an infamous accused murderer. I've been preoccupied with Ian as a character since 2019, so I've studied various mental health treatment modalities to really get the picture. His jadedness and his general disposition of having given up on life make him a bit careless with professional boundaries. And he certainly tries some experimental treatment options in the novel. The book tries to pose questions about how best to handle mental health, the importance of seeking help for our problems, and where diagnosing might be difficult. Where did you get the idea for One of My Patients Is a Vampire? I like the idea of "diagnosis" and "crime-solving" being one and the same. House, M.D. was a favorite show of mine—and I do think that shows here, tonally. If you're a psychiatrist and a body turns up drained of blood outside your office, it might be fair to wonder if the murderer is one of your patients. To top it off, a little boy tells you, "One of your patients is a vampire." Is it paranoia to wonder? Everything starts looking like vampirism. One patient twitched, another had clammy skin, a third has relationship issues, and so on. It isn't vampirism—it's just the common cold. The problem of "diagnosing" is one I am very interested in, in part because of my own chronic health issues. We're all trying to figure out: what are we? But when you're sick in some mysterious way, the question adds a bit of time pressure. You need to "diagnose" yourself to feel better. Sometimes there is beauty in just accepting, or being. Alexandra, the main vampire suspect in the story, has to ask whether she is a monster—and she's pre-diagnosed herself as such with little evidence, just because the media is calling her one. I find the parallels intriguing. Diagnosis and labels are important—but what do we do when they cause harm? How long did the book take to write, and did you encounter any challenges during the process? Ian and Alexandra actually started as characters in a script I workshopped with New York Stage and Film back in 2019. It was called Drowning, and there were no vampires. The original Alexandra was far more morally grey—in the sense that she was accused of murdering her baby daughter and almost certainly did. In One of My Patients Is a Vampire, she is already the accused when she sets foot into Ian's office. But she's not proud and greiving of the accusation—nor is she proud of being accused of monstrosity generally. What attracts you to thrillers, gothic mysteries, and crime stories? I wish I knew. I'm constantly told I look like a Tim Burton character, which I'm not entirely sure is intended as a compliment. I dress more Ann Taylor Loft than Hot Topic, so I take no responsibility for the accusations. I suppose it's in the face, and it's probably just what I am, through and through. One of My Patients Is a Vampire is a great book title! How important is a gripping title to a novel? Thank you! Sometimes it's best to just be on the nose, right? The title almost came before the idea. We know the main character is either a psychiatrist or a medical doctor just from the words. The story engine is built into the premise and the title. I tried to make my job easy from the jump. Make it easy for readers to decide / make readers job easy when taking a look? Plot is very important to me. I get bored easily. Yes, we have the themes—what does it mean to be a monster? Love, grief, emotion—but I need beat-by-beat turns and midpoints. I like that we can guess what the inciting incident is going to be just from the book cover. You lived in New York while studying Dramatic Writing at New York University, and you now live in Los Angeles. How have these cities informed you as a storyteller? Place has a significant impact on occurrences—on what can happen and what we can expect to happen. In New York, anything can happen. In LA, you will see Botox. In Hershey, you can expect nothing to happen. I've experienced so much in New York that I feel I can write anything set there, and it would be realistic to the place. In Hershey, the biggest thrill comes from riding the Storm Runner rollercoaster. Ian chooses to be there because he's hiding in chocolate and whimsy. Do you enjoy vampire stories? Who are your favorite vampires in literature? I was actually re-reading Dracula when I finally decided to commit this version of my novel to paper. Reading it again, I realized there really is no better way to generate suspense than vampires. None. The mystery is built in—shelf-ready in the very core of the creature. Of course, it's easy to get lazy and generic and simply rely on the crutch of the lore. It can feel like we've seen it all before. That's why my vampirism is practical—if it's possible to be practical when it comes to things on the spectrum of sci-fi. The book leans heavily on the medical aspect, and I wanted to keep things as realistic as possible. You've said that you eat an "obscene amount" of candy. Is that one of your go-to snacks while writing? Indeed. I'm partial to Hershey's Nuggets specifically. Ironically, the main chocolate in the book is the KitKat bar, which I can't have anymore because of a gluten sensitivity. Talk about writing your fantasies.