We all have voices in our heads. But what do you do when one becomes so loud they begin to take over? Author Chris Panatier is here with his newest horror novel, The Redemption of Morgan Bright, to show what can happen when two “people” occupy the same body.
CHRIS PANATIER:
The first Big Idea for my horror novel The Redemption of Morgan Bright wasn’t even my idea. In fact, it’s one of the oldest tropes across virtually all genres, that is, the falsification of one’s identity as a means to gaining entrance to some place. In the case of asylums, perhaps the most famous account is that of young journalist Nellie Bly, who did so in 1887 at the age of twenty-three.
In order to investigate patient treatment and conditions, she assumed the name “Natalie Brown” and had herself committed to the infamous Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in New York. The administration was convinced she was mentally ill, calling her “positively deranged” and attempting to have her committed permanently. Her editor had to intervene to have her discharged. Bly wrote a book about her experience called Ten Days in a Madhouse and published it that same year.
The Redemption of Morgan Bright is a contemporary gothic tale. A woman (Morgan) assumes the false identity of a troubled housewife named Charlotte Turner and has herself committed to an “enlightened” mental institution called Hollyhock House. She’s doing all of this to find out why her sister died in the same place a year earlier.
I’d originally set out to write the entire novel from Morgan’s perspective, whether as herself in relevant flashbacks or in the leadup to her commitment, or while behaving as Charlotte. But in early drafting, that setup quickly disintegrated—and not because of any outlining or planning on my part. I couldn’t have planned what happened, which was that as I wrote Morgan playing Charlotte, Charlotte became real…
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Source: The Big Idea: Chris Panatier
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