Charlaine Harris gives her story at Vegas Valley Book Festival
Maybe this is a commentary on me, but I enjoy written sex more than television sex. That’s one reason why I enjoy Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse books more than the “True Blood” television series based on her books.
“True Blood” has graphic sex, much more than Harris herself ever envisioned, and she’s pretty good at envisioning sex.
But nothing beats humor mixed with sex and vampires and Harris has certainly mastered that..
The keynote speaker for the Vegas Valley Book Festival, had her audience roaring Thursday at the Clark County Flamingo LIbrary during her last public appearance this year.
First, she walked out as soon as she heard her name, but before the introduction was finished, sort of a Lucille Ball moment.
In her prepared remarks, she told her audience of obviously rabid fans, when she first submitted the first Sookie Stackhouse book to her agent, the agent asked: “Who thinks vampires are funny?”
Obviously from her book sales, her mix of vampire sex and vampire humor worked.
Although the television series has gone off in a totally different direction than her 12 books about the telepathic Southern waitress and her vampire boyfriends, Harris isn’t complaining. However, the last book in the series will be out next May, because she’s taken Sookie as far as Sookie can go.
Raising in Tunica, Miss, and now living in Arkansas, when she saw the first “True Blood” show, “I can’t say I wasn’t shocked,” Harris said. “I told my husband we’re going to have to move.”
One questioner asked her what inspired the sex scenes in her books.
“Just because I’m 60 doesn’t mean I’ve lost my imagination,” she laughed.
And how does she respond to criticism? Not well. Her 10th book, “Dead in the Family,” generated such negative reaction among fans “that for a couple of months I couldn’t write a thing.”
But then she realized it was her vision that created the books the fans liked, and she had to stay true to her vision. Moments later, she admits she enjoys killing characters off.
“I don’t mind being icky,” she said with a genteel Mississippi twang.
Especially if icky is funny. Like having an Elvis vampire character who eats cats. That was so creepy, “True Blood” wouldn’t touch it.