Alysse Aallyn

Category: Crime

  • Queen of Swords – the Tarot Play by Alysse Aallyn

    WHITNEY

    (Getting up her nerve…calling after CHARMAYNE …too late)

    Like you speak French!

    (Goes to sit disconsolately on a boulder.)

    This is MY story and I’m not letting her tell it.

    (A beachily dressed;  closely shaved man with a metal detector comes up the beach slowly.  Investigating.)

    WHITNEY

    Hey!  Don’t you know this is private property?

    EIGHT

    Only to the waterline.  No one owns the ocean.  Which means it belongs to everyone. This your place?

    WHITNEY

    No.  Belongs to my stepmother.  The place she sold to buy this one was the house I grew up in.

    EIGHT

    So now you’re free.  Like me.

    WHITNEY

    (Watches him work)

    Who are you?  What are you doing?

    EIGHT

    I’m a beachcomber and a treasure hunter. Name’s Eight.  Like Pieces of Eight.

    WHITNEY

    Is that what you find?

    EIGHT

    I find everything eventually.  Look at this.

    (She comes closer)

    WHITNEY

    What is it?

    EIGHT

    Prehistoric shark’s tooth.

    WHITNEY

    Looks like an arrowhead.

    EIGHT

    They could have used it for that.  You want it?

    (She shrinks from contact)

    WHITNEY

    I don’t know.  What would I do with it?

    EIGHT

    (Lifts his arm)

    Treasure seekers help other treasure seekers. It’s the beachcomber’s code.  Otherwise it goes back to the sea.

    WHITNEY

    Then I’ll take it.

    (Turns it over in her hands.)

    I wish it was a magic charm.

    EIGHT

    Really?  Why’s that?

    WHITNEY

    I need magic to fight her.

    (Gesticulates at house and whispers)

    She’s a demon.

    EIGHT

    You mean demonic?  Or an actual demon?

    WHITNEY

    I mean an actual demon.  Like from another planet.

    EIGHT

    Most demons are homegrown.

    WHITNEY

    This one cultivates magic.  Reads Tarot.  Calls herself The Queen of Swords.

    EIGHT

    That’s nothing but a pack of cards. No magic there.

    WHITNEY

    She murdered my father.  I know it.

    (A beat. Game change.)

    EIGHT

    You sure of that?

    WHITNEY

    Absolutely certain.  He had this neurological condition, and he hired her to be his attendant. She wasn’t qualified – not at all.  He had me sit in the interviews since I lived there too.  I could see how taken with her he was.  I begged him not to do it but –

    (she shrugs sadly)

    EIGHT

    Let me guess.  She was a sight for sore eyes.

    WHITNEY

    (Nodding)

    Yeah.  But so fake, though!  Fake everything: hair, breasts, accent.  Fake résumé, even.  But he didn’t want to see through her.  He just didn’t care.

    EIGHT

    I get it. He wanted to take his own path to health.

    WHITNEY

    He wanted to grab for the gusto. As soon as they were married –

    (Slits her own throat with a finger.)

    EIGHT

    Any idea how she did it?

    WHITNEY

    Smothering? Drugs?  It wouldn’t have been hard. She cremated him right away and there wasn’t even an autopsy.

    EIGHT

    Did you tell anybody?

    WHITNEY

    I told everybody. But she has them all under her spell. People were relieved he was gone!  Less trouble for everybody.  Even my sisters who – neither of them can stand Charmayne  – said, “Well, at least he died happy!” I was the only one who even missed him.  He was already old when we were born, you see. Darby – that’s my oldest sister – said – “Oh, he’d been gone a long time already.  Can’t you see that?” And McKenzie – she’s the other one – said – “Everyone dies “unnaturally” nowadays.  That’s what death is.” I was the only one who thought it was wrong. My dad said the only education worth having is learning to tell right from wrong.

    EIGHT

    I get it.  You thirst after righteousness.

    WHITNEY

    Justice.  Justice is what I want. People keep telling me it doesn’t exist.

    EIGHT

    Are you certain it’s not revenge you’re looking for?

    WHITNEY

    Well, that would be nice too.  I mean, she makes me so mad. Don’t you feel it?  Wouldn’t anyone? But justice is what I’ll settle for.

    EIGHT

    It’s a bad situation.

    WHITNEY

    You don’t know what a relief it is to have someone actually listen to me. I even – one day – I saw him.

    EIGHT

    You saw him? Your father’s – ghost?

    WHITNEY

    (Nodding vigorously)

    I did.

    EIGHT

    Was he all about vengeance?

    WHITNEY

    He didn’t speak.

    (Tears up.)

    He just showed up in my room at college – probably the same moment she was killing him – and looked at me so sadly.  I knew it was some kind of vision because he was his younger self  – from before he had his stroke.  I thought he was angry at me.  Going away to school and leaving him alone with Charmayne – maybe I let him down.

    EIGHT

    Hey, you told him not to hire her.  I mean, you were just a kid!   What could you do?

    WHITNEY

    He admired people who “spoke truth to power”.  He wanted me to be self-sufficient, use logic and hone my own instincts.  She was awful to him!  She made him beg for water.  I saw it.

    EIGHT

    Sounds like a demon all right.

    WHITNEY

    “Withholding hydration” they call it. I should have protected him, the way he always protected me. He said I was his intellectual heir.

    EIGHT

    Are we talking money?

    WHITNEY

    No, I don’t mean that.  We already had trust funds and things.  What I mean is, he told me I was like him, that I had the same kind of mind. He said knowledge is everything and you have to cultivate a bullshit detector. Even though I was the youngest – me and my sisters have different mothers – he told everyone only I was fit to stand in his shoes.

    EIGHT

    Well, I’m starting to see why your sisters might not want to cooperate.

    WHITNEY

    People have to stand up for what they believe!

    (Very earnestly.)

                                                    EIGHT

    You blush when you’re angry.

                                                    WHITNEY

    I blush whenever there’s another person in the room.  But what do you think I should do?   I’m scared of her.  She threatened me.

    EIGHT

    How?

    WHITNEY

    She said I’m nothing and she created everything.  She’ll send me back into the darkness.  She wants to “tell my fortune” so she can predict all the terrible things that are going to happen to me.  When she calls herself Queen of Swords, she tries to sound like she’s Master of the Universe.

    EIGHT

    Sounds like a con artist to me. They just feel around for anything someone will believe. Don’t let her get the drop on you. 

                                                    WHITNEY

    But what if those cards tell the future?

                                                    EIGHT

    Tarot’s just another dead language, Whitney. You could learn it if you really wanted to. Language shapes how people think.

    (Taps his head)

    Don’t meet her on her turf. Predators like their prey frozen.  And confused.

    WHITNEY

    How did you know my name?

    EIGHT

    I hang around.  I hear things.

    WHITNEY

    So, you’re an eavesdropper.

    EIGHT

    Treasure seekers are serendipitous. We pick up what we can find.

    WHITNEY

    Well, you can’t pick me up.

    EIGHT

    (Still working his stretch of beach)

    I wouldn’t dream of it.

    WHITNEY

    (not thrilled to hear this)

    But what if she really is magic? It seems that way sometimes.  I don’t know how to stand up to her.  

    EIGHT

    Don’t sideline yourself so quick. You’re here, aren’t you? A person who can see the dead can do anything. Magic’s a game and anyone can play.  Games are about rule-making – about control – gaining advantage on somebody, Whit.

    WHITNEY

    My father said never to play a game that’s rigged.

    EIGHT

    What if its rigged in your favor?  And this one is. You know what happens to murderers?

    WHITNEY

    I’m hoping they get caught.

    EIGHT

    The truth will out.

    WHITNEY

    (Looking nervously up at the house)

    Charmayne thinks she’s indestructible.

    EIGHT

    Wow.  Sounds like a dare. I’m partial to dares myself.

    WHITNEY

    She says anything anybody tries to do to her comes back on them a million times. That it’s pointless to fight her.  But I’m not giving up. You see why (looks at the tooth) I might need all the magic I can get?

    EIGHT

    Make her play your game. 

    WHITNEY

    I’d love to see that!  What do I do?  Exactly?

    EIGHT

    Today’s your lucky day.  I just happen to know some magic.

    WHITNEY

    Is that part of being a treasure seeker?

    EIGHT

    Sure. First, you master the elements. That’s way bigger magic than flipping cards and cutting off old men’s hydration.

    WHITNEY

    (Skeptical)

    So how’d you that?

    EIGHT

    I’ve been swept out to sea. I’ve been buried in sand and I’ve been frozen in snow.

    WHITNEY

    We’re going to need way bigger magic than that.

    EIGHT

    See this mark on the top of my head?

    WHITNEY

    (Rubbing his head)

    Looks like scars!  Where did they come from?

    EIGHT

    I had a demon of my own. Once.

    WHITNEY

    You did?

    EIGHT

    Yeah, and he was hard to destroy.  Took a piece out of me, I can tell you.  He marked me right here.

    WHITNEY

    (Very hopeful)

    Did you mark him?

    EIGHT

    I told you I destroyed him. And then I marked myself.

    (Opens his Hawaiian shirt to show tattoo)

    WHITNEY

    (Reading)

    “Be not Afraid.”  How’s that help anything?

    EIGHT

    It’s a reminder.

    WHITNEY

    But you defeated him?

    EIGHT

    Sure did.  He’s locked in a box and he’ll never get out. That’s what sent me wandering.

    WHITNEY

    How come?

    EIGHT

    Because every action produces an opposite reaction.  He’s static, I’m in motion.  Searching.

    WHITNEY

    But if he’s still alive…can’t he still hurt you?

    EIGHT

    No.  He’s lost all his power.  But I did have to take control.  And I had to work on setting myself free.

    WHITNEY

    (Flouncing down onto the beach)

    I’d rather just kill her.  Serve her right.

    EIGHT

    No, no; don’t give her that. That’s what she wants.

    WHITNEY

    Trust me, that is NOT what she WANTS.

    EIGHT

    (Nodding vigorously)

    Trust ME, it is.  She’s hoping to turn you into HER.  She’d have a new young life, a new young body.  I’m not sure anyone could rescue you then.

    WHITNEY

    So tell me what you think I should I do.

    EIGHT

    Play it by the Bible.  You’ve got to call a demon by its name.

    WHITNEY

    (Unimpressed)

    Really? The Bible?  That’s all you’ve got?

    EIGHT

    Hey, the Bible’s full of demons.

    WHITNEY

    So how do I learn her name? Tell me.

    EIGHT

    You said she had a fake everything. If that fake résumé still exists.  I’d start there.

    WHITNEY

    (Arms crossed)

    She probably destroyed every copy.  Then what?

    EIGHT

    Don’t be a “yes, but”.  You know she’s got secrets.  The past’s the best predictor of the future. Find out her past and make sure she knows you know.  Believe me, suddenly she’ll find you the most interesting person on the planet.

    WHITNEY

    Why’s that?

    EIGHT

    Because here’s the secret.  Demons long to be revealed.   If she invites you to dance –

    (Does a little dance, waltzing the metal detector)

    Dance with her.  Then – suddenly, at the time of your choosing you – step aside.

    WHITNEY

    Step aside?

    EIGHT

    (Involving her in his dance)

    Step aside. Let her own momentum bring her down.

    WHITNEY

    (Very frustrated, dancing like she has two left feet)

    I‘ll never get it.

    EIGHT

    First you have to tell your own fortune. Then you tell hers.

    (Heads off down the beach while she’s thinking about it)

    WHITNEY

    She’ll try to put ideas in my head!

    EIGHT

    But if she’s a demon, your ideas are stronger than her ideas.

    WHITNEY

    You don’t know how persuasive she can be.

    EIGHT

    (From the end of the beach)

    Oh, I know.

    WHITNEY

    Wait!  Where are you going?

    EIGHT

    I’ve got to get moving.  I only found one treasure here.

    WHITNEY

    And you gave it away.

    EIGHT

    (Looking at her meaningfully)

    That’s not the one I mean.

    (Resumes his quest)

    WHITNEY

    Wait, wait!  Give me your phone number!

    (Pulls out her phone)

    EIGHT

     I don’t use those things. 

    WHITNEY

    But where can I find you? When will I see you again?

    EIGHT

    Don’t worry.  I’m always around. I like this beach.

    (Exits)

  • Queen of Swords – the Tarot Play by Alysse Aallyn

    CHARACTERS (4)
    Charmayne: a beautiful, powerful woman just at the drop off point into middle age
    Whitney: a stubborn, determined girl on the cusp of adulthood who doesn’t give a damn about her looks
    Eight: mysterious male beachcomber, late 20’s
    The Guardians of the Past: (can be played by a single actor)
    Dr Quantreau: elderly male in fishing regalia
    Mrs. Preece: bug-eyed, spry, elderly woman
    Mr. Butterbatch: an old man leaning on his broom; a fount of knowledge
    Mrs. Davish: motherly, grave-tending woman

    SCENES:

    1. A “beach cottage” exterior in the Hamptons & beach
    2. The basement “stacks” of a community college library
    3. Hamptons beach
    4. Empty strip club “Guilty Pleasures” in the early morning
    5. Hamptons
    6. Dead Lake Cemetery

      • SCENE 1
        (Morning. The seaside. Corner of a Hamptons-type “cottage”, boulder, hammock, patio set, easy chair, beachplum. WHITNEY forcefully banging on the door.)

      • WHITNEY
        This is MY story and she DOESN’T get to tell it! Charmayne!! Charmayne!!

      • (Through the French windows above the front door we see a man and a woman waltzing together. CHARMAYNE, expensively dressed for glittering “sport” opens the doors and leans out over the balcony. Man hovers in background. All we can see of him is his lithe figure, a glitter of gold necklaces and a shirt open to the navel. )

      • CHARMAYNE
        Go away little Whitney. Can’t you see its time for my fencing lesson?

      • (Making cha-cha moves)

      • WHITNEY
        Is that what you call it?

      • CHARMAYNE
        That’s what everyone calls it. You’d do well to engage in a little exercise plan of your own.

      • (WHITNEY resumes hammering on door which CHARMAYNE eventually opens carrying a pair of old-fashioned sabers, one in each hand. Door closes behind so WHITNEY can’t see in)

      • CHARMAYNE
        (Swinging the swords in her hands)

      • Really, Whitney. Hasn’t anyone ever told you how unattractive it is to make a pest out of yourself?

      • WHITNEY
        Why can’t I go in?

      • CHARMAYNE
        (Briskly)
        Because it’s my house now, Whitney. I don’t want you to see it till it’s done. It’s going to be a work of art. This morning I had the carpet men; this afternoon I had the drapery men, and this evening…(sniffs the air)

      • WHITNEY
        That’s a lot of men.

      • CHARMAYNE
        One shouldn’t be afraid of these things, Whitney. And this evening… Who knows what the evening holds? En garde!

      • (She treats WHITNEY to a frightening display of swordswomanship. WHITNEY tries to remain calm)

      • WHITNEY
        I didn’t come to see your games.

      • CHARMAYNE
        These aren’t games, poor little Whitney, these are the skills of life. Look! I’ll show you a few moves!

      • (Tosses a saber at WHITNEY who ducks – it clatters away.)
        Oh, Whitney, you’re no fun. You really need to step more boldly in the world.

    WHITNEY
    (A little sad, childishly punctured. She’s easy game)


    I’m here, aren’t I? I like fishing. And skeet shooting.


    CHARMAYNE
    Both of those can be done from an easy chair! Where’s the challenge in that? Why not crouch in a dark basement under a garden hose waiting for rats to skitter past if that’s all you’re going to do.


    WHITNEY
    Seriously, when am I going to see inside? I just wondered…you know, about the family things…


    CHARMAYNE
    There are no family things I like everything new. Antiques are a fraud perpetrated on the unwary. Don’t you remember we agreed you’d give me twenty-four hours notice before showing up?


    WHITNEY
    I doubt we ever agreed about anything.


    CHARMAYNE
    I’m afraid your lack of planning doesn’t constitute my emergency.


    WHITNEY
    I’m giving you twenty-four hours notice now, then.


    CHARMAYNE
    I’m so sorry, no can do tomorrow. How about Thursday?


    WHITNEY
    (Like she’s never heard of it)


    Thursday!!


    CHARMAYNE
    (Silky)


    Do try to squeeze it in. Young people fetishize spontaneity. When you’re all grown up I’m sure you’ll realize everything worth having comes through careful planning. Shall we say “tea?” Cinq à sept is my favorite hour. Ta ta, then.


    (Disappears without waiting for the response.)

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    Scene I

    EVAN

    I like women willful, late
    For appointments,
    fond of showy clothes and society, vague, drifting, dreamy,
    yet of course all of that is tiresome.
    But I don’t like competence, intellectual honesty, intelligent sensuality.
    Women keep turning on me saying,
    “You don’t love me.”
    What good is it to have been so happy
    when it ends so painfully?
    I am a “crook”, a “torturer of women”,
    “Murderer.” She has made me feel a monster.
    Below the surface of the will
    I feel deep animal distress, as if I had wives
    Hidden away somewhere
    To marry my present wife.

    EVA
    I find your misery gratifying.
    When I was younger I used to
    Accommodate everyone –
    Now I’m recalcitrant.
    You’re never out of my thoughts, but
    Sadness dulls one.
    Honestly, I always risk failing you,
    Failing you in outstandingness.
    You are extraordinary, I am extraordinary,
    we have been extraordinary together.
    We’re specimens under glass.
    It hurts because the pin runs through both of us.
    The agonizing force of missing you
    Is sweeping over me.
    We have eternity connecting us,
    Backward & forward but
    I can’t get anyone to believe it.

    EVAN
    Would my death simplify things?
    My wife struggles with carrying the conversation
    While I stare glumly at the rain.
    We go to an expensive little restaurant
    And pretend we are on a date to really talk.

    EVA
    That woman’s killing you.
    Imagine if you were dead and your wife
    Wrote a book explaining you
    To everyone! That’s true suffering –
    Fodder for the mealy-mouthed.

    EVAN
    My wife won’t be writing any books
    About me or about anything. You’re the one
    To write the book.
    I feel safe in your hands.

    EVA
    Except I’ve told you over and over
    You’ll outlive me.
    You’re killing me.
    Or your wife is.
    I’ll die of my addiction –
    We always do.
    We prefer it.
    Will you write about me?

    EVAN
    I’ve lied to everyone for
    So long, I’m sure that truth
    Is beyond me.

    EVA
    I’d rather see you dead at my feet
    Than dead ON your feet.
    That would be a mercy killing –
    The last unbearable agony –
    Wondering if you existed at all.
    I have small talent for this.
    I have disgraced my idealism,
    Pretending boredom can be fruitful.
    Waiting, waiting for you everywhere. I
    Wake one day to find I’ve lost my looks, my hair,
    fascination, brain – everything.

    EVAN
    You’re simply waking up
    In an empty hotel.
    The light is always different
    The morning after.
    This is what middle-aged people do.
    I love the brutality of your world.
    You never fade. You are my word made flesh.

    EVA
    You are my religion.
    Until In fell in love with you I was 25 inside.
    I lived in a world of dreams and theories.
    Your experiences seem realer to me than mine.

    EVAN
    To have touched the same places
    Is a bond between us.
    Social instinct is my religion.

    EVA
    Middle-aged people go to weddings
    Out of perverse fascination for the bride.
    I was that bride –
    My day was all champagne.
    Anaesthetized
    It doesn’t hurt so much.
    Such a sense of enormity came over me
    I almost fainted. I gave Allen the dirtiest look: “You caused this.”
    Without wedding dress
    I was a restless, dowdy snob.
    People were falling in love left and right –
    Even in decaying marriages.
    I wanted that –
    He read my subtext.
    And I was caught.

    EVAN
    These dreary parties have a decaying effect.
    My loneliness for you is like a whiplash.
    Your absence is a bitter injury
    But nothing can injure our love –
    We’re too strong for them.
    I’m silenced till I hear from you.
    If I let myself go I would feel desperate.
    I can’t bear you’re going to France without me –
    isn’t love our country?

    EVA
    I won’t say “I’ll die if you don’t come”
    Because I know you would come if you possibly could.
    What a skeleton in the cupboard a wife is.

    EVAN
    Don’t be jealous of Elayna. You are the only goal
    Toward which my life is tending.
    You are the meaning of my life.
    I could never live for work alone.

    EVA
    You enlarge my soul.
    In your mind is my existence.
    You’re more real to me than me.
    I’m in a peculiar psychic state.
    It’s an atmosphere of illusion.
    I envy Elayna all the time.
    It drips like an irritant over my nerves.

    EVAN
    What of Allen? You
    Have your worse half too.

    EVA
    Oh, Allen spends his time lost in woods,
    Falling in love with trees. He’s
    No threat to anyone.

    EVAN
    To understand one’s destiny
    One needs a framework for this mass of experience.
    How can I live separated from you?
    If I stopped caring for you
    I couldn’t care for anything.
    I need my wife, her whip-cracking organization.
    I loathe living in the squalor I get into on my own.
    Having breakfast OUT of bed is the last horror.
    Miasmic feelings of impossibility and terror. Help me.

    EVA
    We help each other
    By existing. Except for God I have no help but you.
    Our love is growing more formidable as our unshakeable belief
    Grows stronger. Like grace, it renews itself.
    All yesterday I glowed. My inability to accept your wife
    Is my deformity – help me with it.
    The light of our love is the only light for me.

  • Film Review – The Three Faces of Alfred Hitchcock

    APOLOGY FROM ALYSSE – Somehow the first version of this came out in Plaintext! Sorry.

    Film Review: Spellbound

                A Viennese psychiatrist in this movie demands a dream “the more cock-eyed, the better” and Hitchcock obliges with this wildly uneven picture offering us Alfred at is best and worst. This film about psychoanalysis is schizy; pretentious, illogical, childish and afraid of its own emotions. Unfortunately it starts with an awkward, talky beginning in which misogynist doctors accuse Ingrid Bergman (for the first time in her life, I’m sure) of being a “glacier” who’s uninterested in men.

                No one heats up a screen like Ingrid Bergman, shooting smoke and fire in all directions from the get-go and it will surprise nobody to find out she and Gregory Peck conducted a hot affair during filming. 

                Dr. Constance Petersen is a psychoanalyst at an upscale Vermont looney bin full of nymphos and weirdos, galvanized by the arrival of Gregory Peck as the new doctor in charge and he’s just as worked up about her. It doesn’t even faze her to discover that he’s an impostor, the real Dr. Edwardes is missing and her swain is accused of his murder.

                The film begins to gather speed as the couple goes on the run together with Connie telling everyone they’re on their honeymoon.  She takes the amnesiac to her training psychotherapist’s house in Rochester where she promises to “cure” him.

                Her teacher tells her that “love smitten analysts playing dream detectives” make “the best patients” but she is making good progress breaking down Peck’s resistance when the police show up and the couple flees to a ski resort called “Gabriel Valley”. 

                The famous dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali is pretty interesting – gamblers in a club decorated with eyes, a man tumbling down a rooftop and a masked man laughing behind a chimney brandishes a wheel.  Constance interprets this as her boss murdering Edwardes on a ski vacation to prevent the younger man from replacing him and framing her lover for the crime.

                When she tells this discovery to her boss he threatens her with the very same gun, but she faces him down and he shoots himself instead. Seen from the killer’s perspective the gun fires directly at the screen.

                Film ends with Constance Petersen and her Big “100% Cured” male making out at the train station. To get to this point Hitchcock had to battle a sappy film score, (Bernard Hermann wasn’t available), a bossy, clueless, tone deaf producer (David O. Selznick) and a woman-hating screenwriter (Ben Hecht) to ignite a modicum of his signature passion and suspense. At least it was a huge hit and broke all records. What a film this could have been without the frozen art direction, the awkward rear projection and the hysterical film censors. Someone should definitely take another stab at it.

  • Secrets of the Self – Second Book Contract by Alysse Aallyn

    My second book contract was a two-book contract. I had long been working on a novel, Model Prisoner, that was based largely on the true crime story described in Barthel’s Death in California , where a man murdered his best friend and kidnapped the friend’s wife. I was working through the issues created when women are forced to cooperate with dangerous men. As often happens, the characters hijacked the story. The relationship between the two men became more and more important – my poor heroine was just a marker of success or loss. In a lucky flash of intuition, I realized the mythic proportions of what I was dealing with – my protagonist became Persephone, uncomfortably contended over by two Lords of Darkness.

    Another character pushed his way onstage – Persey’s dog, Digger. Because Persey loved him, he was an object of jealousy by the Lords of Darkness, who wanted her all to themselves. This evoked the legends around domesticating wild creatures into household pets and the story became Woman Into Wolf.

    When I was ready to submit the novel I discovered my publisher Bridgeworks had been bought by another publisher, Rowman & Littlefield, so I sent it to them and prepared myself for the uncomfortable weeks long wait for consideration lowly authors are subjected to. A few weeks later I heard from my old editor (who I’d dedicated my second novel to!) that Rowman & Littlefield in fact had no editorial department, and so my contract was essentially null and void. I submitted Woman Into Wolf to my old editor to see if she had any good ideas about what I should do next. She suggested I de-emphasize one of the characters (the Bird Lady) and play down Persey’s past life – I took all her suggestions. But when I sent her the revised manuscript I discovered she had forgotten all about it and wanted me to tell her how the novel USED to be!

    At that point I lost faith in her. My trusty Girl Focus Group (my daughter’s friends) loved the book, and I feared further monkeying around might break something important! It seemed a better idea to jut publish the thing myself. And the reviews bore me out.

    …a thrill-ride, unique and highly recommended reading.” –Entrepreneur.com


    “deceit, rape, fertility, imprisonment and a mother’s grief…as each piece of the tightly coiled fiction was loosed I waited for the revelation to come…she couldn’t imagine the extent of the deception until it was spelled out. Neither could I.” – MyShelf.com

    “one of the most unusual mysteries I have ever read…I loved reading Woman Into Wolf … kept me on the edge of my seat right through the end…I highly recommend this novel to fans of crime mysteries that also
    enjoy some extra spice in their stories.” – Readerviews.com

    “a very fine psychological thriller…
    the characters in this book are as bright
    as crystal and as sharp as shattered glass.
    Aallyn not only can describe them to a
    neo-noun, she can make them speak
    true to those characters.
    Quite a talent…a novel every bit as worthy as
    her first.” –ArmchairInterviews.com

    “Satisfying as hell.” – Quoth the Raven

  • Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

    Aspiration – The Future –

      Being a warrior means you never give up, you modify goals and you redesign maps.

      My explorations into True Crime had taught me what people REALLY do. Clearly, there’s no necessity to make up plots; in my next novel the challenge would be explaining what humans get up to and why.

      After the weirdly destructive father/daughter vibe of my last full-time job I became interested in three real stories – a kidnapped toddler where the FBI became convinced the parents were lying, a father in Florida pulling out all the stops searching for his missing teen (later found to have been murdered by a serial killer) and a father pimping out his own daughter (later revealed to be a kidnap victim.)

      I swirled all these into the psychological thriller Find Courtney, where a college student helps a distraught father search for her missing roommate, only to discover that he is definitely NOT what he seems. I whipped the paintings of Edvard Munch, tales of long-dead fan dancers and arson scams into a fine froth of first-person storytelling.

      I got an offer from the first publisher I submitted it to, an exciting Bridgehampton start-up promising the personal touch. It was published to wonderful reviews, but there were unseen cliffs ahead! Luckily warriors are good at managing hard landings and surprise outcomes.

      #Haiku: Find Courtney

      In the
      Dead
      Killer’s house;
      Who needs
      A sexy pirate
      Playing Daddy?

    1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

      Dormancy –

      Artists spend a lot of time trying to find and develop their unique voice. Purveyors of art want you to copy first – so they can compare it to something they already sell – and put a unique – but not TOO unique – touch on it later.

      These contrasting mandates send the artist down a lot of rabbit holes with no rabbits at the end.

      Before I discovered True Crime my own work annoyed me with its amorphousness. I could not figure out where my sense of doom was coming from. Everyone around me just assumed I was being fashionably angsty. You know! Modern megrims!

      But then I attended the Beth Carpenter trial for capital murder in New London, CT in 2002. The guilty were paraded before us – the hitman, the girlfriend, the coked-up lawyer, the hitman’s son. Frozen in the press gallery (my husband was covering it) our eyes boggled. American law gave the story shape – defense attorneys battled right in front of us with the prosecution bar. The jury, invisible on TV, sat before us dressed as if attending sporting event. Which this was – the outcome in question right up to the end.

      This was thrilling modern theatre – the view (the harbor was visible from the courthouse), the company (Press World), even the food was good – we tried a different restaurant every day (once the jury treated us to an Italian meal.)

      I became an addict of Court TV, segueing to the ID channel (where I appeared on Blood Relatives in 2014.) I began reading the true crime greats of which, it turns out, there are many. A novel I had been struggling with – Model Prisoner (which could have described me) was freed into becoming Woman Into Wolf. I based Find Courtney on 2 famous cases.

      LIZZIE BORDEN:
      “Not I But the Moon”…

      Not I but the moon

      Decrees each loss of blood

      You confided slyly, Besom-Breast!

      I’ll crochet a horsehair head for you and

      Lacework- stitch your flesh, my darling

      You and Scrimshaw Pate – He

      Who Must Know Better.

      Hot wax outlines a new broom’s sweep in

      Sacred dust: chorus of shoe-buttons popping like

      Potato-eyes. Oh, I shall dine on you

      My darlings, rolling you in

      Pig viands, I dredge your souls in

      Righteous lard. I am the sanctified enemy

      Of the paper cut people:

      My hymn shall rock

      The laughing house.

    2. Film Review: The Crown VS Saltburn

      Film Review – Scammers Get Scammed – Saltburn VS The Crown

      Well, it’s finally happened – The Crown has fallen in love with its subjects and a syrupy lot of over-privileged spoiled babies they are. When the nausea rises to projectile-vomiting level, try Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s revenge on all twits everywhere.

      There’s an obvious reason Fennell can’t call this new enterprise Promising Young Man to remind us of her magnificent first outing, Promising Young Woman ,because its subject, Oliver Quick, is pure evil. And that, of course, is the problem with this movie. If there’s anything more sickening than the self-confident blathering of nitwits, it’s the triumph of evil. No thanks! Sadly, it ruins the film because it “jumps the shark” into unbelievability. The twits certainly can become silly enough to be overtaken by the more intelligent but the sad truth of reality is, there’s always someone smarter and meaner coming along.

      One of my great pleasures, as a Plot Maven, is re-writing bad endings and Saltburn’s is easy. Aristocrats of the Saltburn type are surrounded by servants whom they vigorously try not to see. But the servants see them. Try Joseph Losey’s magnificent The Servant as a helpful restorative.

    3. Film Review – “Stoker” by Alysse Aallyn

      Stoker – Arche-tripe

      Stoker’s screenplay started out as fan-fiction to Alfred Hitchcock’s much more enjoyable Shadow of a Doubt, which has a moral center, plus victims we care about and characters we can root for.

      Stoker has a good, even beautiful movie buried in it but park Chan-Wook kept messing it up, very deliberately, probably under the pressure (and pleasure) of his personal fetishes. It starts WONDERFULLY – psychologically interesting, visually compelling, achieving an apotheosis of eidetic perfection hen a shot of hair dissolves into quivering grasses but jumps the shark on story sanity. Anyone who want to write about crime (and criminal psychology) need to STUDY it carefully or they risk sounding like nine year old girls guessing about sex – majorly clueless and missing all the real points – ultimately creating an uninteresting world too obviously made up.

      Subjects like mental illness, spies, the foreign service, rituals of different countries, etc., can’t be persuasively invented, and threadbare simulacrums relentlessly reveal unpleasant truths about immature people who just don’t want their fantasies interrupted.

      I used to write fantasies, too, until I began an in-depth study of crime. It changed what I wrote, how I think about the world, even how I live my life. Devlyn is a fantasy – but Find Courtney can actually happen. (Versions of it already have.) This is the reason I usually don’t like sci fi. It is possible to completely make up a world – for example Alice in Wonderland – but if it doesn’t satirize the rules of the real one it collapses like a bad soufflé. Michelangelo felt he couldn’t create a credible physicality of angels without studying dead bodies in morgues.

      I understand that in Stoker our “Oldboy” doesn’t want to be “bothered” by all that stuff – he’s an “artist” who wants to create visual poetry so hypnotic it gets away with breaking the rules and it almost works! But by the end of the film real life insistently intrudes with its message that the “impossible” is ultimately boring.

      The acting in Stoker is very good – especially Matthew Goode who seemed creepily young and was almost perfect – he would have BEEN perfect if the director had allowed him to be a little less vampiric and a little less “ka-razy” and a little more human. That would have made him more appealingly believable. But of course everyone has to submit to becoming an “archetype” to satisfy this director. India Stoker’s amoral, murderous sexuality has been a fetish for middle-aged men seeking to relieve their guilt (and excuse their behavior) for literally HUNDREDS of years. “Some girls” don’t have “proper feelings” so can be ruthlessly used and heartlessly exterminated.

      Poor Mia Wasikowska! I have admired her ever since In Treatment with Gabriel Byrne – she deserves better. That said, I have to admit a personal failing – Nicole Kidman’s frozen weirdness always gets my back up. I have been rolling my eyes over her rigidity since Cold Mountain.

      Mostly I feel sorry for actors who are talked into limiting the range of their gifts by these visual directors who set out to make a cohesive, visually stunning objet d’art, not a complex story about humans. As proud professionals they know how to give the director what he wants, thereby betraying their actual abilities which could create something much more intriguing, provocative and mentally long-lasting.

      I watch a fair amount of crime and it’s always entertaining for me to speculate about how people could have gotten away with it. In this case, easily with a modicum of adulthood & sanity which seemingly bores our first-time scriptwriter (Wentworth Miller) who needs to be more “in your face”. Too bad. But I did enjoy seeing it because I relish being given a puzzle mistakenly assembled – in my view. Then I have the mental fun of putting it together more effectively myself – an amusing occupation for a winter afternoon Ah.

    4. Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

      Chapter 44. A New Life

      Candi admitted everything. According to the newspapers, who disclosed much more than the police, “Scorned Girlfriend Plots to Confront Wife.” Candi admitted only that her plan was to “get the truth out of Scarlet,” but Miss Bottomley started screaming when Candi entered the house – “I couldn’t shut her up and I just panicked.”


      Mrs. Pourfoyle was indicted for “Malice Murder” – a capital offense. The murder weapon – brought by Candi all the way up from Wyvern House – was a table leg she wielded as a club.

      Candi’s husband David announced he was standing by her. “Husband Claims Home-wrecking Cad Manipulated Lovelorn Girl.”


      Was Ian the one who really wanted Scarlet dead? That was David’s argument! Would Ian be indicted? And how long would the generous, the fantastical, the life-altering disposition of Miss Bottomley’s estate remain private knowledge?


      For these reasons and many more it was no surprise to receive a call from Scarlet’s solicitor, Pelham D’Arcy.


      “Ian agrees to sign the divorce agreement we propose, without changes.”


      “Well, that’s a relief.” Scarlet sighed.


      “He’s worried about being indicted for “transferred malice murder.”


      “You mean they think he suggested killing me to Candi? I’ll never believe that.”


      “The press is painting him as a lady-killer. He’s concerned about losing his job. A quick divorce removes his motive and makes him an eligible bachelor.”


      Eligible Ian. Didn’t women flock to “lady-killers”, no matter what devastating facts they knew? Perhaps, thought Scarlet with her newly-acquired cynicism, they flocked BECAUSE of the “devastating facts.” Doesn’t every woman long to reform a roué? Horribly, I did, thought Scarlet. I fell for that. But she was a different person now. Still, the world thronged with eager victims. Ian wouldn’t be alone for long.


      “When’s he going to sign?”


      “It’s contingent on meeting you alone. I told them it would have to be at our offices.”


      “All right. Let’s get it over with.”


      “I suggest you wear your police whistle.”


      Could Pelham be serious? Surely Ian wouldn’t try anything violent – but she knew he would expect to physically touch her and she shrank from the thought. She knew him that well.


      “Is that a serious suggestion?”


      “I’m very serious. If you don’t bring it, we’ll have to bell you like a cat.”


      “I’m sure Enid will let me borrow it. If he signs, then where are we?”


      “Then we get a decree nisi, which is provisional for one year. They usually rush these things through to get it out of the papers but it depends on the judge. Every now and then you get a Huey.”


      “What’s that?”


      “It’s Bob’s and my shorthand for an impossible judge. I must say the publicity makes this very unlikely.”


      “Why’s that?”


      “It’s an open secret that everyone hates our divorce laws. Literally everyone. They’re just on the verge of either breakdown or reform.”


      Scarlet shuddered. So many things you didn’t think of when you stood before the altar, wide-eyed and innocent!


      “I’ll bring the whistle,” she promised.


      She took care to wear it well-concealed. No point red-ragging Ian. She had never figured out his level of self-control. Was everything he did well-planned, or was he ruled by a raging id? Well, thought Scarlet, I don’t care. I don’t have to care. She imagined a future of trying to explain to Nick why Daddy did the things he did. Why he wasn’t like Pom. Adorable, sensitive, reliable Pom, who talked things out, who listened, who cared. Who changed, day by day, evolving to love better. To live better.


      Ian looked different. Older, battered, his eyes bloodshot. Scarlet thought she smelled whisky underneath the cigarettes. Was he drinking every morning now, or was it just because he was seeing her? His suit hung on him in a peculiar manner, as if he had given up on any real nourishment. He and his solicitor, Mr. Jellicoe, whose suit also was ill-fitting, could have been a vaudeville act – one so fat and the other starving-lean. Then again, perhaps Ian just wanted Scarlet to feel sorry for him.


      Mr. Jellicoe seemed very obliging and impressed by his surroundings. He shook damp hands all around.


      Ian looked at Scarlet with deep hunger. I’m the one who “got away”, she thought. The only one. She was glad of the whistle.


      They were guided to the Partners’ Room. At ten in the morning, no sherry was on offer. Ian refused everything, even water. Scarlet accepted a cup of tea to have something to do with her hands, until she noticed they were trembling. Then she set her teacup down hastily.


      Pelham made a point of seating them at opposite ends of the table. He closed the door softly.
      Ian began. “Scarlet, I want to let you know how sorry I am.”


      He waited for a moment as if to allow her to speak. But what could she say? She had already decided there was no point in being accusatory. When he was her ex-husband and the “occasional” father of her child perhaps they could concoct a relationship. At the moment, the situation was hopelessly fraught.


      He spoke again as if covering her silence. “I never guessed…what she’d do. I didn’t listen to her natterings.”


      There went her resolve about accusations. She was just too angry. The words boiled out of her.
      “You treated her like a joke, but the joke is on every one of us. Poor Candi wanted to be treated like a wife without realizing how cruel you are when you’re sure of someone. You ignore them, you devalue them. You fobbed her off with lies while you went your smug and merry way. I think you secretly enjoyed making her crazy. I think you wanted to see just how crazy she would get. Makes it easier to get rid of them, doesn’t it?”


      She half-expected him to fire up or at least smile that he’d gotten her goat but he hung his head like a shamed schoolboy. Scarlet struggled to contain herself. After a moment, he spoke.


      “Don’t compare yourself with her. You’re nothing like.”


      She could see the oil bubbling beneath his surface. Planning, planning, all along. He schemed to flatter her, fawn on her, throw himself on her mercy. He was testing, testing, for any way in. She should never have bothered giving him her honesty. It was all a game with Ian, and any game with Ian was just too dangerous. She summed up as best she could, “No one likes being lied to. A word of advice: it torpedoes relationships.”


      He rose.


      “You’re right, I’m wrong. I managed everything badly. I want to turn over a new leaf.”


      She rose as well, feeling a bit panicky. Was he planning to chase her around the table?


      “There’s Nick,” she said finally.


      “Of course, there’s Nick. But we won’t be together – with him – all the time.”


      Creepy! We’ll never be together with him at all. If I can help it. She summoned up her strength.
      “I don’t see that. I’m afraid we have little in common.”


      “How can that be? Don’t you remember the two young Oxford students working on St. Euphrosyne, with all our hopes and dreams and ambitions?”


      “I do,” she said. “I thought you didn’t.”


      He seemed calculating as to whether he could to rush her. He leaned forward, light on his feet.

      She pulled out the police whistle.


      At the sight of it he sat down heavily and put his head on the table.


      “Oh, Scarlet, Scarlet.” He began to weep.


      She felt stunned. She had never seen him cry. She was surprised it was even possible. Could he be faking this? Then she suddenly realized with a flash of insight that, from her point of view, the problem wasn’t that his emotions were false, but that they were ephemeral.


      “I’m sorry, too.” She advanced toward the door. “Haven’t we said everything?”


      He looked up, tear-streaked. “Do you hate me?”


      She was startled. She had hated him. That feeling was ephemeral. “No.”


      “Will you tell Nick to hate me?”


      Now she felt irked. “Of course not.”


      He gazed at her slyly.


      “Aren’t you afraid he’ll look on me as the fun dad, the devil-may-care seducer who knows how to get whatever he wants?”


      He’d been arguing inside his own head, cruelly mimicking her voice.


      “I’ll take my chances.” Nick would know Pom. He could choose; trustworthy love or untrustworthy disappointment. Choice – once well-informed – is up to each of us.


      “I’m forgiven?”


      This was strange. Odd word from a self-confessed unbeliever. The trial hadn’t even been held. Was he planning to call her as a character witness?


      “Not yet,” she said briskly. “You haven’t signed this document.”


      She put a hand on the doorknob. “Aren’t we done here?”


      He seemed almost confused, as if she’d spoke an unknown language. He rose awkwardly, holding out his hand. He had the sense to say nothing.


      She took his hand slowly and he immediately grasped it with his other one, as if he wanted her to feel his strength.


      She realized she just didn’t like the man.


      She turned away. She wrenched her hand back and, very unwillingly, he let it go and picked up the pen.


      Then she opened the door upon her new world.