Tag: cynthia pelayo

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I grew up in a town where the Pied Piper was (is) a big deal. In fact, because of it, I was a rat in a parade.

My home town is Frankenmuth, Michigan, known as Michigan’s Little Bavaria. One of the town landmarks in the Glockenspiel at Bavarian Inn. The Glockenspiel is a 50-foot bell tower that plays music and tells the story, with the help of carved figures that emerge onto a platform, of the Pied Piper.

One year the kids in my neighborhood entered the annual Children’s Parade, part of the then-weeklong Bavarian Festival, with a Pied Piper rat group, and a Pied Piper child group, with two of the older boys playing the Pied Piper. So… I was a rat.

When I say I have always been fascinated by the darkness of the Pied Piper of Hameln story, I mean it.

In Children of Chicago, Cynthia Pelayo took a dark tale and made it even darker, dark as pitch. In Pelayo’s hands, we have a Pied Piper that is truly the stuff of children’s legends, and the instrument of the kind of pure anger of which children can be capable. This is a story about children killing children. And somehow, it is told with compassion. Unflinchingly, but also with empathy. It’s a stunning accomplishment.

If you are familiar with the Pied Piper story, don’t think that will help you. This is a horror story with thriller overtones, and the mysterious twists and bends that come with a good detective mystery. You might think you have it figured out, and you might, partly. You won’t see the whole thing coming at you, I assure you.

Chicago is as much a character in this story as the children and the detective trying to save them. Calling it a love song to Chicago is trite. But still true. I’ve been to Chicago a dozen times, but I’ve never seen it presented in quite this loving, honest, respectful way. The next time I’m there, I’ll try to visit Humboldt Park. I won’t be chanting rhymes in front of candlelit mirrors, though. No way.

The drink is a mimosa. It was early-ish and I’d had … some beers… the previous night. The place is the Crazy Horse bar and grill in Bloomington, Indiana.

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What I’m reading and where I’m reading it. And what I’m drinking for part of the time I’m reading it.

So, this first one is a book about a woman driving alone in the mountains on her way to a horror convention, and encountering the Mothman or something like it and assorted other baddies along the way. For reasons I’ll explain in mid-April, that one skeered me. Below by Laurel Hightower is genuinely scary but it’s also empowering.

I enjoyed that book at Ebb & Flow Fermentations in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Ebb & Flow has got just the best vibe. Inside it’s eclectic funky, and outside it’s herb garden magic. It’s February, so we’re inside. They have a series of beers named after goddesses and made by their women brewers. This one is Arduinna, which they describe as a dark saison ale with chocolate malt and roasted hickory bark. It was a perfect match.

Into the Forest and All the Way Through by Cynthia Pelayo is a collection of poems based on real life / true crime stories of murdered and missing American women and girls. It is heartbreaking. It’s one thing to read or write fiction that has murders — even if you are drawing from your own experience, you know the story itself is fiction. It’s another to write true crime — most of that is written in a clinical, research-forward way. Cina Pelayo goes into the heart and all the way through to your soul. I’ve not read anything quite like it.

So after all that seriousness, it seems almost stupid to talk about reading it in a bar during Valentine’s week. Johnson Bar in Paducah, Kentucky was all done up for the holiday, in reds and blacks and pinks and hearts and arrows and naughtiness and snarkiness and a nod to the heartbroken. The red lighting made the pictures kinda cool. That’s a Paloma I’m drinking — they do complex cocktails very well, but that night I was more traditional.

I am honored to call Meg Pokrass my friend. She has been my flash fiction mentor, a source of encouragement and inspiration, and a supporter when I needed a hug followed by a kick in the ass (all virtual). She lives now in Inverness, Scotland, the gateway to Loch Ness, and if Nessie is going to show herself to anyone, it’ll be Meg. They are two of a kind — mysterious, shy, beautiful and playful. Kissing the Monster Hunter is a series of flash fiction stories about a monster hunter. And love.

I was at Hill Prairie Winery upstate in Oakford, Illinois. They have historic pictures of horses on the wall — Morgans, a Percheron stallion, mules, work horses, all of them previously associated with the place in days of yore — so you know I loved it. The wine in this picture is Fireside Cran-Apple Spice, which tastes like a mulled wine.

Cheers!