The reasons I write
crime fiction are many. Beyond the strong desire to make the world a better
place, one of them might be that when I was six or seven-years-old, Hitchcock's
PSYCHO happened to be playing at the local drive-in and my parents wanted to see
the movie. Their rationale for not getting a babysitter went something like this
... They had a station wagon. If they lowered the backseat and brought the
sleeping bags, my younger brother and I would fall asleep and everything would
be cool. They could sit up front and watch the movie.
Yeah, right!
I can remember
Detective Arbogast entering the Bates's house, making that slow climb up the staircase,
the music going (Oh, I forgot. I was supposed to be sleeping!) I can remember
"Bates's mother" running into the hallway with the butcher knife
raised, Arbogast taking the hit, tumbling down the stairs onto his back, and
then that shot of the knife in the air ... I can remember watching the entire
scene with my father trying to hold my head down.
Forget about it! I
couldn't get to sleep that night.
The movie scared the
living daylights out of me, but I was hooked. Once the initial shock wore off, Hitchcock
would become one of my favorite directors ever. And in the end, show me the way
to writing my first novel, which we'll talk about tomorrow.
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