3.8.2020

Inspiration & Perspiration:
Danielle Trussoni’s Newsletter

March 8th, 2020

“Genius is 1 Percent Inspiration and 99 Percent Perspiration.”
– Thomas Edison


 Good morning on this beautiful sunny Sunday.

I’ve been holed up in my house in the Hudson Valley, spending time with Hadrien and my kids, and baking. For those of you who follow my baking endeavors on Twitter, you will know that I’m currently obsessed with making the perfect canelés. Well, dear reader, I think I have done it this time.

That little hand sneaking in is my daughter, who is two years old, grabbing her favorite treat.

The past three weeks have been a quiet time for me, one in which I didn’t do much but write. I love those periods of hibernation when I turn off my phone and sink into my thoughts (which inevitably becomes part of my fiction).

These past weeks I have found inspiration on many fronts, one of them being the new film The Invisible Man, written and directed by Leigh Whannell, and adapted (VERY loosely) from the HG Wells classic.

This adaption stars Elizabeth Moss as a woman who tries to escape her controlling, genius husband, a man who, it turns out, has created a suit that allows him to be invisible (and thus he can torment her without consequence). If you’ve read my memoir The Fortress, you may understand why this movie hit home with me.

While this book is a memoir, readers have told me that it feels like a horror novel, and I agree. Sometimes horror is the only form a story can take, especially if the world around you has a prejudices about the subject, and would dismiss it out of hand if it were told as a straight up literary novel.

I’ve been inspired this week by a great podcast called The Necronomi hosted by James Sabata. You can listen to it here. The podcast is about the ideas and social commentary behind horror films, a subject that has been on my mind a lot lately. After seeing Parasite and The Invisible Man and Get Out, I’m convinced that something about the form is in sync with these uneasy times. I ask myself: What is it about horror that speaks to us so powerfully at this moment? 

My new novel The Ancestor will be published in one month, and I’m so excited!

I hope all of you who read an excerpt (and those who didn’t) had the chance to preorder a copy. If you haven’t, please pre-order your copy today. I suggest ordering from Oblong Books, a wonderful independent bookstore in Rhinebeck, New York. All preordered books will be signed by me, and delivered to your home on publication.

Here’s a link where you can pre- order: https://www.oblongbooks.com/danielle-trussoni

Thank you so very much for your support. It is because of you that I am able to write more novels.

May your week be filled with inspiration.

Yours,
Danielle Trussoni

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