Talking with Authors: Karin Slaughter “Pieces of Her”

    Karin Slaughter was born in Georgia and is very well known for her two groupings of books, the “Will Trent Series” and the “Grant County Series”…both of which are set in her home state. Karin’s desire to create written works was apparently born with her in the South.  When she was a little girl, she used to make little short stories with as few as 10 pages where her sisters were characters, but they didn’t always come off so well on paper.  The paying consumer group of one of all of those stories was her father. She says he always supported her pursuit of storytelling. But that support had a cut off point…living at home after graduation.

    After working a large number of “terrible” jobs while she wrote, she finally got a publisher. Now she’s 18 novels into her career of writing about crime in the real and fictionalized versions of the Peach State. We’ll learn about her reasons for setting her thriller stories in Georgia, her process of writing, and her undying support of libraries of all kinds. Edgar-nominated and New York Times best selling writer Karin Slaughter is our guest on this episode of “Talking with Authors” from HEC Media and HEC Books.

    Transcript

    Victoria Babu:
    Internationally best-selling crime novelist Karin Slaughter is killing it. 18 novels in 17 years. Over 35 million sold in 120 countries with three movie options in the works.

    Karin Slaughter:
    For the most part, I just loved thrillers. I love mysteries. I love the puzzle solving aspect.

    Victoria Babu:
    She penned her first book at six years old and yes, Slaughter is her real name, perfect for her thriller genre. Not only did she keep her name, she’s never forgotten her roots. Her beloved home state of Georgia is included in every book. Known for her New York Times bestselling debut novel, Blindsighted, and Grant County crime series and her Will Trent detective books, Slaughter released her latest and 18th book this year, Pieces Of Her.

    Karin Slaughter:
    The line for this one is Andrea, the young woman who’s 31 years old is having brunch with her mother on her birthday. Laura’s in her mid fifties and she thinks about her mom. It’s a truth universally understood that your mother can say your hair looks good today and what you hear is your hair has looked awful every day until now.

    Victoria Babu:
    Isn’t that true?

    Karin Slaughter:
    It is, yeah. So that was like a perfect mother daughter line and it really made me understand them.

    Victoria Babu:
    Learning to develop believable characters came from her storytelling father and Slaughter’s ninth grade English teacher, to whom she dedicated her first book.

    Karin Slaughter:
    And she stayed in my life until she died recently, but she was always there, so very much a mentor.

    Victoria Babu:
    Let’s talk about the background of loving thrillers and writing them. Where did that interest come from?

    Karin Slaughter:
    The local library. I’m a big proponent of the library. I loved it as a kid. I support it as an adult.

    Victoria Babu:
    Now she uses her fame and love of libraries to keep their doors open with her Save The Libraries foundation.

    Karin Slaughter:
    One grant we gave, it was to Ferguson because the library stayed open and no matter where you fall politically, socially, anywhere, I think we can all agree children need a safe place to go and that library was open. Teachers volunteered. They were doing the right thing and we wanted to support that.

    Victoria Babu:
    Slaughter may scare in print, but in person and on social media, she is alarmingly charming.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Oh, I see. You’re taking pictures. Let me take a picture of you guys, too. It’s something I get.

    Victoria Babu:
    And funny.

    Karin Slaughter:
    You know, every crime writer I know is pretty laid back. I think it’s the romance writers you have to look out for. They will cut you.

    Victoria Babu:
    Slaughter engages her fans around the world through social media. Her hashtag #slaughtersquad is well known among her readers and so is her love of felines. At this St Louis County library signing, devoted vans don their cat ears in support of their cat loving crime writer.

    Victoria Babu:
    We discuss her writing style, what’s next for the prolific author and so much more next in this first person, one on one with Karin Slaughter presented by St Louis County library and HEC media.

    Victoria Babu:
    Karin Slaughter. Welcome to St Louis.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Thank you.

    Victoria Babu:
    I got to tell you, I tore through, like fire, your book Pieces Of Her. It’s an easy read because it’s captivating and I … that’s one thing about a thriller. With every page I’m like, where is she going with this? Okay. But this is interesting. It really could be a movie and I know that two of your books are becoming movies.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Yeah, and actually this one got optioned as well, so I’m very excited about that. It has a great team of women who’ve worked on Big Little Lies, House of Cards, Homeland, and they’re really professional and they really understand the characters, so I’m looking forward to see what they come up with.

    Victoria Babu:
    Do you have a say in that process?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Well, yes and no. They say they’ll consult me at the end. It’s their project. But they’ve been very generous having conversations with me about characters and motivation and that sort of thing. So I feel lucky to be included.

    Victoria Babu:
    Let’s talk about the background of loving thrillers and writing them. Where did that interest come from?

    Karin Slaughter:
    The local library. I’m a big proponent of the library. I loved it as a kid. I support it as an adult. Fortunately for me, I got really lucky so I can … I’m in publishing so I can get books if I want them, but I love libraries. It was the only air conditioned building in town, so that was the first draw for me. But just the escape and also as a young woman of a certain age living in a small Southern town, seeing women in charge. You know, the librarians were the bosses of the library and they were very well educated and they loved literature and they were great role models for me.

    Victoria Babu:
    The interest in thrillers, where did that really stem from, and is it something from childhood?

    Karin Slaughter:
    I think so. You know, when I was nine or ten years old, we had a serial killer in Atlanta and I lived about 40 minutes away, but the Atlanta child murders were happening and it was a very frightening time for me.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Lubie Geter was 14. Timothy Hill, 13. Patrick Baltazar, 11. For almost two years, the bodies have kept coming out of Atlanta’s rivers and woods, and week after week police speak of sorrow and sympathy but not a solution.

    Karin Slaughter:
    And it also informed my childhood, because I went from being able to go on my bike anywhere I wanted to, and to basically be locked out of the house in the day time. This was back when you can do that with kids, and you know, my mom’s house was her sacred place and we had to go entertain ourselves during the day. That stopped, you know, we had to check in with her. We had to be careful where we went, we couldn’t talk to strangers. It was really terrifying and it made me, from a very young age, not just interested in crime but interested in how crime affects people, victim’s, families, and communities.

    Victoria Babu:
    It is a trickle effect. No question.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Absolutely.

    Victoria Babu:
    This one takes us around the world. How … what’s your method? What’s your process as a writer? Does the idea come to you? Do you read something and think, “Oh, that’d be a great topic.” Does it vary? I’m curious, like where does it begin?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Usually with a line. You know, a line of dialogue or just a scene observation that pulls me into the story because the characters, for me, are very important and the plot is important, but you have to care about the characters or the plot just doesn’t really make sense, right? So the line for this one is Andrea, the young woman who’s 31 years old, is having brunch with her mother on her birthday. Laura is in her mid fifties and she thinks about her mom. It’s a truth universally understood that your mother can say your hair looks good today and what you hear is your hair has looked awful every day until now.

    Victoria Babu:
    Isn’t that true?

    Karin Slaughter:
    It is. Yeah. So that was like a perfect mother daughter line and it really made me understand them.

    Victoria Babu:
    And then becomes Pieces Of Her because as you write, what do we really know about this person that we’ve been with for so long and know only as this one way, in this one way. I don’t want to give anything away, but only as mom, in this case, to Andrea.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Yeah. Well, I think every kid goes through that too. You know, I remember very clearly my stepmother talking about when she met my dad and saying, “Oh, he lived in the singles compound and he had a mirrored headboard,” and I said, “Let me stop you right there. I don’t want to know this.”

    Victoria Babu:
    TMI.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Exactly. He’s just my dad, right. You can talk about cutting grass and parallel parking and that’s it.

    Victoria Babu:
    That’s very funny, because you saw him only that way.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Exactly.

    Victoria Babu:
    As she saw him as, you know, husband, lover, whatever. But yeah, you’re like, “Nixsay”. But that comes out with Andrea’s character too, as it evolves.

    Karin Slaughter:
    True.

    Victoria Babu:
    So you’ve written a series of books, Grant County. Why did you start off into doing individual books, then, after that?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Well I also wrote another series with Will Trent, and part of the reason for was everyone was getting a little too happy in Grant County. Also, why was anyone living there? It’s a small town and there are rapists and murderers and it was worse than Congress, right? So I wanted to mix things up and I started writing about Will, but then I started to get ideas for books that wouldn’t work for his universe. And so pretty girls, the good daughter, cop town, and this. I mean this specifically, all of my stories are set in Georgia, but with this one … you know, as an author, I’ve had such a great opportunity to tour most of the United States and I’ve seen every state except for Alaska and I wanted to write a road trip where Andy got to see our beautiful country.

    Victoria Babu:
    Yeah. And she grew up within that timeframe, too, into I think more of the woman that her mom was hoping she would become.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Exactly. I mean, if parents want their kids to grow up, I guess being in a thriller and having a murderer chasing you is a good idea.

    Victoria Babu:
    It forces you to … well she had to think on her own even though she channeled her step father and … or her, yeah, I guess stepfather and her mother throughout about what would they do or how would they think and, but mostly I think she finally figured it out on her own.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Yeah. And as she geographically got farther away from them, she sort of grew up. It’s fascinating. I travel a lot in other countries and every country has the equivalent phrase for helicopter parent, and in Denmark they call them curling parents after the Olympic sport of curling, you know where you smooth the way. It can be a problem, you know, it can kind of stunt kids grows and so Andy has to go out on her own and make mistakes and kind of fall down before she can stand up.

    Victoria Babu:
    It has shades of a … what it brought to mind was, on a bigger scale, a David Koresh, Waco cult follower. Jimmy Jones down in Guyana with the drinking-

    Karin Slaughter:
    Jonestown.

    Victoria Babu:
    Jonestown, sorry. Those kind of people who are charismatic and could just … you wonder why are people falling for this person and how could they just leave everything and fall for them? You really do a good job of getting, speaking of the characters that you build upon, getting into that character and understanding their psyche where you kind of go, “I kind of get it. Even though it may not be me, I get how they fell for Nick.”

    Karin Slaughter:
    Yeah. You know, the thing about con men is they’re really good at finding victims and they give them just enough love and just enough approval to keep them coming back for more. And if you look at Charles Manson, Jonestown, I mean Jones was an amazing charismatic man and knew when he first started out he was doing wonderful things. He was feeding homeless people, taking care of the elderly, and then it just went crazy. A lot of these places that you see these cults, they start out like that and end up at a very bad place.

    Victoria Babu:
    You started with the dialogue and the characters and then how did it develop into this cult following?

    Karin Slaughter:
    You know, I’ve always wondered about people who get involved with cults and what about the cult is appealing to them.

    Victoria Babu:
    And the educated people.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Exactly, yeah. And I think at some level, the wonderful thing about being in a cult is everybody else is wrong and you’re right, which I think most of us learned in sixth grade that if that’s what you’re thinking, then probably you’re the one who’s wrong. But it’s also this familial thing. A lot of people are dissatisfied with their own families and so they’re drawn into a family sort of atmosphere, and they might not necessarily like everyone in their family, but that’s pretty typical with real families too. They just feel that they belong.

    Victoria Babu:
    What was your psyche growing up, in terms of maybe having an attraction to mysteries and who done it’s and twists and turns?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Well, part of it was through my reading. I love the library. I was there every time the doors were open and my parents would let me, and the books I got were generally mysteries.

    Victoria Babu:
    Did you love Nancy Drew? Because that was mine.

    Karin Slaughter:
    I did. I did, and Encyclopedia Brown and Hardy Boys and all of the regular stuff. Of course, you know, as a teenager I had to read Lace and that kind of trash, but for the most part I just loved thrillers. I love mysteries. I love the puzzle solving aspect, and as the youngest of three girls, you know, that was really my way of storytelling to scare my sisters the most because one thing my dad did when I was a little girl was he would give me a quarter every time I wrote a book and I would illustrate it myself. I mean, there were maybe 10 pages, but most of them were about my sisters being mutilated or made to leave the house. The happy ending and all these books was me being an only child, and my dad thought that was hilarious. My sisters weren’t as impressed but they sold out to my father, every edition.

    Victoria Babu:
    Did your dad have an interest in writing?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Not at all, but he was a storyteller and that came from his family. They grew up very, very poor. They would literally squat in shacks as a family because they didn’t own their own home. And my grandmother, his mother, grew up during the depression. When she died, we found 60,000 packets of Sweet and Low that she had taken from tables at restaurants because she was just so scared of having to go without. She had that mindset of the Depression. But my father loved to tell her stories because that was something that made her happy, and he told us stories and of course the most of them were horrible, dark, Gothic stories like the little girl who left open the refrigerator door and died or things like that. You know, he was always trying to scare us and teach us a lesson at the same time.

    Victoria Babu:
    So your love for writing started at grade school age then?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Yeah, at six years old I wrote my first book.

    Victoria Babu:
    Wow.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Yeah.

    Victoria Babu:
    So you knew then that this was something I have a passion for that … and did your teachers see this and they do they cultivate that?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Yeah, my English teachers did. My math teachers weren’t as impressed. My first book is actually dedicated to my ninth grade English teacher.

    Victoria Babu:
    Oh, that’s so wonderful.

    Karin Slaughter:
    And she stayed in my life until she died recently. But she was always there, so very much a mentor.

    Victoria Babu:
    She had to be so proud of you and your successes.

    Karin Slaughter:
    She was great.

    Victoria Babu:
    That’s so wonderful. You know, for every writer, they will hope to have that in their lives where they have that person cheering them on. It’s interesting you mentioned that because as I was looking at some notes from my daughter today that she found as we’re cleaning up to move, and she had a note from a teacher that was so encouraging. How important teachers are in our lives.

    Karin Slaughter:
    True. And she was a scary teacher, you know. Today she’d probably be sued, but we were terrified of displeasing her. She was really tough. She was very exact and she never talked down to us. We always had to go to her level and she was just an amazing woman.

    Victoria Babu:
    As you’ve gone through the years, and have written since six years old, honestly and I mean this seriously, has your process changed and how has it?

    Karin Slaughter:
    You know, it hasn’t changed much because what I always did was write in the morning before work and then I’d get home from work and I would write. So anytime I have a period of time where I know I can write, that’s what I’m going to be doing. The main thing was when I graduated high school, the night of my graduation, my father put his hand on my shoulder and he said, “You can do anything you want but you can’t live at home.”

    Karin Slaughter:
    And that was a real kick in the pants for me to go out. I had lots of different jobs and did different things, and eventually I was able to get an agent and get published. But it took about 10 years and I worked a lot of really horrible jobs in-between.

    Victoria Babu:
    Did you get a lot of rejections with your writings?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Absolutely. And you know, maybe just because I was in my twenties and I was young and arrogant and I always thought it wasn’t me, it was them, and I didn’t take the rejection to heart. You know, for the most part, I think that with a lot of agents, they may love your writing, they may love what you’re doing, but they don’t think they can sell it and that’s how they make money. So unfortunately you have to understand it’s a business.

    Victoria Babu:
    So to aspiring writers out there, you tell them what?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Don’t quit. I mean, that’s the big thing. Everybody in the world, very likely, has one good idea for a book, but that’s not the hard part. The hard part is sitting down, expressing it through character, figuring out the plot, figuring out where you’re going to fool people. Not just in thrillers, but in all novels. You have to have that suspension that any good story has. That tautness where there’s a mystery of character, you know. What are they going to do next? And if you look at the greatest novels in American literature, like The Great Gatsby or Gone With the Wind, there’s this question of not just what’s going to happen, but how is it going to affect the character. That’s the difficult part.

    Victoria Babu:
    And I thought I read at the end that you did a lot of research for this one.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Absolutely.

    Victoria Babu:
    In what way?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Well, there’s a couple of different things that I’m talking about in there. We talked about cults earlier, so I had to look into that. I’ve always been fascinated by child prodigies, and how very stressful that is to be a child with that kind of talent and to have to work on it every day. And, you know, usually in the early twenties, by the time they reached that age, they’ve done everything. So what else is there? I wanted to talk a little bit about that. I also talked to musicians and just a whole bunch of different people about some of the elements in the book. Someone who lived in Norway in the 1980s. I read economic textbooks from the 1980s, and … I mean, don’t worry. As you know, it’s not an economic textbook. The book moves very quickly, but I just had to know what I’m writing about and what the world feels like in this time period before I can sit down and say, “Okay, I think I understand it enough where I can put a story in it.”

    Victoria Babu:
    It’s interesting cause you talk about the 80s yet some of it’s so relevant today.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Yeah.

    Victoria Babu:
    It was reading like it could have been happening right now.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Yeah. Well, one thing we’re still seeing is that people who have mental health issues are not getting treatment, and the deregulation of mental health services really started in the 80s. I mean, it was very aggressively toned back, and what happened was we started putting people in prisons because there were no mental homes, there was no treatment for them. And just as someone who’s a a purebred capitalist, it seems like such a waste of money to incarcerate someone when it’s much less expensive to put them in a setting where they can get mental health care services and then eventually get a job and pay taxes.

    Victoria Babu:
    You encompass so much in the book and it reads so quickly, so to those who haven’t read it yet, highly recommend it. And I love books like that ,and I haven’t had a good one where I can’t wait to find out what’s going on next. And that was in the middle of a big move. So I was like, “Okay, I’m done packing boxes. Can’t wait to go back to the book.” That’s got to be something that you appreciate as an author, don’t you, that you want us to … there are those people, those characters in the back of my mind throughout the day.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Absolutely. And I really work hard on that because I want you to feel like you’re in the story when you’re reading the story and there’s no character who isn’t well-developed and who you don’t understand and sometimes you may get annoyed with the choices they make. But I want you as a reader to understand why they make those choices.

    Victoria Babu:
    Let’s talk about Save The Libraries. So tell me about … did you start this, what’s the background and how can we all be a part of it?

    Karin Slaughter:
    I started it during the economic downturn in 08, and the organization’s called Save The Libraries. What we do is we don’t ask people to send money to us. We ask them to send money to their local library. If you have a wonderful system and you’re lucky to have a well funded library, look next door, because usually if there’s a great system, there’s one next door that might be struggling that needs help. The thing is, if one of the groups that we’ve found who are very supportive of libraries are people who work in the juvenile justice system. 85% of the children in this system are functionally illiterate. How much cheaper is it to teach them how to read? And that’s a really important thing communities need to understand. So say the library tries to educate.

    Karin Slaughter:
    We encourage authors to talk about it. We do fundraisers, we give block grants. One grant we gave during the writing and it was to Ferguson, because the library stayed open and no matter where you fall politically, socially, anywhere, I think we can all agree children need a safe place to go and that library was open. Teachers volunteered. They were doing the right thing and we wanted to support that.

    Victoria Babu:
    That was my latchkey, was my library. I’d get off of school and go there and mom would pick me up when she got off work on the way home and that was my safe haven. I understand totally what you’re talking about the mentors there. They are brilliant people that work there.

    Karin Slaughter:
    They are. They put up with a lot for very little money, so we’re very grateful for them.

    Victoria Babu:
    And you do incorporate the library into Pieces Of Her.

    Karin Slaughter:
    I do. You know, most people don’t understand what modern libraries do. Well, even older libraries. I mean we wouldn’t have a lot of novels that were written except for authors being able to rent typewriters at their local libraries. I mean, there’s story after story. Even Scott Fitzgerald would rent a typewriter at his library occasionally. So computers are there, internet access. In rural areas of America, we still have trouble having access in all homes, and so children need to be able to go to the library and access that or they’re completely left out of the world.

    Victoria Babu:
    And I notice a lot of libraries are catering to children. It’s more … when I was growing up, I didn’t have so much a play area, but they’ve incorporated books with playing and storytelling and they’ve really upped, that I think.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Absolutely. And they’re doing things in some systems. They have music labs, they have film labs, computer training, all the tools that kids need in order to succeed in life.

    Victoria Babu:
    So what’s next? We know that Pieces Of Her has an option to become a movie. You’ve got The Good Daughter, and what was the other one?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Yep. Cop Town.

    Victoria Babu:
    Oh, Cop Town.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Yes.

    Victoria Babu:
    Yes. Cop Town. Can’t keep up with all your writings. But what else is next, and will you stick with the thriller genre?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Absolutely. I love thrillers. I think they’re fantastic. You know, I mentioned Gone with the Wind and Great Gatsby. These are murder stories, you know, there’s a violent murder at their center, but I love the genre and I want to keep doing it. My next novel is back in my Will Trent series and it’ll be out next year.

    Victoria Babu:
    Is there any advice you’d give to aspiring writers, young writers out there, thinking back to where you were and thinking you knew at all then getting rejections?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Well, you have to keep writing different things. You can’t just work on the same book for 10 years. You need to make sure that you’re growing and changing. The hardest thing to do is to put away something and start new. But if it’s not working, you’ve got to realize that. The other thing is you have to keep reading. I read all the time. I know most of my friends who are authors read all the time and we’re not trying to look at what the market is or steal a good story. Your brain is a muscle that you have to exercise, and you do that through reading. Even if it’s a bad book, you know what’s bad, you know what you don’t like and you know not to make those mistakes in your own work.

    Victoria Babu:
    And how important is it, having a good editor?

    Karin Slaughter:
    It’s tantamount to any successful career, I think, because my editor has been with me since my second book. I know some authors get to a certain point and they’re not edited anymore, and you can really tell which authors those are. That’s how I learn what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong. If you want to grow and really be a writer, not just a published author, but you want to keep getting better and learning new things about the craft and about yourself, you have to be edited. So to me that’s the most important part of my process.

    Victoria Babu:
    Is there a part of the process where you go, “Aha, I haven’t thought that way”, or, “That is better”?

    Karin Slaughter:
    Yeah. Well, but most of the time, and I think every writer probably gets this note repeatedly, is, “I know what’s in your head, but it’s not on the page,” and that’s what you have to look for. I’m pretty good at pacing because of the way I write and the way I think about books. Most of the writings done in my head, but an editor is there to make sure there aren’t any parts that are so slow that people are just going to close the book and look for something new.

    Victoria Babu:
    With regards to the series of books that you’ve written, what was it like going from Sara to Will and then bringing them together?

    Karin Slaughter:
    It was very deliberate. A lot of people don’t realize that, but I knew when I was writing Grant County it couldn’t go on forever, so about the fourth book I started thinking about Will Trent, creating his world and making him the kind of man that Sara Linton might be interested in. When you meet him in his initial two books, he doesn’t really have his stuff together and she’s not a woman who would put up with that, so I had to really work on him and make him open up a bit more and be more responsive and in general say more of the things that he had in his head, and Sara really brings that out in him. But it was a very, honestly, a very difficult thing to end that series cause I loved it so much, but I so enjoy having Sara and Will’s world and bringing Lena in and in my next book with Will Trent, actually, I’ve brought Sara’s mother back. So I think people are going to be happy with that.

    Victoria Babu:
    Is it tough to end something like that? Does that come … do you come up with the ending first thing, and then say how am I going to put a close to this? It seems so huge.

    Karin Slaughter:
    I knew the ending for that book. It was the six novel in the series when I finished the fourth, so I was pretty clear about where I’m going. But you know, with all my books, I know how my books end before I start them. I think it’s very important to play with the reader. I know you’ve got a lot of would be writers who are watching this, and what my goal is when I get to an end of the novel is for the reader to say, “Oh, that makes sense,” or, “What did I miss? Let me go back”, not to say, “What just happened?” So I need to know how it’s going to end before I can do that.

    Victoria Babu:
    There’s nothing like a good book, and Karin Slaughter, thank you so much for coming to St Louis and for, you know, entertaining all of us.

    Karin Slaughter:
    My pleasure. Thank you.

    Karin Slaughter:
    Dear reader, have you ever looked at the person you know best in the world and wondered what really lies below the surface? Whether what you see is genuinely what you get? I’ve always been fascinated by the secrets and lies that underpin our lives. And so that’s the question Pieces Of Her asks. Can you ever know anybody completely? I hope you enjoy it.

    Karin Slaughter:
    For years, even while she’d loved him, part of her had hated him in that childish way you hate something you can’t control. He was headstrong and stupid and handsome, which gave him cover for a hell of a lot of mistakes he continually made. He was charming too. That was the problem. He would charm her, he would make her furious. Then he would charm her back again so that she did not know if he was the snake or she was the snake and he was the handler.