Into the World of the Lalassu

Lalassu is an Akkadian word which means spectre or hidden.  Since my community of supernaturally powered people goes back to ancient Babylon, which spoke Akkadian, I chose it as the name of their secret society.

I love the idea of secret organizations and communities living within the regular world.  The Templars and Masons, the Illuminati, even the original gatherings of Christians under the Roman Empire’s rule, there’s just something appealing about the idea of being part of a distinguished, but secret, group.  Of course there are actual distinct communities which share space but not lives.  The best illustration I’ve ever seen comes from J. Michael Straczynski’s Midnight Nation, inspired by his observation of how the homeless and destitute share geography with the regular folk, but remain unseen and hidden from view.

When it came to creating the world of the lalassu, I spent a lot of time thinking about how they would interact with the world.  Ancient Persia, Greece and Rome all have myths of powerful demigods with strange gifts, usually extraordinary strength.  The lalassu could have lived quite openly and comfortably.  Some probably even had cults and rituals based around them.  The turning point would come with the Roman Emperor Constantine and his adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire.  After that, local cults were no longer tolerated.  The lalassu would have had the choice of fighting the Romans (which some certainly did) or withdrawing and hiding amongst the crowd.

With the Middle Ages came the witch trials.  Suddenly having strange powers was a death sentence, no matter how useful or helpful those might be.  Historically, many of the “witches” burned at the stake were healers and midwives, so I’m sure the inquisitors would have had no trouble condemning mediums, shapeshifters and predictives as demons.  The witch hunts would have driven the lalassu survivors deep underground and pushed them to the fringes.  Like gypsies and tinkers, they began to travel frequently to escape the scrutiny of suspicious neighbors.  They likely would have been welcomed among the tents of travelling entertainers as psychics, strongmen and freaks.

Gradually the world ceased to believe in extraordinary powers, making it easier for the lalassu to hide.  However, the rise of science threatened a new exposure, one which could be replicated rather than dismissed as legend.  If a naturalist discovered the lalassu, he or she could bring unwelcome attention on the entire community.  Keeping out of traditional roles became even more important.

The increase in the authority of the state drove yet another nail in the coffin.  Up until a hundred years ago, it was relatively easy to simply start a new life and a new identity, provided one was not claiming to be part of the aristocracy or other elite groups.  People more or less trusted newcomers to be who they said they were.  But as governments began to issue official identification papers and keep track of their citizens, it becomes harder to exist on the fringe of society without leaving telltale traces.

I based lalassu culture on the loose organization of the Romany (albeit in a very general way as there is little available for reliable detailed research).  Each group of lalassu has its leaders but each leader has a great deal of autonomy to make decisions.  They communicate to warn of potential problems for their people or to pass on invitations to particularly lucrative ventures.  They work in cash-under-the-table jobs such as day labor or the quasi-legitimate markets of palm readers and other psychic ventures.  Some cross the line into criminal enterprises.  They move frequently to avoid drawing attention to themselves.  Their safety relies on being effectively invisible.

Because they stay to the fringes, they have to rely on themselves to take care of any problems which arise.  If a customer cheats them, they can’t go to the police to complain.  Instead, they might call on relatives to teach a physically painful lesson on keeping one’s word, or use their gifts to frighten the mark or even break into the customer’s home or business to extract retribution.  If money becomes scarce, they cannot apply for assistance.  Instead they rely on their families and fellow lalassu to assist them.  The family becomes everything, support system and safety net.  Breaking from the family leaves an individual incredibly vulnerable and isolated.

Things are reaching another turning point for the lalassu.  In an age where the shadows they hide in are becoming narrower due to constant surveillance and international cooperation, the risk of exposure is becoming greater with every passing year.

The lalassu books will focus on different aspects of the community and the reality of dealing with superpowers and still trying to keep them secret.

Inspired By Special Needs Children And Those Who Love Them

Every parent believes his or her child is special.  Bringing home a newly wrapped bundle from the hospital or from the adoption agency is one of the most frightening and wonderful events possible in life.  It can become even more frightening when things don’t go as they are supposed to.

Some parents find out before birth, others while their child is still a toddler and others after their child is grown.  The number of possibilities are terrifyingly prolific.  Ask any pregnant woman who has had to look over long lists of conditions and disorders.  Not to mention accidents and all the other pitfalls waiting in the outside world.

As soon as a parent discovers their child has special needs, the entire game changes.  Some describe it as the death of their hopes and dreams.  Others spoke of a terrible shock, as if they literally cannot comprehend what they are being told.  Even when a parent suspects, having their fears confirmed is a difficult experience.

I based my character, Martha, on real parents who struggle daily with their child’s outbursts and limitations.  They are exhausted.  They are bruised, emotionally and physically.  They face daily scenarios which defy all expectations, such as cleaning up toileting messes from teenagers or having to spend an hour coaxing their child out the door because a different car is parked outside.  But I was struck again and again by how much they loved their children.  When no one would question it if they were ready to give up, the sight of their child still brought a loving smile to their face.  These parents are ready to sacrifice anything: their time, their savings, their homes.  Anything which might give their child a chance.  Many had to quit jobs to devote themselves to hours of therapy and multiple weekly appointments.

The truly remarkable part is that they don’t see themselves as remarkable.  In their minds, they’re just doing what they need to do.  What anyone would do in their situation.  If their assessment is true and we all could step up to do what they do, then the world and the people in it are better than our daily news report would like us to believe.

Bernie is not based on any particular child but I was inspired by the special needs children I met.  Although their differences often make the initial contact uncertain and hard to navigate, once you get past that, you see an amazing array of unique little personalities.  Children with autism who had no social understanding and are thus brutally honest and rapturously thrilled with equal intensity.  Children who defied brain injuries to learn to speak and walk and their contagious delight in their accomplishments.  Some couldn’t speak but still managed to communicate their enthusiasms and dislikes.  Others needed constant supervision because of their ingenious talents for thinking outside the box.  In all of their cases, their spirits shone through.  Their parents cherished those moments, perhaps more than we might expect, because of the contrast with the challenges.

My hero, Michael, is also based on real therapists who devote huge amounts of their time and energy to helping these families.  Male therapists are exceedingly rare, but I indulged in a little literary licence.  It’s difficult to find men who are interested in such an intense caregiving role and even more difficult for those men to find jobs.  Sadly, our fears of abuse make any man who wants to work with young children into a suspect personage.

The therapists I spoke to love their work.  Trust me, the money they make is nowhere near enough for anyone to do the job who doesn’t love it.  They love the moments when they manage to teach a child something he or she has been struggling with for weeks, months or even years.  They enjoy interacting with the children and discovering their quirky personalities.  They find little toys or stickers and pick them up for their clients.  They spend hours playing boring, repetitive games and still have smiles on their faces.

I asked parents what message they would like to send out and the response was almost invariably to be thankful for what you have and to be understanding of others.  Parents whose children cannot speak see children relentlessly nagging their parents for a toy or treat and think “I would give anything to have that problem.”  They ask for patience and understanding when they are dealing with a meltdown in the grocery store, instead of angry comments and disapproving glares.  Many of these children have no outward sign of their disabilities, making it hard for others to understand the challenges.

After seeing what they experience, it certainly made me want to give my own children a hug.  And it inspired me to try and show both sides of their experience: the wearing grind and the inexhaustible love.

Finding My Revelations

This novel started with two inspirations which quickly became intertwined.  The first were stories about the Babylonian temple harlots.  The second was the idea of using superheroes as my main characters.

Religions have always fascinated me.  There is a huge variety in beliefs and cultural attitudes out there, all with people equally devoted to them.  I believe humans may be drawn to different religions but begin their search for the same reason, to explain their personal experiences and sense of something beyond themselves.

I first learned about the Babylonian temple harlots in high school.  They were initially presented as prostitutes, a way for corrupt priests to make money.  However, as I started doing my own research and learned more, it became clear that this was a perfectly socially acceptable form of worship.  The French refer to the moment of orgasm as le petit mors, the little death.  It is implied that it is a moment of spiritual and emotional transfiguration and awareness.  The temple harlots were trained to help worshippers achieve that moment.

The idea of sex as something sacred which could be pursued openly intrigued me.  It is such a radical difference from our “don’t ask, don’t tell” social policy.  More research led me to the myth of the succubus, a demon which comes to virtuous men and has sex with them in their sleep, causing them to sin and lose their souls to the devil.  The two ideas became paired in my mind.  Many pagan beliefs and deities became demonized by the Roman Catholic Church (such as the Celtic god of the woodlands, Cernunnos, who was remodeled as the devil).  I wondered, could the temple harlots have been demonized as succubi?  There’s absolutely no evidence for it, but the idea stuck with me.

The second part of my inspiration was to use a superhero as my heroine.  I grew up in during the revitalization of comics, when stories moved out of childhood and into maturity.  I devoured stories plumbing the depth of the human/superhuman experience, such as Chris Claremont’s Phoenix and Dark Phoenix sagas and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns series.  Heroes weren’t infallible, they made mistakes and questionable moral decisions.  I wanted to create a heroine who felt the weight of her supernatural gifts, who didn’t want the life of sacrifice which was required of a hero. 

Dani was born out of a mixture of defiance and desperation, ready to go down fighting to her last breath but still denying there was anything good or worthwhile about her.  She would be descended from the temple harlots, able to open her lover’s mind to the infinite majesty of the divine cosmos.  But what would that kind of awareness do to someone’s mind?  People are quite happy in their delusions most of the time.  Those without self-sustaining delusions are the clinically depressed.

Dani needed an appropriate hero to match her, which let me explore another idea of mine.  A hero who was not more badass than his heroine but who inspired her instead.  It’s a bit of a flip on the traditional match of the romance hero and heroine, where the goodness of the heroine inspires the aggressive hero to become more than he has been.  While Dani emerged as a full-fledged (and opinionated!) character in moments, Michael took a little more time to come fully to light.  I had to coax him to share his secrets with me.

He began his fictional existence as a youth counsellor, but that didn’t quite sit right, no matter how I tried to make it work.  Then one day I met a little boy with an attendant in tow.  His parents explained that the boy had severe autism and the attendant was his therapist, who worked with him every day.  Lightning struck and I suddenly understood Michael’s true role.  He was a developmental therapist who worked with children and he had psychometric gifts which allowed him to peer into otherwise silent children and find out what they were feeling.  Like discovering that the previous half-hour’s tantrum was because of an itchy clothing tag.  His big-hearted kindness and optimism came into focus and I finally understood how he fit into the story.

After I had my hero and heroine, then I needed an appropriate villain.  Someone who was the antithesis of them both, combining their worst qualities and fears.  André deigned to explain it to me.  Some people are given supernatural gifts, and those people have the god-given right to rule over the non-gifted.  Ruthless, driven and sociopathically practical, he is simply doing what anyone else would do, given the opportunity: making sure he is not out-gunned in the drive to acquire people with special gifts.

The three of them quickly took over the story and pulled me into a new world filled with strange powers and secret societies.  I’ve only begun to scratch the surface in Revelations and I’m looking forward to telling many more stories of the lalassu, the hidden people.