After Dead

After Dead by Charlaine Harris                     Audio Book: .75 hour   PaperBack Book:  208 pages          

This was like a letter from home.   The Bon Temps version of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon.    I have missed Sookie, Eric, Bill, Tara, Lafayette and all the wonderful characters that the imagination of Charlaine Harris dreamed up.   Characters so rich in detail they took on a life of their own to those of us who are devoted fans.    The reader can become attached to such vivid sensory imprinting and like baby ducks we want to follow all our favorite residents of Bon Temps, Louisiana.    Heck, we feel like we are now residents of Bon Temps we know everybody there so well and when Ms. Harris gave the death knell to the Sookie series it was as though a family member had died.   Our hearts were literally shaken.   We were ran out of town on a rail and even that dear Sheriff Andy Belflour couldn’t help us.   So, in many ways this book is a cool drink of water to a thirsty soul.   Some closure.   We aren’t just out there dangling in our shocked state any longer.     A few crumbs tossed and gobbled up hungrily.   I am happy that Ms. Harris wrote this.   It was a joy to get some news from home.   I would be greedy and wish Ms. Harris would miss Sookie, too, and want to bring her back, but, that is not likely.    I think by virtue of Sookie’s followers becoming over zealous that freaked the author/creator out.    Then, I think fans inundating her with requests or complaints or folk disputing something in the Stackhouse genealogy or the story timeline, maybe a new wrinkle in vampire lore really ticked Charlaine Harris off.   Having attended one of her lecture, I noticed two things: 1.) Fans writing stories using her characters and sending them to her in homage desperately meaning to please her and gain favor for their writing skills most certainly did not please her.   It peeved her off immensely.    There were HER characters afterall not theirs and she could do what she wanted to with them.   THEY ARE HER CHARACTERS.    She was not flattered by the fanfiction at all.   I bet she ripped them to shreds or burned them judging by her deep set reaction.   2.)  Charlaine Harris was totally pissed off that fans predominantly wanted to see Sookie end up with ERIC not BILL and BILL was who loved Sookie unconditionally and Bill Is who Ms. Harris had seen Sookie being with always to the end.  I could tell that Ms. Harris herself was in love with the Bill character and didn’t care much for Eric’s arrogance, always writing him as a disturbing, nasty, vile, out for himself above all others.   But, Eric was hot.   Eric didn’t need anybody, but, he loved Sookie and would do anything for her.   He mellowed so much after their tender moments together when she took care of him when the witch coven caused him to completely forget who he was.  My favorite book in the series I might add.   Besides, the bad boy is always the nonconformist that embodies that free spirit even the most inhibited of us wish they could let out to howl once in a while.   We may not like him, but we respect his toughness therein lies the attraction.   We want that wildness.    Bill is a highly loveable guy.   Old South, southern gentleman with impeccable manners, talk dark and handsome, also hot just in a more subtle subdued way.    Bill would be a wonderful protector and provider he would always see to his lover’s needs, always be there just a breath away.   Eric would keep his lover wondering all the time but it would be so worth it when he was in the moment.   But I honestly believe it angered Charlaine because Bill was her choice for Sookie (her stand-in) and the idea that fans preferred who she felt was the bad guy that infuriated her and she was Not going to let fans tell her how she was supposed to seal the deal.   So, I do feel that to let fans know they were not going to push her around, she quit writing Sookie stories.   Oh what a blow that was!  I just think in Charlaine’s mind that would put it all to rest and get the fans off her back and drop all the stress of keeping a team around her to keep her facts on point against the barrage of fan mail, tweets, email etc.   Like some rock stars who simply want to play their music, Charlaine simply wanted to write and to write her stories her way fans be damned it all got way too overwhelming so she stopped it so she no longer had to deal with it which left her able to persue new characters in new book series she was fond of and wanted to see develop more.  I admit I am crushed by the door slamming on Sookie’s house and story, but again, this tidbit of info on the citizenry of Bontemps, Hotshot,  Nial and the fairy folk, cousins from Shreveport and other points, Kings and Queens of states mentioned and characters big and small brought in to mention, if briefly, how the later years of their lives transpired.    Many endings are funny, or bittersweet or downright unfortunate, maybe a little catty in a retaliatory way.   It’s like when Queen Elizabeth did that quick dip/nod as Diana’s hearse passed, Charlaine did a quick dip/nod to the Sookie Stackhouse series fans and threw us a bone.   Thank you, Charlaine, I accept this bone gratefully.    Thanks for the news from home.   I am content if not satiated.