Treading fine lines in fiction
One of the themes of The Recluse Rules is cultural appropriation, and also the colonial attitude towards artefacts of the colonised. The reason often given for the British Museum to hold on to artefacts is that they have the expertise in caring for them, and sure, once the original owners are more stable, we’ll be happy to hand them back. This is despite numerous instances of it not being the case, for example the Peter Higgs scandal at the British Museum.
In my novel the protagonist, John, (a white man living in Wales), buys an artefact of the Nicobarese in an online auction. It inevitably, turns out to be cursed, thus setting up our central plot. John contacts Dr Moosa, an expert in Indian folklore. He receives a severe lecture on the Western disrespect of indigenous artefacts and his own belief system. This interaction does a lot of the lifting of the cultural appropriation theme, but in writing a novel with such a theme, one has to be wary of committing that sin also.
The artefact is a MacGuffin, even with all the cultural awareness I situate it in, its primary purpose is to serve the plot. Similarly our Dr Moosa has to work for the overall narrative also. He is not a central character but has to be more than just an exposition vehicle. I hope that I have made him a realistic and fully rounded character while also being purposeful for the novel overall.
I also have a trans woman who is one of the two friends John relates to and who help battle the evil spirit. My intention of making this character, Gwen, trans was simply to have a character who happens to be trans. Her gender status is incidental to the plot, she could just as easily be cis. As a cis-het male I wouldn’t be so arrogant to think I can really represent the trans experience, but I think what I can do is demonstrate an act of allyship by having visible characters who are trans (or any non-straight) characteristic as just accepted. Too often LGBTQ+ characters are used by straight writers to provide some exotic colour, or for their nature to be a plot device. Having fairly conventional roles in literature is a privilege usually assigned to straight white characters only.
But as with the cultural appropriation theme, I don’t want to be guilty of reinforcing any stereotypes, however good natured my intentions. Also Gwen couldn’t be a simple mouthpiece for trans issues, she had to be a believable fully rounded character. During the writing she really came to life I felt, and ended up as my favourite character (that may be a result of her obsession with cooking baklava).
I’m aware though that with both of these aspects (and there are more, including the central theme of isolation), that it is easy to get things wrong. If readers who are close to those topics tell me I’ve misrepresented them, then I have to accept that, and try harder. But I don’t want concerns about that to lead to an avoidance of trying to bring some real issues into horror fiction, which has a long tradition of being the most fruitful genre for addressing social issues, such as racism and misogyny.
One way to address that is to do the research. Luckily this is where my previous experience comes in to play. I read a fair amount of books and accounts on trans issues anyway, but I stepped this up during the writing, and found CN Lester’s Trans Like Me particularly helpful, and Niko Stratis’ The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman was a useful insight into the trans experience in a masculine environment (plus I had Jasmine.4.T on repeat anyway).
The Nicobaresean folklore was more of a new field, so I am indebted to several resources on the Nicobarese. Firstly, the Iwi-Pot came to my attention through the comprehensive Ghosts, Monsters and Demons of India, by Rakesh Khanna and J. Furciver Bhairav. For anyone interested in horror outside of the usual Western tales, this is a rich and hugely entertaining resource.
In researching the traditions of the Nicobarese several articles were invaluable, including Sahay, V. S. (2014) Memories of my third visit to the Nicobar Archipelago; Arora, K. (2018) The Nicobarese tribes and their knowledge; Mukherjee, K., Das, K., & Awaradi, S. A. (2024) Contact, Conversation and Religious Reality Among The Nicobarese; Man, E. H. (1897). Notes on the Nicobarese; Ravikumar, T., Ram, N., Krishnan, P., Sankar, R. K., Sachithanandam, V., & Roy, S. D. (2016). Subsistence fishing methods of Nicobari tribes using traditional knowledge
While I’m here, I would also like to give a shout out to Survival International for their efforts to fight for tribal peoples’ survival.
