Ask the Author: Ron Gabriel
Answered Questions (3)
Ron Gabriel
Hi Cerina! Yes, I grew up in Essex, and still visit every few months to see my parents. In my books the town is called Sussex, and the rural area around Old Stage Road inspires the Vermont setting. I think it's visually a magical place, with abundant features like dirt roads, large meadows, brooks, hills, and deep, dark forests. Oh, and old cemeteries scattered about. Thanks so much for your question!
Ron Gabriel
The Devil incinerated the last, rotting carcass of a parasitic species that was stupid enough to destroy its host planet.
“Man destroyed Earth and saved me the trouble,” he crowed at his arch nemesis, whose experiment had failed miserably.
“Man destroyed Earth and saved me the trouble,” he crowed at his arch nemesis, whose experiment had failed miserably.
Ron Gabriel
I wanted to pay homage to the horror novels and movies I devoured as a teenager, and it's possible to read The Banished with an eye toward spotting the nods to horror classics, including 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King, Dracula by Bram Stoker, The Witching Hour by Anne Rice, Ghost Story by Peter Straub, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, and the movie Halloween.
In terms of real world influence, a trip to Bucharest, Romania inspired the book's opening scene. A chant ceremony in an ancient orthodox monastery spooked the pants off me and sent my imagination straight to scary town. I didn't know how I would use the eerie spectacle, but the flickering candlelight and urgent, menacing sibilance stuck with me.
In Vermont, old graveyards always captured my attention, especially when I was bored, sitting in the back of a car staring out at weathered headstones cloaked in mist and shadow.
I love spooky things hiding in plain sight; horrors behind a veneer of normalcy. It's a theme in The Banished.
In terms of real world influence, a trip to Bucharest, Romania inspired the book's opening scene. A chant ceremony in an ancient orthodox monastery spooked the pants off me and sent my imagination straight to scary town. I didn't know how I would use the eerie spectacle, but the flickering candlelight and urgent, menacing sibilance stuck with me.
In Vermont, old graveyards always captured my attention, especially when I was bored, sitting in the back of a car staring out at weathered headstones cloaked in mist and shadow.
I love spooky things hiding in plain sight; horrors behind a veneer of normalcy. It's a theme in The Banished.
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