Cathy Marie Buchanan Hosts a Q&A discussion

Have you ever sensed the spirits of the "jumpers" and lost ones at and around the Falls, Cathy? Do you think this influenced you once you began your writing?

Deborah wrote: "Have you ever sensed the spirits of the "jumpers" and lost ones at and around the Falls, Cathy? Do you think this influenced you once you began your writing?"

I haven't. But I read an excellent essay about the association of Niagara Falls with death. I was part of a book called Imaginging Niagara by Patrick Greevy and I would say it influenced the story.

Back in the late 1800s there was certainly a belief that if you gazed at the falls too long it could lure you into jumping. Here is a quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe:

"Oh, it is lovelier than it is great; it is like the Mind that made it: great, but so veiled in beauty that we gaze without terror...I felt as if I could have gone over with the waters; it would be so beautiful a death; there would be no fear in it."

I'm afraid being pummeled to death on the rocks at the base of the falls sounds like a horrible death to me.

Wow! Harriet Beecher Stowe, no less. I could see what she meant, though. When I was there, there was this eerie draw to the waters if you stood there looking long enough by yourself...hypnotic.
It makes a little sense that Tom had this otherworldly "relationship" with the Falls when you see them like that.