The Story Behind Lone Women by Horror Writer Victor LaValle

Except for the one impossibility Adelaide brings to the harsh wilderness of Montana, the latest book by Victor LaValle, Lone Women, is based on real events in American history. 

The late 1970s and early 1980s were when the author first began to love horror. He was getting books from the drugstore, which has spinner racks full of mass-market paperbacks. Around the age of 10, he had no money, so he had to beg his mother to buy the books. The options at the time were thrillers, romances, and horror books.

His mother wouldn't purchase thriller because the covers sometimes include guns or other things.  His mother was not going to buy that because romance normally involved people hugging. But what about a horror novel? It would feature a toy monkey or an odd-looking home on the front. So she would get it.

That's how he became interested in horror genre. To his mother, it has the least offending covers. And because he grew up in a chaotic family, something struck a chord with him. Humans were not always consistent. As a child, horror seemed to him to be the genre that accepted the truth of the world, for which he is thankful.

In the local history department of the campus bookstore, he came upon the book Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One's Own by Sarah Carter. Just because he was unaware that there were independent woman homesteaders, he became fascinated straight away. There are historical references as well as passages from women's diaries and other materials. He was more and more drawn to the women as he read more about them. He then questioned persons he had met at the university, locals who had grown up in Montana, and those who had come to teach there if they were aware of these lone woman homesteaders, thinking that perhaps he was the one who was clueless. Furthermore, they had little to no knowledge about them.

In light of this, he reasoned that perhaps not many people are aware of it. Perhaps he should consider writing about this. Picking up the book and realizing what an amazing piece of history it was was the most important thing.

The author claims that one of the themes that kept coming up in the writing of the women was their utter loneliness as well as their perception that their surroundings were trying to ruin them. It was extremely chilly, deserted, pricey, and terrifying.

Furthermore, one of the best things about monsters is that they can better educate you how something feels than any amount of explanation can. He sought to access that feeling of awe, majesty, and strength. He simply loves monsters, too.

Given that it was essentially an escape story, the narrative was remarkably simple. He made the decision to write about what happens when a monster gets to the spot you intended to go to but now you have to live there rather than how a person departs a place. What follows?

He was intrigued by it, particularly if individuals believe they can escape their troubles yet carry them with them wherever they go. They are unable to escape their guilt, their obligations to their families, their own accountability, or their own issues. Adelaide must effectively flee in order to confront the things she has been attempting to avoid.