Where Did Sadie Come From-Julia Madeleine-Guest Post

[Giovanni Gelati]

 

  Where Did Sadie Come From...

 

Sadie was raised in hell, the Devil’s daughter—a femme fatale character and serial killer in my short story series, The Devil’s Music. Sadie collects the souls of music legends who sign contracts with her in exchange for their success.

 

I originally wrote this story for a blues festival here in Mississauga, west side of Toronto, called the South Side Shuffle. I was invited to do a short fiction piece with a blues theme to include in their program. So I started researching Robert Johnson and was intrigued by the mystery and speculation surrounding his death and the rumors that he’d sold his soul to the devil.

 

I wanted to do something a little different with the character of the Devil. Women serial killers are particularly frightening I think. There’s something very mysterious and seductive about the classic femme fatal character. It’s the use of sexual power, her beauty, her charm, to ultimately dominate and destroy her victims that’s so chilling. Women are in general by nature, nurturing. So when a female kills, especially if it’s a cold-blooded type of killing that’s particularly scary in the collective mind. And I say that women are nurturing by nature in a very general terms because men can be just as nurturing if not more than some women, but it’s typically how we think of women. So, I think it’s the combination of female sexual power and a woman who is a predator, that for me at least, I find fascinating. I love the classic film noir femme fatales.

 

Horror writer Frank Duffy, author of Mountains Of Smoke, has written book two in the series called, In The Music There Is Always A Shadow. It’s a cool story about Sadie trying to collect on her contract with composer Roy Webb.