Guest Post: B.R. Kingsolver, author of The Succubus Gift

by SofiaWren May 30, 2014

Hello everyone! This week wraps up the “Unusual Creatures” guest post series this September.

B.R. Kingsolver is the author of The Succubus Gift, and it’s sequel Succubus Unleashed.

I adored B.R.’s first book and I’m eating up the second. The “Succubus” Gift bring up feminist questions about sexuality and relationships.

And here’s B.R. Kingsolver on the inspiration for her Unusual Creatures!

Wren recently asked me to write about how I got the idea for the unusual paranormal characters in my novels, The Succubus Gift and Succubus Unleashed. Like me, I think she’s grown a little tired of vampires and shape shifters in all their permutations.

I’ve long had a problem with the morality in our country and in Western European history. A patriarchal society with women as chattels absolutely repulses me. It’s very evident that women have the same intelligence as men. Women are senators, astronauts, and leaders of countries (though not in the U.S., which is one of the few countries which has never had a female head of state).

But until recently, women were considered property – either of their fathers or of their husbands. An unmarried woman is looked on with pity, as though she was defective. An assertive, ambitious woman is called a lot of things, but few of them are complimentary.

I think that’s a large part of what drew me initially to urban fantasy books. The genre is full of assertive, strong, kick-ass women who stood on their own and didn’t apologize for being who they are.

Another thing I found in urban fantasy was sexual women. Historically, women in literature are either wives, old maids, or harlots. Sometimes they were sorceresses or queens, but again they fit into the same old pigeon holes. For a woman to be blatantly sexual, she had to be working for the devil, or driven by heartbreak and disaster into a “life of dissolution and amorality”. Sheesh … Men in literature can be studs and leave a trail of broken hearts in their wake, and as long as they eventually settle down, it’s fine. A woman gets raped once and her reputation is besmirched forever.

I’ve been a science fiction and fantasy fan since a teacher gave me one of Andre Norton’s books in 7th grade. I’ve always thought the idea of telepathy was the neatest thing I could imagine. So when I started thinking about what kind of character could be strong, kick-ass, and blatantly sexual while still being one of the good guys, I thought about the idea of a telepath who could drain a man’s life energy, but wasn’t aligned with the devil, and didn’t do him permanent harm.

From there the idea started to grow. I envisioned a matriarchal society, worshipping a Goddess, with Telepathic Gifts where the women are as strong as the men — a society of equals. And in an equal society, women and men are free to express their sexual identities.

I started researching paranormal “powers”, and managed to put together a coherent list of talents and myths people have envisioned through the centuries. One of the myths I find particularly humorous is that of the succubus.

In the middle ages, the Church invented a female demon who seduced virtuous monks and priests in an effort to explain wet dreams and other sinful thoughts. At first glance, this seems to be simply an extension of blaming Eve for seducing Adam and therefore loosing sin on the world. (Remember Pandora of Greek legend? It’s always women who loose sin on the world.)

Researching this in more depth, I found that the demonizing of women for the “weaknesses” of men had an even more sinister foundation. Pagan religions in Europe often involved goddess worship and had female priestesses. Sexuality among these religions was often pretty blatant. A resurgence in such religions in Northern Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries led almost directly to the Inquisition in an effort by the Church to stamp out these rival religions.

And so, the idea of a powerful succubus, a member of a telepathic race, as a character for my books was born. Who better to fight against evil than the one thing a patriarchal society fears the most?

The Succubus Gift has been well received and the reviews have been far better than I dared to hope. Most who have read it feel Succubus Unleashed is even better, which is nice to hear.