It was the mention of reality – war, terrorism, Trump – that made Darren Shan scowl most this evening. Of his books – gruesome, demonic and grisly – he argued they offered hope in an unstable world.
Shan was speaking to Trinity Literary Society this evening. The writer has created worlds where vampires are real and demons chew the skulls of our heroes. And if his books are there to offer hope, it’s often obscured by gore, grief and untimely deaths.
Shan – real name Darren O’Shaughnessy – has sold thousands of books and has fans around the world.
Tonight, he might have focused a little too much on his more recent Zomb-B books, as well as his burgeoning adult fiction career. The first questions from the audience immediately saw fans jump right back to his two most famous series “The Demonata” and “The Saga of Darren Shan”.
Cirque Du Freak is the most famous of his books and where it all began for Shan. Years before Twilight, brooding teenagers in bedrooms around the world were tucking into the tale of a young Darren Shan who, reluctantly, becomes a vampire’s assistant.
It’s a classic coming of age story and Shan admits it was all about “him learning to stand up for himself”. And even if the final set of stories got a little lost in meta-narratives and time-bending tangents, it was a story that offered glimpses of goodness in a world of shadows.
Heart-warming, however, a lot of Shan’s work is not. In “The Demonata” series, Shan unleashed monster after monster. By the end of the series, he seemed like he was trying to conjure up the most imaginative deaths possible. One audience member mentioned a friend who never flew after reading one book: think Snakes on a Plane, but with demons.
And if his books aren’t always subtle, they’re at least effective. Children like to be frightened, as Shan knows more than most. “When things get grisly, they’re the bits I cherish the most”, he said, and it seems to be the same with his readers. Teenage boys – a group often underlooked by publishers – flock to Shan’s books. Teachers, he says, have told him his books work like miracles.
“You can turn children off being a reader if you don’t give them the right books”, he told the audience. And listening to him, you get the sense of someone brought up by books. If you didn’t know it by reading his books, he’s an avid horror fan. The Picture of Dorian Gray got mentions alongside Gulliver’s Travels and Goosebumps.
Listening to him, you get the sense he’s still dreaming. He rhymes off ambitions and plans – directing a movie is one – but reminds us: “You do get more boring as you get older.”
Halfway through the talk, Shan admits “politics never goes down well with younger audiences”. But his books – violent, painful, often sad – still say something about the state of our world. “We’ve got to live with hope”, he says. And by the end, he leaves us with a choice: would we rather live in a universe of vampires and demons, or a world with Trump?
