Neena Viel is a Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of supernatural and social horror books, including her acclaimed debut Listen to Your Sister and her new release, I’ll Watch Your Baby.
Viel sat down with Cemetery Dance to discuss I’ll Watch Your Baby, the author’s love of horror icon and scholar Tananarive Due, looking at horror through a social and historical lens, and crafting fiercely complex characters.
You can connect with her on Instagram and at neenaviel.com
(Interview conducted by Haley Newlin)
CEMETERY DANCE: Your new book, I’ll Watch Your Baby, is described as “a haunting reimagining of the story of Linda Taylor — known as the Original Welfare Queen.” How did you first become interested in Linda Taylor’s story and this politically manufactured label?
NEENA VIEL: As a Black woman who grew up in a low-income family with a single mother, I’ve always had an awareness of the welfare queen stereotype. Stereotypes, by definition, are generalizations, so it didn’t even occur to me there was a real woman in there somewhere. And then I learned more and discovered that while Linda Taylor inadvertently became the face of the label and the poster child for welfare fraud, the fraud bit was really the least of her crimes. She was made into a template for a stereotype that still plagues us today, but there’s nothing typical about her. This contrast was my starting point.
There’s so much real-world terror in I’ll Watch Your Baby, combined with the supernatural elements. How did Taylor’s infamy interest you from the perspective of a horror writer?
One of the most terrifying aspects of Linda Taylor’s notoriety is that the moral panic about welfare fraud completely eclipses the allegations of murder and kidnapping. The political machinations of the time absolutely did not want to pursue any line of inquiry that would detract from the welfare fraud and they succeeded, which was a great travesty of justice. These factors make for a complicated stage, and to me, a compelling backdrop for horror.
One thing I enjoyed most about I’ll Watch Your Baby is the moral complexity of your two lead characters, Lottie (in 1974) and Bless (in 1994). You shared in the Afterword that you wanted to write about “a Black woman behaving badly.” Can you talk about your experience in bringing these two characters to life?
After the relatable siblings at the heart of my debut novel, Listen To Your Sister, I really really wanted to write a baddie! There’s an unpredictability factor to morally gray characters that I find thrilling—they are unrestrained by ethics, and so absolutely anything can happen.
These kinds of schemers and antiheroes aren’t typically Black women, which made the process very cathartic. Lottie and Bless are not going to follow the horror-heroine playbook. One believes in herself to an almost violent degree, and one is riddled with insecurities. One wears fur, and one wears flannel. One is in charge, and one follows the group. Both are victimized. Both create victims. And in the world they’re in, the world we’re in, there was a terrible satisfaction in the combative attitudes they bring to the horror.
Upon reading books like Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory, Tamika Thompson’s The Curse of Hester Gardens, and I’ll Watch Your Baby, I’ve noted several rules of survival that don’t apply to more privileged groups of society. Perhaps that’s why I found it difficult to entirely dislike Lottie or declare her the ultimate villain. I even found myself cheering her on at times. How did you balance condemning her crimes while creating an avenue of empathy and compassion for her as well?
I think it’s about layering, about giving Lottie opportunities to be vicious, to be funny, to be protective. No one is only one thing. She is a person with a skewed moral compass operating in an environment where there are much more powerful people in the margins who also have a skewed moral compass. And so, in some situations, she feels like the underdog. You can root for her without necessarily condoning her decisions.
It’s ultimately up to the readers to decide if she’s redeemable. Hate her or love her, but she is a singularity, a force that can’t possibly be a stereotype.
Your work has been compared to that of horror filmmaker Jordan Peele, who is known for blending the genre with social commentary. Why do you think horror is such an effective avenue to explore social issues, politically fueled misinformation, and historical trauma?
Horror allows us to turn our anxieties into monsters and maybe even a sliver of a chance of defeating them and moving forward. We’ve always been working stuff out through scary stories. I wonder sometimes how it felt to watch Night of the Living Dead while the civil rights movement raged in the background, or how much more grotesque The Hills Have Eyes must’ve been if you lived within the radius of nuclear testing.
When certain themes continue to bubble up in the cultural zeitgeist, it’s a caution for us to pay attention. Horror is a mirror of society and everything we’re still working out.
If you had to choose horror film comp titles for I’ll Watch Your Baby, what would they be and why?
Since it’s a dual timeline, I’ve got a movie for each! For its social commentary, frightening use of insects, and a Black character with rizz, Lottie’s timeline is Candyman. For her ill-fated decision of which house to invade, Bless, unfortunately, is in Don’t Breathe.
Do you read horror fiction yourself? What are some of your all-time favorite horror books?
YES! I love reading and watching horror. After a stressful day of work, I love picking up Chinese take-out and reading or watching a slasher. I’m an unabashed Tananarive Due fangirl. The Good House had such a huge impact on me. It was the first horror novel I read that centered a family that looked like mine and it was like opening up a new door in my imagination. I also adore M.R. Carey’s Fellside. It’s a ghost story, and a complicated one. I still feel dread when I think about both books, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment.
