Liner Notes for Seven Generations

The Liner Notes for my story Seven Generations

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So here’s an idea I keep coming back to. What if one of your ancestors had been blessed, and you didn’t know about it? A family curse, known or unknown, is a well trod horror plot. Being the chosen one, or the lost heir or some other inherited blessing is used in all sorts of genres. I do recall a story (that I can’t remember the title or author of) in which Stalin has an irrational fear of a man whose file he sees, and issues orders that he is to be protected; he and his descendants are given plum jobs, good apartments, people who try to cause trouble for them are removed, they all marry brilliant and good-looking KGB agents etc.

In any case here’s one for you; seven generations and no death on land nor on the water. With the transition to a literate society a family story being passed seven generations is probably not going to happen. And in a secular, rational world devoid of magic, who’s going to believe it written down? If you can’t see it working then you’d need to be told face to face, made to believe it.

This set up meant I needed six deaths neither on land nor on water. Hang them all! Capital punishment stopped in this country in 1964, and good riddance. That’s within living memory, so it could work. And it doesn’t have to be an official hanging.

Still, that’s a different story. A curse that manifests so that every descendant is hanged is one thing, an inevitability, a doom. One that has to work with what’s given to it, a Final Destination fate that improvises is another thing entirely. Is it malice, or chance? Doubt of course. Most of the Strandbridge stories have explicit supernatural elements, which make the hints of further one likely to have magical rather than mundane explanations. In context it’s clear the McQueen family has a geas on it. As a story on its own, maybe not!

All these deaths are fictional though based on one or more real ones (not in the same family, though more than one are inspired by my family history). Hanging of course, for murder. Death by agricultural machinery, not uncommon at the time. Getting crushed between boats in unlucky but not unknown. More common for a plane to be shot down than to kill the pilot in the air, if only because of the larger target, it’s still a risky profession. And two heart attacks, the kind of thing that might happen in any family.

I do not address the issue of collateral lines. After seven generations there could be dozens of people wandering round, unable to die on land and water. Maybe enough to attract attention. Well there’s an idea.

Ray McQueen is a deliberate attempt at an unlikable protagonist. It’s not that he’s bad. He’s just sloppy, and inattentive. He’s never been in danger so is oblivious to it. This spills over into other parts of his life. He’s careless.

It’s an inheritance, which I guess is what the story is about.