To Be or Not to Be – A Werewolf: How I Came to Write Werewolf Hamlet
My son, Flannery, loved werewolves and made this mask at Barnsdall Art classes as a child in Los Angeles. We used to let him watch black-and-white movies from the 1940s. He loved the “The Wolf Man” starring Lon Chaney Junior and began introducing himself as “Larry Talbot” in different places.
I said, “Why are you telling people your name is Larry Talbot?”
Five-year-old Flannery said, “Because I love Larry Talbot, Momma. Why didn’t you name me Larry?” Once when I picked him up from Montessori preschool, he had taken tiny scissors and cut all the hair off the top of his head to glue it to his arms to be a werewolf. He was “bald on top” with his hair on the sides sticking out wildly. His teacher was horrified and so worried I’d be upset, but I loved his teacher, Inge, and told her, “It could have happened to any of us. He’s so fast.” Then I took him to Supercuts, my heart breaking a little, as they cut the rest of his hair off, but Flannery didn’t care. He loved his new shorn hair.
When Flannery was ten, he asked for a makeup box to do stage makeup like Lon Chaney Senior. Someone advised us to get an old sewing box, dump out the spools of threads, and use all the compartments for liquid latex, fake blood, fake hair, vampire teeth, brushes, and sponges. We got him one, and he filled it with all kinds of stage makeup and began to practice on his siblings.
Flannery often climbed to the highest branch in the tree to shout— “Look at me, look at me!” He smelled like salt and dirt and sun and adventure.
As I write these words, wildfires are ravaging Los Angeles, the worst in the city’s history, and for over a week, I didn’t hear from Flannery. A Los Angeles resident, he is unhoused, and I’ve spent over a decade not knowing where he is at any given time. I’ve spent years out of my mind with worry, but worry never adds up to anything except more worry, and in the end, he always calls from a stranger’s phone. He can’t seem to hang onto a phone, so he borrows one.
I never wanted this to be our story – a family in the throes of addiction and mental illness in an adult child. I did everything in my power to try to change the story. I learned I couldn’t change, fix, or control Flannery to return to the “right” path by iron will. He graduated from college with honors and people called him the next “Gene Wilder” or simply “Willy Wonka.” He was making movies and music and working, and then slowly, almost imperceptibly, things began to change. It was tiny things at first and then things weren’t so small, and I went back to thinking/obsessing about his childhood to figure out where I went wrong, and I had to learn to let that go too. We had the art table, and the dress-up box, and we encouraged messy and wild creativity. Halloween was practically a holy day of obligation in our family. How could this be happening?
So instead of chasing him around Los Angeles and begging him to see reason, I started going to Al-Anon meetings where I learned, very slowly, that we were not alone. I also had to find a way to remember what I loved to do more than anything, which was to write stories for kids.
I looked at my novel-in-progress about my children’s funny childhoods in Los Angeles and slowly began to weave in the narrative of an older brother going off the rails through the eyes of a little brother, who thinks he can save him (by Friday).
But in early drafts, Angus Gettlefinger sounded like a worried mother instead of a ten-year-old, so I placed a sign on my desk that read “It’s for kids!” That helped me stay in Angus’s voice instead of inside of all the fears, worries, and dread of a mother in full-blown panic mode. It took an incredibly long time to find a way to tell this story because sometimes it was too painful to remember.
I am so grateful for all my children. I wrote Werewolf Hamlet (Charlesbridge, 2025) for all three of them, and as a love letter to Los Angeles, the city where we raised them.
As I write these words, Los Angeles is on fire and our son finally called to check in to tell us he is fine. What a relief! He ran into a friend who said, “Call your mother!” I’m very grateful to his friend. Flannery is still out there but knows he is loved because I got to tell him how many people reached out to ask about him and if he was okay. I have learned we had to find a way to give Flannery the dignity to live life on his terms. I also knew we needed to give his younger siblings the dignity to live their lives in peace. In other words, we stopped being in “rescuing and saving mode” as a family, and we learned just for today, that nobody needed to rescue or save anybody.
Hear Kerry Madden-Lunsford discuss writing Werewolf Hamlet
Listen to Kerry Madden-Lunsford talk about her name
Share this Reading Group Guide for Werewolf Hamlet
Explore Kerry Madden-Lunsford’s author page on TeachingBooks
Text and images are courtesy of Kerry Madden-Lunsford and may not be used without express written consent.
Leave a Reply