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Occasionally, readers ask me why I set my novels in Maine. Why is Maine any creepier than, say, Wisconsin, where serial-killing cannibals like Ed Gein and Geoffrey Dahmer strangled their first puppies?  I mean, Wisconsin has cannibals, ancient burial grounds AND really good cheese. Or Nova Scotia? Why not Nova Scotia? Those nuts still speak French.

I wish I had an easy answer. The fact that I read a lot of Stephen King in my formative years is partly to blame, but not the whole story.  I grew up on Long Island, and in the span of twenty years, my town changed from a small, charming place with a Main Street, to a traffic-riddled mess of suburban sprawl. Where we used to have Lampston’s Five and Dime, we’ve now got a microbrewery pick-up joint, complete with yuppies wearing retro gold lame̒. Or should I say lame. Down the road, there’s a three-tiered mall that has put most of the stores on the Main Street where I used to get my summertime ice cream out of business. My hometown lacks character, and it’s hard to write about a place that isn’t worth saving. For that reason, going home in my fiction (geographically) hasn’t appealed much to me.

When I went away to college in Maine, I hadn’t been exposed to much. My father didn’t take vacations, and we tended not to leave town often. But small, insulated Waterville, Maine changed that. It was along the Belgrade Lakes that I first learned to hike. I saw shooting stars for the first time in my life. Like my own Long Island, Waterville’s stores would soon be chains, and if there was money to be had from its sale, Bonnie at Bonnie’s Diner who cooked eggs just the way we liked, and still let people smoke, would one day sell to Denny’s. The paper mills were closing their doors, and unemployment lines were long. Still, the place had flavor. At the Bob In Bar, hard-living locals blasted “Twister Sister” like the eighties had never ended, and townies eyed us college kids like lepers. I felt like we were living in an S.E. Hinton novel. I mean, come on, richies vs. townies? People still think that way? Well, in Waterville, Maine, they did. And who’s kidding whom? When the Islanders start losing badly enough, fist fights still break out in the parking lot at the Nassau Colliseum: nobody likes to be on the losing side of things, and at least in Waterville, sides still exist, and blame, even if misdirected, can be assigned.

But the last few decades have shown a clear movement toward homogenization in America. It’s a sad thing, this loss. Crappy stores with mediocre greasy food that are home-owned get replaced by predictable chains serving more reliably crappy food.  Sure, they often offer better goods at lower prices, but they lack character, and heart. My childhood was not ideal. I was a very square peg, so it’s not clear to me why I mourn the loss of my hometown; I never belonged there, and even if it returned to its former glory, I’d never feel comfortable there. Still, the old Long Island was a thing of strange beauty. It’s now turning into a big Costco.

I think Maine appeals to me because it represents the idealized hometown that I lost, and maybe the childhood I never had. It’s mythic, and vast, and full of unknown terrain, so I can paint its blank canvas with any picture I please.  Both The Keeper and The Missing, on paper, take place in Maine, but not the real Maine people can visit, and look at on a map. The ideal Maine.  A place that is comprehensible in this ever-changing, automated world. Reliably weird, and in its own way, fair. I’m writing about Long Island, too: a faraway America that is provincial, strange, and uniquely beautiful. So, this week, that’s the answer I’m sticking to.

But enough of this seriousness! Next blog is my top-ten horror list:

Top ten scream queens who don’t know what they should really fear: Underpants Gnomes!
If anyone can guess #1, they win a signed copy of THE MISSING. If they can come up with some really good ones, they win copies, too.
To start off:
#10: Carrie, at the end of “Carrie”: Never take a shower when your psychopath mom is hiding in the crazy prayer closet!
#9: Janet Leigh in “Psycho” : ALWAYS look for peepholes when the guy you’re renting a room from is a taxidermist, and refers to his mom as “Mother.”

Visit www.sarahlangan.com to submit your ideas.