Fright Tomes: Thomas Harris Will Eat You Alive
By T.J. Tranchell
Only a handful of people can claim to have created a horror icon. There are old-school icons like Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster. The 1970s and 1980s slashers, too. Some newer ones like Pennywise and Pinhead, even came from books before movies. But one character stands out because he is perhaps all too human and not some supernatural creature who can’t be killed.
When Dr. Hannibal Lecter first appeared on the scene, he was a supporting character meant to enhance Will Graham’s backstory in Red Dragon (1981, novel). His creator, Thomas Harris, had delved into thrillers with his novel Black Sunday, but Red Dragon pushed Harris into psychological horror territory. His timing couldn’t have been better.
The ’80s were the height of America’s obsession with serial killers, and Harris placed his novels in the thick of that phenomenon. Graham, and later Clarice Starling, were parts of the FBI’s growing psychology division with Jack Crawford standing in for real-life profiler John Douglas (he’s the guy who literally wrote the book on serial killer profiling, Mindhunter). The fascination with serial killers had only increased by the time Harris published his most famous work The Silence of the Lambs in 1988. Yet Lecter remained an enhancement character. All that changed when the lambs hit the big screen.
I appreciate it when a film adaptation brings new readers to the source material. The Silence of the Lambs was a popular enough novel to warrant a film treatment, as had Red Dragon in the Michael Mann-directed Manhunter. Lecter, in the 1991 film, still wasn’t the primary villain, but a secondary source of fear and guidance for Starling. Anthony Hopkins owned the role in a way his predecessor Brian Cox didn’t (Cox was great, mind you, just not as memorable). One could easily say that the success of Jonathan Demme’s film — sweeping the Big 5 Academy Awards — made it possible for Harris to continue publishing.
I say it like that because I believe writers are always writing, even if it takes years between book publications. Hannibal, the follow-up to Lambs that finally places Lecter at the center of the story, hit shelves eleven years after the publication of the prior novel. We get Starling and Lecter and the gruesomely obsessed Mason Verger. But still, Lecter isn’t the bad guy in the story. Verger, seeking revenge on Lecter for bad therapy, and Paul Krendler, a lawyer in the Attorney General’s office who has it out for Starling, are the villains. And that, unfortunately, is the trap Harris fell into.
Lecter is better in the shadows, manipulating people behind the scenes. Shortly before both Hannibal the novel and the film came out, the landscape changed. The serial killer obsession dwindled starting in the early 90s with the death of real-life cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer and horror had started its journey into the metaverse with Scream. Yes, it felt natural to make the scariest guy in the books and movies the “hero,” to put him on the t-shirts and the action figures. But the film and the book were just different enough to put readers and viewers off. “We” wanted these things to align. And then we got our wish.
We need to be more careful about what we wish for.
Harris heard the call and simultaneously wrote the novel and screenplay for Hannibal Rising, both released in 2006. Rising is a prequel, occasionally referred to as “young Hannibal,” and it’s… not good. The film and novel do follow each other almost exactly and both are weaker for it. The novel reads like someone writing a movie and the movie is like watching a misguided adaptation of an unsuccessful novel. The stories are set in Eastern Europe, where Lecter is originally from, but it’s a made-up country instead of delving into the realism that propelled Harris’ best work. It’s full of accents and archaic, almost medieval, trappings and there’s a feel that it is all a bit older and more modern than any of it should be. So, when Harris, a Mississippi man through and through, reads the audiobook, it only makes it worse. Eastern Europe filtered through the deep south of the United States just doesn’t work.
That, honestly, should have been the end of America’s favorite cannibal. The character, however, was too strong. He’s a horror icon, after all, and that means he’s never really dead. The long form and cancelled-too-soon Hannibal TV series (2013–15) gave the character new life via Mads Mikkelsen. It’s still Hopkins that we get in bobbleheads and action figures, though.
Harris, at this time, has released one more novel, Cari Mora (2019). It’s a crime thriller and that perhaps is Harris’ strength: his voice works better with realism. The farther from the truth his fiction stretches, the less readable it becomes.
There is still criticism to be made about Harris’ treatment of trans-identifying characters when it comes to “Buffalo Bill,” and I need to get that here, too. Being trans doesn’t make a person a serial killer. The stereotypes portrayed are damaging and likely set back trans rights a few years because a wider American audience accepted the correlation made between being transgender and being a psychopath. My hope is that we have grown beyond that, but my fear is that we still haven’t.
As horror readers, we do owe Harris something of a debt. He gave us an enduring character, played it real, and reminded us that the scariest villains are more human than we wish they were. 🩸
About
T.J. Tranchell was born on Halloween and grew up in Utah. He has published has published six books, including The Blackhawk Cycle, a hardcover omnibus. In October 2020, The New York Times called Cry Down Dark the scariest book set in Utah. He holds a Master’s degree in Literature from Central Washington University and is pursuing an MFA through the UCR-Palm Desert Low Residency program. Tranchell has also published work in Fangoria. He currently lives in Washington State with his wife and son and teaches at a community college. Follow him at www.tjtranchell.net or on X @TJ_Tranchell.
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