Tessa Gratton Newsletter #39: The Kiss
In 1992 my grandma took me to see the movie “The Last of the Mohicans.” Usually Grandma took me to the opera or ballet because nobody else wanted to go with her and I’ve always been a sucker for theater and performing arts in any form. I have no idea why she picked this movie instead for our date. I was eleven. I’m positive Grandma regretted it right around the first time somebody got axed in the face fifteen minutes in, but she was too proper to drag me out.
I, on the other hand, was immediately obsessed. With the story, with the actors, with the soundtrack. I begged to go buy the CD at Target and to see the movie again with my parents, and I even read the incredibly dense old book by James Fenimore Cooper, which my dad had also read.
Though I was already very familiar by age eleven with the experience of reading a book and then watching the movie adaptation, this was the first time it went the other way, movie —> book. For some reason it was even worse. Isn’t the book supposed to be better??? I was shocked at how boring it was! That totally different characters lived and died! Most importantly, the titular last Mohican was different in the book than in the movie! WHAT? But also…there was zero romance. The movie is a romance movie, beat for beat. More than its an action movie or historical. It’s a Romance. But not the book. (Part of the reason for this is that the MC, Natty Bumpo, aka La Longue Carabine, aka Nathaniel, and I’m pretty sure he had other names, too, was the hero of more than one of Cooper’s novels. He couldn’t have an epic romance in only one book for, like, frontier man reasons I guess. Maybe the guy was an early James Bond archetype.)
Here is where I’ll note that The Last of the Mohicans is a movie about colonialism and violence and it does not shy away from the treatment of the indigenous peoples by the imperial powers (England and France in this case), nor from how complex the situation was between the various tribes, the colonists, the British, and the French. The movie digs deep into the motivations and actions of its named Native characters, hired Native actors and utilized advisors and Native languages, and depicts various levels of Native (and Colonial American) society. It also depicts some Natives as, you guessed it, brutal savages who kill everything in their path, totally lacking the motivation of the main Native villain (Wes Studi who is increeeedible despite all this, and whose character, also despite being complex, does some very “non-civilized savage”-coded things just thrown in there because it looks awful, I guess). At the end of the day it’s a movie made by white people, based on a really bad and racist old book by a white guy. I do like it quite a lot, and am about to tell you exactly what a tremendous impact it made on how I think about romance and atmosphere (and honestly world-building and characterization and pacing). But it’s problematic to say the least. The movie is complicated, and my feelings about my feelings about it are also complicated.
The most important thing for me about this movie is how it creates interesting characters at the same time it places them in a world quickly and efficiently, without sacrificing intricate and lush world building that promises both beauty and violence (and super delivers). The cast is introduced one after the other, quickly given complex motivations and, more importantly, relationships to each other and to their cultures/world. Because of this, when they all come together everything is rife with tension that is sometimes cultural conflict, something personal conflict, and sometimes conflict that is born of attraction. The interactions between the two romantic couples—the MCs and their siblings—build seamlessly (the latter of whom have this really low key but super intense romance in which I’m pretty sure they don’t speak directly to each other on screen and yet it is delicious and so so hot and they build it so that it both seems to come out of nowhere and also like it always existed and is the real point of the movie).
So the romances are both perfect beat-for-beat, and the main romance is inarguably the heart of the movie. (You can try to argue, but I will win. It’s Romance.)
In 1994 when we moved to Japan, the OST was one of the few CDs I brought with me. It was composed by Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman with a theme based on a song by Scottish singer Dougie MacLean. And of course, it includes the first Clannad song I ever heard, used hauntingly and tragically in the movie while the heroes track their kidnapped women, after the famous behind-the-waterfall line “You stay alive! No matter what occurs! I will find you.”
But the song, and the scene, I really want to talk about is “The Kiss.”
The song is a gorgeous, tense, jig (I think) that builds tension with repeating (intense!) violin lines and the addition of instruments and sweeping themes until there’s a whole orchestra behind it. On its own it’s amazing, but with the scene, which is the relationship turning point of the whole movie, everything elevates to magic. The two MCs (Daniel Day Lewis and Madeleine Stowe) have been watching each other and surviving a war zone together for like 45 minutes movie-time, and they finally come together in the calm before the storm. They search for each other (searching is a theme, “I will find you!”) through the fort amidst nighttime throngs of wounded soldiers, families huddled against the ramparts, and a few brave souls trying to play music and dance to enjoy what is probably their last night alive. They’ve both recently defied authority (British and familial) in their separate ways, putting them at odds with the world, and just need each other, now. The pull is heady and visceral. There is no talking!!! Only music, fiery visuals, and acting. And then, of course, the kissing.
Neither eleven-year-old Tessa’s body nor heart were ready.
In retrospect, rewatching as an adult, I’m 80% sure they have sex against those shadowy ramparts, but you only see kissing so baby-me thought this is what kissing is. Like, for years, probably until I did kissing myself, this was my expectation. Both a high and low bar, LMAO. It does explain why I write the first kisses the way I frequently do.
(You can watch the scene here, though it’s better in context, naturally.)
The point is, this scene and song have lived rent free in my imagination for thirty years. I’ve put various other songs from the soundtrack onto various playlists for when I need a certain mood, but not “The Kiss” because that song/character moment is too specific to use for something different. Specificity is one of the most important things in writing.
So picture me in spring of 2023 when I was putting together the full proposal package for what is now called THE MOON HERESIES TRILOGY. Book one: THE MERCY MAKERS, was complete, but I needed to write synopses for books two and three in order to prove to potential editors that I knew what I was getting in to. (Ha. ha. HAAAAAAAaaaaaa.)
I was diligently typing, making up a bunch of bs to be honest, but with some real plot points and character moments I wanted to fit in there. One scene had been part of book two since I first concepted The Mercy Makers as a trilogy sometime in like 2019. As I wrote down the scene I was excited for I suddenly realized…oh my god it’s The Kiss.
I had to lie down. I had to put the song on repeat. I had to slowly work through my spiraling emotions and thoughts and figure out if finally, thirty years later, I got to try this myself.
Friends, I drafted that scene in December.
Obviously there’s not much I can tell you about it, because even the title of Book Two is a secret. But it’s there, it’s not going away, and I got to write it after arguably wanting to for thirty years.
It was weird! It was wonderful! The backdrop is violence! They are both defying authority! There are a lot of bonfires and people are celebrating not dying but maybe dying soon! There is not a lot of talking, though there is some because *redacted* cannot keep their mouth shut for long. And my two characters definitely have sex bc The Moon Heresies is a sex magic trilogy.
It’s also a major turning point of the book, just like The Kiss is in The Last of the Mohicans. Definitely for these two characters and their relationship in Book Two.
I turned the first draft of Book Two in three days ago, after a week spent in a fugue state because the draft needed 30k words more than I expected/hoped when I planned out my schedule. I am exhausted and still in a funk, but thinking about that scene and getting to revise it and my editor reading it already make me feel like I’m ready to get back to work.
“He stops again, a hand over his sternum. He breathes carefully, finding his balance of forces. It’s urgent, but not afraid or excited, no hint of what she’s experiencing except: I’m looking for you.
There’s no point in hiding.
He doesn’t even want to.”
One of the reasons I know The Moon Heresies is a sex magic trilogy is because my editor sent it to Jacqueline Carey, who wrote a trilogy that is famous for being a giant epic fantasy with queer people and violence and both holy and unholy sex magic. And she liked it! Look:
“Sinking into the pages of The Mercy Makers is like being immersed in a wondrous lucid dream. The atmosphere is a tantalizing blend of the familiar and the strange, laced with a vivid sensuality that invites the reader to forge new connections at every turn.”
―Jacqueline Carey, New York Times bestselling author of Kushiel's Dart
SEX MAGIC BOOK FOR SURE!
But also there are some other nice things amazing writers have said about it:
“With deftness, nuance, and sensuality, The Mercy Makers unfolds the vast intricate structures that uphold religion and empire—expertly balancing one of the coolest magic systems of the decade, twists that had me gasping out loud, gloriously messy relationships, and the soaring ambition of the architectural genius at its heart. Immersive, riveting, and sexy as hell.” ―P. H. Low, Locus- and Rhysling-nominated author of These Deathless Shores
"The Mercy Makers is a beautiful, elegant, passionate novel—as intricate and beguiling as a spider’s web. And just like a spider’s web, I was trapped in its immaculate design—happily so. Tessa Gratton kept me guessing, kept me hooked… and kept me wanting more. I can’t wait for book two! A triumph and a delight from start to finish." ―Antonia Hodgson, author of The Raven Scholar
You can find all the buy buttons here for preordering!
This is the last newsletter I’ll be writing from Kansas for a while! In sixteen days (!!!) Natalie and I are flying to Japan for two months. I’ll definitely send at least one newsletter from there, but I’ll also be less online in general. If you want to follow our adventures, the best place to do it is instagram, unfortunately.
Yes, I will be at Star Wars: Celebration Tokyo at the end of April! Details to come!
Thanks for reading!
Tessa
