Moloney, Susie

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MOLONEY, Susie

PERSONAL: Born Susie Schledwitz in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; daughter of Don (owner of a trucking firm) Schledwitz; married Mick Moloney (a contractor); children: Josh, Michael. Education: Attended the University of Winnipeg, and Red River Community College, Winnipeg, Monitoba, Canada.

ADDRESSES: Home—Little Current, Manitoulin Island, Northern Ontario, Canada. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Random House of Canada Limited, Publicity Department, 1 Toronto Street, Unit E00, Toronto, Ontario M5C 2V6, Canada. E-mail—Susie@susiemoloney.com.

CAREER: Writer and columnist. Worked odd jobs, including waitressing and magazine editing.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Bastion Falls, Key Porter Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1995, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1997.

A Dry Spell: A Novel, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1997.

The Dwelling: A Novel, Random House Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2003.

Author of syndicated column "Funny Girl" for Ontario newspapers.

ADAPTATIONS: Film rights to A Dry Spell were purchased by Paramount and Cruise-Wagner Productions.

SIDELIGHTS: Susie Moloney is a horror writer and columnist whose column "Funny Girl" runs in four Northern Ontario newspapers. Moloney's mother died of cancer when she was eleven, and she became estranged from her father during her teen years. She said in an interview in Maclean's magazine, "As a kid, I used to watch TV programs and then rewrite the plots into story form." She was fascinated by Tales from the Crypt comic books and later as an adult became an X-Files fan. Moloney was a single mother at age nineteen and wrote while her young son slept. Her first novel about wolves was never published. She wrote a vampire novella but said she realized that "Anne Rice had done blood lust better."

Moloney moved to Manitoulin Island at the northern end of Lake Huron when her husband Mick was offered a job there. She then began to write her first published novel, Bastion Falls. The story is set in a northern Ontario town where the residents are hit by an unexpected and very strange snow storm. The storm becomes so intense the residents cannot get home and take shelter in a mall. The storm has an evil element known only to a teenaged psychic. Jennifer Williams wrote in Quill & Quire that, "like the slowly gathering storm, the pace of the novel gradually quickens," but Williams felt that although the snowfall creates suspense, "certain aimless, drifting passages should have been cleared to make a shorter path for the reader."

Moloney's second novel, A Dry Spell: A Novel, was sold on the basis of a prologue, three chapters, and an outline. The prologue introduces Tom Keatley, a rainmaker who travels to drought-stricken towns. "The myth of the rainmaker—the rootless wanderer with the power to make both women and farmlands blossom under his touch—is given a Stephen King-like twist," wrote a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Tom is contacted by Karen Grange, a banker who is forced to foreclose on family farms in Goodlands, North Dakota, as they fail from four years' lack of rain. Diane Turbide wrote in Maclean's that Moloney "writes sensitively" about Karen's shopping addiction, a storyline based on a woman Moloney had actually met, "a bona fide shopaholic" who "ended up in jail after she had embezzled to finance her extravagant purchases."

Tom pits his power against that of the spirit of a woman who was raped decades ago and who has cast the "dry spell" on the town. The spirit causes disasters and takes over the wills of the town's young women as it moves to destroy the town and everyone in it. Turbide also compared Moloney's "part romance and part horror thriller" to Stephen King novels "with its primal struggle between good and evil, its psychic elements mingling with the mundane, and its detailed exploration of small-town life."

In The Dwelling: A Novel, Maloney tells the tale of realtor Glenn Darnley and her efforts to sell 362 Belisle, a new listing on the market that turns out to be haunted. Glenn eventually sells the house to a young couple, who see a ghost. When the husband is murdered, the house goes on the market again, and Glenn this times sells the house to a divorcee with a young son. They both also see a ghost and eventually vanish along with it. After the final inhabitant is gone Glenn decides to try to live in the house herself. "Well conceived, and great stylistically," wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Kim Uden Rutter, writing in the Library Journal, noted that the author "has thankfully peopled the narrative with … well-developed characters." A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote, "Maloney manipulates the tension artfully, giving the reader glimpses of the house's history and leading to a suitably grotesque ending."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August, 1997, p. 1848.

Books in Canada, December, 1995, review of Bastion Falls, p. 36; December, 2003, review of The Dwelling: A Novel, p. 17.

Canadian Book Review Annual, annual, 1996, review of Bastion Falls, p. 171; annual, 1998, review of A Dry Spell: A Novel, p. 191; annual, 2003, Stephen Greenhalgh, review of The Dwelling, p. 179.

Chatelaine, May, 2003, Mirah Kirshner, review of The Dwelling, p. 36.

Entertainment Weekly, September 12, 1997, Megan Harlan, review of A Dry Spell, p. 133; July 31, 1998, review of A Dry Spell, p. 65.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), February 27, 1999, review of Bastion Falls, p. D15.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1997, p. 1055; December 1, 2002, review of The Dwelling, p. 1724.

Kliatt, May, 1999, review of Bastion Falls, p. 27.

Library Journal, August, 1997, David Keymer, review of A Dry Spell, p. 133; February 1, 2003, Kim Uden Rutter, review of The Dwelling, p. 118.

Maclean's, September 1, 1997, Diane Turbide, "Pennies from Heaven," discusses author's work, pp. 74-75; March 31, 2003, Amy Cameron, interview with Susie Moloney, and review of The Dwelling, p. 56.

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April, 1998, Charles de Lint, review of A Dry Spell, p. 39.

New York Times Book Review, January 18, 1998, p. 17.

People, September 22, 1997, Pam Lambert, review of A Dry Spell, p. 34.

Prairie Fire, December-March, 1998, review of A Dry Spell, pp. 157-158.

Publishers Weekly, May 13, 1996, "Fast Work," discusses author's book deal, p. 30; July 21, 1997, review of A Dry Spell, p. 180; January 13, 2003, review of The Dwelling, p. 38.

Quill and Quire, October, 1995, Jennifer Williams, review of Bastion Falls, p. 27; July, 1997, review of A Dry Spell, p. 22; September, 1997, Sylvia Fraser, "When Lightning Strikes: Author Susie Moloney Talks about a Dry Spell and What Happens When Tom Cruise Calls," p. 13.