‘Ripperology’ inspires book for local author
Carla Anderton of California has been an aspiring novelist for years, but she’s been a Ripperologist for even longer — that is, someone who studies the crimes of 19th century London serial killer Jack the Ripper.
One of the world’s oldest and most notorious cold cases, the Jack the Ripper crimes — which claimed at least five victims, prostitutes in London’s East End — remain unsolved after 125 years.
Why the continued obsession with Jack the Ripper?
“Speaking personally, as a writer and reader of fiction, it’s a good story, with compelling elements like graphic violence, sex and romance and celebrity,” Anderton said.
Anderton’s own obsession started in the same place where Jack the Ripper committed his crimes.
“I was 18 and a participant on a ‘Ripper Walking Tour’ in the Whitechapel section of London,” she said. “The guide used me as a model to show where Jack slashed his victims. Creepy as the experience was, I’ve been fascinated with the Ripper murders ever since.”
Starting in 2003, Anderton paired her interest in Ripperology with her passion for writing, and began to work on a historical novel that imagines both the identity of Jack the Ripper, and what it would mean if his notorious killing spree was fueled by love.
She titled the novel “The Heart Absent” after an autopsy note, which indicates that the Ripper took a souvenir from one of his victims.
“Basically, it’s a story about Jack the Ripper in love,” said Anderton. “It’s a novel about the consequences of obsession, which can be quite dire. It’s a novel about fame and secrets, and how they can come back to haunt us.”
For Anderton, there were gaps where life got in the way of novel-writing, but in 2009, she committed to finishing what she started. She applied and was accepted to the Master of Fine Arts program in popular fiction writing at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, where her reputation as a Ripper scholar and writer preceded her.
“Before I even got there, at orientation, people were calling me the ‘Jack the Ripper girl.’ So I was really encouraged by their response, and started writing [the novel] intensively, because we had a number of pages due every month.”
Anderton got another push when, while at Seton Hill, her mentor connected her with a call for papers to be presented at an important Jack the Ripper conference in Philadelphia. Anderton submitted a paper on the root of our fascination with the killer and his crimes, and was accepted to present.
“At the conference, I got to meet a lot of notable names in the Ripperology community,” said Anderton, who kept touch with many of them afterward. This, she said, kept her accountable to finishing her novel, because she had an audience at the ready, eager to gobble it up.
And now they can, thanks to New Libri Press, who picked up Anderton’s book for publication last year. “The Heart Absent” is currently available in e-book format for Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook, and the print edition is now available as well.
Penning a historical novel — which is based on real events, but with fictionalized characters and situations–presented unique challenges for Anderton. Her subject was one with many built-in pre-conceptions and theories, put forward over the years by Ripperologists like herself.
“My Ripper is a hybrid. He’s entirely my creation. However, there was a theory that was advanced that Jack the Ripper had been an artist, and the prostitutes (he murdered) were artist’s models, and so I took that idea a little further. My Ripper was an artist, and the last of his victims is his model. The character has a difficult relationship with his father that I did take from that history, but everything else I made up.”
Anderton said her passion for studying Jack the Ripper has not waned, and neither has her love for the characters she spent years creating. “It was a relief to be done with [the novel], but I do miss it. I miss being able to write in those characters’ voices. Spoiler alert: there’s not going to be a sequel, but I really grew to love my characters.”
“Years of research went into it. I did a lot. I’m still studying Jack the Ripper,” said Anderton.