I felt the need to blog about Jeremy of Comfort Object today. And no, of course we don’t hate him, lol! Okay, well maybe a little.
Comfort Object has been enjoying a new surge in sales, and I’m overjoyed about that. I’m sure it’s due to word of mouth, as it’s been off the Loose Id home page for some time now, and I thank everyone who’s gone out of their way to post an online review or talk up the book to a friend. When people talk to me about Comfort Object, the same topic always comes up–JEREMY! What is his deal? Why is he so mean?
When I originally wrote Comfort Object, Jeremy’s POV didn’t show up until after Nell was already in his clutches. As I was sharing it with close friends for review, I was surprised how much they disliked him. Okay, how much they hated him. This really pained me because he was always, in my mind, a sympathetic character. He was hurting, why couldn’t they see that? My very sharp editor suggested I change one of the earlier scenes from Nell’s POV to Jeremy’s POV. She didn’t even ask me to do it as a means to make him more sympathetic, but the scene I ended up switching to Jeremy’s POV was the scene in Guillermo’s restaurant at the beginning of Chapter Four. After I made the change, an amazing thing happened. My readers were suddenly much more amenable to Jeremy, if not head over heels. I suppose in that scene at the start of Chapter Four, we get to see some of his desperation and loneliness, and that he is not ruining Nell’s life out of any sense of malice.
To be honest, when I wrote Jeremy, there was never one act or one moment or one word to my mind where he was being purely spiteful or malicious to her. Everything nasty he did came from a place of hurt, loneliness, or frustration. (And of course, complete unbridled sexual depravity. He is a sex addict, of course.) Not that I am excusing his bad behavior. He was a total ass. He was imperfect. He always will be. But he loved Nell to such a degree that it terrified him, and there is something really sympathetic in that.
And what can we say about Nell? Oh, it reeeally steams me when people call her a doormat. You don’t bring a man like Jeremy to heel by being a doormat. Nell was intelligent, patient, and intuitive enough to see the tortured man behind the mask. On the surface, Nell belonged with Jeremy because their kinks and needs were so perfectly matched. But below the surface, an emotional wreck like Jeremy needs an emotional rock like Nell to crash upon. I don’t think that makes her a doormat. I think Nell will be loved and treasured by Jeremy her whole life for the loyalty and understanding she affords him.
Anyway, just some thoughts about these characters that seem to push a lot of buttons with readers. Hopefully the uptick in sales means that readers are finding ways to relate to this hero and heroine that are, admittedly, not your standard fare. Sometimes I wonder if I made mistakes with Jeremy…if I should have made him more gentlemanly and less neurotic. But if I had, I think a lot of the emotional power of the story would have bled away. But enough of what I think. What do you think?
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