Back to Questions

The Dark Side of Holes

Holes is sweet and charming, but it is also darker and scarier than your other books. The Warden, for example, mixes rattlesnake venom in her fingernail polish and threatens to scratch Stanley. Was it your intention to write a frightening tale?

My daughter, Sherre, who was in 4th grade when Holes came out, surprised me when she told me that the Warden was scary. I had never really thought of the Warden as scary or that the scene as especially disturbing. Rattlesnake venom, well, it's almost cartoonish. It's like a situation from that campy old TV show, Batman.

 

How did you get the idea of rattlesnake venom in the Warden's fingernail polish?

It's hard to remember where different ideas come from, but I think it first started when I originally thought the Warden was going to be the granddaughter of Kissin' Kate Barlow. And Kissin' Kate always killed the men she kissed. At the time, I may have even considered that her lipstick might be poisoned. So, I wanted to do something along the same lines. Instead of poison lipstick, the Warden had poison nail polish. But then I ended up liking Kissin' Kate Barlow. So, instead I made the Warden the granddaughter of Trout Walker.

 

How do you decide what is too scary for a child or how far you can go?

Aside from the rattlesnake venom, there were other scenes in the book where I really did struggle with this issue. There was a scene where Kate Barlow, a notorious outlaw, is being tortured by these two people who have captured her to find out where she buried the treasure. Most of the time, my judgments are based on instinct and experience. I don't, for instance, experiment with kids to find out if I've gone too far.