Dragon's Seed by Madison Smartt Bell
"Dragon's Seed" by Madison Smartt Bell is a novel centered around Mackie Dragon's Seed Loudon, an eccentric sculptor living in isolation in a neglected neighborhood of a U.S. town. Despite her artistic talents, Mackie's life is marked by solitude; she rarely interacts with her family and is regarded as peculiar by the townspeople. Her daily routine includes foraging for materials and food, as well as conversing with her inner demons, Eliel and Azazael, which represent different facets of her personality.
The narrative takes a darker turn when Mackie befriends a boy named Preston, only to discover later that he is missing, hinting at the sinister activities of her neighbor Gil, who is involved in child abuse. This revelation plunges Mackie into despair and leads to her confinement in a mental hospital. Through a pivotal moment of self-realization and an awakening of her artistic powers, she channels her pain into creating a Medusa sculpture. Ultimately, Mackie's journey culminates in a confrontation with Gil, blending themes of vengeance and transformation as she seeks to reclaim her agency. The novel explores complex themes of trauma, isolation, and the intersection of art and personal empowerment.
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Dragon's Seed by Madison Smartt Bell
First published: 1990
Type of plot: Fantasy
Time of work: The late twentieth century
Locale: Somewhere in the United States
Principal Characters:
Mackie Loudon , a sculptorJason Sturges , a young boy whom she befriendsGil , her neighbor
The Story
Mackie Loudon lives alone in her cluttered house in a neglected neighborhood of what appears to be a good-sized town or small city somewhere in the United States. She is a sculptor who continues to create, even though no one any longer stops by to purchase or even to see her work. Indeed, no one visits her ramshackle house, not even her husband, son, or grandchildren, whom Mackie sees only occasionally and then only in dreams. The townspeople find her odd as she forages for anything of interest in the street or shops for her food at a nearby Asian store. She wears shapeless dresses and a man's coat; her hair is hacked into a helmet shape; her skin is like elephant hide; her shoulders are broad and her hands are strong, but her legs are bowed and slightly arthritic; her chin is whiskered, her right eye is green and her left eye pale blue with an unusual tic. Strangest of all, Mackie talks to herself, or rather talks to her two demons, Eliel and Azazael, to whom she has relegated certain aspects of her personality: seeing, judging, remembering.
When work on her latest sculpture is going poorly, she meets a boy in the alley between her house and the even more disreputable-looking house next door. Although the boy says that his name is Monkey, Mackie decides to call him Preston and entices him into her house with the promise of milk and cookies. Even more enticing than her cookies—which turn out to be yellow bean and lotus seed cakes—are the stories that she tells of the Greek myths from which her sculptures derive. Preston proves an attentive and appreciative audience, until Mackie mentions the story of Jason and the Argonauts. The boy inexplicably turns pale, bolts from the house, and stays away for a week.
Before the week is out, Mackie's equally grotesque and reclusive neighbor, Gil, arrives in his customary ill-suited motorcycle garb, "thin as from some wasting disease," to warn her not to meddle in his affairs and those of the boy who lives with him. As Gil peremptorily explains, the Monkey's "skinny little butt is mine" and "no one cares what goes on around here." At this point, Mackie does not understand that what goes on in Gil's house, with its blacked-out windows, is the sexual abuse of children.
The boy does return, but just as Mackie begins to renew their milk-and-cookies ritual, she sees his picture on a milk carton captioned "Jason Sturges of Birmingham, eight years old and missing since . . . " This time the boy bolts for good, but whether he has run away or been murdered by Gil is a mystery.
The demons that had been silent during Mackie's friendship with Preston now return to assail her for her terrible mistake. Her call to the police only earns her a second, even more violent warning from Gil not to meddle in his affairs. Found dazed on the ground by a stranger, after others had passed her by, Mackie is taken to the mental hospital where she has been confined several times before. She now withdraws even further into herself, refusing to take her medication, to participate in crafts classes and group therapy, even to talk, until the night Little Willa, whom the staff has forgotten to strap to her bed, demonstrates her fire-breathing trick. That is when Eliel and Azazael tell Mackie how she can solve her problem, and Mackie, who is eccentric but not insane, begins another of her miraculously swift recoveries.
Back at home, Mackie uses a mirror to become her own model and solves the first of her problems, completing her Medusa sculpture. In a way she becomes Medusa, or, like Medusa's slayer, Perseus, takes on Medusa's awful power, with every stroke of the chisel feeling "the Gorgon visage pushing out on her brow as if embossed upon a shield." The rest of her demonic plan swiftly unfolds. She breaks into Gil's house, sees the results of his pornographic art, destroys his video and photographic equipment, and calmly awaits his return. Stunned, first by the wreckage and then by the gasoline that Mackie splashes on him, Gil is finally "turned to stone" when she pulls out the lighter and pulls back her hair to reveal the Gorgon. Gil dies, his house burns down, and Mackie, once she realizes that she will not be arrested, goes home and shuts the door.