Macromere Press

Macromere: Linda Gary….

David: Linda Gary, “sometimes miscredited as Linda Gray.” She died sixteen years ago today, October 5th, of brain cancer.

M: And her ghost is the eighth David encounters in He Who Shall Remain Shameless.

D: “I was in Los Angeles to get her to sign the contract….”

M: Why Linda Gary?

D: For me, Linda Gary took on a mythic quality….Of course I’m going to date myself here, but I grew up watching those early- to mid-’80s cartoons in which Ms. Gary’s voice was prominently featured. Nostalgia can be a killer, and I think that’s a lot of what “Linda”, the eighth episode in HWSRS, is about, but I couldn’t help as I grew older thinking about the people behind the characters….I wondered, Who was Linda Gary? At that time I couldn’t find any pictures of her, anywhere. I had no idea what she looked like. When I was younger I thought she probably looked like Tela, one of the characters she gave voice to in He-Man: Masters of the Universe. Eventually I found out she had died, and that she had died relatively young. I had to find out more.

M: We’re getting some echoes of Christine Chubbuck here.

D: That mythic quality, the fact that early on in the age of the domesticated Internet nothing much was available on Ms. Gary and Ms. Chubbuck….that lack of information contributed to an air of mystery, and gave them greater significance in my young mind.

M: Unlike Christine Chubbuck though, there’s still not much out there on Linda Gary.

D: It’s how it should be. Linda Gary did not commit suicide. She did not die in an airplane accident. She died of a disease, and that persistent lack of detail is what also drives “Linda” in HWSRS.

M: Mind explaining?

D: “Linda” is where the narrative turns in on itself and the nature of David’s missions is questioned. As in: Is what he’s doing right? What is the truth, and what is he making up for his own purposes? With a lack of information, in this age, does he have a right to make things up? Does anyone? Can he tell his story without knowing all the details, all that really happened? 

M: Sounds like you had to tread carefully with this one.

D: I had to tread carefully with all of them, but, yeah, “Linda” especially. I felt it was a good point in the narrative to call into question the book itself. My hope is that what drives “Linda” will go beyond even the book—to us.