“Ah, transgender. Ah, it’s in. Ah, LGBTQ* … ah, wokeness, ah, inclusion. Additional marketing approach, promotional argument, selling point.” Also the reason why both the “hip feuilleton” and the “Netzhetzer” write about the “otherwise quite conventional thriller”. Vikki Victoria is under no great illusions. Relentlessly sober, she analyzes why a criminal case in which she plays a central role is being made into a film. There is no doubt that she inherited the ability to recognize connections and to name them unembellishedly from her inventor. Gloria Gray – actress, entertainer, singer, entrepreneur and district councilor in Zwiesel – has added another facet to her already wide professional range and has written a Bavarian crime thriller. Vikki Victoria plays the leading role as the first-person narrator.
Hell of humiliation
How much of her personality is in the character? “A lot,” says Gloria Gray on the phone. “But I’m not going to say what’s made up and what’s the truth.” Some parallels to her life cannot be overlooked. Like her creator, Vikki comes from a “small, strictly conservative place” in the Bavarian Forest. Because she’s still there as a child in a boy’s body, although she wants to be a girl, life isn’t easy, it’s actually quite hard. Both for Vikki and for Gloria Gray, who was born in Zwiesel in 1965. “When form and inwardness do not go congruently” (Vikki Victoria), humiliation is inevitable. A hell that ranges from verbal insults to brutal beatings. In the thriller, embodied by the “model macho” Toni Besenwiesler, “subliminally aggro, martially clumsy, ultimately stupid”, who haunts the school as a memory and still a threat.
Gloria Gray fled to Munich after training as a hairdresser. Gender reassignment, operations and hormone treatments – at the age of 26 she was finally a woman, made the leap onto the big variety theater stages and had a great career. In 2010 she returned to Zwiesel, won 20 percent of the votes in the mayoral elections in 2016 and now sits on the district council. So why is this woman now writing a Bavarian thriller, a genre that is already dismissed. “Wasn’t planned,” says Gloria Gray. At least not until the lockdown came and nothing worked on the stages anymore. No show, no moderation, just nothing. “So I thought maybe writing is a possibility.” Gray had already tried the metier itself with her 2009 autobiography. “At first I thought about continuing with it, but I didn’t like the idea of a second part.”
The name says it all: “Back to Exaggeration” is the title of Gloria Gray’s first thriller. Its heroine Vikki Victoria bears a lot of resemblance to her inventor.
(Photo: dtv Verlag)
So she read her way through the entire range of crime stories and decided to try her own. “It was almost like therapy for me to get through the lockdown.” She had enough material for that. After all, for 30 years she has been collecting ideas, observations, things she has heard by chance, things she has experienced herself, dreams and her mother’s memories of the difficult years after the war. “My adventures and experiences alone would be enough for several books,” says Gray. The rest is fantasy.
Vikki is rarely politically correct
The result was Vikki, the 41-year-old heroine of the crime novel. She likes to think out loud and comment on everything, sometimes snappy, sometimes very funny. Her addiction to constantly stressing that the most important thing in life is family gets on her nerves. “It started at the same time as the trend of hugging each other at every opportunity, like after a successful sea rescue.” Vikki is reluctant to put it in a politically correct way. As a fictional being, she is allowed to say things that her creator would never say, because she doesn’t attach much importance to shitstorms. However, Vikki also knows how quickly an “army of haters” can approach when, in a YouTube video, she declares the “gender asterisks” to be an artificial, overly-considered thing, “if only because I don’t know anyone in the transgender world, who values it”. But what can you do. “The stupid doesn’t know that he’s stupid. The non-stupid is powerless in the face of that.”
Coming back to the genesis of the detective story, Gray wrote an exposé, had composer and author Robin Felder read it, and sent it to some literary agents. They responded positively, advising her to keep writing and to get in touch again. “I had to sweat it out more.” In no time at all she had a contract and a strict timeline, after all the book should be available for the Leipzig Book Fair. Not really a problem for a disciplined pro like Gloria Gray. “Besides, I’m single and can put all my strength and love into my projects.” Seen in this way, it is not surprising that they are still a crime thriller song has recorded (www.gloriagray.com). In the meantime, she is already writing the follow-up thriller, which is due to appear in September. “I’m already walking on the gums, such a book needs to be worked out.”
The title of the thriller already signals that nothing should be taken too seriously: “Übertriebling” – also the name of the village in which Vikki was born 41 years ago. A fictional location in a real area, Gray says. “It makes it easier for me, otherwise I can’t let off steam.” In the neighboring village of Mitgifteck, Vikki’s mom runs an inn. The “model landlady” doesn’t know how to count hours worked. “Burn-out, quality time, sabbatical – go weida.” A loving memory of Gloria Gray’s mother who was also landlady.
Incidentally, the crime heroine has a split relationship with the police. On the one hand, she has a “phobia about fixed salary earners”, on the other hand, they act too slowly for her, only thinking about “getting ready, closing time, hobby: planning a vacation.” But – then you notice the local politician Gray, who doesn’t doubt the rule of law – in addition to the “Dirty 17”, a group of corrupt criminals, there are also good police officers, almost smarter than Vikki. And just as fast.
Maybe the thriller will actually be filmed, which is what Gloria Gray would like anyway. Hopefully she doesn’t end up like Vikki, who ends up threatening to go to court when the production company considers casting her role with Christine Neubauer. “Someone who embodies me must also be able to show a minimum of acting ability!” Logical that Vikki prevails. After all, the “film-finance-hungry vultures” don’t want to spoil it with her, a transsexual is simply doing too well to acquire financial means. Thankfully, Vikki doesn’t mind. “I feel really used. And it feels really good.” Clearly: A true story, except for the parts that are made up.
Gloria Gray (and Robin Felder): Back to Exaggeration – Vikki Victoria’s First Incident, appears on 3/16/2022 in the dtv publisher .