by Blake Crouch
BC: The strangest: This was a comment about me and the reviewer wrote something to the effect that I was either a super-talented writer with an immense imagination or one sick puppy. I think that’s open to debate. The meanest: From those [expletive deleted] at Kirkus. Now, keep in mind, this is my first taste of reviews and the reviewer absolutely savaged my book. It was so mean it was funny... although I didn’t see the humor for some time. The review ended, “Sadly, a sequel is in the works.” The nicest: That’s hard to choose from. I particularly loved the review for Locked Doors that appeared in the Winston-Salem Journal. The reviewer wrote, and this is my favorite quote thus far, “If you don’t think you’ll enjoy seeing how Crouch makes the torture and disembowelment of innocent women, children and even lax store employees into a thing of poetic beauty, maybe you should go watch Sponge Bob.” The most perceptive: The reviews that recognize that I’m trying to make a serious exploration of the human psyche, the nature of evil, and man’s depravity are the ones that please me the most.
HW: Do you strive for realism in your writing, or do you try more to entertain?
BC: First and foremost, I want to entertain. I want the reader to close the book thinking, “that was a helluva story.” Beyond that, I do strive for realism. I want the reader to identify with my characters’ emotions, whether it’s fear, sadness, or happiness. The places I write about, from the Yukon to the Outer Banks to the Colorado mountains are rendered accurately, and that’s very important to me, because I want the reader to have the benefit of visiting these beautiful places in my books.
HW: The villain in Locked Doors seems almost a force of nature, cunning, instinctively brilliant when it comes to creating mayhem. Do you worry that readers might write him off as unrealistic?
BC: I decided to approach Luther Kite a little differently than my bad guy, Orson Thomas, in Desert Places. In the first book, I tried to humanize Orson, to gin up sympathy by explaining what happened in his childhood to turn him into this monster. With Luther et al., I made a conscious decision not to delve into any of that, and for this reason I think he comes off as almost mythic, larger than life, maybe with even a tinge of the supernatural. I don’t worry that readers will find him unrealistic, because I didn’t try to make him like your typical realistic humdrum villain. What I want is for readers to fear him.
HW: What’s the most important thing a book has to do to keep YOUR attention?
BC: It’s actually very simple... a great story told through great writing. I don’t care if it’s western, horror, thriller, historical, romance, or literary. I just want to know that I’m in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing.
HW: Who are your literary heroes?
BC: I grew up on southern writers -- Walker Percy, Pat Conroy -- the fantasy of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. In college I discovered Thomas Harris, Dennis Lehane, James Lee Burke, Caleb Carr, and my favorite writer, Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy just blows me away. His prose is so rich. He is unlike anyone else out there today. His 1985 novel, Blood Meridian, in my opinion, is the greatest horror novel ever written.
HW: What makes Blood Meridian “the greatest horror novel ever written?”
BC: The writing is mind blowing. The violence (which occurs frequently and in vivid detail) rises to the level of poetry in McCarthy’s hands. And the story is fascinating. It’s based on historical fact and follows a bloodthirsty gang through the Mexico-Texas Borderlands in the mid-1800’s, who have been hired by the Mexican government to collect as many Indian scalps as they can. I read Blood Meridian every year.
HW: Reading Desert Places and Locked Doors, it seems that you’re drawn to the horrific. The books are filled with horrific acts, and with terrifying set pieces, as in the descent into the Kites’ basement in Locked Doors. Did the horror genre hold any attraction to you growing up?
BC: I honestly didn’t read a lot of horror growing up, but I always loved the sensation of fear produced by a scary movie or a great book. Some of my first short fiction (written in middle school) could be classified as horror. In fact, there’s a short story on my website called “In Shock” that I wrote in the 8th grade.
HW: Might there be a sequel to Locked Doors someday?
BC: Midway through the writing of Locked Doors, it occurred to me the story might be a trilogy. I may finish out the trilogy at some point. I’m starting to miss my characters (the ones that survived), and I have a feeling that I will return to the world of Locked Doors at some point in the future to check in on them. We’ll have to see.
HW: Your latest novel, Abandon, is set in Colorado, where you’ve lived for the past six years. Did you intend to write a novel set in that state when you moved there, or did your surroundings inspire you to?
BC: This was definitely a case of my surroundings inspiring me. Two months after we moved from North Carolina to Durango, we had some friends come out to visit. My wife and I took them on a backpacking trip into the San Juans, and it was on this trip that I first saw the ruins of a mining town—Sneffels, Colorado and the Camp Bird Mine. It made a huge impression, the idea of living in these extreme conditions, particularly in winter. The claustrophobia, the desperation, the kind of people who would subject themselves to such a life fascinated me.
HW: Did you have any particular goals in mind when you embarked on this project? Did they change as you worked? Do you think you met your goals?
BC: The idea of writing a “mining town thriller” was with me for a long time, as early as the summer of 2003, before Desert Places was published. Initially, I thought it would all be set in the past, a straight historical. Then in ‘05, while on tour for Locked Doors, I had a sudden realization that this was the story I needed to write, and that it wasn’t just historical. There would be present scenes, too, and the mystery at the heart of the book would be the mass disappearance of the town. My goal was to write a book that I would want to read, and in that regard, I think I succeeded.
HW: How long did it take to prepare to write the book? How much research was involved? Do you research first, then write, or answer the questions that arise as you dive into the writing?
BC: I started outlining in the fall of ‘05, and finalized the book with my editor in the summer ‘07. There were 7 drafts, and tons of research, which occurred at all stages of the writing.
HW: Was it tough striking a balance between writing a thriller and the urge to display all your newfound knowledge? Any fascinating tidbits that didn’t go into the book that you want to share with readers?
BC: Lots of stuff got cut, and some of it was wonderful (and it still pains me to have let it go) but in the end, it was all about what advanced the story. For instance, there was an Irishman who lived in one of the Colorado mining towns, and the love of his life had died on their wedding night some years prior. Every night, from his cabin above town, the sound of a violin would sweep down the mountain. Mournful, beautiful music. The town got used to hearing it. One night, after the violin went silent, a single gunshot echoed from the cabin. The townsfolk went up and found him dead, with a note asking to be buried with his wife. I loved that bit, wanted to put this guy into the story, but it didn’t belong, so I had to let it go.
HW: Your first two books followed the adventures of basically the same cast of characters. Was it a relief or was it scary to move on to a whole new set of players?
BC: Both a total relief and completely terrifying. But what’s worse than the fear of doing something new and challenging is realizing one day that you’re in a rut, that you’ve essentially written the same book again and again.
HW: Your first two books could be described as pure, relentless adrenaline. In fact, those are your words. Was it difficult to work on a novel taking place in two different times, switching back and forth between the two? How about working with a larger cast? Did that present you with any particular challenges, issues, problems?
BC: It was hard at first, but once I got into the flow of both narratives, it wasn’t such a big deal
to go back and forth, which is the way I wrote it. It sounds silly, but I wrote the present in one font, the past in another, and for some reason, changing fonts helped me to get back into whatever section I was working on. This cast of characters, which I knew was going to be big going in, was intimidating starting out. I spent a month on character studies, really getting to know each main character and their back-story before I dove into the book, and I think (I hope) that made all the difference.
HW: Has having children changed the way you look at your writing? Your subject matter? Do you ever pause and think, I guess my kids won’t be able to read that until they’re older?
BC: Abandon was the first thing I wrote after my son was born, and being a father for the first time and that new relationship and life-altering love couldn’t help but find its way into this work. Parent-child relationships definitely constitute a significant aspect of Abandon. And yeah, there’s no way my kids will be able to read my first two books until they’re at least seven or eight (kidding).
HW: Who is your first reader?
BC: My wife.
HW: What’s your favorite procrastination technique to avoid writing?
BC: Playing my acoustic guitar.
HW: Now that you’re in the business, do you find as much time to read as before? Do you avoid fiction for fear of unconsciously copying someone’s stories?
BC: I read more now than ever. You have to. I’ve never avoided fiction for fear of unconsciously copying someone else’s stories. You can’t help but be influenced by the work of others. No one is unique. As Cormac McCarthy said, “The sad truth is that books are made of other books.”
HW: I happen to know you’ve written an essay about Jack Ketchum’s Off Season for the upcoming International Thrillers Writers project Thrillers: 100 Must Reads. Was that format difficult for you? Did the experience provide you with any special insights into your own writings, or into thrillers in general?
BC: It was the hardest thing I’d written all year. I felt like I was in college again working on a term paper. That being said, it was a great joy to delve into the life and work of Jack Ketchum. I had great editors on that project. (HW: Full disclosure time: the editors for that worthy project are the esteemed David Morrell and yours truly. End of plug.)
HW: Tell us a little about future projects. You have a short story slated to appear in the ITW anthology, Thrillers 2?
BC: Yep, it’s called “Remaking” and also happens to be set in a beautiful Colorado town called Ouray. It’s premised on a question: What would you do if you were in a coffee shop, saw a man sitting with a young boy, and suspected the boy wasn’t supposed to be with him, that maybe he’d been kidnapped. I’m over the moon and humbled to be included in such a stellar collection of writers. Joe Konrath and I have just released a free short story as an eBook with the help of our publishers. It’s kind of groundbreaking, both in how Joe and I collaborated, and how our publishers came together to make it available everywhere. It’s called “Serial”, and is probably the most twisted thing either of us have ever written. The Abandon audiobook will have a short story that I read called “On the Good, Red Road,” and finally Jen Jordan’s new anthology, Uncage Me, publishes in July, and I have a story in that one called “*69.”
HW: Are you working on a new novel at the moment?
BC: I am.
HW: Where are you in that process?
BC: About a hundred pages in.
HW: Can you talk a little about the new book, or would that jinx things?
BC: I’m pretty sure I would deeply regret talking about it at this point. I find if I talk too much about works-in-progress, it takes the wind out of my sails.
HW: Any book recommendations?
BC: Joe Konrath just published a novel under the name Jack Kilborn. It’s called Afraid, and I think it’s one of the best pieces of horror fiction to come out in recent memory.
HW: Work uniform?
BC: A white tee-shirt and pajama bottoms with snowflakes on them. I know, it’s awful.
HW: Misconceptions about people who graduated from UNC?
BC: That if by some rip in the space-time continuum, Al-Qaeda managed to get a Division I college basketball team together, and if that team somehow made it to the NCAA tournament, and then survived March Madness, and, now here’s a real stretch, were facing Duke in the championship game on Monday night, that UNC fans would put aside their petty rivalry and root for Duke over the terrorists.
GINSU TONY: THE SHORT STORY THAT BECAME DESERT PLACES
I'm often asked where the idea for DESERT PLACES came from, and the primary source is the following short story I wrote in the spring of 1999, as a student in the creative writing program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The amazing writer, Marianne Gingher, was the professor of this intro to fiction-writing class, and I turned in a story called "Ginsu Tony" for my final project. Please don't email me to say how awful it is...I know. But for those of you who've read DESERT PLACES, you may enjoy this glimpse into its earliest incarnation.
"GINSU TONY"
BY
BLAKE CROUCH
Spring 1999
Engl. 23W
Professor: Marianne Gingher
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
July 14
Traveled 517 miles today from Kansas City to western Nebraska. Cool and clear this morning, so I put the top down on the Jeep and drove several hundred miles with corn fields extending to the horizon and a summer wind in my hair.
Hit storms at one o'clock and drove through blinding rain for an hour. When I came into sunlight again, the land had changed. The corn fields were gone, and there was nothing but prairie as far as the eye could see. It amazes me no matter how many times I encounter this vast open space of land and sky. It's the West. It's the feeling of something that's too big for man to tame, even in this age of exploitation.
I stopped for the night in Scottsbluff. It's a small town surrounded by parched, yellow grassland and red cliffs. The sun has just dipped below the horizon as I sit on the bed in my motel room and scribble down these words. It's eight o'clock, and I'm tired and hungry, but more than anything I just need a drink. Hope there's a bar in this town.
July 15
Wyoming. It's July, and yet I saw mountains today that glistened with snow under a summer sky. Wish I'd had the time to leave the highway and drive up into the hills of this wild country, to touch snow while sweating in summer heat or to see the high, desert plain from a rocky peak.
Started late this morning. Last night is still a pleasant, throbbing dream. Got drunk and high and met a girl at the bar in Scottsbluff. She stayed the night with me, and I can only say that she was blond and had enormous tits. Good God! But I've a feeling that the obscurity of her face is a blessing. All I've got to remember her by is a half-smoked bag of weed.
I headed north today towards the Wyoming/Montana border, and the sky was cloudless and winter blue. For much of the day, the highway ran parallel to a distant chain of brown hills, separated from the highway by twenty miles of sand and sagebrush. There was rarely a sign of civilization in sight, just lonely, beautiful wasteland--my kind of country.
It's nine-thirty now, and I'm writing by the light of headlights. There's still a shadow of crimson on the western horizon, but it's useless for writing. That dying sort of light only shows the silhouette of things on the horizon, and there's nothing on the horizon here. I'm twenty miles into Montana, a quarter mile off the highway, in the midst of an immense prairie. Deerlodge is still many hours away, and I'm far too exhausted to make the journey tonight.
It's cold and clear. I'm gonna smoke a joint and go to bed. I'll throw my sleeping bag onto the grass and sleep under the stars tonight. So quiet here. No wind. Only the sound of my pen moving across paper.
July 16
A horrible, fucking day by anyone's standard, and I don't feel like writing about it. But I'm in a cheap motel room in Deerlodge, Montana, and I've got a f
ifth of Jack waiting for when I finish, so I'm going to get it down. Above all else, I am a writer, and I need to pour this onto paper while it's fresh. Nothing's worse than telling a story when it's rotten and stale.
It gets cold out on the plains at night, even in the summertime, and I woke up shivering this morning. My sleeping bag was soaked with steely dew, and the wind which had begun during the night hours, was blowing through the weeds, making them rustle at my feet. It was six-thirty, and though the sun was still below the eastern horizon, the first timid rays of light were stretching across the prairie. I threw the wet sleeping bag into the back of the rusty CJ-7 and set out on the road again.
I headed west for nine hours, watching the land change from prairie to foothills to mountains. I kept thinking about the girl in Scottsbluff--it was something to take my mind from my destination. It made the hours pass quickly, and I obsessed on our intoxicated encounter, remembering with growing pride what I had conquered.
I arrived at Montana State Prison at four in the afternoon. It was sunny and warm, and there were snow-capped mountains in every direction. They rose above the hunter green pines that covered the land. There was already a crowd gathering around the twenty-foot prison fence. News trucks were everywhere, and a small, religious group chanted, "Murder is murder." Many people were holding angry signs, and I saw one with yellow, lightening-shaped letters that read, "HAVE A SEAT TONY." A young girl stood at her father's side across from the religious group. Her sign read, "38 WRONGS DO MAKE A RIGHT."