After a couple of weeks of not getting much done during lockdown, I’ve had a productive few months—but, since that work’s been on book manuscripts and scripts, there won’t be any of proof of its existence for at least a year.
Which is why it’s quite nice to have a short story coming out in WEIRD HORROR #1, edited by Michael Kelly for Undertow Publications.
If you’ve ever heard me talk about horror fiction on a panel or in conversation, you know that I hold all sectors of the weird in high esteem—from Elizabeth Bowen or Henry James’s ambiguous ghosts to H.P. Lovecraft’s ancient tentacle gods right back to the medieval revenants of the other James, M.R.
Kelly’s project in “Weird Horror” is to provide a new pulp horror magazine, and I was happy to provide “Krazy Krax,” a short piece based on an idea I’ve had for a long time. It was inspired by the clip-and-mail ads you find in old comic books, advertising model kits and novelty items and sea monkeys and even actual monkeys (guaranteed to arrive alive) in exchange for a few cents or dollars stuffed into an envelope along with a coupon.
For years, I’ve wanted to write a delicate, Ray Bradbury-like story of nostalgia based on this idea, but I could never get it quite right, perhaps because my relationship with the past and nostalgia is so different from Bradbury’s. So “Krazy Krax” came out quite dark, with some off-the-page violence that I’m glad I kept off the page, and hopefully plenty of eeriness. Pre-order a copy of the magazine here.
The first of book projects I mentioned is a literary novel, my first as Naben Ruthnum. Coming off the first two Nathan Ripley thrillers, I was excited to write something quite different, and I think I have—now it’s just matter of getting this second draft into the kind of shape that will convince publishers that I succeeded.
The second project is a strange turn, for me, inspired partially by reading a ton of Robert Westall books in quick succession. I started to think of the supernaturally-tinged novels I read during my childhood and early teens—books by John Bellairs, Phillippa Pearce, E. Nesbit, Alison Prince—and about books like this I’ve been reading more recently:
Then I started to think about thrash metal, the small B.C. city where I grew up and the secret depths of its lake, used bookstores, race, and the possible relation between advance quantum physics and witchcraft that Lovecraft starts to explore in “The Dreams in the Witch-House.” So I’m about halfway through a supernatural novel for young readers, work that I did while my agents were giving me feedback on the first draft of my literary novel. I’m excited to get back to it when I’ve finished my literary homework.
Writing scripts remains a fun and occasionally profitable activity I mainly engage in with my writing partner Kris Bertin. We recently had our first really exciting success as a writing duo, selling our absolute strangest pilot to a production house. We speak too much on the phone, especially as we speak to virtually no one outside of the house, and we’re going to write a horror feature spec next month.
The part I usually appreciate most in author newsletters is the recommendation section. I’m going to limit mine to a couple of movies, an older one a new one, and will talk about books next time.
Like my cat Moberly, I have been haunted by Joseph Losey’s 1968 Secret Ceremony since I saw it a couple of months ago. Broke Liz Taylor, still in mourning over her dead daughter, is discovered at the cemetery by wealthy and eerily childlike Mia Farrow, who is convinced Liz is—her own dead mother. I found this film on Andrew Male’s “Aickmanesque” list: https://letterboxd.com/claxtondog/list/aickmanesque/, an excellent catalog of movies that all have that Robert Aickman unreal chill to them.
A newer film: 2016’s Things to Come, by Mia Hansen-Løve. A great Huppert performance, a great script, and an interesting focus on the potential lightness of losing everything as we age. It’s on the Criterion Channel.
I enjoyed writing this, and look forward to being in more constant contact with readers through this newsletter. I’ve found that social media is great for meeting other writers, at least for the first couple of years of a career, and then somehow devolves into a spirit-and-work-ethic-annihilating nightmare. So, welcome to my newsletter.
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Pick up my books, preferably at a good bookstore, but they’re also all an easy order.
Your Life Is Mine: A Thriller by Nathan Ripley. Order here in Canada, here in US.
Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race. Order direct from Coach House here, ebook vendors here.
Find You In the Dark: A Thriller by Nathan Ripley. Order here in Canada, here in US, here in UK/ANZ.