| |
 The first novel featuring psychic Simon
Canderous, Dead to Me, came out in February 2008. This
well-received urban fantasy contains a mix of satire worthy
of The Office, one liners worthy of a John Carpenter action
film and
legitimately scary bad guys. Plus, taking a retractable bat
to zombies is a winning formula for any novel. I’m pretty
sure T.C. Boyle will be including it in his next effort,
with appropriate acknowledgement to Mr. Strout.
Book 2, Deader Still, hits the streets in February 2009.
Simon Canderous is still working for New York City’s
Department of Extraordinary Affairs, a civil service
response to the unanswerable questions of the supernatural
world. This time it’s been 737 days since the Department of
Extraordinary Affairs’ last vampire incursion, but that
streak appears to have ended when a boat full of dead
lawyers is found in the Hudson River. Using the power of
psychometry—the ability to divine the history of an object
by touching it—agent Simon Canderous discovers that the
booze cruise was crashed by something that sucked all the
blood out of the litigators. Now, his workday
may never end—until his life does. Anton was kind enough to
sit down and answer a few spastically segue-free
questions.
Drops of Crimson: What’re the similarities/differences as
you prepare for book 2?
Anton Strout: With Dead To Me, it wasn’t written under any
kind of deadline. I toiled for a few years on it, trying to
find its legs and rhythm. With book 2, Deader Still, I was
suddenly published and under contract to produce
a book with only a year to do so. Having that deadline
terrified me, but in that terror, I found the motivation to
keep trucking. Fear and self loathing are my two greatest
motivators when it comes to accomplishing anything. With
Deader Still, I also had a cast ready to hit the stage, so I
think writing the second book in a series was easier given
that fact. I already knew most of the people who were going
in the book and their back stories well enough, so I knew
how they’d react in the plot that was quickly formatting in
my head.
DoC: What’s the best book you’ve ever read? What’s the best
you’ve read recently?
AS: This is a toughie… there’re a lot of best books in my
head, all for very different reasons. BUT to attempt to
answer your question, I’m going to have to go with books
that I pick up time and time again. The king of that
particular hill is The Lord of the Rings. I can’t help it.
Even though I COULD just sit down for 9 hours and be done
with the movies, I find myself picking up the books every
year or two, and rereading the entire series. I
fall in love with a different part of them every time, even
though I know how it all ends. Yeah, Tolkien can run on
with verbosity and histories and get a little dry here and
there, but that’s what skimming is for! And as for my
favorite part of that, I’d say Fellowship of the Ring. I
like beginnings. Everything is fresh and new and full of
discovery… it’s the beginning of a journey, the first step
onto the road that goes ever on and on.
 DoC: What authors have most influenced you? Is it stylistic,
subject matter, technique, etc?
AS: There are a big box of influences on me, for a variety
of reasons. I always wanted to be Douglas Adams when I was
growing up. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy made me
want to write the funny. I can write serious
stuff, but usually there’s still something absurd or funny
in it. I also grew up on William Gibson (who I’ve shared
turkey sandwiches from Grey Dog Café with), and I really
love his way of storytelling, the way he makes you hit the
ground running as a reader and makes you play catch up a
bit. I’d like to achieve that someday. But let’s face it…
I’m a huge fan of Joss Whedon, if that wasn’t obvious. I
love his blend of serious, horror, and the funny. There are
countless other authors out there who I love, that I try to
learn from as I go… John Irving, Stephen King, Christopher
Moore… I could go on, but my hands are tired as I answered
these out of order and this is technically my fourth one
I’ve done.
DoC: Did you get any flack for the Scientology/cultism link?
Are Cruise's lawyers surrounding you like jihadists follow
Salman Rushdie?
AS: Well, no one’s made that connection till now. Thanks,
pal. *runs for bunker* Actually, I think it’s interesting
to read what people come up with from reading the book.
Certainly when I sit down to write it, I have things I want
to say or things I want to invoke in a reader. I aim to hit
the universal chord when doing that, but let’s face it. I
don’t know you, I don’t know any reader really, so I write
to please what I like when I read. Hopefully, that hits with
the bulk of readers as well. You’ll always have someone
coming up to you to say “I really get what you meant about
those cultists in Chapter 6… they’re really the Shriners
aren’t they?” Well, no, but I just smile and nod. Every
reader has their own experiences, and when they read my
work, it’s going to be colored by that. That’s an
element I can’t control, so really I just try to please
myself, egoist that I am.
DoC: Great point in answering that question but I was
referring to a literal Scientology joke you made at one
point.
AS: I forgot I made the Scientology crack.. which I wrote
way before it was trendy for Anonymous to go after them or
Tom Cruise. Hmmm.. you never see me and Anonymous in the
same place at the same time, do you?
DoC: Have you drawn on your experiences as a member of a
cult in making the SDL more lifelike?
AS: If anything makes the Sectarian Defense League seem
lifelike, I think it’s due to working in corporate America…
old school style! We’re not talking like a cool office at
Google…. But back in the late 90s when I temped, a lot of
the places barely knew what a computer was or did… they were
stuck in an archaic wyrmhole where paperwork was paramount
and towered over their heads. And if I was a member of a
cult, do you think I’d tell YOU that? Or that
you’d live to post these questions?
DoC: Is Jane's temp-to-perm experience something from your
own life as a NY'er?
It will come as no surprise that I once was a temp in NYC.
Back when I was working in bookstores and also teaching,
there would be lulls in the private school schedule where I
simply had to take temp jobs. It was fun. Having been an
actor at one point in my life, it was like playing dress up,
going into a new company every few days and filling in. The
great thing about temping is no one expects you to have much
in the way of smarts (thank God!), so they have low
expectations. They pay you to occupy space, more than
anything, so I was able to get a lot of writing done. Once,
I got to help this chump out who was WAY beyond deadline on
writing this TV commercial, so I wrote it for him. That
Thanksgiving I nearly wet myself when I saw my uncredited
commercial on TV.
So I was a temp, who eventually decided I liked sitting in
an office, but really wanted consistency and benefits.
Since I had always been in the book selling world, it only
made sense to me to go for a day job in publishing. I’ve
been with Penguin Group (USA) for ten years now…so much of
what you see happening with temps and office work read tape
at the Department of Extraordinary Affairs is culled from
the bullshit and minutia of corporate life that I
experience… not that I don’t love my corporate masters.. all
hail the mighty Penguin!
DoC: Does the cover Simon match up with the image in your
head? What images/characters match up with Jane and Connor?
It does now. Whatever I thought Simon
looked like before this, it’s all melted away and been
replaced by the models they use for him on the cover. Yes,
models. Apparently, my model for Dead To Me moved away, so
they used a new guy similar enough to him for Deader Still.
I don’t see much difference, although I do appreciate the
efforts that went into the new cover. So all I see in my
head are the cover versions of Simon now.
Jane actually looks like this Livejournal friend of mine who
is an actress and a model. When I was writing the book, she
popped into my head as the epitome of her and it just
stuck. Not that that helps anyone reading to envision her.
Sorry, folks!
Connor… well, hmmm… if I had to cast him, I’d go with a Han
Solo aged Harrison Ford. Even in the way he calls Simon
“kid” all the time, even though they’re only ten years apart
in age. Thing is, surviving in the DEA long does age you
exponentially, so Connor must feel about a thousand years
older than Simon.
DoC: New author vs. newlywed. Comment.
AS: Well, I have to say being a newlywed is a much easier
job than writing. My wife is a saint and an ex-editor, so
she understands the dementia and lonely road of the author,
whereas a lesser woman might feel ignored all those hours
with me crying at my keyboard. Although, I found wedding
planning to be far more difficult than churning out a book,
I think making relationships in a book work are much harder
than the life of a newlywed. Books have built-in conflict in
them to keep them interesting… it’s forced fighting and
such, which is hard to manifest, at least for me. Maybe I
get all my pissing and moaning out on the page, sparing my
wife. Lucky her.
DoC: If you were a tree, isn’t this a very lame question?
AS: Very lame. You’re such a SAP! Get it?! Tree… sap!
Get IT?!?! See what I did there? …………. Who’s lame NOW, Mr.
Interview Pants?!
Anton Strout’s Dead to Me is available at fine booksellers
everywhere and Deader Still will before you know it. The
author himself can be found at his
livejournal, as a member
of the League of Reluctant Adults or his official
webpage. |
