An Interview with Marshall Moore, by Mike McGinty

Mike McGinty: What would you say is the string that ties all of these stories together? Each deals with a different aspect of- for lack of a better word—horror; whether that horror is psychological, paranormal or imagined.

Marshall Moore: I think you're right. When I was assembling this book I worried that the stories were too similar, or that I was repeating myself, which I dread. I also worried that there was no common thread at all, and the book would read like someone dropped it and it broke. I think you've hit the nail on the head: there's something horrific going on in each of these stories, or lurking below the surface. At the same time, there's no easy classification for what I write. Traditional horror doesn't hold much interest for me, because it's so hard to find a way to do anything new with it. Vampires have been done to undeath, although I thought Patrick Califia's Mortal Companion was a long-overdue breath of fresh air. House of Leaves was the last word in haunted house stories. China Miéville doesn't write horror, per se, and that's what makes him so interesting. He's doing something genuinely new, and that's what I aspire to as well.

McGinty: Could you even write something like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm or would the mere effort just kill you?

Moore: Think of vampires and sunlight.

McGinty: I can almost see you rubbing your hands together at the keyboard, a malicious gleam in your eye, cackling as you concoct a collection that has been called "sexy, scary, surreal and totally surprising, at turns." Do you derive as much pleasure from it as would seem?

Moore: Sometimes it's pleasurable to write but the fact of having written is even more pleasurable. The process is like—oh, I don't know, using a pair of pliers to pluck out your own teeth one at a time. And having no choice in the matter. Okay, I'm exaggerating, I wouldn't write if it sucked that badly, but it's a lot of work. There are enjoyable aspects to it. As for the kind of stories these are, I'm not interested in reading tidy little slices of literary still life, and I'm not interested in writing them either. I wouldn't know how. Something has to happen in a story if I'm to stay engaged with it, both as a reader and as a writer.

McGinty: These stories are nothing if not engaging. I like how you will often interject laugh-out loud lines into your prose, like: "...they leave this plane [of existence] for another one, which is both very close and very distant, and we have no access to them." "Sounds like Heathrow," I said, lost. Then in the next paragraph you're likely to throw out something like this: "My parents were killed last year on a flight to visit me. I lived near the airport. The plane crash-landed into a building down the street." It's not enough for you to put readers on a literary roller coaster. It has to be an upside-down one. And you have to blindfold them. And make them ride the thing backwards.

Moore: The bit about Heathrow was completely spontaneous, as most of my humor is. So was the plane crash, I think. I make these connections subconsciously. I don't know how I do it or where it comes from. And going straight over the top is another one of those tendencies that—well, I know I do it. Somebody has to. There's way too much boring realism being published today.

McGinty: Most of the stories are in first person, which begs the question: Are any of these tales true or based on people/events in your life?

Moore: I get that question a lot. I'd forgotten how many of these stories are in first person. I've moved away from that in newer work; I think I'm getting a lot more mileage out of third person than I did out of first, and it's easier for readers who know me to separate my characters from my own personality. Two of the stories borrow heavily from real life, but I won't tell you which ones. It would be a mistake to say this part really happened, but this part didn't.

One time I got an e-mail from a reader who had been tracking down my stories and reading them as they were published. Based on what she read, she had a fairly elaborate idea of what my apartment must look like, how I dressed, what kind of furniture I would choose, and so forth. I was shocked anyone would care enough to put that much thought into it. It hadn't yet occurred to me how much people look for the author in his or her stories. That was a turning point. I became a lot more cognizant of the boundary between myself and my characters.

McGinty: You don't have many nice things to say about the U.S. A few examples: In the States, someone would have angrily waved me away, maybe shouted. Further proof I'm living on the more civilized side of the border...Like America itself, my parents are easier to appreciate from a distance...he quietly reclaimed both Canadian and British citizenship (his American passport being rather more of a hindrance than a help in some of the places he wanted to write about next). Would you say this is politically motivated? Your own personal take on that most delicious of pastimes, Bush-whacking?

Moore: By that logic, I'm also advocating parricide in "Hard to Put into Words" and "Enough Oxygen." Although America-bashing is one of the tropes I return to, my fiction is not meant as a statement of my personal and political beliefs. I'm adamant about keeping the distinction clear. A couple of years ago I noticed that theme recurring, and I deliberately moved away from it. It's true, I'm quite critical of the US in real life, but the longer I write, the less comfortable I am with the idea of using fiction to advance a political cause or a social agenda. There's a danger of putting the cart before the horse.

McGinty: I imagine you could do some serious damage if you decided to wield your literary sword against Republicans or right-wing Christians. Ever been tempted to do so more overtly than you have?

Moore: Plenty of books have already been written to criticize the Bush administration, the Republican Right, and Corporate America, and there's nothing I can say that hasn't already been said. Michael Moore (no relation) and Al Franken are doing a much better job if it than I could. (If you really want to have an aneurysm, check out The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast.) I would like to try a nonfiction project next, somewhat related to the topics you mention, but that book will only happen if I can get a contract for it with enough of an advance to make writing it my full-time job. If it has to happen on spec, it'll take years to do it right. It'll require a ton of research, a lot more than I've already done. I hope to be living abroad by then. I guess this is a long-winded way of saying yes. Not only am I tempted, I've already started writing.

McGinty: Let's talk about some specific stories. In "There and Back", the protagonist is actively looking for something supernatural to happen, something horrible or evil, perhaps. And yet, in the end, he's not sure (and consequently neither is the reader) that anything of the sort ever happened.

Moore: That's the idea. But there's a story behind that story. I wrote it in a creative white heat—I had more fun writing this one than most—as a revenge piece because at the time I was tired of not being able to sell stories to literary magazines. I was bloody sick of reading grad-student MFA crap about trains and Eastern Europe and directionless losers wandering Olde Worlde streets in search of a raison d'etre or at least a shag. It's appalling how many writers have absolutely no ear for language, no idea how to make a story move, and ultimately nothing to say. Yet their toneless little angst-lite pieces were getting published and my work wasn't. So I wrote this as a way of saying fuck you to pretty much everyone. It worked. These days, fortunately, I don't have as much of a chip on my shoulder. Honest.

McGinty: Simon Says is a supernatural tale, but it's also a sweet love story. Not that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan would be angling for the movie rights, but one man makes the ultimate sacrifice to spend eternity with his soul mate. It's an idealized, Hollywood-type depiction of love. Is this something you believe in?

Moore: I used to. Then my heart was broken a couple of years ago. Now I believe in idealized, Hollywood-type revenge.

McGinty: A few of these stories, and I'm thinking specifically of "The Glue Factory", are downright disturbing. Yet, in places, you give the reader permission to stop; to get away. For example, in "There and Back" the narrator tells us: If I sound like a ghoul, well, then, I guess that makes it official: I'm a ghoul. I'm a heartless bastard. Run.

Moore: I hadn't thought about it before. I think it's a dare, or a warning. Sometimes what makes my characters horrible is their detachment. They don't care about things they're supposed to care about. I'm not sure I'd call it amorality, and they're not usually garden-variety psychopaths; it's more like they're completely burnt out. In any case, you're right, some of these stories are quite disturbing. In fact, a few years ago I lost a friend because she was too upset by some of my work. She assumed I must be a ghoul in real life, too. As a writer, she should have known better. But I'm getting off the point. The more I think about this, I agree with my first comment: it's a warning, because things are going to get uncomfortable, and to an extent it's also a dare to keep reading.

McGinty: "The Night Tattoo" is very Stephen King-like. Were your own tattoos the inspiration for this story? And for those who don't know, care to share what and where are your own tats?

Moore: Believe it or not, the Gulf War (Part One, not The Sequel, now enjoying an unlimited run in various Middle Eastern theaters) was the inspiration for this story. I was living in eastern North Carolina—which is effectively one big military base—when the first one happened. That whole half of the state was affected. Everybody knew somebody who was involved in the war. And it's happening again. I've been both horrified and fascinated by the government's denial of, and refusal to take responsibility for, Gulf War Syndrome. That's what I set out to write about, but obviously the result was rather different. That's often the case with me.

King has been a big influence, though. When I was old enough to start reading books from the grownups' library instead of the kids' library, Firestarter was the first book I chose. I've been reading his work since I was about 11. I'm not surprised you noticed similarities.

As far as the tattoos are concerned, I have eight of them and want more. But I'm not telling what and where they are.

McGinty: In "Sic Gloria Transit", Julian says: When you found your groove, you kept dancing as long as you could. If you had any sense at all. Have you found your groove? Are you dancing?

Moore: I learned in my early twenties to dance aggressively—I'd elbow the shit out of people who jostled me too many times. But the publishing industry is more like a mosh pit than a dance floor. I think I've found the beat, I hope so, but if I'm going to get close to the band, I'll need body armor and steel-toed boots.

McGinty: Irreverence seems to be one of your fortes. In one passage from “There and Back”—the same paragraph, actually—you have a character who talks about his family perishing in a train wreck and also how he masturbated with jock itch cream.

Moore: I'll admit I'm like that in real life, too. I have fun with it, and I don't mind infusing my work with it. But please don't assume I use Lamisil to jerk off!

McGinty: Never. Now that this collection has been published, would it be accurate to say you've exorcised some demons?

Moore: I really don't look at this as a form of therapy. It's simply what I write. Although the stories do serve as a series of psychic snapshots—whatever was on my mind at the time—the content is so symbolic it's almost meaningless to anyone but me. Some of my newer stuff is more hopeful, but I wouldn't say I've become Mr. Optimism.

McGinty: What's next for you?

Moore: I'm at the beginning of what I hope will be a long career, and while I know what some of my interests are, I'm reluctant to say I'm any particular kind of writer. It's too soon to say "this is what I'm going to write about for the next few decades" because I don't know yet, and don't want to be boxed in. I will say I'm interested in my generation. We're an fascinating and troubled lot, the Gen X-ers, because we're dwarfed by the Boomers, both economically and demographically. It's like comparing Canada and the US. Have you ever heard the saying "If the US catches a cold, Canada catches pneumonia"? Collectively, we're an interesting mess. There's a lot to write about.

 

For more information on Black Shapes in a Darkened Room or Suspect Thoughts Press, please check out: suspectthoughtspress.com.

For more information on Marshall Moore, visit him online at: marshallmoore.com

Read the title story of Black Shapes in a Darkened Room in Issue 13

Mike McGinty is a Clio Award-winning copywriter in San Francisco. His essays have been published on Gay.com, Outsports.com, and in the Noe Valley Voice. He has also contributed to American magazine, Bookmarks magazine, and I Do/I Don't: Queers on Marriage, an anthology from Suspect Thoughts Press.