Today, one of our regular in-depth interviews with weird fiction authors – and this time, we have the great pleasure of being joined by author Philip Fracassi. As usual, we let the interview do the work rather than rattle on beforehand. We first came across Philip through his novelette ‘Altar’, released early 2016, so when his collection Behold the Void was released this year, including ‘Altar’, we had to go there. We were not disappointed.
It’s a reasonably long interview, in which (also as usual) we ask a lot of annoying questions about particular stories and themes of his, so let’s get to it…
PHILIP FRACASSI
greydog: Welcome to greydogtales, Philip. We’d like to focus mainly on your collection Behold the Void today, because it offers readers a chance to get a good overview of your range and the sort of themes you explore. So we can start by giving you a chance to challenge that assumption. Fair or unfair?
philip: Thanks for having me! Regarding BEHOLD THE VOID being a good overview: Yes, I think that’s a fair premise. At least as far as my currently published work is concerned. The collection, along with the two novellas that are recently published – FRAGILE DREAMS and SACCULINA – are pretty much all the stories I wrote from Summer of 2015 to Summer of 2016. I have another, say, dozen or so stories that have been published, or are being prepared for publication, that covers my work over the past year or so. I think these newer stories vary a bit from the first ones in style and tone. That said, BEHOLD THE VOID is certainly where I think readers should start.
greydog: Greydogtales reaches a wide and very varied audience – some who will know you and your works well, some who won’t. Is there anything about Philip Fracassi the man that people should know, before we go into Philip Fracassi the author? Revelatory facts that will open eyes, or professional kudos that might cause appropriate bowing and murmurs of awe?
philip: I doubt it’ll make heads explode, but I suppose there are a couple things that are good to know. First off, I’ve been writing much longer than people think due to the face that I just started publishing over the last one or two years, which is when I made the decision to focus on genre fiction – primarily supernatural horror. Prior to that, I spent a couple decades writing literary fiction – three novels and hundreds of stories. Looking back, I think that was all preparatory for what I’m doing now, which is likely why things are finally taking off.
Also, not everyone who is aware of my existence knows that I’m also a screenwriter. Been doing that professionally for five or six years now, with a couple credits under my belt. One is a children’s movie for Disney, the other a thriller for Lifetime Television called GIRL MISSING. I’m working on a feature script now with Philip Gelatt, who recently wrote and directed the film THEY REMAIN, which is based on a short story by Laird Barron.
So I’ve been around, I guess is the point.
greydog: Right, we’ll bite down. Behold the Void is a collection of horror stories. We’re not saying there aren’t elements of the weird, the literary and the liminal, but we read them as modern horror. An unashamed position for you?
philip: I am unabashedly a horror writer. A writer of horror. I have no problem with the label. Now, that said, it’s often helpful for readers to know the “type” of horror one writes, because there are extremes and nuances. There is modern horror, gothic horror, body horror, hardcore horror, literary horror, supernatural horror, and the ever-expansive Weird.
When describing (not categorizing) my work, I tell people I write supernatural thrillers with horror elements. Or, I’ll say I’m a hybrid of old-school horror and modern horror. A mix of 80’s pulp and the modern weird, I guess.
But yeah, I write Horror. Capital H.
greydog: Our impression after a first read-through was that the collection is predominantly about parenting. It’s easy to grab something like that and make too much out of it, but the role of parents, particularly mothers, is a recurring element. Nor is it exactly a hymn to the joys of child-rearing. Is this happenstance, or a deliberate strand?
philip: I think a lot of the stories in the book are about Transformation. And there is no greater example of transformation in real life than a child becoming an adult. To me, there is enough terror and fodder in that process that I could explore nothing else for the rest of my years and never fill the bucket.
But other areas where lives are transformed include relationships, and trauma. Every seven years every cell in the human body is replaced with a new cell. We literally become different people. I think I try to touch on what it means to be human by way of transformation, and the horror that is life… but I don’t purposely focus on parenting. It just seems a natural plot element given the theme.
That said, most of the newer stuff steers away from that. More period pieces, thrillers and stories of madness.
greydog: And it’s fair to say that a second reading opens up new thoughts about most of the tales we’re discussing. It’s hard to go where we want to go without spoilers, but we’ll see what we can do. Two stories stood out for us in particular. ‘The Horse Thief’ is a very unpleasant tale in many ways (it made us wince), and yet also transformative. Do you know what generated the idea for this one?
philip: ‘The Horse Thief’ is another story about transformation. About a good man who becomes a bad man, and about finding salvation in a way through violence. The impetus of the story had a lot to do with the idea of redemption as a fable.
That said, the base concept of the story – illegal horse butchering for profit – is a very real thing. The violence of the act, and the idea that these prize horses are sold on the black market as meat, reminded me a lot of Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon, in that transformation comes at a very violent cost.
Hopefully that doesn’t give away the ending, which I know has had an impact on readers.
greydog: ‘Surfer Girl’ is a horror story of a quite different nature, almost a character study. As with ‘The Horse Thief’, although not written with a First Person POV, it comes essentially from the inside of the main character. And it ends with a sort of transformation, though we can’t be sure what the consequences might be. It has echoes of Frankenstein’s creation for us, raising sympathy and fear at the same time, despite there being no technical relationship to the Gothic or mad science at all. Care to comment on the nature of Adolf himself?
philip: ‘Surfer Girl’, on its surface, is definitely an “origin” story. But if you dig deeper, you’ll notice that in many ways the story is about vulnerability, and what it means to be protected in the wild of our world. The comparisons to a lion pride are done purposely, and if you read carefully there are hints as to who the true monster of this story might be.
It’s also a stab at black humor, which I don’t do in many stories.
greydog: The last line of ‘Surfer Girl’ (which is ideal for the story, by the way) is a promise which we can’t interpret, and a forecast of far greater horror. Were you ever tempted to go further in cases like this?
philip: It’s funny, when my friend Laird Barron first read this story, his response was that it seemed like the first chapter of a novel, versus a short story. But I think the story very much has a beginning, middle and end, and that the arc of all the characters are fulfilled. Yes, the characters go on and do interesting things, and Adolf may make another appearance in future tales, but as it pertains to this part of his life, the story is told.
I think the penultimate violence is more impactful because it didn’t come easy. It was a lifetime of buildup. If there were more and more violence, it would lessen the impact of that gorgeous, horrible moment. That’s why I think sometimes it’s better to leave them wanting more, as it were.
greydog: And it does work, no doubt of that. The rest of the stories, if we shove parenting to one side, explore many different characters and settings. Laird Barron says in his introduction “Nobody is safe in a Philip Fracassi story.” Which is not to say that no-one survives, no-one is “saved”. A number of characters end up with a new purpose or insight, though not always one for which they might have wished. Are we seeing an outlook here – what we get in life is rarely what we choose for ourselves?
philip: Nothing quite that blatant, no. I think the idea of “no one is safe” comes from the fact that I spend a lot of time developing characters in my stories. I want you to know them before they begin their horrific adventures. Some readers hate this, they want to go right to the bloodshed. But I think most readers appreciate knowing the characters more deeply. Then, when things go poorly, you’re more apt to remember the story because at one point you cared for these people, and therefore you feel more empathy when they go through these terrible events.
I mean, be honest, are you more affected by a bomb going off in a foreign country, or by a best friend who died of a painful disease? In other words, I try and make my characters your friends first… and then I cut them down.
greydog: That certainly increases the level of reader engagement. Two other tales, ‘Coffin’ and ‘Baby Farmer’, are interesting because they tread another path, one more rooted in history – pagan presences and Judaeo-Christian mythology respectively. They’re great stories, but they read as if you wrote them in a different frame of mind from the others. Were they intentional explorations of ideas away from the bulk of your tales?
philip: I think what you’re seeing in these stories are me flexing my writing muscles a bit. Trying to do something a bit different, expand my range, and see how far I can take a style or a new angle on storytelling. Experimental isn’t quite the right word, but it’s in the ballpark.
‘Coffin’ is, in many ways, a parody. I won’t say of what, which is a terrible answer. But let’s just say my stories have been maligned by writers who look down on my work because it’s plot-driven, and has a beginning/middle/end, rather than just twenty pages of detached discomfort, dreamlike ethereal concepts with no grounding or arc. In a way, ‘Coffin’ is my response to writers who live by ambiguity, and hints at where I think some of those ambiguous stories might belong.
‘Baby Farmer’, in contrast, is very much outside of my comfort zone. That was a reach for me. It was written for Mark Beech, of Egaeus Press, as part of the wonderful MURDER BALLADS anthology. And as such, it was intended to have a certain feel / vibe.
I included it in the collection because I think it has a lot to say, and it’s an angry story. And I want my stories to be angry. To be passionate. If I hadn’t included it, it would have come for me in the night, I assure you.
greydog: ‘Mandala’, whilst being a tense story that draws the reader in, is perhaps the most traditional piece, or appears so at first. It has the scent of King and Bradbury, the small-town incident and the disquiet; the complexity of small boys and fathers. The ending is quite clear, if you want it to be. Being over-suspicious, we also saw other implications. Put our minds at rest and tell us we’re nuts.
philip: You’re not nuts. At least as it pertains to this query. “Mandala”, in many ways, is what you want it to be. If you want to read the story on its surface, then you get one kind of story with one variation of an ending. If you want to dig deeper, however, you’ll find some disquieting hints at a much different story, with a much different ending.
I had a friend call me after reading it and say, “I loved the story, and at first was quite relieved. But then I read it again, and I’m not relieved at all. Am I crazy?”
So I’ll tell you what I told him: No, you’re not crazy. But take from it what you will, and God bless. The story was very purposely given multiple layers of response and revelation, depending on how tired you are, I suppose, or how much you really care about the truth of it all.
But if you have a shovel, by all means, dig away. There’s black oil beneath that happy, sun-soaked topsoil.
greydog: We have to ask, as we have you here, is there a deliberate connection between ‘Altar’ and Mandala’, or is this one of those writerly accidents? Is the same black, staring threat behind and beneath the world common to both stories, or simply a trick of the light?
philip: Excellent observation, and I’m pleased you picked up on it. Yes, there is an underlying world beneath much of my universe, and it’s vengeful, and hateful, and desirous of our light. Of our innocence. There are creatures who would have us, meat and spirit, if they could.
For those who wish to follow the rabbit hole, I’d suggest reading my novella, FRAGILE DREAMS, and my upcoming release, SHILOH, to find more instances of this threat which haunts our dreams, and our swimming pools.
greydog: And as everything today is examined to see if it’s Lovecraftian or Mythosian, when it’s not being Holmesian, would you weep if you never had to read another Cthulhu or Sherlock story ever again? Where do you crouch on neo-Lovecraftian and such concepts?
philip: My stories, for the most part, are not built on any pre-existing mythos. I have little interest in pastiche or playing in someone else’s sandbox.
That said, never say never. But to answer the question, I don’t crouch anywhere as it pertains to pre-existing myths or writers of myths. It’s just not something I find interesting. Lovecraft is Lovecraft and King is King. I plan on being myself for now. We’ll see how that goes.
greydog: On a different tack, a last question about the more technical side for the writer-readers. Behold the Void includes some long pieces, and you seem to favour novelettes and novellas – your novellas Sacculina (2017) and Fragile Dreams (2016) are also available, as you mentioned. Yet you have written novels. Do you find writing the latter a very different process, or is a novel just a long novella?
philip: As a short story writer, I tend to write longer pieces. My wheelhouse seems to be in the 11,000 – 24,000 range. I guess I just feel I need that much room to properly tell a story. Anything under 10k feels like a fragment to me, or an idea not fully fleshed out. I’ve written shorter pieces, for sure, but personally they feel more to me like intermissions than features.
Regarding novels, no, absolutely not an extension of a short story or novella. Novels are, to me, a completely different art form, a completely different animal. They take time, and structure, and patience, and a mountain of editing and rewriting and forethought. Ten times that of a novella. I acquaint a novel more closely to a screenplay. A 3-act story with full character arcs and foreshadowing and setups and payoffs and all that good stuff. I think that’s why so many writers write short stories and not novels – one is far easier than the other, regardless of word count.
They’re just different forms of literary art. Period.
greydog: We’ll relent now, and leave you in peace, but what have you got coming up in the next year that people should be watching out for?
philip: I have a story coming out in a wonderful anthology, due later this year, with writers such as Jonathan Maberry, Whitley Strieber, Ronald Malfi and Douglas Clegg. It hasn’t been announced yet, so that’s all I’ll say about it. But keep an eye out for that.
I also have a limited edition novella coming out from Mount Abraxas Press called SHILOH, which I’m very excited about. It’s a brutal, relentless, terrifying story. A Civil War horror story that will curl your boots. SHILOH will initially be in a pricey, deluxe illustrated edition, but hopefully I’ll be able to reprint it down the road. That should be out in November.
I also have stories coming from Dark Discoveries, and working on things for Lovecraft eZine and some other publishers at the moment. Hopefully there will be news of a novel and a new collection in the near future, but that’s in the hands of my agent so when I know you’ll know. Fingers crossed.
Otherwise, if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, or at my website (pfracassi.com), you’ll know about all my new stories as they are released, plus you’ll get to see the occasional picture of my cat, which is a nice bonus.
greydog: Many thanks, Philip, for joining us.
From publisher JournalStone, Philip Fracassi’s Behold the Void (and other works mentioned above), can be found on Amazon in a number of formats.
Amazon UK http://amzn.eu/7L0mSv8
Amazon US http://a.co/9tIpuT5