The writing game can be a perverse lottery. Yes, craft and imagination are important, but we are not entirely convinced that talent always wins through. So much is down to chance – being noticed at the right moment by the right critic or agent, catching a marketing trend, accidentally get a media mention because of something else, and so on. Writers can work long hours for months and earn absolutely nothing. Nada. We ruminate thusly because over the years we have run many author interviews based not on material success, but on whether or not their work was unusual or interesting. Today, Duane Pesice interviews author Brandon Barrows, a craftsman who should probably be better known…
We first encountered Brandon Barrows through his short collection The Castle-Town Tragedy (Dunhams Manor, 2015), which contains an excellent set of three stories concerning Carnacki the Ghost Finder, the occult detective created by William Hope Hodgson. These are indeed Carnacki tales, but they are slipped a little more towards modern sensibilities, avoiding too many archaic twists of style, and this works well. We thoroughly enjoyed them – and a further Carnacki story appeared in Occult Detective Quarterly #2.
Going backwards, we read his collection of weird fiction The Altar in the Hills (Raven Warren Studios, 2014), which also satisfied – a range of much shorter pieces which draw strongly on themes from H P Lovecraft. Brandon subsequently scripted a comics series – Mythos: Lovecraft’s Worlds (Calibre Comics) – and worked with artist Hugo Petrus, adapting such HPL stories as ‘Pickman’s Model’, ‘The Strange High House in the Mist’ and ‘The Curse of Yig’. All four issues are now available as a graphic novel.
After these, the author’s deep love for crime fiction and noir brought him to his novel This Rough Old World (Ulthar Press, 2018):
“Los Angeles, 1968, a time of radical change – for everyone but part-time private-eye Tom Ahearn, who’s stuck in a rut of routine and self-pity. When Charlie, a hippy of the lowest order, offers a quick buck for what seems like an easy job, Tom dives head-first into a world of casual sex, drugs, music and the occult. He’ll find himself rubbing shoulders with drugged-up hippies, young Republicans itching for war and slumming socialites bent on nothing less than completely reshaping the cosmos – all while unknowingly witnessing the nascence of one of the twentieth century’s most notorious evils.”
This is both a classic gritty private-eye novel and a piece of weird fiction, with an unexpected twist at the end.
Recent short works have also seen Brandon Barrows draw on one of his other interests, manga and the folklore of the Far East, a world of shadowy spirits and possessions, of oni and yokai, featuring Azuma Kuromori, a Japanese spiritual investigator. Here’s an extract from ‘Shadow’s Angle’ (ODQ#5):
Two in the afternoon and Sasai hadn’t tried to kill anyone yet. At least there was that. I didn’t know for a fact that he would try, but it was something to be prepared for. I had no idea what he was capable of. I doubted Sasai did himself, the way things had been the last couple of days. But even in the sparse mid-afternoon crowd of an average weekday in relatively sleepy Hatagaya, he wouldn’t try anything in the middle of the street. I hoped, anyway. That was the kind of trouble nobody needed.
There was already plenty of it, simmering, waiting—for what I didn’t know. I needed to keep it from boiling over.
I’d followed Yuta Sasai, at a discreet distance, for the better part of two days, and in that time I’d seen him devour with his eyes every inch of every woman and girl his path crossed, age no issue to his roaming gaze. Sexual harassment wasn’t his only sin, though. Yesterday, I’d seen him do some fast-talking and sleight of hand to grift a street vendor out of both wares and cash, only to toss his gains in a trash-bin on the next block. And, earlier that morning, he’d used some trick at a Suica machine to load his card with more than the system thought was possible, then leave the station without even glancing at the trains. No idea how he managed that or what the point of it might have been, other than general mischief. What was his vice, I wondered. Lust? Greed? Spite? General malevolence? I hadn’t an inkling, but it mattered. Before this was over, it would matter a hell of a lot. “Know thy enemy”—an exorcist’s mantra.
Sasai’s wanderings had taken him around three wards, and seemed aimless, apparently unfocused and without any overall goal. Was he looking for something? If so, he was going about it in the most half-assed way imaginable. I wanted to get this over with—it was anything but fun watching this thing ramble around the city wearing someone else’s skin, on pins and needles wondering what it’d do next—but patience can’t be overemphasized…
‘Shadow’s Angle’ copyright ODQ/Brandon Barrows 2019
Let’s hear from the man himself…
BRANDON BARROWS
Interviewed by Duane Pesice
Duane: Where should a reader that is new to your work start?
Brandon: My novel This Rough Old World is a fusion of most of everything I love: noir, private eyes, and cosmic abominations. A writer I respect called it Raymond Chandler meets Lovecraft, which is about the highest praise as I can imagine for this book.
Duane: Is there a piece that you are particularly proud of?
Brandon: I am extraordinarily fond of a weird story called ‘Beyond the Faded Shrine Gates,’ about a childhood incident from the life of my occult quasi-detective character Azuma Kuromori, that will appear later this year in Occult Detective Quarterly #7.
I’m also very proud of the Marshal Ernie Farrar western mysteries I’ve written, published in Crimson Streets Magazine. Those can be found online here:
“A Hanging Matter” – http://www.crimsonstreets.com/2018/05/27/a-hanging-matter/
“Noose Hungry” – http://www.crimsonstreets.com/2019/02/17/noose-hungry/
Duane: Whose work do you read, yourself?
Brandon: I read a tremendous amount of noir, mostly from the golden age of paperback originals, the 1950s, and the great mystery writers of the 1930s, as well as writers who are influenced by them. My absolute favorite writers, in no particular order, are Gil Brewer, Charles Williams, Donald Westlake, Erle Stanley, Louis L’Amour, and Max Allan Collins.
Duane: What kind of beer goes with your pizza? And what’s on the pizza?
Brandon: There’s a local ale I love called Switchback, from a brewery of the same name. There’s also a quadruple-bock called Day of Doom by Mystic Brewery I enjoy a lot.
As for pizza, I love pineapple and ham. Usually, it’s just pepperoni, though, because it’s the one kind of pizza my wife and I can agree on.
Duane: Do you consider your work weird, or horror? Or do you leave that to the marketing department?
Brandon: I leave it up to the reader, or the marketing department. I consider my work to be dark, in general, but the actual genre I write in varies wildly. I’ve written everything from Lovecraftian weird fiction to traditional westerns. There’s very little I’ve written where I was consciously going for horror, though I suppose there are horrific elements in much of my work. I’m very much interested in the dynamics between people, especially the way each of us are broken but somehow still manage to function, and that comes out in a variety of ways. There’s really nothing scarier than human beings.
Duane: You’ve been convicted of crimes against the empire. What would be your last meal? Include something big to hide the explosives in.
Brandon: A big vat of spare ribs with a nice block of C4 hidden in the bottom sounds good. I can fill up before I break out.
Duane: Are you involved in any arts besides writing? Any odd hobbies we should know about?
Brandon: I was in various bands for a number of years, but nothing recently. I draw occasionally, but generally not for public consumption. My hobbies are all pretty much book-related. I am a collector of paperback originals, particularly Gold Medal, Lion, and Pyramid Books, and am willing to travel to find them. Nothing weird or odd about that, I hope.
Duane: Cats or dogs?
Brandon: I love both, but we only have cats right now.
Duane: Tell us about a work-in-progress.
Brandon: I’m currently working on a P.I. novel that may or may not have supernatural elements. I like to write with an outline, because I tend to get lost in the work without one, but this piece I’m feeling out. All I’ll say right now is there’s a woman who’s intrigued a lot of men who is very real to them, but may or may not actually exist…
Duane: Thanks for joining us today. Is there anything else you would like readers to know?
Brandon: I appreciate the chance to chat and I hope folks will reach out if they’ve read my work. Writers thrive on feedback and many of us don’t hear enough from readers. I can be found on Twitter @BrandonBarrows and my website is www.brandonbarrowscomics.com