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| What is horror? A Discussion With Tom Piccirilli http://horrorworld.org/msgboards/viewtopic.php?f=120&t=5382 |
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| Author: | ttzuma [ Tue Oct 21, 2008 11:18 am ] |
| Post subject: | What is horror? A Discussion With Tom Piccirilli |
While we are waiting for more Pic to arrive I thought I would post a discussion we had with Tom concerning the nature of horror. This discussion is a few years old and it started with a comment concerning the release of a Jack Ketchum novel: BCountryman: Great news for all Jack Ketchum fans out there. His long out of print novel HIDE AND SEEK will be re-released on Sept. 15 by Gauntlet Press. Now if they could only re-release COVER or THE CROSSINGS...All three novels are good, but none are really horror. Psychological horror...yes. But true horror...probably not. Crossings is a western! Cover is a vietnam vet in the woods! Not much there in the way of horror. But it's great! Everything Ketchum has written is a great read! I've read them all and if you can put your hands on them, do. Tom: I'd argue the point that "psychological horror" IS (or can be) "true horror." Where do you make the distinction? THE CROSSINGS may be a western, but it's a brutal tale with some seriously horrific scenes and imagery. COVER's got a crazed vet hunting a group of NY sophisticatos through the woods. Folks getting arrows through their chests and falling onto wooden stakes is pretty horrific to me. HIDE AND SEEK is something of a James M. Cain crime noir that spirals into horror territory by the end. There's one evil house that the protagonists decide to play in where they run across some truly heinous, gruesome stuff. Lots of blood and viciousness. TTzuma: I can understand where BCountryman is coming from Tom. I guess it's how we each define horror and what kind of horror we can relate to or enjoy. I have been rethinking these last coulple of days what I would consider is horror and what kind of horror I enjoy reading. I'm not kidding about this, after reading F--king Lie Down Already and Alchemy, I am going to become much more select in my horror reading. I want my horror to be entertaining, and I want to be scared. I want to read about monsters, ghosts, the undead, the supernatural, and things that go bump in the night. I want my villans to be otherworldly or forced to be that way. I want the plot lines to be linear, to go somewhere, to take me on a trip that could never happen. And most of all, I want at least one character to root for. What I am going to avoid (for a while anyway) are stories that exsist for only one purpose...to show "graphically" how badly people can torture, main, kill, or sexually abuse other people as entertainment. I see enough of this in the images of this crazy war we're in. I see this stuff everyday in the newspapers. I hear this stuff on talk radio and on the news. It leaves me empty when I read stories like Alchemy (I know, that was your intent). Maybe it's my age, maybe I've just seen too much carnage and sick things in my life, or maybe I've just become a wimp. I would never ask anyone not to write these kind of stories, and I would defend them to my dying breath. When I'm reading I just want to leave the real world where neighbors are killing neighbors... horror sometimes takes me there. Sometimes it doesn't. Tom: Well, not to play devil's advocate, or to defend my work, but while I think there is horror fiction that does indeed exist ONLY to show man's inhumanity to man, I humbly submit that FLDA and ALCHEMY are not such writing. Despite the graphic nature of the two pieces--Alchemy probably being the more extreme of the two--I was still dealing with many of the themes that thread through the body of my work. Haunted pasts, loss/search for identity, social isolation, the changes we undergo due to extreme grief, etc. (And just so folks unfamiliar with the stories aren't in a vacuum while we discuss this stuff, "Alchemy" is a tale about a group of teen friends out at night on a beach who learn there's been a terrible ferry accident nearby. When bodies start to float up on the surf, the gang begin to do some especially nasty things to...and with...the corpses. "Fuckin' Lie Down Already" is about a gut-shot cop whose family has been murdered by a hitman. He refuses to allow himself to die before he gets his revenge, and drives around New York with his wife's and son's bodies decomposing in the car while he hunts down the mobster who ordered the hit.) Believe it or not, while some writers might be overjoyed to have disgusted you and made you want to turn away from the writing, even as you struggled to finish, I'm not one of them. My intent is always to draw the reader in and promote thoughtful inspection of the work, not to have somebody just get grossed out and avoid such fiction. But I completely understand the need to turn yourself away from graphic or extreme horror. It's not really my cup of tea either (both tales were written years ago). And I agree that perhaps age has something to do with it. The older I get, the less stomach I have for extreme material unless there's a broad unrealistic "fun" element to it, the likes of which Ed Lee and (sometimes) even Dick Laymon write. As my pal Norman Partridge and I were discussing a few days back, neither one of us is as interested in the real heinous stuff anymore. It's possibly one of the reasons why, for the time being, I'm more comfortable writing crime fiction, which can be as emotionally devestating and possibly even "horrific" as horror without necessarily the bloodletting, the monsters, or the ghosts. Maybe all this stuff is more palatable if it's under the guise of supernatural horror. Dick Laymon's beast from THE CELLAR, THE BEAST HOUSE, and THE MIDNIGHT TOUR violates women through the trilogy. Maybe the monster element takes it far enough out of the realm of reality blunts the force of those kinds of horrific elements. But again, I think the definition of "horror" as it stands is a very broad one. If extreme graphic realistic bloodiness isn't "horror" to you, then you've got to say that Ketchum's THE GIRL NEXT DOOR isn't horror. You've got to say Laymon's ISLAND, IN THE DARK, AFTER MIDNIGHT, SAVAGE (also a western) aren't horror. You've got to say King's MISERY and CUJO aren't horror. You've got to say that Johnson's LET'S GO PLAY AT THE ADAMS' isn't horror. Now, if you don't enjoy that kind of horror, that's one thing. But simply to say it's NOT horror, or not "true" horror, seems to be offbase, so far as I'm concerned. My twin coppers. TTzuma: I would agree with you Tom on the batch of titles you wrote toward the end of your post, I never considered them true horror in my definition of horror (except Savage which I haven't read). You could also put Survivor in that list and I would have agreed with it. Once again, I wouldn't say that they were not true horror books for a lot of readers, I would say that they were all truly good books. You mention your friend Laymon's Island, I loved that book and would recommend it to anybody, but I would not tell them it was a horror book. In my mind, it is not a horror book unless it has elements of the supernatural. And I think your comment on "unrealist fun" sums up how I feel on those books. And I can see your point on having your readers become drawn in and become introspective while reading your work, "F--kin Lie Down Already" did in fact keep me thinking of the story long after I finished it. I understood the character and his motivations and I could put myself in his shoes. I'm not sure what you wanted the reader to think though after they got through with "Alchemy". I am not put off by your work, not by a long shot, and I hope no one else was put off by my comments. In my opinion you are one of the premier writers of horror and other fiction today, in fact, you have written what I consider one of the best books I ever read, November Mourns. I will continue to read your work, and I actively seek it out. I've got four Tom Piccirilli books sitting in my den waiting for me to pick them up. I do want to make one more point on Alchemy. This story was extremely well written, very raw, and emotional. It is disturbing and it is effecting. I would recommend that readers purchase this story and make up their own minds. Because truthfully, it really doesn't matter what I think. Thanks Tom, as always for your comments, you are very kind to post them here for us. Tom: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In my mind, it is not a horror book unless it has elements of the supernatural. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ah, this the point we'll have to agree to disagree on. I believe that horror has to do with attitude and emotional resonance, not necessarily with the supernatural. To me, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR and MISERY are every bit as much horror as, say, 'SALEM'S LOT or CITY OF THE DEAD. In any case, I appreciate the chance to partake in an interesting discussion. Hope others join in. And thanks for all the kind words, Tony! Laurel: I have to agree with Tom on this one. Some of the most gripping horror I've read deals with the horrible things folks do to each other. TTzuma: I wonder if gender plays into that. Laurel: Perhaps. |
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| Author: | horrordude [ Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:28 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: What is horror? A Discussion With Tom Piccirilli |
Excellent post. And also the kind you can go on and on talking about forever. In the end, for myself, I always come back to wanting to write what scares the crap out of me. Whether it has elements of the supernatural, or the Jack Ketchum focus on the misery some human beings are capable of, I think the best horror authors are the ones who stay true to what makes them cringe in the dark. (I know this post was from back in October ... I'm late like that a lot because I'm always spending too much time reading kick-ass authors like The Pic Man.) |
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