Hey, Tom, hope you had a cool Christmas.

I've been getting a lot of your early stuff lately, and Dark Father came to me today. This was your first novel, right? I couldn't remember if you already had one out before this, but I don't think so.

The Hellboy question I had was, did you write it like a Piccirilli novel just using the Hellboy character, or do you have to be a Hellboy fan to be able to really get in to the book? I plan on grabbing a copy next month regardless, just wondering. I liked the Hellboy movies, but I'm wouldn't call myself a Hellboy fanatic.

But I'm right in the middle of The Midnight Road right now, and I'm really enjoying it. I think it has the same feel as Headstone City-or, at least to me it does. And Headstone City was a great read.

Hope I didn't bug ya with the questions.


Happy Holidays,

Mike.

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“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” - Joseph Conrad.

Hey Mike:

DARK FATHER was indeed my first novel.

I purposefully wrote HELLBOY: EMERALD HELL to be a standalone read. I don't use any of the cast of characters from the HB series or go into any discussion of past exploits or anything of the kind. It's very much as if HB fell into the middle of a Piccirilli novel, and features a few of my own characters, including Fishboy Lenny, whom I use in a good deal of my southern gothic fiction.

Glad you're digging TMR and liked HC as well. They, and November Mourns & The Dead Letters, have a similar flavor because I tried to balance out horror & dark fantasy with crime & suspense.

Thanks for the interest, man!

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Tom Piccirilli is the author of over 20 novels including SHADOW SEASON, THE COLD SPOT, and A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN. www.thecoldspot.blogspot.com

Some rather unexpected news on this novel from Tom himself on Facebook:

CONTEST: What's the prize? How about a signed copy of my 1st novel DARK FATHER? Anyone who knows me knows I'm pretty embarrassed by this book. Written when I was 21 and published in 1990, it's a horror novel released by Pocket Books back when I thought I was William S. Burroughs, Kurt Vonnegut, Peter Straub, Dennis Etchison, Skipp & Spector, and Ramsey Campbell rolled into one. No grounding, lots of literary fireworks and flamboyance, and the worldview of a kid who hadn't experienced much life yet. I spent years buying up copies to get them off the secondary market. What do you have to do to win? Just go LIKE my fan page. I'll draw a name at random on April 1 (2012).