In this part of the tribute John and I continue our discussion of Wetbones with spoilers. I think this is important. I certainly don't want to ruin the experience of reading Wetbones for anyone. However for those of us who have read this masterpiece I think we need to explore this work deeper. Certainly I believe young horror authors could learn a lot from this interview.
David Agranoff:Ephram is one of the most disgusting serial killers I have read about in fiction. He controls his victims psychically, by feeding them pleasure. Is Ephram or Akriha addiction itself?
John Shirley: He uses a method that combines the AKISHRA methods and his own techniques--there was in fact some kind of Hindu myth about "soul worms" that feed off people who are addicted to things. That was the inspiration for the book. They are the Akishra. Ephram's power is to make you take pleasure in doing things you hate. Which is itself a metaphor...and he takes ordinary pleasure, which is fine, and twists it, into something monstrous.
DA:An early scene that really hit me was when Ephram tells Constance to leave, he knows she wont, the addiction to him is too strong. When he twists her pubic hair and tells her to like it is one of the most painful scenes I have ever read. Is this the nightmare of knowing you're in pain but don't have the ability to escape essence of addiction?
JS:Yes in true hardcore addiction there are few, if any, who don't know they're hurting themselves by it, and eventually most lose interest in the "romantic" side of it (as in Lou Reed's beautiful and powerful but perhaps unfortunate song "Heroin") but they still can't stop. "You'll destroy yourself and like it" the addiction tells us. "YOu'll hurt yourself and beg for more". It's not masochism per se--it's beyond that. It's uncontrolled self destruction. Suppose you had a powerful corrosive acid, stronger than hydrochloric acid, and somehow managed to combine it with a pleasure inducing drug so that if you dumped it on your flesh the pleasure overwhelmed the pain and as your flesh burned away before your eyes you felt enormous pleasure...till you died. It's sort of like that. However, it's also true that after awhile, the pleasure part stops--but you can't stop doing it somehow. You keep going long after it ceases to feel good...It's the rat pressing that lever...
DA:Who is the More Man in the novel? And is he based on someone you knew in Hollywood?
JS:No he's based on *types* of people. Maybe some of Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon" was infused into him...There are people that corrupt and venal but it's mostly hidden away inside them. With him it's wormed (as it were) from the inside, to show itself on the outside...like gangrene from a bullet wound spreading from inside to show on the flesh...
DA: The chapter where Garner has to identify the finger is heartbreaking, for me it is up there with the death of the dog in I Am Legend, one of the most heartbreaking moments in the genre. How did you get to core emotion of that moment?
JS: It fit with the story--it set Garner up for his relapse, which was something I wanted to describe. God knows what he went through is very vivid to me, and a writer likes what's vivid. But also I felt that Ephram would make a move like this and it's a pretty good plot twist too...
DA: Sam Denver and the Doublekey ranch has an old time Hollywood meets Eyes Wide Shut kind of thing going on. But it was written years before that film. What was your inspiration for the part of the novel?
JS: Well I did go to Plato's Retreat and the "Hellfire Club" in NYC a bit, and saw some heavy duty scenes, and then in the punk rock scene, you know, things happen, but some of it was research, based on reading, and some of it was "what if" thinking based on the idea of the Akishra...
DA:The Akisha is a very Lovecraftian entity, but your creation. An unseen evil creature that feeds off our addiction. If that creature was real would it be behind all addiction?
JS: The Akishra as imagined here is my creation, though, as I said, based a little on a Hindu story. To me it was mostly allegory but the idea in the book is that our brains are somewhat primitive and wired for addiction, and the Akishra take *advantage* of that weakness and encourage it and thrive on it and make it far worse and more prevalent. So it'd be sort of like a meth dealer. He's not the drug but he sells the shit...
DA: As dark and brutal as this novel got it seems important for you to remind readers considering the book there is a hopeful ending. Is that a statement about recovery?
JS: Yes I was in recovery and I have seen lots of people recover. I've said before that some of the worst people I've met were addicts in full bloom of their using, and some of the best people I've met anywhere are *former* addicts or anyway people in recovery (some like to insist that you're always an addict, you're just not using for ten, twenty, thirty years at a time). They have to be better people to stay clean. It's not just a case of let's pull a happy ending (all things being relative--it's not totally happy), out of the book, it's that I do see hope and I want to point to that light at the end of the tunnel.
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