German-born American writer. At once inheritor of the Californian weird tradition of Richard Matheson and Dennis Etchison and
leading light of splatterpunk movement, Schow's powerful, sometimes witty, sometimes strangely sentimental stories are collected in such books as SEEING
RED, LOST ANGELS, BLACK LEATHER REQUIRED, CRYPT ORCHIDS, and HAVOC SWIMS JADED. In addition to the novels THE KILL RIFF, THE SHAFT, and BULLETS OF RAIN he is
co-author with Jeffrey Frentzen of THE OUTER LIMITS: THE OFFICIAL COMPANION (1986) and editor of SILVER SCREAM (1988). His film credits include movies such as
THE CROW, LEATHERFACE: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III, and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING.
PIC: Dave, you've apparently moved from black leather to black ops! GUN
WORK is filled with authentic-feeling scenes of dangerous men doing
seriously bad things. How much research did you do for the novel and what
course did it take? Or have you simply been moonlighting for unnameable
government branches or hiring out as a hitter for the syndicate?
DJS: The pat answer for that is: If I told you, I'd have to kill you.
Okay, okay … the more ephemeral answer is that I made it all up. For
example, you and I both know we don't have to be dead to write about
zombies or actually visit Mars to write about Martians. We extrapolate
based on what we know versus what we can find out. But closer to the real
answer you want: I'm comfortable with firearms, I've seen live gunshot
wounds (in an ER) and so on. When Charles Ardai was editing GUN WORK he
asked me if a couple of things were really possible, namely Barney's odd
surgery, and whether you actually could blow frigid breath through a
bullet hole in a corpse's head. To the first, I cited makeup genius Dick
Smith, who really did have a mangled finger removed on one hand to form a
perfectly symmetrical, three-fingered hand. To the second, that was
something I saw a police friend of mine do in a morgue. (Don't ask.)
PIC: Christ, I won't. Are you a gun owner yourself?
DJS: Aha, a loaded question in these suspect times. Short answer: Yes.
PIC: Your protagonist Barney lives by his own set of rules. You describe
such an existence as "his isolationist maxims and misanthropy, his fables
of a higher calling, the thin tissue latticework of realizations that he
was somehow purer, better, more dedicated than ordinary humans." Are you
describing anyone in particular? Any specific type of person that fits
that description besides a so-called outlaw?
DJS: Yes - a person that has seen and done things that "people shouldn't
oughta have to do" (to invoke an obscure movie quotation) - and then, that
person loses their context in the world. Such a person becomes like the
Chris Cooper character in AMERICAN BEAUTY - you know that guy is gonna
blow wide; it's just a question of time. Traditionally in fiction, people
like this either (1) find a cause, (2) self-destruct, or just explode and
take out innocent bystanders, or (3) rebirth themselves according to their
peculiar skill set. What I am suggesting is that Barney is trembling on
the edge of one of these inevitabilities; he is Chekov's gun on the
mantel. He's not based on an actual person, though.
PIC: You really walked off the turista trail when describing Mexico with
such a gutter and jungle realism. Have you spent a lot of time south of
the border?
DJS: Yeah, all the way back to eighth grade, when my stepmother used to
get my hair cut across the border because it was cheaper. Outside of the
cities, Mexico can still be a magical place.
PIC: I've got to say that I nearly leaped out of my seat with a cry of
joy when the masked wrestler La Atrocidad showed up. Some folks might
feel it's a strange element to add into a crime novel, but you blended it
seamlessly and gave something of a wink to the reader while you did it.
Comments?
DJS: I have to thank Keith Rainville (founder of the immortal Lucha Libre
magazine FROM PARTS UNKNOWN) for the "El Atrocidad" handle, and my Orange
County Lucha crew for a lot of the particulars, some of which I acquired
during a frantic hot-mat wrestling tour of Mexico that started in
Guadalajara and ended in Acapulco on New Year's Eve about ten days later,
with a bout in each stopover town - all in the company of some of the
greatest legends of the field. (The anecdote about El Cholo wrestling
with the flu is true; I witnessed it.) Charles Ardai cocked an eye at the
luchadors, justifiably concerned that such a sideroad might make the whole
book seem too garish and comic. But you have to remember that Mexico City
is one of the few places in the world where guys can commonly walk around
in flamboyant masks and everyone just accepts the cultural mythology.
Point one is that introducing a subset of masked men might derail the
entire book. Good point - that's why their presence is muted and
secondary. Point Two is that wrestlers, being celebrities, are frequent
targets for the very real kidnap industry south of the border; them or
their families. So your point about the "wink" is very knowing, because I
wanted to acknowledge them, but the book isn't about them. Charles left
it to me to make it fit without making it too blatant. If it had set off
his bullshit meter, we would have cut it.
PIC: GUN WORK is hardboiled as hell and has a real neo-noir sensibility.
What are you feelings about the classic form we see in the likes of film
noir, Gold Medal novels, etc.? Are you a fan? Any movies or authors in
particular?
DJS: I like that: "Hardboiled as hell." Can I use that as a blurb?
PIC: Take it, my man.
DJS: Let me see: Stark and Parker. Charles Willeford and I used to have the
same agent, which is how I started reading Hoke Moseley. David Goodis and
Fredric Brown. Gerald Kersh, for NIGHT AND THE CITY. Kersh is criminally
under-read these days, as is James Crumley. I came to Chandler, Hammett
and Cain AFTER reading those guys. Chuck Palahniuk is, in his own special
way, a very hardboiled writer even though he's not what categorists would
call a crime writer. Much of the basic coursework gelled for me when I
was asked to write a huge text supplement for a DVD reissue of RESERVOIR
DOGS. It was called "The Film Noir Web" and it was basically a
fast-forward, Cliff's Notes, basic-coursework primer in movie noir where I
had to interrelate, say, POINT BLANK with Hemingway with Jules Dassin and
Mickey Spillane - all of this with clickable links so you could jump from
one point to the another whenever a person or title was cited. Then the
film noir paradise of Turner Classic Movies came along and I was totally
doomed to record everything. A beautiful example of a modern noir is John
Dahl's THE LAST SEDUCTION - I'd urge everyone to pick up the 2-disc set,
which is Region 2, but letterboxed. John is directing episodes of DEXTER
right now, but go watch his whole canon - RED ROCK WEST, KILL ME AGAIN. I
have a soft spot for THE BIG SLEEP so was thrilled when the "alternate"
version came out.
PIC: With an aged Robert Mitchum playing Marlowe? In England?
DJS: Not that one. The "alternate" BIG SLEEP I'm talking about was the original
cut of the Bogart picture--the 1945 cut that actually explained what happened to
the chauffeur, as opposed to the 1946 release cut with the added/amended
Bacall scenes. And I love Spillane playing Hammer in THE GIRL HUNTERS, but
don't overlook Darren McGavin, who was the best TV Mike Hammer ever. We
could be here all night doing this, but for now I'll say this: Now that
Crumley has died, let's not let him go out of print the way Kersh did.
His stuff is just too good to lose.
PIC: Despite publishing a great deal of notable, edgy short fiction,
this is only your fourth novel. You seem a natural at the format. Will
we see more novels from you?
DJS: Yes - thanks to GUN WORK, which Charles Ardai leaked to a few people
in New York, with the result that I wound up with a two-book, hard-soft
deal with St. Martin's (with staggering speed, I might add). The first of
those is INTERNECINE, my "orphaned" hit-man novel from 2004, which was
originally my follow-up to BULLETS OF RAIN. I'm rewriting it right now.
Last week I turned in a novel for Ardai's "Gabriel Hunt" spinoff line from
Hard Case, which should see the light of day sometime in 2009.
INTERNECINE should pop up around the end of that year but is technically a
"January 2010" release. But before that comes out, I have to complete
Book #2 of the deal. Then we'll see if I have any momentum - the kind of
momentum I had hoped to renew in 2003, when BULLETS came out. I had no
agent, no editor, and no discernable track record; it was like selling a
first novel all over again. And I did it. Then I was outsmarted by the
ever-morphing nature of the publishing industry. As Monique Marvez says:
"Silly, silly man."
PIC: Man, when you get up to speed, you really take off.
Look forward to all the new novels. It's been twenty years since the publication
of your seminal anthology SILVER SCREAM. Any chance you'll be editing more anthos?
DJS: I threw down and gave it a hell of a game try about five years ago,
when some folks requested I captain a mass-market horror anthology. Via
e-mail I was able to get the entire book filled in eighteen hours flat -
that is, I got commitments and confirmations from everybody I asked. No
conditions other than each writer was to commit their idea of a scary
story - an original. Then it took three excruciating years to unravel.
You probably know the drill: Contracts that were beyond bad - they were
inept, which hinted at the horrors to follow. Then the speech about how I
"had to have an A-list name" … and the A-list only had three names on it.
I actually scored one of them, and then had to let him bail as bureaucracy
and too-many-cooks slowly strangled the whole project. One by one I had
to apologize to my terrific contributors as the book slowly turned to
dogshit in my hands due to administrative incompetence. Finally I had to
drag it out into the yard and shoot it in the head. That'll teach me!
Joe Lansdale and I have been trying for years to accomplish a reprint
anthology - the best of TWILIGHT ZONE Magazine. A no-brainer, right, with
all the correct "star names" and lots of other good stuff besides; a
summation of that rather golden period for scary fiction. Nobody's
interested.
PIC: Bastards. What else is in the works for you?
DJS: Apart from working in the script mines (which keeps the lights on
around here), I've got to finish the follow-up to INTERNECINE. I turned
down a shitload of anthology invites in 2008 but finally accepted a couple
of gigs that didn't have all the blood drained out of them - you know,
where the stupid "theme" overrides any possibility of writing a decent
piece of short fiction. Then those stories, all your little red-headed
stepchildren, pile up and you have to store them in a collection, for
which I am eternally grateful to Bill Schafer of Subterranean Press, who
is always down to provide my stories with handsome little homes.
PIC: Thanks greatly for your time, Dave!
DJS: Easy peasy. I leave it to your readers to tell me I talk too much.
http://www.davidjschow.com
Fans of crime films and fiction should definitely check out this area of David's site:
http://www.davidjschow.com/essay/essay_filmnoir.html
[David J. Schow interviewed by Tom Piccirilli 10/28]
PIC: Dave, you've apparently moved from black leather to black ops! GUN
WORK is filled with authentic-feeling scenes of dangerous men doing
seriously bad things. How much research did you do for the novel and what
course did it take? Or have you simply been moonlighting for unnameable
government branches or hiring out as a hitter for the syndicate?
DJS: The pat answer for that is: If I told you, I'd have to kill you.
Okay, okay … the more ephemeral answer is that I made it all up. For
example, you and I both know we don't have to be dead to write about
zombies or actually visit Mars to write about Martians. We extrapolate
based on what we know versus what we can find out. But closer to the real
answer you want: I'm comfortable with firearms, I've seen live gunshot
wounds (in an ER) and so on. When Charles Ardai was editing GUN WORK he
asked me if a couple of things were really possible, namely Barney's odd
surgery, and whether you actually could blow frigid breath through a
bullet hole in a corpse's head. To the first, I cited makeup genius Dick
Smith, who really did have a mangled finger removed on one hand to form a
perfectly symmetrical, three-fingered hand. To the second, that was
something I saw a police friend of mine do in a morgue. (Don't ask.)
PIC: Christ, I won't. Are you a gun owner yourself?
DJS: Aha, a loaded question in these suspect times. Short answer: Yes.
PIC: Your protagonist Barney lives by his own set of rules. You describe
such an existence as "his isolationist maxims and misanthropy, his fables
of a higher calling, the thin tissue latticework of realizations that he
was somehow purer, better, more dedicated than ordinary humans." Are you
describing anyone in particular? Any specific type of person that fits
that description besides a so-called outlaw?
DJS: Yes - a person that has seen and done things that "people shouldn't
oughta have to do" (to invoke an obscure movie quotation) - and then, that
person loses their context in the world. Such a person becomes like the
Chris Cooper character in AMERICAN BEAUTY - you know that guy is gonna
blow wide; it's just a question of time. Traditionally in fiction, people
like this either (1) find a cause, (2) self-destruct, or just explode and
take out innocent bystanders, or (3) rebirth themselves according to their
peculiar skill set. What I am suggesting is that Barney is trembling on
the edge of one of these inevitabilities; he is Chekov's gun on the
mantel. He's not based on an actual person, though.
PIC: You really walked off the turista trail when describing Mexico with
such a gutter and jungle realism. Have you spent a lot of time south of
the border?
DJS: Yeah, all the way back to eighth grade, when my stepmother used to
get my hair cut across the border because it was cheaper. Outside of the
cities, Mexico can still be a magical place.
PIC: I've got to say that I nearly leaped out of my seat with a cry of
joy when the masked wrestler La Atrocidad showed up. Some folks might
feel it's a strange element to add into a crime novel, but you blended it
seamlessly and gave something of a wink to the reader while you did it.
Comments?
DJS: I have to thank Keith Rainville (founder of the immortal Lucha Libre
magazine FROM PARTS UNKNOWN) for the "El Atrocidad" handle, and my Orange
County Lucha crew for a lot of the particulars, some of which I acquired
during a frantic hot-mat wrestling tour of Mexico that started in
Guadalajara and ended in Acapulco on New Year's Eve about ten days later,
with a bout in each stopover town - all in the company of some of the
greatest legends of the field. (The anecdote about El Cholo wrestling
with the flu is true; I witnessed it.) Charles Ardai cocked an eye at the
luchadors, justifiably concerned that such a sideroad might make the whole
book seem too garish and comic. But you have to remember that Mexico City
is one of the few places in the world where guys can commonly walk around
in flamboyant masks and everyone just accepts the cultural mythology.
Point one is that introducing a subset of masked men might derail the
entire book. Good point - that's why their presence is muted and
secondary. Point Two is that wrestlers, being celebrities, are frequent
targets for the very real kidnap industry south of the border; them or
their families. So your point about the "wink" is very knowing, because I
wanted to acknowledge them, but the book isn't about them. Charles left
it to me to make it fit without making it too blatant. If it had set off
his bullshit meter, we would have cut it.
PIC: GUN WORK is hardboiled as hell and has a real neo-noir sensibility.
What are you feelings about the classic form we see in the likes of film
noir, Gold Medal novels, etc.? Are you a fan? Any movies or authors in
particular?
DJS: I like that: "Hardboiled as hell." Can I use that as a blurb?
PIC: Take it, my man.
DJS: Let me see: Stark and Parker. Charles Willeford and I used to have the
same agent, which is how I started reading Hoke Moseley. David Goodis and
Fredric Brown. Gerald Kersh, for NIGHT AND THE CITY. Kersh is criminally
under-read these days, as is James Crumley. I came to Chandler, Hammett
and Cain AFTER reading those guys. Chuck Palahniuk is, in his own special
way, a very hardboiled writer even though he's not what categorists would
call a crime writer. Much of the basic coursework gelled for me when I
was asked to write a huge text supplement for a DVD reissue of RESERVOIR
DOGS. It was called "The Film Noir Web" and it was basically a
fast-forward, Cliff's Notes, basic-coursework primer in movie noir where I
had to interrelate, say, POINT BLANK with Hemingway with Jules Dassin and
Mickey Spillane - all of this with clickable links so you could jump from
one point to the another whenever a person or title was cited. Then the
film noir paradise of Turner Classic Movies came along and I was totally
doomed to record everything. A beautiful example of a modern noir is John
Dahl's THE LAST SEDUCTION - I'd urge everyone to pick up the 2-disc set,
which is Region 2, but letterboxed. John is directing episodes of DEXTER
right now, but go watch his whole canon - RED ROCK WEST, KILL ME AGAIN. I
have a soft spot for THE BIG SLEEP so was thrilled when the "alternate"
version came out.
PIC: With an aged Robert Mitchum playing Marlowe? In England?
DJS: Not that one. The "alternate" BIG SLEEP I'm talking about was the original
cut of the Bogart picture--the 1945 cut that actually explained what happened to
the chauffeur, as opposed to the 1946 release cut with the added/amended
Bacall scenes. And I love Spillane playing Hammer in THE GIRL HUNTERS, but
don't overlook Darren McGavin, who was the best TV Mike Hammer ever. We
could be here all night doing this, but for now I'll say this: Now that
Crumley has died, let's not let him go out of print the way Kersh did.
His stuff is just too good to lose.
PIC: Despite publishing a great deal of notable, edgy short fiction,
this is only your fourth novel. You seem a natural at the format. Will
we see more novels from you?
DJS: Yes - thanks to GUN WORK, which Charles Ardai leaked to a few people
in New York, with the result that I wound up with a two-book, hard-soft
deal with St. Martin's (with staggering speed, I might add). The first of
those is INTERNECINE, my "orphaned" hit-man novel from 2004, which was
originally my follow-up to BULLETS OF RAIN. I'm rewriting it right now.
Last week I turned in a novel for Ardai's "Gabriel Hunt" spinoff line from
Hard Case, which should see the light of day sometime in 2009.
INTERNECINE should pop up around the end of that year but is technically a
"January 2010" release. But before that comes out, I have to complete
Book #2 of the deal. Then we'll see if I have any momentum - the kind of
momentum I had hoped to renew in 2003, when BULLETS came out. I had no
agent, no editor, and no discernable track record; it was like selling a
first novel all over again. And I did it. Then I was outsmarted by the
ever-morphing nature of the publishing industry. As Monique Marvez says:
"Silly, silly man."
PIC: Man, when you get up to speed, you really take off.
Look forward to all the new novels. It's been twenty years since the publication
of your seminal anthology SILVER SCREAM. Any chance you'll be editing more anthos?
DJS: I threw down and gave it a hell of a game try about five years ago,
when some folks requested I captain a mass-market horror anthology. Via
e-mail I was able to get the entire book filled in eighteen hours flat -
that is, I got commitments and confirmations from everybody I asked. No
conditions other than each writer was to commit their idea of a scary
story - an original. Then it took three excruciating years to unravel.
You probably know the drill: Contracts that were beyond bad - they were
inept, which hinted at the horrors to follow. Then the speech about how I
"had to have an A-list name" … and the A-list only had three names on it.
I actually scored one of them, and then had to let him bail as bureaucracy
and too-many-cooks slowly strangled the whole project. One by one I had
to apologize to my terrific contributors as the book slowly turned to
dogshit in my hands due to administrative incompetence. Finally I had to
drag it out into the yard and shoot it in the head. That'll teach me!
Joe Lansdale and I have been trying for years to accomplish a reprint
anthology - the best of TWILIGHT ZONE Magazine. A no-brainer, right, with
all the correct "star names" and lots of other good stuff besides; a
summation of that rather golden period for scary fiction. Nobody's
interested.
PIC: Bastards. What else is in the works for you?
DJS: Apart from working in the script mines (which keeps the lights on
around here), I've got to finish the follow-up to INTERNECINE. I turned
down a shitload of anthology invites in 2008 but finally accepted a couple
of gigs that didn't have all the blood drained out of them - you know,
where the stupid "theme" overrides any possibility of writing a decent
piece of short fiction. Then those stories, all your little red-headed
stepchildren, pile up and you have to store them in a collection, for
which I am eternally grateful to Bill Schafer of Subterranean Press, who
is always down to provide my stories with handsome little homes.
PIC: Thanks greatly for your time, Dave!
DJS: Easy peasy. I leave it to your readers to tell me I talk too much.
http://www.davidjschow.com
Fans of crime films and fiction should definitely check out this area of David's site:
http://www.davidjschow.com/essay/essay_filmnoir.html
[David J. Schow interviewed by Tom Piccirilli 10/28]
