Riley Sager was back at The Poisoned Pen to talk about his latest book, The Only One Left. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, welcomed him. There are signed copies of The Only One Left available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3PpfJZX
Here’s the summary of The Only One Left.
Bestselling author Riley Sager returns with a Gothic chiller about a young caregiver assigned to work for a woman accused of a Lizzie Borden-like massacre decades earlier.
At seventeen, Lenora Hope Hung her sister with a rope
Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.
Stabbed her father with a knife Took her mother’s happy life
It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said But she’s the only one not dead
As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.
Riley Sager is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, most recently The Only One Left and The House Across the Lake. A native of Pennsylvania, he now lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed William Maz to the bookstore. Maz, the author of The Bucharest Dossier, was there to discuss his latest book, The Bucharest Legacy. There are signed copies of The Bucharest Legacy available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/44hSyom
Here is the description of The Bucharest Legacy.
CIA agent Bill Hefflin is back in Bucharest—immersed in a cauldron of spies and crooked politicians
The CIA is rocked to its core when a KGB defector divulges that there is a KGB mole inside the Agency. They learn that the mole’s handler is a KGB agent known as Boris. CIA analyst Bill Hefflin recognizes that name—Boris is the code name of Hefflin’s longtime KGB asset. If the defector is correct, Hefflin realizes Boris must be a triple agent, and his supposed mole has been passing false intel to Hefflin and the CIA. What’s more, this makes Hefflin the prime suspect as the KGB mole inside the Agency.
Hefflin is given a chance to prove his innocence by returning to his city of birth, Bucharest, Romania, to find Boris and track down the identity of the mole. It’s been three years since the bloody revolution, and what he finds is a cauldron of spies, crooked politicians, and a country controlled by the underground and the new oligarchs, all of whom want to find Boris. But Hefflin has a secret that no one else knows—Boris has been dead for over a year.
Perfect for fans of John le Carré and Brad Thor
While the novels in the Bill Hefflin Spy Thriller Series stand on their own and can be read in any order, the publication sequence is:
The Bucharest Dossier The Bucharest Legacy
Born in Bucharest, Romania, William Maz emigrated to the U.S. as a child. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Following a residency in anesthesiology at Yale, he practiced medicine, and during that time, he developed a passion for writing fiction. He studied writing at Harvard, The New School, and The Writer’ s Studio in New York City, and he is now writing full time. Maz divides his time between Pennsylvania and New York City. The Bucharest Legacy is his latest novel and the sequel to The Bucharest Dossier.
Patrick Millikin from The Poisoned Pen welcomed Luis Alberto Urrea to talk about his latest book, Good Night, Irene. Urrea tells the fictionalized experience of his mother’s experience with the Red Cross as a Donut Dolly in World War II. There are signed copies of Good Night, Irene available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/430DJpg
Here’s the description of Good Night, Irene.
An Instant New York Times Bestseller
This “powerful, uplifting, and deeply personal novel” (Kristin Hannah, #1 NYT bestselling author of The Four Winds), at once “a heart-wrenching wartime drama” (Christina Baker Kline, #1 NYT bestselling author of Orphan Train) and “a moving and graceful tribute to heroic women” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), asks the question: What if a friendship forged on the front lines of war defines a life forever?
In the tradition ofThe NightingaleandTranscription, this is a searing epic based on the magnificent and true story of courageous Red Cross women.
“Urrea’s touch is sure, his exuberance carries you through . . . He is a generous writer, not just in his approach to his craft but in the broader sense of what he feels necessary to capture about life itself.” —Financial TimesIn 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle.
After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Their time in Europe will see them embroiled in danger, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald. Through her friendship with Dorothy, and a love affair with a courageous American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope, which becomes more precarious by the day, is for all three of them to survive the war intact.
Taking as inspiration his mother’s own Red Cross service, Luis Alberto Urrea has delivered an overlooked story of women’s heroism in World War II. With its affecting and uplifting portrait of friendship and valor in harrowing circumstances, Good Night, Irene powerfully demonstrates yet again that Urrea’s “gifts as a storyteller are prodigious” (NPR).
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his landmark work of nonfiction The Devil’s Highway, now in its thirty-fourth paperback printing, Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of numerous other works of nonfiction, poetry, and fiction, including the national bestsellers The Hummingbird’s Daughter and The House of Broken Angels, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. A recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, among many other honors, he lives outside Chicago and teaches at the University of Illinois Chicago.
If you love a good storyteller, you should watch this event with Luis Alberto Urrea.
It was my honor to act as guest host when Sarah Stewart Taylor recently appeared for a virtual event at The Poisoned Pen. Taylor is the author of four Maggie D’Arcy mysteries, including the most recent, A Stolen Child. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, said they just received the signed copies. You can find A Stolen Child, and the other Maggie D’Arcy novels in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3Xnec8C
Here’s the description of A Stolen Child.
“Taylor presents an appealingly nuanced twist on the traditional police procedural.” –The Washington Post
Sarah Stewart Taylor is known for her atmospheric portrayal of an American detective in Ireland, and her critically acclaimed series returns with A Stolen Child.
After months of training, former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy is now officially a Garda. She’s finally settling into life in Ireland and so is her teenage daughter, Lilly. Maggie may not be a detective yet, but she’s happy with her community policing assignment in Dublin’s Portobello neighborhood.
When she and her partner find former model and reality tv star Jade Elliot murdered—days after responding to a possible domestic violence disturbance at her apartment—they also discover Jade’s toddler daughter missing. Shorthanded thanks to an investigation into a gangland murder in the neighborhood, Maggie’s friend, Detective Inspector Roly Byrne, brings her onto his team to help find the missing child. But when a key discovery is made, the case only becomes more confusing—and more dangerous. Amidst a nationwide manhunt, Maggie and her colleagues must look deep into Jade’s life—both personal and professional—to find a ruthless killer.
SARAH STEWART TAYLOR is the author of the Sweeney St. George series and the Maggie D’arcy series. Taylor grew up on Long Island in New York and was educated at Middlebury College in Vermont and Trinity College in Dublin. She lived in Dublin, Ireland in the mid-90s and she now lives with her family on a farm in Vermont where they raise sheep and grow blueberries.
Here’s the video of the event with Sarah Stewart Taylor. I apologize that my section is so dark, but you really want to listen to Sarah anyways.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen recently welcomed two authors for a virtual event. I.S. Berry’s debut is The Peacock and the Sparrow. Joseph Kanon was in publishing before he started as an author. This time, though, he’s serving as guest host. You might still be able to get a signed copy of The Peacock and the Sparrow through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3JpPEWM
Here’s the summary of The Peacock and the Sparrow.
During the Arab Spring, an American spy’s final mission goes dangerously awry in this explosive and “remarkable debut” (Joseph Kanon, New York Times bestselling author) from a former CIA officer that is perfect for fans of John LeCarre, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Alan Furst.
Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy, is ready to come in from the cold. Stationed in Bahrain off the coast of Saudi Arabia for his final tour, he’s anxious to dispense with his mission—uncovering Iranian support for the insurgency against the monarchy. But then he meets Almaisa, a beautiful and enigmatic artist, and his eyes are opened to a side of Bahrain most expats never experience, to questions he never thought to ask.
When his trusted informant becomes embroiled in a murder, Collins finds himself drawn deep into the conflict and his growing romance with Almaisa upended. In an instant, he’s caught in the crosshairs of a revolution. Drawing on all his skills as a spymaster, he must navigate a bloody uprising, win Almaisa’s love, and uncover the murky border where Bahrain’s secrets end and America’s begin.
“A breathless tour-de-force, the perfect spy tale” (Ian Caldwell, author of The Fifth Gospel) and dripping with authenticity, The Peacock and the Sparrow is a timely story of the elusiveness of truth, the power of love and belief, and the universal desire to be part of a cause greater than oneself.
I.S. Berry spent six years as an operations officer for the CIA, serving in wartime Baghdad and elsewhere. She has lived and worked throughout Europe and the Middle East, including two years in Bahrain during the Arab Spring. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and Haverford College. Raised in the suburbs of Washington, DC, she lives in Virginia with her husband and son.
Joseph Kanon calls I.S. Berry’s debut “extraordinary”. Enjoy the virtual event.
We Are Here to Hurt Each Other, Paula D. Ashe (Nictitating)
Hell Hath No Sorrow Like a Woman Haunted, RJ Joseph (The Seventh Terrace)
Spontaneous Human Combustion, Richard Thomas (Keylight)
The Black Maybe, Attila Veres (Valancourt)
Superior Achievement in an Anthology
WINNER: Screams from the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Nightfire)
Human Monsters: A Horror Anthology, Sadie Hartmann & Ashley Saywers, eds. (Dark Matter Ink)
Mother: Tales of Love and Terror, Christi Nogle & Willow Becker, eds. (Weird Little Words)
Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga, Lindy Ryan, ed. (Black Spot)
Chromophobia: A Strangehouse Anthology of Women in Horror, Sara Tantlinger, ed. (Strangehouse)
Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction
WINNER: Writing in the Dark: The Workbook, Tim Waggoner (Guide Dog)
Toil and Trouble: A Women’s History of the Occult, Melanie R. Anderson & Lisa Kröger (Quirk)
Weird Fiction: A Genre Study, Michael Cisco (Palgrave)
A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of American’s Ghosts, Leanna Renee Hieber & Andrea Janes (Citadel)
Writing Poetry in the Dark, Stephanie M. Wytovich (Raw Dog Screaming)
Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction
WINNER: “I Don’t Read Horror (& Other Weird Tales)”, Lee Murray (Interstellar Flight 10/22)
“This is Not a Poem”, Cynthia Pelayo (Writing Poetry in the Dark)
“African American Horror Authors and Their Craft: The Evolution of Horror Fiction from African Folklore”, L. Marie Wood (Conjuring Worlds: An Afrofuturist Textbook for Middle and High School Students)
“The H Word: The Horror of Hair”, L. Marie Wood (Nightmare 7/22)
“A Clown in the Living Room: The Sinister Clown on Television”, Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. (The Many Lives of Scary Clowns: Essays on Pennywise, Twisty, the Joker, Krusty and More)
Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection
WINNER: Crime Scene, Cynthia Pelayo (Raw Dog Screaming)
Sifting the Ashes, Michael Bailey & Marge Simon (Crystal Lake)
Girls from the County, Donna Lynch (Raw Dog Screaming)
The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry, Sumiko Saulson (self-published)
The Gravity of Existence, Christina Sng (Interstellar Flight)
Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel
WINNER: Kolchak: The Night Stalker: 50th Anniversary, James Aquilone, ed. (Moonstone)
Eat the Rich, Sarah Gailey, art by Pius Bak (Boom!)
Kraken Inferno: The Last Hunt, Alessandro Manzetti, art by Stefano Cardoselli (Independent Legions)
Something is Killing the Children Vol 4, James IV Tynion, art by Werther Dell’Edera (Boom!)
The Me You Love in the Dark, Skottie Young, art by Jorge Corona (Image Comics)
Superior Achievement in a Screenplay
WINNER (TIE): The Black Phone, Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargill (Blumhouse Productions, Crooked Highway, Universal Pictures)
WINNER (TIE): Stranger Things: “s4e1: Chapter One: The Hellfire Club”, The Duffer Brothers (21 Laps Entertainment, Monkey Massacre, Netflix, Upside Down Pictures)
The Pale Blue Eye, Scott Cooper (Cross Creek Pictures, Grisbi Productions, Streamline Global Group)
Men, Alex Garland (DNA Films)
Pearl, Mia Goth & Ti West (A24, Bron Creative, Little Lamb, New Zealand Film Commission)
As previously announced, Elizabeth Massie, Nuzo Onoh, and John Saul received the Lifetime Achievement Award; Undertow Publications won the Specialty Press Award; Meghan Arcuri received the Richard Laymon President’s Award; Karen Lansdale received the Silver Hammer Award; and David Jeffery received the Mentor of the Year Award.
John Charles from The Poisoned Pen recently welcomed Maxym M. Martineau for a live event at the bookstore. Martineau’s latest fantasy/romance is Shadows of the Lost. There are a few signed copies still available through the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/ymh6fezh
Here is the description of Shadows of the Lost.
Once I was a Charmer, and the magical beasts of this world loved me. Now I’m something else. Something darker.
A spicy, beautifully angsty enemies-to-lovers LGBTQIA+ fantasy romance.
As a member of the Charmers Council, Gaige is able to form lasting bonds with the magical beasts of his world. At least, he used to be a Charmer…until he died and was brought back as one of the immortal assassins of Cruor. Now he’s far more dangerous.
…and something beyond the shadows lies in wait, hungry to claim him for its own.
As leader of the assassins, all Kost can do is watch as Gaige struggles with his new life day by day. He wants nothing more than to ease Gaige’s suffering—yet how can he when they both know he’s the one responsible? There is nothing left but bitter memories and hopeless longing between them. Yet when Gaige is lost to the shadow realm, Kost is the only one with any chance of bringing him back: if they can learn to trust (and perhaps love) each other again.
Intense, compelling, and impossible to put down, Shadows of the Lost is perfect for readers looking for:
epic New Adult fantasy series with a bit of spice
a unique premise, delicious angst, and a plot to die for
high fantasy with paranormal and romance elements
Maxym M. Martineau is an article and social media writer by day and a fantasy romance author by night. When she’s not getting heated over broken hearts, she enjoys playing video games, sipping a well-made margarita, competing in just about any sport, and of course, reading. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Arizona State University and lives with her husband and fur babies in Arizona. Connect with her at MaxymMartineau.com or through Twitter and Instagram @maxymmckay.
Martineau’s conversation about her process to publishing is quite interesting. Check it out.
Barbara Peters welcomed Polly Stewart, author of The Good Ones, for a virtual event. Megan Miranda also appeared to interview Stewart. You can order a signed copy of The Good Ones through the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/4wyz9zv9
Here’s the description of The Good Ones.
“Polly Stewart’s The Good Ones is a fantastic achievement. A classic Southern Gothic tale told through the prism of modern-day sensibilities. Not to be missed.”—S. A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of Razorblade Tears
“A riveting, unflinching exploration of adolescent female friendships, small-town pressures to conform, and the true crime lover’s tendency to conflate empathy and voyeurism, The Good Ones drew me in from the first lines and still hasn’t released me, days after finishing.”—Katie Gutierrez, nationally bestselling author of More Than You’ll Ever Know
An engrossing work of literary suspense that illuminates the push and pull of female friendship and the costs of being good when the rules for women begin to chafe.
The last time Nicola Bennett saw Lauren Ballard she was scraping a key along the side of a new cherry-red Chevy Silverado. That was the night before her friend mysteriously vanished from her home, leaving a bloodstained washcloth and signs of a struggle—as well as her grieving husband and young daughter—behind.
Now, nearly twenty years later, Nicola, newly unemployed and still haunted by the disappearance of her childhood friend, is returning to her Appalachian hometown. For Nicola, Tyndall County has remained frozen in time. Everywhere she turns she’s reminded of Lauren. Yet shockingly, her former friends and neighbors have all moved on. Drawn to stories of missing girls, Nicola obsessively searches the internet, hoping to discover a clue to Lauren’s ultimate fate.
Driven by a desperate need to know what happened to her friend, Nicola takes a job in her hometown, determined to uncover any bit of information, any small clue, that can help. Deep down she knows the answers are tucked in the hollows and valleys of this small Blue Ridge county. As secrets come to light and the truth begins to unravel, will Nicola finally find release and break free of the past—or lose herself completely to unanswered questions from her adolescence?
Polly Stewart grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, where she still lives. She graduated from Hollins University and has an MFA in fiction and a PhD in British literature from Washington University in St. Louis. Her short fiction has appeared in literary collections and journals, including Best NewAmerican Voices, The Best American Mystery Stories, Epoch, and the Alaska Quarterly Review. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, Crime Reads, and Poets & Writers, among other publications.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Alison Gaylin and Wendy Walker to the store for a live event. Gaylin has taken over the writing of Robert B. Parker’s Sunny Randall series. Her first one in the series is Robert B. Parker’s Bad Influence. Wendy Walker’s new thriller, with a new publisher, is What Remains. Signed copies of both books are available through the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Here’s the summary of Robert B. Parker’s Bad Influence.
Boston PI Sunny Randall investigates the dark side of social media in this exciting new thriller in the bestselling series.
Sunny Randall’s newest client, Blake, seems to have it all: he is an Instagram influencer, with all the perks the lifestyle entails—a beautiful girlfriend, wealth, and adoring fans. But one of those fans has turned ugly, and Sunny is brought on board by Blake’s manager, Bethany, to protect him and to uncover who is out to kill him. In doing so, she investigates a glamorous world rife with lies and schemes…and ties to a dangerous criminal scene.
When Bethany goes missing and the threats against Blake escalate, Sunny realizes that in order to solve this case, she has to find out exactly who Blake and Bethany are, behind the Instagram filters. While digging into their pasts, she is also forced to confront her own, as old friends—and ex-husbands—reappear. With a combination of old-school crime-solving skills and modern internet savvy, Sunny will stop at nothing to catch a killer.
Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring police chief Jesse Stone, and the acclaimed Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch Westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010.
Alison Gaylin is a USA Today and international bestselling author whose novels have won the Edgar and Shamus awards. Her work has been published in numerous countries and has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Macavity, Anthony, ITW Thriller and Strand Book Award.
Here’s the description of Wendy Walker’s What Remains.
“Absolutely splendid storytelling, a book to entertain, to immerse, and to challenge.” —A. J. Finn, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
She saved his life. Now he‘ll never let her go.
Detective Elise Sutton is drawn to cold cases. Each crime is a puzzle to solve, pulled from the past. Elise looks for cracks in the surface and has become an expert on how murderers slip up and give themselves away. She has dedicated her life to creating a sense of order, at work with her ex-marine partner; at home with her husband and two young daughters; and within, battling her own demons. Elise has everything under control, until one afternoon, when she walks into a department store and is forced to make a terrible choice: to save one life, she will have to take another.
Elise is hailed as a hero, but she doesn’t feel like one. Steeped in guilt, and on a leave of absence from work, she’s numb, even to her husband and daughters, until she connects with Wade Austin, the tall man whose life she saved. But Elise soon realizes that he isn’t who he says he is. In fact, Wade Austin isn’t even his real name. The tall man is a ghost, one who will set off a terrifying game of cat and mouse, threatening Elise and the people she loves most.
WENDY WALKER is the author of the psychological suspense novels All is Not Forgotten, Emma In The Night,The Night Before, and Don’t Look For Me. Her novels have been translated into 23 foreign languages and have topped bestseller lists both nationally and abroad. They have been featured on The Today Show, The Reese Witherspoon Book Club, and The Book of the Month Club and have been optioned for television and film. Prior to her writing career, Wendy practiced both corporate and family law, having earned her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and her undergraduate degree from Brown University. Wendy also worked as a financial analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co. Wendy is currently finishing her next thriller and managing a busy household in Connecticut.
Here’s the conversation with Alison Gaylin and Wendy Walker.
And, just this week, Bookreporter.com ran Michael Barson’s interview with Bushnell. Enjoy the interview.
Interview: June 15, 2023
“Stranger Things” meets the Golden Age of Detective Fiction in RELENTLESS MELT, a rollicking supernatural detective thriller by Jeremy P. Bushnell that introduces readers to Artie Quick, a sales assistant at Filene’s in Boston who moonlights as an amateur detective. In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, Bushnell talks about the extensive research he did for the book, which is his first work of historical fiction; the cross-dressing tendencies of his female protagonist; the books he read as a child that informed the writing of RELENTLESS MELT; and his all-time favorite supernatural novel.
Question: RELENTLESS MELT is your third novel. How did your approach in writing it differ from the way(s) you wrote your first two books?
Jeremy P. Bushnell: I think the biggest difference is that my first two novels were set in the present, and RELENTLESS MELT is set in 1909. That really changes the work that you’re doing, because the need to research becomes a much larger part of the process. I’d done some research for my previous books — especially THE INSIDES, which deals with butchering in a high-end restaurant kitchen — but this was the first one where I needed to do research continuously as I worked on the draft. I was still researching and turning up historical material to include even as I was making my final revisions.
Q: As a writing instructor at Northeastern University, you might have an advantage over many other writers in terms of library discipline. What was your method for organizing the process of that historical research?
JPB: Initially, I really wanted to take a long time to immerse myself in historical material before beginning this novel. I was intimidated by the learning curve of writing historical fiction, and I had this idea that I should have a fully functioning model of 1909 Boston running like a model train set in my head before even starting a draft. But in reality it didn’t play out that way, and in the end I’m not convinced that it would have made much sense to organize the research all out in advance. You can’t always predict what you’ll even need to know until you’re actually writing scenes. I often had to approach the process just by virtue of what I needed to know on any particular day I spent in front of the computer.
Q: Can you give an example of a research need that came up during the drafting process? The kind of challenge you might face on “any particular day”?
JPB: Let’s say you’re writing a scene with a simple “supernatural mystery”-type image — a police investigator peering into the dark. So you imagine it: you picture that investigator shining a flashlight around. But before you can commit that to the page, you suddenly realize you need to do research on the invention of the flashlight, whether they even existed in 1909, whether they were commercially available, whether they were the kind of thing people on a police force might have access to. Those aren’t things I would have necessarily thought I would have needed to research before setting out.
Q: Your protagonist is a teenage girl who seems uncertain as to whether or not she wants to remain a girl. That kind of gender-bending is not something one finds very often in supernatural crime fiction!
JPB: That was something else that emerged from the research, actually. The novel deals a lot with the phenomenon of historical cross-dressing: Artie Quick, the protagonist, spends much of the novel dressed in men’s clothes. We’re all familiar, at least in an abstract way, with historical instances where people lived lives as a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth. There’s been a tendency, traditionally, to interpret these instances as being a form of “disguise” — a woman “pretends to be a man” so that she can get a job, or something like that.
But contemporary historians are looking more carefully into these cases, and it turns out that many of those historical instances were people who nowadays we would consider to be trans-identified: that they were dressing and living that way primarily to affirm their gender identity, not as an elaborate ruse or a game of “pretend.” I didn’t want to write a historical cross-dressing novel without engaging thoughtfully with the reality of what it would be like to be a gender-nonconforming person in that time.
Q: What kind of childhood reading informed the creation of RELENTLESS MELT? Did you read a lot of horror fiction in your youth, or did that element of the book come to you later?
JPB: I had the Dungeons & Dragons core books when I was very young. They’re not exactly horror, but they’re loaded with mysterious environments and fantastic monsters, and the Deities & Demigods supplement book with the H. P. Lovecraft Old Ones in it was my introduction to cosmic horror. A little later, I found Stephen King and devoured all of his books. I am pretty sure that in junior high I read every single book the man wrote between CARRIE (1973) and THE TOMMYKNOCKERS (1987), including the first five Richard Bachman books. Readers might notice some elements of IT popping up in the late pages of RELENTLESS MELT.
Q: Do you have an all-time favorite supernatural novel?
JPB: BELOVED. Unimprovable. It’s not only the greatest supernatural novel of all time, but one of the top five American novels ever written, full stop.
