Official Novel Release Day: I Am The River now available worldwide

Cover created and designed by Ives Hovanessian

After a "fluid" official release day dating back to June (timing issues), today - October 3rd, in this the year of our blind and faceless and imaginary lord 2018 - arrives as the official release date of my debut novel I Am The River.

Aside from the joy of putting another book into the stream of civilization, this is an auspicious occasion on a personal level for several reasons, the most superficial of which is the attainment of an arbitrary delineation of accomplishment - that of completing and publishing a novel-length work of fiction. In writing that sentence, I paused to briefly rewind to the beginnings of my work as a writer, and realized that I was first published in the public sphere just short of three decades (!) ago. That's difficult for me to wrap my mind around (aging brain, and all). So the release of I Am The River: A Novel, nearly thirty years later, seems like a slow gestating sign of progress - a mark of growth and the ability to handle a longer narrative, and sustain it over the course of several hundred pages, giving it time to breathe and having the capability of keeping fresh air flowing into the lungs. From the outside, that might not seem like anything important or singular, and it certainly isn't, as the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of novelists who have come before me can attest. But it's not as easy as one thinks, as every writer or potential writer who has a novel burning inside them unquestionably knows: wanting to write a novel and actually completing a novel are two vastly different things. It's a benchmark, not unique (or novel, if you pardon the pun) to me or any other author, but a touchstone that is both satisfying personally, and easily processed by the outside world. Either way, I'll take both.

Today, I can claim the descriptor of "novelist," and half-heartedly promise to never use it in any official capacity outside of this post.

A girl and her cover

On this day of release, I'm grateful to so many for the help I have received in plotting, writing, completing, and then getting this novel into print. I'm grateful to Paul Minor for trusting me to set this whole journey into motion. I'm grateful to my wife Ivy for - as she always does - supporting the hundreds of hours of writing time, offering guidance, editing, and ideas, and for - as she always does - creating the cover that framed the book visually through her extraordinary artistic eye, which in turn inspired a key scene in the book that provided a pontoon bridge to keep the mission marching forward into the Laotian jungle. Vision boards work, and she creates them all for me for everything I do, whether she knows it or not.

I am grateful to Steve Berman at Lethe Press for backing my work, and to Matt Cresswell for making sure I was happy with the look of the final result. Packaging matters. Design matters. People do judge books by their covers, and by how the pages look between them.

I'm grateful to those fellow writers that I know and trust and admire who gave up days out of their busy, hectic lives to read an early copy of I Am The River and supply blurbs, lending their names and reputations to something I had written. That's powerful stuff, and incredibly generous. The real pros are always the nicest folks in the room. Remember that, especially when dealing with those who aren't.

A River arrives in Norway (book photo courtesy of Patrick G.P., Oslo)

And I am ever and steadfastly grateful to those individuals who have and continue to read the stories I create, and to support them however they can, in whatever form and format they appear. In a purely practical sense, books are a luxury, an idle, an entertaining distraction in an over-saturated media and entertainment marketplace that offers endless diversions for free, or in far more conveniently absorbed mediums. In tough, exhausting times such as these, purchasing (and then actually reading) new fiction can quickly become an extraneous budgetary expense and scheduling cutback. But people (and libraries!) continue to buy my books, all over the world. It's a humbling, stirring thing, met with perpetual amazement and appreciation.

I dedicated this book to Lewis Minor, and to all those who fought the brutal and tragic and complicated war in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 70s, wishing each and every wanderer created on those battlefields - large and small, public and private - a safe passage home. And I dedicated this book to Gene O'Neill, a fellow writer of dark things, a United States Marine, and Vietnam vet who is a fantastic horror writer and a great guy. I asked him questions a few years back at Stokercon on the Queen Mary about his time in Vietnam, when the book was still in just the planning stages. What he said, and especially how he said it, influenced the story, and gave me - an entitled, American, Gen-X soft palm who was born just after the war, and thus never had to fight it or any others against my will - confidence that I could do it, and hopefully do it justice. The latter will now be for others to decide.

All that stated, and in my effort to entice you, gentle and loyal reader, to purchase this bound work of ink-printed pages, pixelated words on a glowing screen, or uttered sentences through speakers, I give you the final assemblage of blurbs for I Am The River:

“With echoes of Peter Straub’s KOKO and Apocalypse Now, T.E. Grau’s blazing, immersive novel takes us on the hell-ride of the Vietnam War’s last days as its raging waters also carry us through the first of our last days. I AM THE RIVER is a hallucinatory tour de force.” — Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World

“A sense of being hunted, and haunted, hits you right from the start of I Am The River. That mood only grows in intensity as the scope of this novel’s nightmare takes shape. It’s supernatural and geopolitical and an unforgettable time. Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke comes to mind, the work of Peter Straub and Tim O’Brien, too. In other words T.E. Grau is writing the good stuff. Get some.”  —  Victor LaValle, author The Ballad of Black Tom

“I Am The River is the kind of thing that might happen if Algernon Blackwood had been brought in to do a rewrite of Apocalypse Now. A man barely holding onto his sanity in Bangkok remains haunted, stalked by a huge hound and undone by his own addiction.  His only way out is through revisiting his past in the Vietnam War and the secret PSY-OPS mission he was involved in–and which he’s been running from ever since.  A haunting meditation on war, death, addiction, and responsibility, with mindblowing forays into the weird.” — Brian Evenson, author of A Collapse of Horses and The Warren

“An intelligent accumulation of inner and outer darkness.” — Adam Nevill, author of The Ritual

“A lush green nightmarish journey into the dark, reminiscent of the late, great Lucius Shepard.” — Ben Loory, author of Tales of Falling and Flying

“I Am The River is a horror novel, yes, and it never skimps on its mission to unsettle us. It is also a book that finds horror not only in blood and shadows, but in the very real abysses that separate us: race, culture, and the manipulations of people by governments and by war. It moves quickly and intelligently from its first page to its last, evoking its nightmares in gorgeous, evocative, disturbing prose. A must-read!” — Christopher Coake, author of You Came Back

“I Am The River moves with fluid grace, flowing between times, places, and perspectives as it carries us through its protagonist’s surreal experience of the Vietnam War and his part in a covert mission which refuses to loose its grip on him. Located at the hot, humid intersection of Tim O’Brien’s classic Going After Cacciato and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, this novel plunges us into war at its most extreme and insane, when the methods employed for defeating the enemy leave reason behind for terror and myth. Ted Grau’s writing continues to move from strength to strength.” — John Langan, author of The Fisherman

"A disorienting and devastating evocation of the horrors of war and PTSD. T.E. Grau has written infused the War Novel with dark mythic imagery that sears like napalm.” — Craig Laurance Gidney, author of Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories

“Hallucinatory, gripping and haunting, I Am The River should rank as one of the best novels of 2018. The masterful point of view shifts and often stream-of-consciousness pacing makes for a riveting, oneiric read. In the author’s hands, this bleak, nightmarish and deeply unsettling tale is not only palatable… but delectable. Of course, I expect such quality from Grau. Everything he has written heretofore is bizarre, literary gold. That stated, this book represents Grau’s best work to date, and it is a must read.” — Jon Padgett, author of The Secret of Ventriloquism

“I don’t often say this, but here it needs to be said:  I Am The River is a modern literary masterpiece, and one that will be remembered long after we are returned to dust. It’s a mind-bending, soul-destroying meditation on morality and despair and conflict, on the trials of the human spirit during times of war when the line between good and evil is intangible. Impeccably written, compulsively readable, I Am The River deserves every ounce of praise it’s going to get, and then some, and marks Grau as an extraordinary talent.” — Kealan Patrick Burke, author of The Turtle Boy and Kin

“Grau is our boatman on this psychedelic journey of ghosts and guilt, artillery and atonement. More than a war story, I Am The River forces us to confront the bloody aftereffects in a way that is both powerful and poignant. A cautionary tale for the soul.” — Ian Rogers, author of Every House Is Haunted

“"I Am the River is a macabre journey through a hostile land where a soldier’s act of brutality haunts him, body and soul. With one remarkable collection under his belt, Grau now shows with his debut novel that he’s clearly at the head of the pack when it comes to compelling voices in weird horror fiction today." — Christopher Slatsky, author of Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales

“T. E. Grau’s dark tale of suffering and the quest for redemption pushes the limits of psychological horror. Deeply poetic and disturbing, it reveals that even in the darkest corners of the soul, a faint humanity can be seen glittering and it’s simply beautiful.” — Seb Doubinsky, author of The Song of Synth and White City

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Thus, with this my first novel set free into the current, I watch it drift downstream as blessed October overtakes the planet. There on the water, tiny candle flames dance and wink in the humid air of the Floating City, of my city, of yours and those nearby, and also those across vast oceans and gulfs. I like the way it moves, this new book, and am pensive about where it will end up, and how the journey will treat it. But either way, I'm glad it's alive, and on the move.

As I watch, my thoughts also drift upstream, to the next bend in the river, and what waits there, ready to be unearthed, studied, and documented. But that's for another day, another posting. Right now, I can't take my eyes off the river, and the flames that seem to set the water afire.

While I am otherwise occupied, please enjoy I Am The River. I'm proud of this book, what is says and how it says it, and think it shows the best of me. It shows the writer I am now, at this moment, with still so much left to learn, to polish, to sharpen, and to do.

It shows me as a novelist, and I'll take that, too.

Please order direct from the Lethe Press site here, and support small press.
Paperback and Kindle available from Amazon here.
ePub ebook available from Smashwords here.
Audiobook available from Audible.com here.

TC Review & Interview: Paul Tremblay turns the possession story inside out with A Head Full of Ghosts, one of the hit horror novels of 2015

I'd imagine it takes a lot to scare Stephen King. Not that horror writers are fearless. Far from it. I've found them to be - and they've told me that they are - some of the biggest scaredy cats on the planet. People often obsess over what bothers them, and horror writers are no different. But all that aside, and going on Mr. King's own words ("I'm pretty hard to scare") when Stephen King, the unrivaled sitting Monarch and Standard Bearer of Horror and someone who deals with spooks and frights on a second by second basis, declares in a Tweet that a book "scared the living hell" out of him, it's a really big deal. Like, a huge friggin' deal.

The book Mr. King was talking about - as you may have guessed by now, courtesy of the title of this piece and the huge cover image above - is A Head Full of Ghosts, written by Paul Tremblay, long a well-regarded and highly respected writer of horror, crime, and the bizarre, who broke into the big leagues with his latest novel, and threatens to rise even higher with his forthcoming book (Disappearance at Devil's Rock).

By all markers that count, A Head Full of Ghosts is a full-on critical darling and commercial hit, a Platinum Record in the horror genre that will live on in coming years on bookshelves, and - dark gods willing - on the silver screen. Like every writer, every book longs to be immortal, and A Head Full of Ghosts has already achieved immortality as an important work of contemporary horror fiction in the most unassuming way possible - by being fresh and well written, without resorting to cheap tricks and bugling. This is the solid stuff of horror, not the sordid stuff. This is shoulder blade material, on which others will gain strength, and someday perhaps stand to cast their view to new dark horizons. Freshly minted foundation literature of a genre that needs new bedrock bricks as the older ones show their age.

In A Head Full of Ghosts, Tremblay shows his admiration for horror fiction, and even his warm affection for it. But he also shows that he's not slavish in his regard. He treats it with the respect that it has earned, not handling it with kid gloves, nor treating it like a special needs genre that will stumble more than it achieves. He expects a lot, and he gets it. Must be the teacher in him. The father. The expert horror writer.

He also shows his love of pop culture, skewering it whilst having fun with the whole concept of instant media covering instant media. Blogs that now serve as our glowing newspaper replacements. Personalities with opinions rather than grizzled reporters. Reality shows becoming our own personal reality, in an age where it seems that everyone will star in their own show at least once in their life. In this case, exposing a strange and growing mystery that might be a demonic possession to the heated gazes of camera lens and insatiable television viewer more out of necessity than narcissism, which makes it all the more tragic when things start to go South. And boy do they ever...

In short, A Head Full of Ghosts is a post-irony exploration of the horror genre, social media, reality television voyeurism, and the inner workings of a seemingly normal, working class family that has fallen on hard times and harbors secrets from each other, and the world. Simple right? Tremblay makes it appear so, as he's just that deft of a writer.

But Tremblay is sly about it. He doesn't show his cards, nor shake his tail feathers. He's modest about what he has, what he's doing, giving a knowing grin rather than jumping up on the table and shouting about it. This is quiet, confident, seamless writing that allows the reader to corkscrew down into a story and remain there until the bitter, bitter end.

This is clear from the rather straight-forward set-up of the novel, which begins with a young woman, Merry Barrett, recounting the horrifying events of her childhood to an author interested in writing a tell-all expose about the supposed possession, and exorcism, of Merry's older sister Marjorie, an experience which was filmed by a camera crew and made into a reality television series titled "The Possession."

But through these flashbacks told from Merry's POV, juxtaposed with a episodic breakdown provided by snarky horror blogger Karen Brissette, the reasons behind the exorcism, and the invitation to the intrusive camera crew into the lives of the Barrett family, become more murky, and more difficult to either cheer on or discount, as each undertaking has the power of logic and reasonable desperation behind them. Even the smallest details and potential pitfalls are worked out ahead of time by Tremblay, making the supernatural or possibly unbelievable easily authentic, and layering each character and their motivations. Narrative is bent, and narrators are biased according to their own unique universes, often rendering unreliable what we assumed as fact.

What all of this melds into is a fascinating examination of personal motivation, selfishness, vanity, and the erosion of mental stability, layered within a classic horror story. A Head Full of Ghosts is all of these things, as well as a commentary on the supernatural, religion, the power of myth, and the sometimes watery nature of truth. And it's a hell of a thrill ride, with a gut punch ending. Just ask Stephen King. Poor fella hasn't slept right in months.
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TC: From where did the initial germ of A Head Full of Ghosts: A Novel originate? Did its general plot and themes surprise you, or was it planned to deal with these elements all along?

PT: In February of 2013, I was spinning my tires, 100 pages into a novel that satirized the state of publishing through a boy obsessed with ending the world. The writing was very slow going but I was reading anything and everything I could get my hands on that might be related to apocalypse and end-of-world scenarios. I stumbled up a book of essays on the film The Exorcist. Bad Religion’s song “My Head Is Full of Ghosts” was ringing in my head too. It occurred to me then that there had been recent and successful literary updates of the zombie, vampire, and werewolf, but not many possession novels, even though Hollywood has continued to pump out the PG-13 exorcist-light fare.

I keep all these little notebooks around (and too often misplace) to jot down ideas, characters, and the like. I wrote “Horror Novel” at the top of page one in a notebook I hadn’t used yet. I imagined a family in dire financial trouble dealing with a maybe-possessed child, and that clicked with me. Soon after I had my two sisters, Merry and Marjorie and I knew the story would be ambiguous in its treatment of the supernatural (is she or is she not possessed?). I got lucky and the rest of the themes and structure were in place quickly too. I didn’t write a summary or outline, but before writing word one of the novel, I knew there would be an author interviewing Merry, a reality TV show, and a blog commenting on the action, and I knew what I wanted to happen to the family in end. All I had to figure out was how the me and  the Langans Barretts would get there.

(In my first draft, the Barretts were the family Langan, with John and Sarah as parents. I changed the last name at the end figuring that would’ve been too much winky wink. And I was right.)

The reaction to the novel has been incredibly positive, and a joy to watch, for many reasons. Did you know at the time of either the start of the book or the finish that you had a legitimate hit on your hands?

Thank you, Ted.

I felt really good about the novel at the start. I mean, really good. No Sleep Till Wonderland had come out three years prior in 2010, and the sting of its lack of success and lack of publisher support (by lack, I mean less than goddamn nothing) for the book really shook my confidence as a writer. I didn’t feel good about myself, my writing, and was second guessing everything I did. But when I had the idea for AHFoG, I felt energized again and I knew as long as I didn’t get in my own way and muck it all up, I’d have a good novel.

That’s not to say I never doubted myself. Doesn’t matter if I’m writing a novel, short story, or an essay, there’s always a moment where I think the work is going terribly and the do-I-quit-or-keep-going? doubt/questions arise. For novels, it tends to happen around page 100. Also, my agent, after reading those first 100 pages of AHFoG was initially skeptical of the book’s POV and structure, which kind of threw me for a loop. But after a few days of self pity, I said screw it and forged on because I really believed in what I had and what it would be. To my agent’s credit, once he read the full final draft he said he was wrong and loved the book. It’s always okay to admit when you’re wrong, kids.

I had no idea if it would be a hit or even if it would sell (especially given my previous sales track record), but I believed in it. I really liked this book. Loved it, even. It was something that I would want to read. Ultimately, that’s my measuring stick. I can’t forecast the market well enough to make predictions about sales and the like; therein lies madness. The book was as close to being what I’d hoped it would be when I started, so I was pleased, and nervously excited about its possibilities.

What do you and Stephen King talk about when you take walks together?

There’s no talking allowed. He’s trying to teach me to communicate via telepathy. I worry though. Our walks are getting longer and longer.

With you being the father of a tween girl, was it difficult writing the more graphic scenes of possession involving Marjorie?

When I wrote the novel, my daughter was essentially Merry’s age (8 going on 9). I had her (and my son) as models for Merry. For Marjorie, I extrapolated, and I’ve been teaching teens for longer than I care to admit. My hope is that when my daughter is old enough to read it, she’ll identify and empathize with both sisters. I hope that people view Marjorie not as a monster/devil/demon, but as a compelling and sad character. I feel terrible for Marjorie. Whatever is happening to her is not her fault, and the adults attempting to intervene make it all worse.

In general, I find it’s always difficult to write graphic scenes because I want them to have an impact beyond the ick factor. That’s not easy to do, or do well. Hopefully those scenes work. Throughout the novel, I operated under the idea or mantra that the actions of the family members, of what they do to themselves and to each other would be described realistically and in great detail, and those scenes, the ones less likely to be supernaturally enhanced (shall we say), would be the most disturbing scenes in the novel.

Utilizing such zeitgeisty elements as reality television, blogs, and a bankrupt blue collar job market, what do you want to say with A Head Full of Ghosts? (if anything other than just wanting to tell a gripping tale) 

I wanted to SAY ALL THE THINGS!!!!  If I’m being obnoxious (which, let’s be honest, is most of the time), I describe the book as a secular, postmodern, feminist exorcism novel. The opportunity was there within the story for all sorts of commentary: how girls/women are often portrayed in possession stories, commentary on organized religion and its treatment of women, media and the information age and their cumulative effect on us, the disappearing blue collar class etc. Hopefully all of it becomes this monstrous mass crushing the Barretts, making everything worse, and the horror of the novel is witnessing what happens to them under all that if not familiar then frighteningly plausible pressure.

Any news on the cinematic front? Are you involved in the adaptation of the novel to a screenplay?

There are two screenwriters (Benjamin Davis Colllins and Luke Piotrowski) working the adaptation as we speak. I am not officially or contractually involved, but they’ve been great about keeping me in the loop and answering questions about the development process. Ben and Luke and the producers all are very excited and hopeful about the project. Go team!

In your forthcoming novel, Disappearance at Devil's Rock, you again center on the lives and consequences of teenagers, and the danger they can attract. What about that age group interests you as a writer of dark or horror fiction?

Who among us can’t remember how exciting, mystifying, and terrifying it was to be kid/teenager? Being that age is one of the few transformative, universal experiences we all share.

I think writing young characters is a strength of mine because I still feel like a confused teen most of the time. I’ve been a teacher most of my adult life and I have two kids of my own so I’ve either been a kid or been around kids, and I almost always have my summers off.

Unreliable narrators or confessions play a role in both books, as well. Is this a literary construct that you enjoy using and intentionally employed, or has it been intrinsically essential to both stories?

AHFoG had to be first person. It wouldn’t have worked otherwise. We needed to have Merry’s story be ambiguous because it was ambiguous for her. It had been changed and filtered by time, by media, by what other people told her, and by her own faulty memory. Plus, first person narrators are inherently unreliable. It’s a biased POV, and any first person account, if done well, takes advantage of that. I love me first person, yes I do.

DaDR is a third person limited novel with a little first person sprinkled in here and there. Instead of the unreliable narrator, we have a whole cast of unreliable characters. It’s about your friends and loved ones being unreliable. How can you possibly know what they’re thinking, what kind of decisions they will make, are they telling the truth, do they know if they’re telling the truth?

 With A Head Full of Ghosts making such waves, has there been any early cross-media activity with Disappearance at Devil's Rock in terms of film or television?

No, nothing yet. It's still early. I only just sent the book to my film agent a few days ago. So, we'll see.

My son is planning on helping me film a little book trailer for DaDR, though. I think it’ll be good. Or unintentionally funny. Which would still be good.

How has working with major publishers differed from working primarily in small press? In your experience, how is horror fiction viewed in the larger publishing world, outside of closely knit genre fiction circles?

My first experience with major publishers wasn’t so hot. I had two wonderful editors for the Mark Genevich books, both of whom helped those books be the best books they could be from an editing standpoint, and I’m eternally grateful to them for that. But, without getting into too much woe-is-me detail, the support of the publisher overall just wasn’t there, particularly with the second book.

Working with Jennifer Brehl and William Morrow has been an absolute dream come true. Jen is an amazingly intelligent, insightful, and creative editor, one who always asks me the right questions with answers that have lead to the two best books I’ve written. The publicity and marketing team have been incredibly supportive, creative, and enthusiastic as well.

I’ve certainly enjoyed working with Brett and Sandra and Chizine Publications as well, and how much creative control they allow their authors. Their books are beautiful and original and I’m very proud to be in the CZP stable. I would certainly work with them again.

As far as how horror is viewed in the larger publishing world? I’m still trying to figure it out, to be honest. There seems to be more excitement and acceptance of it, particularly with readers. My experience is somewhat anecdotal, but I can’t tell you how many times I see an online reviewer who isn’t clued into the small press horror community talking about wanting to read more horror and they’re pleased to stumble across my book. Readers want the kind of stuff we (the royal we) want to read and write, it’s just a matter of getting those books into their hands. Here’s hoping that many more authors crossover from the smaller presses to the larger ones. I want all of you (the royal you) talented folks to have access to more readers. This includes you, Ted, my handsome doppelganger….

Okay, now The Cosmicmicon is blushing, which isn't easy for a non corporeal cyberspace presence... Now fully recovered, we'd like to ask what's next for you? What are your short- and long-term goals now that you've taken that next step in your writing career?

Survive the school year gauntlet of January and February. I owe some editors a few short stories, so those need to be written. Both part of my short term and long term goals: I plan on pitching a couple of books to my publisher very soon. If they go for it, then well, I’ll be busy in the short term and long term. Happily so.

Thanks so much, Paul. We very much appreciate you taking the time to hang out at The Cosmicomion, and wish you boundless success in your future endeavors.

Thank you, Ted!

TC Review & Interview: Hailed as 'Britain's answer to Stephen King,' author Adam Nevill reinforces place amongst horror elite with HOUSE OF SMALL SHADOWS, while new novel LOST GIRL officially released worldwide today

We read horror fiction - and watch slasher films, and gruesome documentaries, and online terrorist videos, and accident footage, etc. - because of what Joseph Conrad called "the fascination of the abomination." We like to view things that disquiet us, don't we? We hope that we see something that isn't meant for innocent eyes. Death revealed - and dodged - is as exhilarating as it is horrifying. Our minds sometimes can't take it, but also can't willingly turn away. We seek out the abominations, because we are fascinated by them. We can't help it, apparently, due to a misfire in our individual development, or the natural condition of the human brain. I'm not sure which is to blame, as I'm a fiction writer, not a goddamn psychiatrist.

Abominations are on full and varied display in Adam Nevill's House of Small Shadows, and I as a reader of this exceptional novel am incredibly fascinated. It was as if Nevill was ordered to craft a contemporary Gothic novel twisted inside out - and sewn back up again - that incorporated all the things I find spooky as shit, including but certainly not limited to:

- Small forgotten towns
- Incredibly old houses, owned by incredibly old people
- Antique dolls
- Puppet shows/marionettes
- Non traditional taxidermy
- Ritualistic parades
- Secretive groups

Throw in circus clowns and unnamed creatures with impossibly long appendages (which do not, to my memory, appear in House of Small Shadows, although the lighting is pretty dim in some of those scenes, so you never know), and you've run the full gamut of my own personalized Creep List.

As it stands, House of Small Shadows contains enough of the truly terrifying to make it a landmark read, and an unforgettable exercise in horror imagery that has not dimmed since regrettably finishing the book a few months back. It's all still there, raw and vibrant, like a fresh coat of paint on a wooden puppet face. The places, the lighting, the sounds and smells are still raw in my brainpan, and threaten to stay that way. Probably more impressive still is Nevill's ability to sustain suspense and dread throughout nearly 400 pages, starting very early with the arrival of our protagonist Catherine Howard, an appraiser (a "valuer" in British parlance) for estate auctioneer Leonard Osberne, who is sent to an aged Gothic manse in the English countryside known as Red House, which lies just outside the mostly deserted town of Magbar Wood. The interior of Red House lives up to its name in terms of sumptuous decor, and Catherine discovers that each of the numerous rooms of the house serve as staging areas for impossibly intricate dioramas of World War I horrors played out by stuffed and positioned rats, as well as a bedroom populated by half animal, half human marionettes tucked into a tiny bed like sleeping children. The entire collection Catherine was sent to appraise for a possible career-making and record-setting estate sale was created by secretive genius M.H. Mason, who was once a man of the cloth until the blood and mud of trench warfare stained that holy fabric, twisting him away from God and into the arms of utter seclusion at Red House, where he devoted his sizable talents and the rest of his life to the creation of tiny, static horror shows, and the recreation of Medieval "cruelty plays" acted out by marionettes for live audiences, and eventually a BBC camera crew. Footage of the latter never made the airwaves, as the imagery was too disturbing, too bizarre even for the notoriously eccentric British.

This is the set-up for Catherine, and for us, and as we get the sneaking suspicion of what is to come for our hard luck protagonist, we can't help but sit back and watch, breathless and silent and squirming with claustrophobia, as she is forced to confront all sorts of weird, out-of-the-way, and mostly forgotten places, bringing her face to face with a litany of weird, out-of-the-way, mostly forgotten things. Old traditions, based on older knowledge of arcane wisdom blotted out of human memory for a reason. But things linger in the quiet places untouched by modernity. Eyes look out, and prayers are whispered to ears that don't belong to god or beast. Catherine has come to escape her past, avoid her present, and secure her future, and these powerful urges give her the courage to remain on site and finish her work, lest it all unravel for her. Unfortunately, as this is horror fiction we're talking about, it unravels for her anyway, in a multitude of unsettling ways.

Nevill's language is perfectly balanced, clean with a perfect dusting of melody, and his ability to build atmospherics is masterful. We're in those rooms with Catherine, dealing with these incredibly lifelike dead things. We can see the clothing and wig and skin and teeth and wheelchair of Edith Mason, the elderly niece of M.H. who now oversees Red House and the weird, multi-million dollar installations that clog the place. We can hear the heavy footsteps of Maude, the mute maid whose inscrutable expression hints at deeper mysteries surrounding this family and their strange house. And those marionettes... We're inches away from them as they are arranged in their tiny beds, facing away from us, grotesque hair covering the backs of their misshapen heads. We don't want them to turn around.

That expectancy, that impending doom, all blossom organically from the foundation Nevill lays like black soil, so fertile it literally pops and fizzes with potential life. And we as readers are caught in it up to our necks, our chins. Something very bad will happen, and happen soon. But when? And where? Will it be as bad as you imagine? Will it be worse? We scream for Catherine to leave the house, for her unfit boyfriend Mike or her boss Leonard or even her backstabbing coworker Tara to show up and wake her from the nightmare, but things are never as simple as that, and Nevill deftly spins a web that invisibly traps Catherine from the beginning, giving her just enough twine to allow her a frantic run at hope, at escape, before reaching the end of the sticky tether, and winding it back up again, slowly and determinedly, drawing the moth to the spider waiting at the center of the beautifully constructed latticework nest.

House of Small Shadows reads like one unbroken, spellbinding tracking shot capturing places that you never want to see where things happen that you that you never thought possible, Nevill's grainy camera picking up details along the way, hinting that something terrible can and probably will occur in the next frame. Martyrs will be torn to shreds, and parades will begin in the streets. A booming voice track begins, narrating the spectacle, as the images become more and more unspeakable. And we just sit and watch. Fascinated.
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Thank you, Adam, for taking the time to consider and answer these questions.

Thanks for having me, Ted.

I always like to start out with a bit of relevant background, to set the stage. When did you first realize that you had a talent for, and probably would be pursuing, writing as a viable undertaking? Were you a big reader as a child? What books first drew you in?

My Dad started it. He read to my brother and I most evenings when we were boys, even until we were around twelve. Hundreds of books, from Twain to Tolkien. But the author who really stirred and then directed my imagination in a particular direction was M R James. Those stories had a real impact, deep and long lasting. I feel his spirit in most of what I write now.


But I spent most of my boyhood outdoors in New Zealand, playing sports and roaming the bush and coastline with friends. I wasn't a bookworm as such. We went to the library every week as a family, though, so I did read a fair amount of adventure fiction, military historical fiction, and fantasy initially, and even my mother's Famous Five books. Plus, I lived in a house that resembled a library, so books were a constant and alluring presence. I had all sorts of reading phases and enthusiasms as an older child, with Robert E Howard's Conan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, even westerns. The really more intense reading for me started, oddly, when most young people drop books, around the ages of fourteen to seventeen. And that was when I started reading in a voracious way that has never stopped. I burned through Lovecraft at the same time as Shakespeare's tragedies and the modernists, and that interest in the best genre fiction and the classics continues. I've never been a reader that sticks to one thing; I've always read widely, though I have a vision for my own fiction that is quite singular and strange, at least to me.

All of my directionless imaginings and perpetual daydreaming found a purpose for itself in my mid-teens. That's when I first knew that I was going to take writing seriously, at some point. The book that actually changed my direction in life was Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I had little adult life experience. I was 16. But that book, though Joyce exercised some irony (that I missed) does include a map of artistic development from infancy to maturity, and it was the first book I read in which I was assisted in understanding what was going on inside me - most of which I'd been ashamed of and had longed to be a simpler person. But following its ideas, even guidance, I consciously decided to collect experience, to read a lot more than I had already read, and to take an English degree after school in order to further my goals formerly in an artistic direction. Besides a few early fragments, I only really committed myself to writing as a purpose for life around the age of 25. And because I'd waited so long, I just couldn't stop once the sluice was opened. I went off like a geyser.

I was not an exceptional student at school, or anything like that. There were even concerns about my attention span too, in junior schools. But I think that is key, because what was often mentioned as a cause for my inattention was my tendency to stare out of the window. As a child my imagination used to entirely consume me, and it still does. I think most of my conscious life is still spent there, daydreaming. I found routine jobs as an adult, and many subjects at school, to be near physically painful if they inhibited that need to daydream. I think my writing is just a more formal approach to daydreaming.

When and how did you first discover dark literature or material?

The need had been created by my Dad, through reading us James as I mentioned, Collier, Saki, Del la Mare and many others. But writers like C S Lewis and Tolkien and Stevenson were full of things that filled me with a euphoric dread too.

What do you consider your "big break" that ushered you into big press publishing? When did you know you'd probably be able to quit your day job?

That was my eleventh novel, Apartment 16 in 2009. I'd had ten novels published by that time, including my first horror novel, Banquet for the Damned, by PS in 2004 (though I'd finished it many years before that). So I'd been cutting my teeth for years and been a professional writer around full-time education and various jobs since my mid-twenties. But my break into the bigger international publishers arrived at the age of forty. After I'd finished Banquet I'd either fastidiously worked on Apartment 16 and The Ritual, or just tinkered with subsequent drafts for years, around life and work. But those two books ended up in a publishing auction in London at a time when horror became the new black again, in 2009. Apartment 16 had been on submission for some time too.


Two hours after the book deal was agreed, I was made redundant from my position as Fiction Editor of Virgin Books. I'd held that position for five years, so the next step was decided for me. I could have gone full time as a writer then, in 2009, and stayed full time until now. But I decided to continue working part time for various publishers because they offered interesting work, and I still do work two to three days a week as an editorial director. The rest is spent writing and living in equal parts. My wife and I also started a family around the time the first book deal happened and that's also why I keep working at two incomes. And that has often been hard, maintaining two professions as well as being a parent. I've worked part or all of every day since 2009, but it's provided a good life for us by the sea and I have additional impetus and motivation because of my daughter's future. Being in this position as a writer, and being a parent, was unimaginable for me before 2009. I don't take a day of it for granted.

No less than The Guardian dubbed you "Britain's answer to Stephen King," which - based on King's label as the king (sorry) of horror - is very high praise indeed, both from a critical and commercial standpoint. Does this level of acclaim effect your writing? Do you feel an extra layer of expectation in each new book, and more beholden to the machine, or just as creatively free as always?

It was flattering, but the King is also the benchmark that all of us in horror are measured against, in the mainstream media. That's the main reason my name was even mentioned in relation to the King; I was one of a few horror writers given a shot beyond the small presses, and who else are we ever compared to? But any critical acclaim hasn't changed what I am writing, but it has served as a huge motivational boost. Good notices still take me by surprise. Motivational, and good for morale for sure, though I remain driven by my own dissatisfaction and frustration. I think resting on one's laurels is catastrophic for writers.

I've also been extremely lucky with my editor, Julie at Pan Macmillan, in that she let me write what I wanted to, and in the way that I wanted to. She made plenty of good suggestions about what I delivered, but they weren't requests. Had I been a big front list writer with more at stake for the publisher, things may have been different. Or if the first two books had tanked. But the first two were successful and that may have bought me more trust. There has never been any pressure from my publisher, though, to write something else, or to write differently. A blessing, and it's given me an opportunity to start building a body of work at the rate of a book each year, and to even push into my own deepest strangeness with novels like Apartment 16 and House of Small Shadows, with a big publisher and a wider audience.

What I feel most acutely as a kind of unceasing pressure, is the bigger picture, and over that I have no control. This covers the business of publishing of which I am constantly aware, book selling, and the digital revolution. But I've never broken a sweat over editorial strong-arming because there never has been any.

Where did the central ideas and themes of House of Small Shadows originate? What are you trying to impart with the book?

It all came out of images I'd carried around from childhood and that continued to amass into adulthood. Curiosities and grotesque things that I'd remembered and that affected me in a particular way - paintings, objects, old television shows for children, historical artifacts, wax museums, houses I had visited, places I had worked, odd people I'd come across, all kinds of disparate things that struck strange chimes in my imagination, or little detonations. As a child, my reaction to some of these images and artifacts was a combination of terror and enchantment, and a lingering sense of that childlike imaginative state I have retained. I wanted to explore those enduring feelings and memories at novel-length, and to see if I could sustain them and preserve them as age took its toll. I began writing scenes and most of the story grew out of the act of writing. That pretty much happens every time too.

With its strange rural villages that can only be understood by a local, The House of Small Shadows seems to be partly autobiographical, if only in terms of geography. How much of your own upbringing is in this book?

I've spent most of my life in cities - Birmingham, Auckland, Worcester, London - but have often stepped outside of them and into the rural as a tourist. I think House of Small Shadows came from a sense of what was unfamiliar and incongruous to a city boy, and therefore charged with a peculiar magic. Had I grown up in the countryside I doubt I'd have written the book in the same way.

The sense of detail and historical touches relating to dolls and puppetry - and 19th century houses - is impressive in House of Small Shadows. You list the numerous resources you used as research for the book. How much actual research did you do (instead of general knowledge you already possessed), and did it involve hours sitting amongst the stacks in libraries? (I'm hoping like hell your answer is "yes" to the latter)

Yes. In a local library in London, that must have been frequented by actors, drama students and theatre designers, I actually sat beside a section on puppetry the first time I went in there to order books on fashion and Gothic Revival architecture that I'd found in an online catalogue for London libraries, and I'd needed a local library to make the inter- library loans for me. I went to order the books and also to find somewhere quiet to sit and work, because we had a baby in the house. While there, I found the stuff on puppets and theatre next to my table, and then discovered that they had a restricted section on taxidermy behind the counter ... that was uncanny. I'd wanted to include all of these things in my story and had bought some rare second hand books on animal preservation already. I had sat in the right chair in the right library. Or did small hands guide me?

You credit Thomas Ligotti as an inspiration for House of Small Shadows. What about Ligotti's writing sparked the idea, or informed the novel? 

With Ligotti, it was the sense of combining a gaudy aesthetic of puppet theatre and animated false bodies, a kind of neglected, grotesque carnival that both mocked and said something poignant about existence; a commentary on fate and our insignificance. I liked the idea of something old, but childlike and damaged that was a witness to a dreadful truth. Ligotti lit a path that I walked, on my own rickety wooden legs.

In doing my own research, I couldn't find any information on the "martyrs" discussed in the book, nor the cruelty plays. Are these lost bits of historical knowledge, or something you created?

All of it is a collision of fact and my own imaginings, and what my imagination did to fact. I'd struggle to unravel it all now. But I became really interested in holy relics and Christian martyrdom while reading for Last Days, and even went to see the biggest collection of holy relics ever assembled in one place - at the British Museum - and in the same timeframe I visited an incredible museum of childhood. It was like an overdose. It all made me giddy. But I adapted what I knew of morality plays and Jacobean and Elizabethan tragedies into a new form of drama - the cruelty play, but performed by puppets. At one point puppet theatre was probably the biggest form of street entertainment in England, but the dramas weren't ever written down and recorded. Some character names survived and titles of plays, but not much else. I imagined they must have been ghastly dramas, and perhaps seditious.

What is your writing routine, if a routine exists? Is consistency and ritual important  - putting your ass in the chair, as Joe Lansdale espouses - or is a writer better served to wait until the Muse hits, and then follow the Coleridge interpretation of art ("a spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions")?

It's changed so much as my life has changed. Being single in my twenties and not responsible for much beside myself was a very different experience to writing around a full time job as a publisher of 85 books each year, and that took over my existence for five years. That too was different to writing as a self-employed man with a family across the last six years, but the latter has undoubtedly become my most productive period - more stability, more security, and more time.

In the twenty years in which I've been going, I have had to write in many different ways and routines enforced by circumstances and situations - evenings, mornings; all day every day at times when I took breaks from careers; just when I felt like it while really stressed and mentally tired; sometimes when I couldn't stop and it was like a madness; or only during Sunday afternoons; two hours before midnight; and in all kinds of compromised environments - that has been a constant until now. So I'm never very helpful when I am asked this question. I just never gave up; if I wasn't physically writing I was mentally writing; the two things joined up often enough and consistently enough for me to finish books. I've never given up on a book but have felt like burning them all at some point during composition.

For the first time ever, at the age of 46, I now have my own office too - a dedicated work space. And in it I try and write at least four days each week. The days change, life can take over, but I'm flexible. I've had to write in so many environments. I have never had the luxury until now of being able to guarantee silence, privacy, even a proper desk. The Ritual was mostly written on someone else's computer on a kitchen table, in a noisy shared house. No wonder people not only die in it, but are eviscerated.

Keeping your head in a novel is the most important thing, even if most of your work on it is conducted in the imagination. Starting something and completely ignoring it at first draft stage can be catastrophic. Even if you are scribbling notes long hand, or thinking through possible scenes, or just imaging the characters talking, you are at work on your book. But that can't just keep on going; you do have to sit down and go. My intention is to do something every day, be it virtual or actual. At times I pull off twelve hour sprees, though only usually when rewriting these days. At other times I produce nothing new in an entire day. I don't word count. My only hard rule is to try and complete a scene if I start it on a particular day. Keep your head in it and maintain the voice and it will get written, eventually. My head is always in the current book, and working around the next one too in a side room. The next one always seems more exciting because ideas are exciting and near effortless, but in there lies a cautionary tale. Nearly everything you write will be hard work, and should be. If you think something was slam-dunked on a first draft, read it three months later and try not to self-harm.

And yet, somehow, I've completed 16 books in twenty years. The urge, the compulsion, the desire, the sense of purpose, has surmounted the many disruptions.

I've begun to ask others this question, as I have recently asked it of myself: What do you think it is about the dark, the weird, uncanny, and the horrifying that draws you/us in, that appeals to us, that almost - odd to say - makes us happy? This query is especially pointed to individuals - such as you - who seem to be well adjusted, positive, and living happy lives. 

Why thank you. That's a great question about why we do it too. I'd suggest, without examining it too deeply, it is an attraction forged from a range of things. As so much is. As a rule, I don't tend to think of one explanation for anything anymore in a world obsessed with "nailing it". Everything is just too complex. Indecision and being unsure is better than being completely wrong. Uncertainty and mystification is often part of a long process of consideration that gives, at least, a half truth, or something approximating an understanding of what we are trying to figure out. It's often the best that we can hope for.

So for this question, I'd have to say it's a combination of things for me - temperament and sensitivity and formative experiences, nature and nurture, and how those things then reacted to the world and its art, and formed a kind of voice, or presence inside me, that keeps creating my version of enchantment and terror. I suspect I may be a writer of the grotesque, more than a writer of anything else that is subdivided within the fiction of the fantastic. I'm inspired by the grotesque as much as by beauty. Comfort, peace, beauty, health; all of these things I adore, but running at a constant parallel is my ability to be aghast. And I suspect most horror writers are also writers of some form of protest, even if it's against themselves, most definitely other people in my case, society, or the entire human condition, maybe of actual existence and our place within it. I am aghast and I protest and horror is the residue. Why isn't everyone writing horror?

As one of the standard bearers for horror fiction in the mainstream marketplace, how do you feel the genre is received and discussed in relation to "literary fiction?" Based on how it is viewed at present, do you ever see a time when this perception will change?

Literary fiction is an odd opponent for horror. But a common foe for many, or so I often see cited. In terms of status and respectability, the contributors to each may often look upon one another with contempt too. Though literary fiction is probably as much of an endangered species as horror fiction, and I think the fields share a great deal of other common ground. Literary fiction is full of horror and the weird; horror and the weird are full of literary stylists. Ramsey Campbell and Peter Straub write horror but are great literary stylists; Ian McKewan and John Burnside write literary fiction but are great writers of horror (see Glister, A Summer of Drowning, The Devil's Footprints from Burnside).

Both fields struggle commercially and seem prey to capricious zeitgeists in commercial publishing. One has an establishment of erudition, academia, cultural respectability and specialist imprints behind it; the other has none of that besides the specialist imprints and S T Joshi as a critic, but horror fiction has a vast and enviable bedrock of popular culture endorsing and sustaining it in the public consciousness; this wider horror culture may eclipse the literary wing, but it also restores it, and draws nutrition from the books. I look upon horror as a culture now, and an ecosystem that sustains itself; the broader culture of horror still needs the literary wing to provide ideas (even if they are often exhausted into tedium in the other media). Look at Ligotti in True Detective. Who saw that coming? Horror is a very clear and powerful cultural form and force, no doubt in my mind. I am part of a vast and wriggling mass, a network.

For many, the bottom line will persist for the fiction declared to be horror: that it is pulp, juvenile, sensationalist, perhaps even unhealthy. We can all find the low hanging fruit to endorse that point of view too. But that is the view of the ill-informed and the poorly read (and of older readers and writers, I find, if I am honest). The view that literary fiction is unreadable, exclusive, pretentious, and boring is equally as ill-informed a point of view. I read as much of the literary as I do horror. I also try to combine my influences from both fields.

I think perceptions have changed for horror too. I find less disapproval these days too, because horror culture is dominant and has been for years, maybe not in books, but in comics, gaming, television and the cinema. Younger people in my experience, under thirty, rarely criticize horror. They seem smitten with it, and have embraced it in some form (television has given horror an incalculable boost in recent years). Within horror culture, horror fiction is mostly mentioned in the past tense to me by older readers - "I used to read Herbert and King ..." and so on, but not by the young in this way. But the literature is always going to be a harder sell for all generations, though, than the other pictorial media, because fiction requires a more active concentration and the gratification is not instant and immediate; it also requires time and that's in ever shorter supply. The more sophisticated the writing, the greater the demand made on the reader too.

In a pictorial age in which choice is bewildering and cognitive overload is at its peak, that is not going to change - sit down and read a horror novel or watch the new series of The Walking Dead, or play a multi-player computer game in which you shoot waves of the undead? I don't fancy the odds of books. But some, who love reading, and the comforts and confirmations and special pleasures it provides, will keep us in books and horror, at some level.

The value of any fiction to publishers is mostly monetary, because it's a business. If it sells it is lauded. The writers I tend to read, place a different value upon horror that is not dependent on market forces.

At the risk of irritating either your hometown team or your readers across the pond, do you think there is a difference in the British interpretation - and creation - of horror fiction, than that produced in the United States?  If so, why do you think there is a difference?

I couldn't conclusively define the differences between the horror of the two schools, because most writers seem to be constantly expanding and diversifying. But I can offer comments on the writing I have read.

You have faucets and we have taps ... But seriously, I think both territories have produced some extraordinary work within the slough of despond the fiction suffered, and right into its recent peak, and perhaps because horror was out of vogue our respective horrors had an underground renewal. As a very broad brush stroke, perhaps, more Brits may still lean more toward the Gothic tradition, and the impact of early Clive Barker; more of the Americans and Canadians may lean more to the cosmic horrors of Leiber and Lovecraft and Ligotti. But that is a big simplification. Many of us are bonded too by the King, and to degrees by Straub, Simmons, Campbell, Herbert and Barker - there is more common ground than difference.

At the speculative end in the UK, Ramsey Campbell and M John Harrison may have given us a British DNA of the speculative that Aickman really started in earnest. Joel Lane, Nicholas Royle, Conrad Williams and others have done something extraordinary with the weird and horrific in the everyday, that reminds me of M John Harrison, early Clive Barker, and Ramsey Campbell, and that tone seems peculiarly British at times. Writers like Gary McMahon, Simon Bestwick, Simon Kurt Unsworth recently seem to be forging a social realism in their horror, that has a distinct regional Northern quality. Then you have Frank Tallis, Reggie Oliver, Sarah Waters, Mark Valentine and John Howard, who are all class acts, and may do more to maintain the spirit of the classic British Victorian and Edwardian masters than most. Sarah Lotz and Sarah Pinborough prove increasingly versatile in expanding the borders of the hellish in all kinds of directions, and through the thriller and crime mediums of which John Connolly and Michael Marshall are masters (in my eyes Connolly is one of the great modern horror writers, as well as one of the great modern mystery writers).

Across the water, you're doing the same with your own regional influences. The cosmic, occult and strange horrors of writers including Laird Barron, Simon Strantzas, Brian Evenson, Richard Gavin, John Langan, Jonathan Thomas, Linda Rucker, Paul Tremblay, Matt Cardin, Nathan Ballingrud, Gemma Files, to name a few, suggest a new movement to me in North American literary horror, with more and more of you appearing and seemingly each month, like yourself, Josh Malerman and Scott Nicolay even more recently. You are all, literally, spoiling us. Caitlin R Kiernan's vision has permeated deep, as has Kathy Koja's, Poppy Z Brite's, the genre defying Steve Rasnic Tem and also Brian Hodge.

Both sides have had key specialists in Romero's vision - David Moody in the UK and Jonathan Maberry in the US. If no one read Alden Bell's books, do so.

There are so many more writers that I should mention, and a great many I haven't even read yet; the fact that there are so many authors creating genuinely startling and refreshing work, all of the time, is a wonderful sign. I defy anyone to read deep into the modern anglosphere of horror and claim they only see pulp. What I am more keen on pointing out is the quality on both sides of the Atlantic and the special friendship we share. I think as writers we all read each other as much as we can, but the national preferences I tend to encounter more in readers, because of where the books are available and have the most presence.

What would be your advice to beginning writers eager to embark on a career in horror fiction?

Read as widely in the field as possible, from the masters and classics to the moderns. Soak it up. But make sure you read widely beyond horror too. You will learn just as much elsewhere, or you should do.

Get good advice on the craft, on your actual use of language, before you get tied up with characterization and plotting. Start with the actual language you're using and how you arrange it - that almost seems lost at times. If you don't acquire enough craft you may remain a literate adult and never become a writer ... I'd also say that unless you feel manifestly driven to write, don't bother. I've spent ten years reading slush piles.

But if this is for you, start allowing your own deeps to overflow, unrestrictedly, to find your own voice, your own thing, your own innate strangeness. Once that spring is bubbling you can find ways of creating stories out of the raw imaginative material. Looking for what to write about should be the easiest thing of all, but how you write about it is then key.

All of these things take time and application; don't rush, or be too eager to start publishing, as hard as that temptation may be these days.

In terms of music (and totally, selfishly, off topic), I know you're a big metal fan. What bands do you really dig, now and going back to the origins?

If you saw how many CDs and vinyl records are in my office, you'd understand how difficult that is to answer. Currently, I'm heavy. I'm playing a lot of Lamb of God, Slipknot and metalcore. Bathory and Sanctuary are enjoying a revival in my space. For a time before that it was doom and industrial: Trouble, The Skull, Ministry, NIN, and my punk faves.

I cut this with folk rock, classical and some ambient noise.

There's not been a subgenre of heavy rock or metal that I haven't appreciated in part.

What's next for you, in terms of releases, and those projects on which you are currently working?

Lost Girl is out October 2015. A thriller and a near future disaster scenario as much as it is a horror novel. I began that book in 2013 and delivered the book in November 2014. Since then, the story has started to become uncannily relevant.

My next novel is due for 2017 and I've been writing that since late last year, my working title is Yellow Teeth, and it's a kind of unconnected companion piece to Last Days, a move into psychic terror after bludgeoning myself with No One Gets Out Alive and Lost Girl.

I've also written five short stories this year and they should be out next year. And on that note, I may have another surprise next year too.

Thank you so much for your time, Adam, and much luck and success in your future endeavors.

Thanks for having me, Ted. I appreciate your absorption of me into the nameless dark of the Cosmicomicon.
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Pick up Lost Girl TODAY, to celebrate it's official global launch by Pan Macmillan, at Amazon or at your local retailer of fine books that dwell on incredibly dark things. I've started reading the book, and it's a grim, dark, worrisome treat, centered around a father's desperate journey to find his kidnapped daughter amid a world reeling from the early stages of a global societal collapse, based on climate change and the resultant lack of fresh water, erosion of arable land, and general overpopulation. This is real world horror on so many levels, set in a time not so distant that it doesn't resonate, and scare the shit out of you. Grab a copy from that box below, if you don't mind losing a few fingers. Nevill's got claws.

Find Adam LG Nevill lurking just below the placid surface of his website here, listening to metal and contemplating the slow, ignominious unraveling of humanity.