Four Questions with Philip Fracassi

Tamika Talks Terror is here to tromp on your TBR.

The inimitable Philip Fracassi stopped by to talk horror, and he’s got two books to add to your list—recently released novel Gothic and the upcoming Boys in the Valley.

Tamika Thompson: What is horror? 

Philip Fracassi: One of the reasons horror is so difficult to define as a genre is that it means different things to different people. Horror is such a broad term that it could encapsulate everything from real-life pandemics to a campy late-night slasher movie to a literary masterpiece.

Even if you drill down further to only discuss “horror in fiction” you’re still opening yourself up to variations and nuances and tastes too vast and indefinable that it’s almost impossible to know what you’re getting into without some form of subcategorization or description. Will this book be too gory? Too scary? Are there taboo subjects such as incest or sexual assault that will trigger something from my own experiences? Is it prose-rich or a whiplash read? In other words: What kind of horror lies within?

I think one of the reasons so much great fiction is left abandoned on bookstore shelves (real or virtual) is due to mainstream readers not knowing what to expect, or having preconceived notions of what “horror” is based on other mediums (Serial killers! Zombies! Vampires!). When the truth is there’s something for everyone in the horror field, it’s the finding of what works for you that most folks find daunting. A problem I hope we can solve in the future.

Thompson: What is the spookiest experience you've ever had?

Fracassi: Honestly, I’m scared all the time. I still have nightmares from “cautionary books” I was handed as a child—i.e. terrifying imagery of a man wanting me to get into his car by offering candy. I’ll never forget the book’s final image of the dead-eyed, mussed-hair child being returned to his family after days in captivity. DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU! Good Lord.

The point being that life is filled with things to be afraid of, things that terrify me. As a father I worry about cars running red lights or pianos falling from the sky to harm my child. I’m terrified about the world burning to a crisp from climate change. I’m scared of guns and wondering when the next mass shooting will take place, and pray no one I know or love will be in the vicinity.

But I’m also constantly scared by nightmares. I wake up with night terrors every now and then, screaming or sweating, my body trembling with terror. I’ve felt ghosts—or maybe we should broaden that to entities—sitting on my legs while in bed, and me too terrified to move. I’m convinced an evil spirit lives in our bathroom, and refuse to leave the door open overnight (something that drives my wife crazy).

So while there’s no one personal experience I can point to, it’s safe to say there’s usually something scaring me on a daily basis.

Thompson: What is the scariest book you've read and what about it frightened you?

Fracassi: The scariest book I ever read was The Shining. It’s the only time in my life I ever put a book down from fear. The scene is a classic—the woman in Room 237. When that old lady started coming for Danny from the bathtub, I thought I was gonna have a heart attack (and just at the age of 14 years!). Oddly, the second most frightening part of that book is one that wasn’t even in the Kubrick film, and that was the hedge animals. Man oh man did those scenes terrify me. I still think about Danny hiding while those things closed in on him. Pure terror.

Thompson: At the start of your new supernatural novel Gothic, Tyson Parks is struggling to recapture the success from earlier in his writing career until an antique desk from his partner comes along and solves that problem, but with horrific consequences. What impression about career artistry and perhaps the publishing industry do you hope to leave with readers?

Fracassi: It’s important to note that many of the things Tyson struggles with are very real thoughts and feelings that many writers—including myself—deal with on a daily basis. The questions that plague our minds when it comes to “success,” however that is defined for an individual. For some, success is financial, for some it’s more artistic, for some it might just mean knowing that X amount of people are reading, and enjoying, your work.

But the bottom line about being a career artist, or more specifically, a career writer, is very difficult in terms of confidence. The reason for that, I think (and some writers may disagree—I can only talk about my personal experiences) is that unlike many types of creation, writing is unique in that it’s a sort of “unknown” commodity. As a writer, you’re not ever really sure where the words come from. You’ll often hear a writer say something along the lines of, “I have no recollection of writing that phrase, or paragraph. It sure sounds good, though!” This is where the myth of the MUSE stems from. The idea that writers aren’t consciously creating the sentences, but that we are simply conduits for some unknowable force—most likely lodged deep within our subconscious—that feeds us the words as we go.

For that reason, I think most writers (with the rare exception) are often struggling with imposter syndrome, because what we do is to a small degree a technical skill, for the most part it’s instinct and imagination. It’s our dreams translated by a part of the mind we only meet when we’re sitting at a keyboard, or a notepad. And often, when writers get into a groove, that muse can quite literally take over. I’ve come out of pure trance states, sweating in an uncomfortably hot room without having realized that hours have gone by and I need to use the bathroom—badly—and likely a shower. Meanwhile, lo and behold, there’s 8000 words of story on the computer (this is the point where I hit SAVE like my hair’s on fire).

All that to say that when Tyson is taken over by a force stronger than his own will, that powers up this internal gift of his to an almost dangerous—if not dealy—extent, it’s really my way of expressing what a lot of writers go through. Not just being overrun by a muse, but the insecurity of doing what we do because we can’t really describe how we do what we do.

It’s possible it’s more acute for me than some writers. I’m not formally educated, so literally everything is instinct or what I’ve learned by reading other writing, but I’ve met enough writers in my time to know it’s no anomaly.

As for my comments on the publishing industry, I’ll plead the 5th. But it’s safe to say that Tyson’s story in Gothic is an homage to all things writing, and I had an absolute blast creating it.

Philip Fracassi is the Bram Stoker-nominated author of the story collections Behold the Void (named “Collection of the Year” from This Is Horror) and Beneath a Pale Sky (named “Collection of the Year” by Rue Morgue Magazine). His novels include A Child Alone with Strangers, Gothic, and Boys in the Valley. Philip’s work has been translated into multiple languages, and his stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Best Horror of the Year, Nightmare Magazine, and Black Static. The New York Times calls his work “terrifically scary.”