With Halloween bearing down upon us, who better to grace us with a bob under the Author Spotlight than Christopher Rice? In addition to the blood of his legendary and lovely supernatural chronicler mother, Anne, snaking through his veins, New York Times best-selling author Christopher is eminently capable of spooking us all in his own right. And so he does with his brand new novel, The Heavens Rise. No less an authority than Peter Straub assures us The Heavens Rise "...inhales wickedness and corruption and exhales delight and enchantment." Happy Halloween, indeed.
When he's not writing, one of the many ways Rice keeps his hands from idling enough to attract the devil's attentions is when he and his friend, bestselling novelist Eric Shaw Quinn, do their Internet radio show. Having sampled and enjoyed its tasty wares, Gazalapalooza can confirm the program is a comedy and variety program as outrageous as it is irreverent. After you're done inhaling and exhaling The Heavens Rise, trick or treat yourself to a helping of "The Dinner Party Show with Christopher Rice and Eric Shaw Quinn." The program streams 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at TheDinnerPartyShow.com, and new live episodes premiere Sunday evenings at 8:00 PM Eastern, 5:00 PM Pacific. Among other irresistible (but completely nonfattening!) hors oeuvres, the most recent episode includes tidbits of adventure and weirdness direct from our guest's ongoing promotional tour for The Heavens Rise.
With all that, we would think Rice should find himself well-prepared to broil magnificently under the piercing glare of our Author Spotlight's klieg light blaze. Shall we find out? Without further ado, let's get this interview underway.
Gazala: In my omnipotence, I've sentenced you to be stranded alone on a desert island for offenses best left unnamed. In my beneficence, I've decided to allow you a limited amount of reading material to make your stay a little less bleak than it would otherwise be. I'll spot you your religious text of preference, and the collected works of William Shakespeare. In addition to those, name the ocne fiction book, and the one nonfiction book, you'd choose to take with you, and tell why you choose them.
Rice: So is the woefully easy way out of this question to make the non-fiction title be something along the lines of How to Survive on a Desert Island? Surely I'm not the first author to use that tactic here, am I? We're doing these questions by e-mail so you're sitting next to me right now shouting, "CHEATER! CHEATER! CHEATER!" so I'm tempted to make a go of it. But it does kind of feel like cheating. I have to say, one way to answer the question would be to say that I'd take any two books that would help me survive on a desert island, which sounds like an absolutely horrifying proposition for which I am incredibly ill-suited. I'm not sure, when pressed, I'd be considering escape and enjoyment here. Survival would be foremost on my brain. So maybe this a good time to brag about how I do a lot of research for my writing? Or maybe not. I don't know. I could also be a total brown-nosing simp and say that I'd take one of my mother's novels "just to feel close to her, and to home" (sad violin sound). And also, wouldn't someone always pick a book that depicts the kind of bedroom antics they're into? Because...you know, they're going to be alone for a long time and they might need something to...you get me?
Gazala: Your latest book is an excellent and gripping supernatural thriller titled The Heavens Rise. In it, three friends must confront an ancient, infectious evil lurking just beneath the surface of the Louisiana bayou. I've read it. I enjoyed it immensely, and recommend it highly. Shockingly enough, however, from time to time my bare recommendation doesn't always motivate a book's potential reader to become a book's actual reader. Tell us something about The Heavens Rise, and why its potential reader should make the leap and become its actual reader.
Rice: First off, thank you for calling my book excellent, which was a pre-condition of my agreeing to do this interview. [Editor's note: Our guest jests!] As for why others should read it? Because if you do read it, I'll make love to you in the grass. And if you don't read it, I'l disappear your family in an instant. Oh, sorry. I'm just in marketing mode all the time these days. I write the books I like to read. I like books that take me right up to the edge of darkness with complex and appealing characters as guides, but don't just drop me into a pit of bottomless nihilism. It's easy to write a dark beginning and a dark ending. The real challenge is making a happy ending out of a dark beginning. The Heavens Rise is that kind of book. It's meant to be a suspenseful page turner, one of the main characters is a city (New Orleans) and its villain is super scary - those are the three ingredients I like in a novel, so I put them in mine.
Gazala: What are books for?
Rice: Books are supposed to be immersive and independent imaginary experiences. Books are sex between two brains, yours and the author's. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's bleh, but you always walk away tired.
Gazala: W. Somerset Maugham said, "There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." Do you agree, or disagree, and why?
Rice: I agree. But I like Graham Greene's three things a writer needs to write. A professor I taught for told me this story. When he was a young writing student, he wrote a letter to Graham Greene and asked him what three things he needed to be a writer. Graham Greene wrote back, "A lot of time, a lot of paper and a lot of pencils." The student wrote back, "What's the time for? Writing?" and Graham Greene wrote back, "No. Reading." It might be an urban legend but any urban legend that involves Graham Greene is automatically awesome. Like the one about the driver who picked up a hitchhiker who turned out to be Graham Greene and then he disappeared but not before he left a copy of The Quiet American hanging from the door handle. Wait. I think I'm getting confused. Sorry. I'm in marketing mode.
Gazala: That shot glass of Louisiana swamp water I just drank on a dare is making me feel very...strange. While I attempt to gather myself, ask yourself a question, and answer it.
Rice: You drank a shot of Louisiana swamp water? Did someone hold a gun to your head? Wait. That's not my question. My question is: Why did your interviewer just drink a shot of Louisiana swamp water while he was interviewing you? Answer: Because you're that boring, Christopher.
No, Christopher. You're far from boring, my charming and erudite friend. I drank that sketchy water because I'm an inveterate risk-taker, often to folly's sharpest edge. That said, one thing not even I am foolish enough to risk is not popping onto Amazon.com to get a copy of The Heavens Rise. To that end, we've created a risk-free way to do so, but putting the book's Amazon link right here.
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