We chat with author Richard Kadrey about The Flesh King, which follows Tilda, Ford and Neuland who hit NYC to hunt a flesh-eating monster in this bloody, macabre and witty supernatural noir packed twists, turns, betrayals and showdowns.
Hi, Richard! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I was born in New York but raised mostly in Texas, which I probably why I often write about characters who feel out of place and spend their lives searching for a place to call home. I finally left Texas for LA in my early twenties and jumped into the punk scene. LA is also where I began writing seriously. I’d always thought about it, but LA freed me. The city was so alive back then. You felt like anything was possible. But not always quickly. While I wrote and sold a lot of non-fiction, it was eight years of work before I sold my first story. But that’s all it took to keep me going.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
My mother was a reporter for a small newspaper in Brooklyn when I was a kid, so I was raised around the tools of writing. I would tag along with her to crime scenes, police stations, and strange parts of the city I would have never seen otherwise. All of that fuelled my desire to tell stories, but it took me years to get up the courage to try doing it seriously. When I started selling fiction, I remember that my mother hated everything I wrote and stopped reading me after a few stories. But she owned everything I ever published and loved showing it to friends.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: I don’t remember the title, but it was a kid’s book on astronomy. I was obsessed with space when I was young and when I went to library, I’d come home with an even split between novels and books about the stars.
- The one that made you want to become an author: Tales of Mystery & Imagination, a cheap paperback collection of Poe stories. I don’t remember how old I was when I read it, but I was young enough that and it blew my little mind to pieces. To this day, I sometimes dream about the old man in ‘The Telltale Heart’ and his vulture eye.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: The easy answer would be Blood Meridian and several other Cormac McCarthy novels, but in terms of my writing it would be the first Elmore Leonard book I read, LaBrava. It’s one of his wild Florida novels. The speed of the story, plus Leornard’s dialogue and prose hit me hard. I think Leonard and Barry Gifford are the two biggest influences on the minimal style I use in a lot of my current work, and certainly in The Flesh King and The Pale House Devil.
Your latest novel, The Flesh King, is the next instalment in your Discreet Eliminators series and it’s out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Killing an immortal is hard
Or maybe
Alive or dead, life’s tough
For those who haven’t picked up the first instalment, The Pale House Devil, what can readers expect?
In The Pale House Devil, we meet the hitman partners, Ford and Neuland. What makes them different is that Ford is alive, while Neuland is dead. That’s what makes them a good team: Neuland kills the living while Ford kills the dead. After a job goes sideways in their native New York, they head west to California to look for work out there. But no one wants to deal with them after their last job—until they meet Tilda, the granddaughter of an eccentric, and thoroughly awful, millionaire named Shepherd Mansfield. It seems that there’s something living on the Mansfield estate and the old man wants Ford and Neuland to kill it. The only problem is, when you’re used to eliminating the living and the dead, what do you do when you run up against something that’s neither?
And for those who have, what’s to come in The Flesh King?
The Flesh King begins just a few weeks after the end of The Pale House Devil when Ford and Neuland, return to New York with their apprentice, Tilda. But going home is hard. Ford and Neuland left the city after a botched hit and the local criminal underworld isn’t exactly happy to have them back. To keep the cops off their backs, they essentially blackmail the team into hunting and eliminating a serial killer the tabloids call The Skinner. But The Skinner isn’t exactly human, at least not anymore, so killing him will be their hardest job yet.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring further?
In The Pale House Devil, Tilda was under her grandfather’s thumb, and he controlled virtually every aspect of her life. When I began The Flesh King, I knew I wanted to let Tilda loose and allow her to explore what life is like when she calls the shots.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I knew that my killer, The Flesh King, had been alive for a long, long time, so I had to figure out a voice to tell the story when we were in his point of view. I solved the problem by writing his first murder scene. It took several tries to work my way into the fun he had while killing, but also the tension he felt because of his peculiar methods. It felt great when I finally nailed the voice and the rest of the book flowed from there.
What’s next for you?
I’m working on two new novels. There’s a fantasy called The Curious Second Life of Jewel Graham, and a near future science fiction novel, Karakuri Baby. I just rewrote a screenplay for a team I’m collaborating with while the producer is working on casting. Plus, I’m editing the thirteenth Sandman Slim novel. And, of course, I’m playing with ideas for the next Discreet Eliminators book.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed reading this year? Are there any you’re looking forward to picking up?
I’m a big fan of Eric LaRocca’s work and just finished his new horror release, Wretch. Craig Clevenger just brought his terrific crime novel, The Contortionist’s Handbook, back into print. He’s also released a great new novel, Mother Howl. I was also blown away by Haiely Piper’s A Game in Yellow, an erotic horror novella that’s both beautiful and disturbing. I’m looking forward to reading Cassandra Khaw’s The Library at Hellbore and Wener Herzog’s new book, The Future of Truth.
