We chat with author Alex Grecian about Red Rabbit, which is a folk horror epic about a ragtag posse that must track down a witch through a wild west beset by demons and ghosts―and where death is always just around the bend.
Hi, Alex! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I don’t usually like talking about myself, but I’ve won some awards for writing, and I’ve spent some time on a bestseller list or two. I have glasses because I can’t see very well, and my wife says they make me look smart. When I’m not writing, I’m reading, or walking my dog, or feeding my tarantula.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’m not sure, but I recently found a couple boxes under the stairs in my basement that were full of plans for science fiction trilogies, and newspaper comic strips, and detective stories, and ghost stories, and really bad humor writing, all from my preteen years. Writing stories was clearly always part of my DNA.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
I have a sort of Swiss cheese memory of my childhood. There are huge chunks missing. So the first book I remember reading was a little digest-sized collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. I must have been six or seven years old, sitting on the washing machine in our basement and geeking out over “The Red-Headed League” and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.”
My goal was to write and draw my own comic strip until I read John Irving’s The World According to Garp early in high school. TS Garp got to stay home with his kids and play with them on the lawn, cook fabulous dinners for his family… oh, and he got to write books. That seemed like the perfect life for me. And it is!
Name one book I can’t stop thinking about? Impossible! I’m always thinking about books: The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, The Stories of John Cheever (and for that matter the stories of Ted Chiang, and Kelly Link, and Flannery O’Connor), Ethan Frome, Sarah Caudwell’s four books, The Man In My Basement by Walter Mosley, Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, The Wind In the Willows, Great Expectations, Atonement, everything Ross MacDonald ever wrote, and pretty much all of Vonnegut’s work… I could go on for days.
Your latest novel, Red Rabbit, is out September 19th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
A witch in the West!
What can readers expect?
Readers are a mercurial lot, but if I’ve done this right expect to identify with a well-meaning ghost, root for an independent-minded witch, tiptoe around all the arterial spray, and stay awake so you can find out what that damn demon’s going to do next.
Where did the inspiration for Red Rabbit come from?
I love a good Western, but my son hates them. I tried to change his mind by showing him some of my favorite Western movies, but the only one he liked was The Magnificent Seven. So I spent a little time thinking about why that story in particular might have appealed to him when Lonesome Dove, The Searchers, and Unforgiven didn’t. And that somehow led me to wonder what The Magnificent Seven might have been like if, after the villagers hired those mercenaries to help them, it turned out the mercenaries were on the wrong side. What if instead of bandits they were pitted against a victim of the villagers’ bigotry and hatred? Like, say, a woman living on her own that they accused of being a witch.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
There’s a character called The Huntsman who wanders in and out of the narrative. The method of his introduction surprised me because one morning he didn’t exist, and then he did. I never knew what he was going to do next. And there’s a scene in which some witch hunters come up the road to collect the bounty on Sadie Grace, and the way she greets them was a lot of fun to write.
With many of your works written within the mystery and horror, where did your interest in these genres stem from?
I think for most of us who write horrors or fantasies or mysteries, there’s a feeling that writing about the things that scare us or fill us with wonder is a way of taking hold of those things and controlling them.
What’s next for you?
I’ve (perhaps foolishly) written a sequel to Red Rabbit because I really wanted to stay in that world for a while. And I have a short story called “The Price of Rye” that’s free to read on the Tor website right now. I’m finishing up a novella, then I’ll finish another novel I’ve started called The Narrow House.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
I’m currently blazing through everything Kelly Link’s written, jumping from one anthology to the next, and they’re all brilliant. And there’s a horror novel coming out soon called Knock Knock Open Wide that knocked my socks off.
