We chat with author Peter Rosch about What The Dead Can Do, which follows a young child who’s fate is at stake in a deadly battle between his deceased parents in this gripping and profoundly original psychological thriller, perfect for fans of What Have You Done and Middle of the Night.
PLUS we have an excerpt to share with you at the end of the interview!
When did you start writing, and have you always wanted to be a novelist?
I started writing fiction the minute I could wield a pencil, so I don’t know the exact age but very young. I had dreamt of becoming a novelist in the back of my mind for a long while but until my late thirties, my alcoholism dictated otherwise. For me, writing novels now is one of the many gifts of my commitment to sobriety.
You’ve indicated that this story started as love letters you wrote to your son when he was two because you feared you were going to die prematurely, can you elaborate on that?
By the time my wife and I had our son, I had many solid years of sobriety under my belt but I hadn’t given up cigarettes. In fact, I loved them. Still do, but I don’t touch them now. The love I had for my son and parenting from the get-go bowled me over, but even that adoration wasn’t enough to kick smokes. Sober or not, I’ve always had worse-case scenarios on my mind. Dark stuff. At all times. An idea entered my head that year: you are going to die, Peter. Soon. My son deserved better, but even though I had capably given up alcohol and drugs, I could not shake my addiction to tobacco, both the nicotine and the act itself. In true addict form, I decided my early death was inevitable and that I’d better put some words on paper for my son before that happened. As I’ve mentioned before, I even started rehearsing a deathbed speech to deliver to him, a two-year-old, instead of just quitting smokes. Chantix eventually got me over the hump with quitting cigarettes, but my fear of not getting to see my son age into at least early adulthood remains a huge thing even today.
You are candid about your struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction while you were working in advertising in New York City. Congratulations on being sober for nearly 17 years. What aspects of your recovery journey are evident in your novel?
Acceptance, hope no matter how dim, rules versus suggestions, suicidal ideation and depression, and despite my previous admission about still dwelling in the dark notion of a premature death, the optimism that comes with turning it all over to a higher power. More specifically, relapse features large in this plot. I’ve had my own and watched others die from theirs. Those incidents can appear quite demonic on the surface, like a possession of sorts, and maybe some part of me was trying to rationalize away my grief and disappointment for those lost to the disease of addiction in that way.
For the past ten years, you’ve pursued a new passion – being a full-time parent to your young son. How has being a dad inspired your work?
Well, this book is built on many of the tenets in those letters I wrote to my son eight years ago. On a grander scale, fathering my son, educating my son, guiding him into an empathetic and authentic headspace so that he can have his own positive effect in these increasingly troubling times is paramount to me. But I also know that I can only move the needle so much. Letting go of what I can’t control—which is most things—has been integral in navigating writing and publishing and certainly parenting.
As a man and father, how comfortable were you writing a story about a mom who wants to kill her son?
I think I’m part mom (at least in so much as parenting still tends to be defined) to my son but even so, I thought writing Amanda would be a wonderful challenge to take on. I am incredibly lucky to have been surrounded by many amazing, strong, women who parent as mothers, fathers, or both. I don’t pat myself on the back often, but I do believe I am an excellent listener and that skill served me well in creating Amanda and Nicole, while I also drew upon certain aspects of my own mothering instincts.
Did your novel involve special research? What, if any, serial killers specifically did you model Aidan on?
I read the transcripts or watched the videos of any interviews with serial killers that I could find. I also read what psychological evaluations are accessible. I ended up spending a lot of time on many killers who aren’t the usual name brand killers. I don’t recommend it. That said, it has given me some insight into why a good chunk of us seem to be willingly walking into a global dystopian nightmare. Yay. In the end, Aidan is a blend of many psychopaths and, perhaps unfortunately, one-of-a-kind. But, like with all things “good” and “bad,” there are complexities and gray areas within serial killing. It’s an odd thing to say, but I hope I’ve represented them well.
Your version of the afterlife is unique. What was the inspiration? Was any of it based on what you believe?
The answer to this is probably its own two-hour podcast. Lol. Call me?
Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?
I typically need some time away from a story to really see what of me exists within the characters. I do know that the set up to this particular calamity is based heavily on the morbid paranoia I felt around writing legal wills and choosing legal guardians for my son should both my wife and I meet a mutual unfortunate end. Referring to this novel as a love letter to my son, which it is, might be inadvertently setting readers up to believe I see myself as the father, Tag. I’m pretty confident in saying that he is not me though. I guess we’ll find out! Lol.
Your take on possession is pretty interesting, can you explain how your version came to be?
As a sober human evaluating my own and other friends’ poor decisions, grotesque actions, and dark states of being over a lifetime, we often joke it was “the demon.” That’s only a small piece of it though. I read a fascinating article/study once on how “evil” was technically in all of us. How under the right circumstances any human being could behave in ways that we typically only assign to psychopaths. And, if I’m being honest, I actually believe that any one of us while in certain states of darkness is susceptible to something akin to possession, a day or even a lifetime where we are not out in the world as our authentic/true selves. Is it actually a demon, a spirit, or an otherworldly force? In a sense, I believe yes is the answer—but absolutely not an excuse or me condoning acts of ill will in any way.
What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?
Maybe my brevity here will see me finally meeting Karyn Kusama. The film “The Invitation” is my religion. Obviously, there’s tons of other films and non-fiction that inspires me, but I just want to have lunch with Karyn to shoot the poop about that film. Lol.
What do you hope readers take away from your novel?
Beyond enjoying it as a horror-thriller, I sincerely hope they get whatever it is they need at that moment from reading it. I know my best reading experiences the last decade aren’t just the fantastic book itself (not calling mine fantastic, btw) but those lucky times when a fantastic story finds me at the very moment my soul needed it, whether I knew it or not.
EXCERPT
1 TAG
They were together. That’s all that mattered.
At thirty-five thousand feet, Tag found this sentiment pedestrian and no match for the one-two punch of the CRACK and shudder of the cabin cradling his family above Nevada. The passengers around them gasped in unison, their palpable unease and the escalating turbulence setting Ethan off into warbled, panicked cries. Tag’s wife Amanda embraced their two-year-old tightly, murmuring comforting words in his ear, but it did little to quiet their son. Even so, no one in the rows ahead turned back to glare at them for the outburst.
As the plane lurched forward, Tag studied the profiles of other flyers across the aisle. Save another child not much older than Ethan, every face looked like his felt: grave and uncertain, teetering toward alarmed while holding their breath for a return to smoother skies.
It was their first trip since Ethan’s birth, one Amanda deserved for so many reasons. They’d swung big: Hawaii. Amanda had pitched him on a stay in Kukuihaele. Thirteen hours in the air, a three-hour layover, rides to and from airports, and the hubbub of travel was a lot to ask of a toddler, even one as calm as Ethan. The unexpected was to be expected.
Any other time, the passengers’ ambivalence to Ethan’s fit would have been welcome, but this turbulence was . . . different. Tag had experienced “nightmare trips” before. Real doozies, he might have said. What a laugh. He wasn’t laughing now, though. His stomach sank as the cabin dropped.
This felt like a true disaster.
He swallowed his fear, then met Amanda’s tearing eyes, hoping his offered comfort. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he whispered.
The corners of her mouth started to lift, but a sudden, violent bump stalled the smile.
He felt an urgency to memorize her face. Tears or no tears, the green in her eyes hit him like the first time he’d seen them from across a crowded bar. The bar had a name he usually remembered but couldn’t remember now.
As casually as he could, he cocked his head over his shoulder to find the flight attendant, hoping her expression might bolster the flimsy “it’s nothing” assertion he’d made. She was strapped to her jump seat in the back, hands folded on her lap. Just as he caught the attendant’s relatively composed expression, the plane leveled. It still struggled as if the racing clouds had turned into a cobblestone road, but at least it was no longer pitched nose to the mountains below.
They were seated halfway between the exit row and the rear lavatories. A good place to be, given Ethan’s vocal ire. Tag had selected that location purposefully. The bathrooms were close by, but, more importantly, his family was surrounded by the 93-decibel rumble of the engines on either side. A child’s diaphragm is a hearty organ, but few can pitch a fit at a volume that will rise over the rolling thunder of aviation physics for very long. Ethan began to settle, his face eerily at peace—even when the 737 MAX resumed a steep forward tilt toward the ground.
In the months leading up to the vacation, Tag had taken care of the planning, hoping it would mollify Amanda. The destination had been a no-brainer, given Amanda’s “gentle” insistence that, on the whole, no island they’d ever visited in the Atlantic had come close to matching the beauty of Hawaii; his main focus was to make the trip as effortless as possible for her and to minimize Ethan’s impact on other flyers. Travel magazines said plenty about how to calm crying babies in flight, too, which fed his anxiety about keeping Ethan steady. Every thought, every purchase, and every memorized how-to tip had been about protecting and caring for everyone who might be put out by Ethan’s tempest.
Maybe, Tag had thought, a perfect family holiday would help Amanda forgive his affair.
There was a second CRACK. The vibrations were now on par with a violent quake. The possibility that his family in row 27, seats A, B, and C, could collide into the mountain below and walk away from the crash entered his mind.
Unlikely, but it was possible. People survived such things.
There was hope to be had.
He’d once seen an infographic that demonstrated theories of seat locations within a crashing plane that would give the highest probability of surviving the impact. Little cartoon passengers ahead of the wing were crushed within the fuselage. The seats behind the engines? Safest bet. The article said the wings had strong structural components, which helped that part of the plane withstand a crash.
“Heads down! Emergency position! Heads down! Emergency position!”
From behind them, the flight attendant had been repeating the commands for a while, but this was the first time her orders penetrated Tag’s thinking about a more optimistic outcome.
Gravity had ahold of the plane now. The passengers to his right had their bodies bent and heads pushed against the seatbacks with their hands at either side for protection—in some cases, heads tucked fully between their knees. Despite the noise and thrust of the plane’s descent, which made hearing difficult if not painful, Tag homed in on one flyer’s voice, an aged woman speaking out a prayer in between her pained sobs:
“Guide me, Holy One, on this final journey . . . Your hand pointing the way, Your loving eye upon my face . . . As I seek my new dwelling.”
Amanda had made a protective shell over Ethan. It was a struggle, but Tag laid his body on them both. Under a cacophony of passenger screams and last pleas to various gods, he repeated, “I love you, I love you,” while staring at what was visible of the left wing through the nearest window. It looked stable. Solid. Unaffected by the growing mechanical snarl.
Faith is daunting, sure, but like a muscle, it can be trained.
Tag had sound scientific reasons to remain optimistic.
He managed to find Ethan’s tiny hand, which was buried under the weight of Amanda’s forward lean. He took it in his.
“We’re going to be alright,” he said.
In the final moments before impact, Tag squeezed his son’s fingers for the very last time.
****
THE TEXT | SECTION ONE WELCOME, TAGGART!
You will likely have questions about:
- WHY you are here,
- WHAT here is, and
- what CAN or CAN’T be done while you inhabit Second Plane!
No one text can contain everything you need to know or the answers to these questions. What you experience here will be UNIQUE TO YOU.
There will be shared encounters, but what residents see while inhabiting this space is up to the residents themselves. EXCITING, isn’t it? You’ll be creating and conjuring, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
This text, commonly referred to as “The Text,” was created to give you some basic knowledge around topics deemed most necessary to address with new residents. Your best possible transition from PRIOR PLANE starts with a GOOD ATTITUDE and this text. The content within will stimulate an immediate and more coherent dialogue with your mentor.*
THE PANIC YOU MAY FEEL RIGHT NOW IS ONLY A MIMIC OF THE ANXIETY YOU ONCE KNEW.
If at any point you and your mentor develop irreconcilable differences, your mentor is obligated to inform the council. With TIME, with WILLINGNESS, with CURIOSITY, the relationship you develop with your mentor will serve you well.
——————
*All residents are assigned a mentor from inception here. You will find their name and instructions on how to MAKE CONTACT on the back cover. All mentor/mentee relationships assigned are final.
