Internationally bestselling author Joe R. Lansdale has received the Edgar, Raymond Chandler, Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Inkpot Awards. His work includes mysteries, Westerns, horror, thrillers, pulp, crime, and science fiction. He has written more than forty novels, including Dead in the West, The Bottoms, The Thicket, Moon Lake, and The Donut Legion. Lansdale’s short story collections include The Best of Joe R. Lansdale, Things Get Ugly, and Born for Trouble. Lansdale’s short fiction has also been adapted for Masters of Horror; Netflix's Love, Death & Robots; and Creepshow; Bubba Ho-Tep and Cold in July were adapted as major motion pictures; his two most famous characters are the basis for the Hap and Leonard TV series on Netflix. He has also written graphic novels for DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, IDW, and others. Lansdale lives with his wife, Karen, in Nacogdoches, Texas. His latest short story collection is In the Mad Mountains and he recently talked about it with Daryl Maxwell for the LAPL Blog.
What inspired the collection In the Mad Mountains?
Rick Klaw mentioned I had quite a few Lovecraft influenced stories, and that maybe we could do a collection. These are the best of the Lovecraftian stories I’ve written, though there was one that was too new to put in the collection. It was still out and just out. But that was the source. Rick Klaw, my editor at Tachyon Books.
In your Introduction, you write that the stories in In the Mad Mountains are, to your mind, the best stories you’ve written that are inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. How did you determine the stories you’d include in this collection? Are they your favorite Lovecraft-inspired stories (I ask, realizing that just because one is your favorite, you may not think it the best.)?
I think they are my best within that perimeter, and some are the best among my stories as a whole. I really love "Bleeding Shadow."
While they have always been popular, the works of H.P. Lovecraft seem to be enjoying a bit of a renaissance, inspiring a number of authors, filmmakers, and producers of television content. Do you have a favorite pastiche, television, or motion picture adaptation/interpretation?
It’s a little hokey now, but I always like the Dunwich Horror, and even did a modernized update of the story for IDW.
A least favorite? (I realize that you may not want to address this one, and if that is the case, please don't. But I also realize it might be so bad that it could be fun to answer.)?
Most of the films don’t do much for me, but I haven’t seen them all. Though I do like a few of those I’ve seen.
In your Introduction, you point out that Lovecraft had some contemporaries, like Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood, who flirted with the ideas of "cosmic horror" that Lovecraft made popular. What stories would you recommend readers seek out to see how these authors approached these themes?
Arthur Machen’s Novel of the White Powder, The Great God Pan, though more sexual than Lovecraft would have felt comfortable dealing with. A lot of his stories seem to be forerunners of Lovecraft. Blackwood, The Wendigo feels very Lovecraftian, as does, The Willows. Again, there are others. A lot of those guys are in Lovecraft’s work.
Lovecraft was famously racist and sexist (which is reflected in his fiction). With this collection, you join a growing number of writers (Victor LaValle, Ruthanna Emrys, Matt Ruff, to name a few) who are reclaiming some of Lovecraft’s ideas and making them into something new and wonderful. Do you have a theory regarding why Lovecraft’s stories continue to influence and inspire contemporary authors?
His stories tap into the worries that maybe the cosmos is trickier than we might imagine. I don’t believe in the supernatural, except in fiction, but Lovecraft’s ideas appeal to me because they are mostly Science Fictional with a tone of horror and the supernatural. If we start deciding that dead people who were racists can’t be appreciated for what they sometimes accomplished, that’s going to go downhill pretty quickly. Henry Ford liked Hitler, was a complete and horrid asshole, so quit driving Fords. Thomas Edison believed in women’s rights and other good things, but he was also ruthless in business who once electrocuted an elephant to prove a point. So, no driving Fords, or for that matter any modern car, because he was the source of so many car companies and the technology and the assembly line. No, using electric lights because the greatest proponent of electricity, not necessarily the inventor, but the reason the use of it spread, was the guy who happily electrocuted an elephant. And there are far worse examples of people who have positively affected culture while being horrible people. They’re dead and gone. I feel differently about living with people who hate people for race, sexuality, or whatever. They are people I won’t purposely give money to. Roman Polanski is a convicted child rapist running from the law. I don’t care that he made one of my favorite films, Chinatown. After his conviction, that was it. I don’t watch his movies. Perhaps when he’s long dead, but I’ll be long dead too by then.
Do you have a theory regarding why his works continue to be popular with readers?
They are escapist, but there’s a part of them that feels real, that he might know something we don’t about the thin layer between our reality and another. A kind of multi-dimensional worry that perhaps, from time to time, our dimensional universes collide. Not saying they do, but he can damn sure be convincing while you’re reading him.
Last year, you collected some of your best/favorite crime fiction together in Things Get Ugly. This year, you’re publishing In the Mad Mountains. Do you have plans for additional themed collections from your work?
There is a collection of some of my best horror stories forthcoming.
What’s currently on your nightstand?
Deadeye Dick, the last of the Vonnegut books I haven’t read.
What is the last piece of art (music, movies, TV, more traditional art forms) that you've experienced or that has impacted you?
The Singularity is Nearer by Ray Kurzweil. It was fascinating and a broader look at AI than we normally get from sound bites. The good and the bad. A bit of it actually creeped me out, and some made me very excited in a positive way.
What are you working on now?
My memoir, The Mechanic's Son. I’m also working on a couple of short stories. Just finished a new Hap and Leonard novel, Hatcher Girls.
