Victor LaValle (Lone Women) on the Power of Monsters, and Writing a Different Historical Fiction Novel

Episode Description

Victor LaValle is the author of a short story collection, five novels, and is also the creator and writer of two comic books. 

His novel, The Changeling, will soon be airing on Apple TV+ starring LaKeith Stanfield.

He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Award, Whiting Writers' Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship,and many more.

We talk with Victor LaValle about his newest novel, Lone Women, a historical fiction novel about a Black women named Adelaide who flees to Montana to start a new life as a homesteader in Montana.

We get into how Victor thinks about speculative fiction and specifically, monsters, as a way to complicate difficult subject matter, his recent forays into television writing, and much more.

Hosted by Phillip Russell and Ben Thorp

You can follow Victor LaValle here.

Visit our website: Originstory.show

Follow us on Twitter @originstory_

Do you have feedback or questions for us? Email us theoriginstorypod@gmail.com

Cover art and website design by Melody Hirsch

Origin Story original score by Ryan Hopper

• Episode Transcript

  Phil 0:21
  
  What's good everybody? Welcome to origin story, the podcast interviews creators about where they came from, to understand how they got here. My name is Philip Russell, and I'm with my co host, Ben Thor. And Ben this week, we talked to author Victor Laval about his new novel, Lone women. And we also doesn't get into kind of his whole journey, as you know, an author and also his, his affinity toward horror as being a key element in his work. And this was a really, really cool conversation and one that I'm I've been really thinking about in terms of like my own writing.
  
  
  
  Ben 1:01
  
  Yeah, I think this is like, it's interesting. We've been we've been doing a lot of I feel like games and games media stuff. And this is one where it's like, Oh, back to literature, baby, like, feels honestly pretty good. And Victor, at least for me, and I know, to some extent for you, is someone who had been reading for a little while and was like, this is cool. I can't believe that this person said yes to an interview, like, let's go. So I was pretty excited about this.
  
  
  
  Phil 1:28
  
  Yeah. And, you know, we touched from everything. Like, if you haven't read the loan women, which just came out in the last month or two, you know, we do a pretty good job of kind of giving you the context for the novel. And we definitely broaden the conversation to just talk about, you know, literary fiction, speculative fiction, and you know, maybe how genre really doesn't matter. So, if anything, I think this is a really elucidating conversation if you're a writer, yourself, and one who's, you know, trying to get that novel done. So how about for this conversation, we'll let it play and we can jump into the more more of the specifics in the outro.
  
  
  
  Victor Laval is the author of a short story collection, five novels and also the creator and writer of two comic books. His novel the changeling will soon be appearing on Apple TV star lakeith Stanfield, he has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as many more. And he was raised in Queens, New York, where he and he now lives in the Bronx with his wife, the writer, Emily, Roberto and their, their kids, and he teaches at Columbia University. Victor, thanks so much for coming on and talking with us. Yeah, I'm
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 3:01
  
  happy to be here.
  
  
  
  Phil 3:03
  
  Yeah, congratulations on lone women coming out. You know, as an author of many, many books and other projects, I'm curious, like, at this point in your career, what does it feel like to kind of release this new project? Do you still have that same excitement? Or like, how do you approach a book launch these days?
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 3:21
  
  Um, well, it's a different feeling, actually, I will say. So. What I've come to see now is like, when I published my first book, I wasn't aware of it. But secretly, what I thought would happen after I published it would be that all my insecurities would disappear. All my pain and resentment about the things that my that I felt were, the pains of my childhood would be healed. And that I would be a endlessly happy person from that moment on. I, as I say, I didn't know that. That's what I thought. But that is what I felt and thought. And so when that didn't happen, I was deeply unhappy for much of the time when I'm in the early stages of when I published that book, when all I should have been was thrilled. And it's because I was asking that book to do things a book can't do. And so by this stage, now, I, I've been to therapy. I think I can compartmentalize the idea of like, when a thing does, what a thing is meant to do and what it's not meant to do. And so now, like when with the latest book, that when it comes out, I'm just celebrating it, I'm thrilled to like talk about it and to talk with people about it. I'm overjoyed when people review it or talk about it, and they say they, they enjoy it. And then when people say that they hate it, or they say that they're confused by it or whatever like that. It doesn't sting in the same way. I'm disappointed. I'm sad and I wish everybody would love everything, you know. But I take it more as like, okay, it just wasn't for them. That's fine. And for these You got what and all of it just feels like a gift in a way that it didn't used to
  
  
  
  Ben 5:04
  
  I can you almost talk like a little bit more about that? I think that that mentality A, I'll just say I feel sometimes that in myself where I'm like, if I put out this piece and it's successful, then I won't Yes. You know, I'll finally feel okay about who I am as a person, like, where does that come from? And like, how did you kind of grapple with that?
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 5:25
  
  What I mean, certainly comes from whatever the slings and arrows of existence are, right? Like, I mean, more broadly speaking, maybe, again, and again, not everybody feels this way. Some writers I think, are enter or creative people of any kind enter into a moment. And they have been equipped to understand that this is not meant to solve all those issues. But in a weird way, I would say, success of whatever kind, is a lot like money in the United States, and that nobody talks about it, and nobody tells you how you're supposed to deal with them. And so like people who are immediately successful out the gate, how do you explain that to other people? Because you're so busy just trying to fit into your set? Like, how, how did I make this happen? And the answer probably is like you didn't make it happen alone. Right. And on the other side of that, when a thing doesn't blow up, turn into something people have get published, whatever it might be. The impulses, well, what did I do wrong? What? And the answer might be nothing. Right? It was good. It just didn't connect, it came out too early, it came out too late, whatever it might be. So but I think we like I don't know that there's actually like training for that, you know, like, or Congress difficult, even training conversations about that. Because it can be embarrassing or painful, I think to admit, you know, like that I was vain enough that I wanted this to succeed. And by succeed, I meant like, honestly, like, before I published that first book, I had it in my mind, I was going to make enough money off of the book sale to buy an apartment in Tribeca. And the picture I had was an every Sunday, I'd have over all my other cool art literati friends. And I had this image, I would open the fridge and there would be all these bottles of champagne and orange juice. And I will just be making mimosas. And I have this spicy Bloody Mary mix that I like to make. And that's how I spend Sundays. And in no way that come anywhere near close to happening. Right. But so but if that's your sort of like picture of success, then your book being published, and it's in the world, and it's reviewed in some great places, somehow you can make that into like, man, yeah, didn't work out. Or man, the world would be more something like that, whatever it is. And I just think like most people don't talk about how they succeeded. Or how they failed that a thing? You know, because both can be kind of embarrassing. and mysterious, right? And so if I don't talk about it, then how to say like, in my suit my students? How do they know? What the past even could be forget about? Like, there's one way to do it. But just, here's one, here's one way it could go. And then you could gauge yourself, well, like, he published his book and was miserable. I'm going to publish my book and be half miserable. You know, and in that way you learn and then that person tells the next person, that person decides I'm going to publish this book, and find a way to just enjoy. You know, there'll be my feeling about
  
  
  
  Ben 8:47
  
  how much do you steal, I was reading an interview with you where you were talking about, like, oh, I had these unhealthy tendencies maybe early on, when stuff would come out to just scroll through the good reads and be like, what are people saying about it? But on the flip, I can also see like, you know, maybe there's enjoyment out of being like, Oh, here's how people are responding to or reacting to, or feeling about this thing that I made in a positive way? And I don't know, do you still? Is that something that you engage with at all now or now you're like, I put this thing out of the world and I will not engage with any of the discourse around it.
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 9:21
  
  Oh, no, I still look at all the good reads and all that stuff. But I have but I think the the way I entered you saw recently there was that? I know she acted terrible. But I do feel some empathy for that young woman who had a book on Goodreads. She shared she then she went on Tik Tok. It was like not out yet. She she had a she had five star ratings based on who knows 50 reviews 100 And you know, some very small number of reviews. And then, one person gave her four stars. And so she made a she went on Tik Tok, and was like, this bit ruined my five star rating. And it turned into like, she was dropped by a publisher, I think, Oh, wow. People went on her Goodreads and gave her like, 175,001 star reviews. Right? Like, that's the worst case scenario like that author acted terribly. But I don't believe she deserved that level of backlash for what was essentially, I can't tell you, especially early on how many times I'd sit there, I'd see somebody give me a four star review. And I'd be like you, you absolute toilet of a human being? Why couldn't you just do five? Well, whatever it is, you know. But thankfully, I had the good sense of good friends to know, like, just don't type that. Just leave it alone, you know. And so by now, what I do look at the good reads, but much, much less often than I used to, but I'll pop in just to see how things are going. And my take on it is like every opinion on there gets to just be its opinion, from one to five stars. And sometimes I you know, like the, if I'm reading through it, somebody has like a decent point. But sometimes it'll be like with lone women. It's a historical novel, but it also has horror in it. And so there'll be some people who be like, this book would have been great if it didn't have any horror in it. And I can't be mad at that. I'm like, Okay, it's just not what you like. And then there'll be other people who will say, like, this, this book would have been great if it had more horror in it. And I go like, okay, it's just not for you. But in a way, now I can see that I can see what they're talking about. And then I can just turn it off and move on. And I credit that to hopefully being older, to having other things going on, I'm married, we have kids, I have other work I'm doing. I don't have the energy to give that as much time as I used to. And just stew on it, you know, 10 seconds of being annoyed or 10 seconds of being elated. And then I gotta go pick my kids up from school. And that helps to wash a bunch of that out of my brain.
  
  
  
  Phil 12:13
  
  Yeah, well, I mean, I bet. You know, with the release of lone women, it's probably been a really interesting experience for you to kind of, you know, delve into the good reads and all the reactions, because the setting and the type of story it is, is a lot different than maybe some of the some of your previous work. And you know, for for listeners who maybe haven't read lone women yet, you know, it's set in the backdrop of the homesteaders act and kind of women being able to, you know, take on free land and the country as long as they're able to, you know, kind of manage it themselves through the through the government. And it follows a black woman named Adelaide Henry, who's kind of running away from this traumatic past in some way with this trunk that has a supernatural element without kind of giving anything away. And, you know, a lot of your other work is much more entrenched in cityscapes and I think maybe just to start us off with this novel, like, could you just talk a little bit about where this fascination with Montana and this kind of time period came from when you were starting this project?
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 13:23
  
  Yeah, well, really what happened is, a decade ago, I was doing an event at the University of Montana. And I tried to make a practice when I go to when I do a visit at a place where I think I probably might never come back to again, I try to buy a book of local history. Because most events, I'm there two days, you know, I fly in, and they're that they doing my reading or meeting students. Next day, I fly out. So you don't you can't really learn about a place in that kind of time. So the book is my way of almost like later saying, what was that place I went to, you know, and what's something interesting about that place, even if I don't go back, I'll know a little something more. And it expands. I'm a kid from New York, born and raised, never really traveled outside of New York State until I was probably 25. I think 20 Maybe 23. So really, like a like non a worldly kid. And so that's another way for me to expand my picture of the world. But anyway, while I was at this University of Montana bookstore looking through their local history section, I found this book called Montana woman homesteaders, a field of one's own. And it was all about women, homesteaders. A group of people I did not know existed at all. And then and then I realized as I was reading it, I had all these preconceived notions about what this would mean. So my first preconceived notion was like oh, when you say women, homesteaders, you mean the wives or the daughters or the mothers of the men? Right, like that's what I would have thought. That's what I did think. But the whole point of This was like, No, these are widows are single women going out on their own? And I was like, Okay, that's interesting. And I said, okay, so they're all white, right? Because that would be who they were. And he said, No, there's, there were some black, there were some Latina. But there were no Chinese allowed because the anti Chinese Exclusion Act was in place. So out west at that time, the ethnic group who was the most legally sort of like, a war the nation was most at war with was actually the Chinese. And that was fascinating to me. And then of course, you have, like, the the actual indigenous population, and the fact that they couldn't homestead yet, but in a few years, they couldn't, it was all so much more complicated than my picture of what Montana in 1915 would be. And what I realized was like, Oh, it's just because I've just, all I know, is what I've seen on TV and movies, right? That's what I know. And it turns out what I know, is nothing. But then I said, Well, maybe I'm just some kid from New York, maybe everyone else knows this. And I'm just slow. So then I reached back out to folks who I've met at the university, folks who'd grown up in Montana to three generations. And then folks would move there recently, and I said, Do you know these long women? Have you heard about these women, and to a person, they all were like, they were long women, homesteaders. And they were surprised. And that's when I was like, Okay, if even you don't know, and you are generations back, then maybe I have a story to tell. And that really was the the thing that was like the path of wanting to tell that story. But what coincides with that also, is that in 2017, I published this novel called the changeling, which is this sort of weird fairy tale set in New York City. And it's deeply, deeply deeply about New York City history and about making New York City weird. But after, after I was done writing it, I was really sick in New York City, which is my hometown, and is the place I write about, and I was dying to write about just anywhere else. And then Montana in 1915, absolutely was the complete opposite to New York City, across the 2000s. So I said, okay, just for me just to feel excited again. That's where I'm gonna go.
  
  
  
  Ben 17:23
  
  I so I love everything that you're saying, Phil, and I just got off. And, you know, our previous interview was with the creator of a game called pentameter, which was also really interested in history, and how much of history kind of gets lost in the retelling that so often, you just have a couple of documents, and those are turned into the entire story. And there's a line in your book that gets repeated again and again, which is that the history is simple. But the past is complicated. Even though, you know, obviously loon women has some of these fantastical elements. You know, the approach is still grounded in this real history. You know, I was I was looking up the I think it's Lucerne Valley, where you talk about the Black Farmers when we start in California. That's real. How do you think about, you know, representing the past, and telling these stories, even though, you know, it's a novel that does also have some of these fantastical elements.
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 18:21
  
  I will one of the sort of very soft, soft rules that I made for myself was that, except for the issue of what's in the trunk, everything else in the book would be something I had corroborated in my research. So like, there is like every single other detail you find in there. If someone wants to say, well, this can't be true, or this came out, I'll find you the passage, I'll find you the article, I'll find the thing, because I really wanted it to feel like a, in a way to a lot of people that the stuff that wasn't supernatural would feel as unrealistic or surprising, as the supernatural thing, because most of us have so little knowledge about these things. Right. And so to learn about, like you said, to learn about these black farming communities in southern California, and to know that they all came out there to to essentially to homestead their right and to make these towns and, and that they were these thriving black towns of farmers. I'm not saying it seems supernatural, but it is not a general part of our American history lessons, or our TV shows, like when you say it's a show about a farmer or a book about a farmer or a movie about a farm or a song about a farmer. Very few people think oh, you mean the black farming families of Lucerne Valley? No, nobody does. And, and so that was that was a kind of like, excitement for me when like each of these things. I could be like, Oh yeah, the Mexican A couple who live up on a mountain. I'll show you the book that I took that inspiration from a book called Diary of a woman homesteader where she met this couple of Baba Baba. And, and there was such pleasure in it for me. And there has been fun on some level. Sometimes when like doing some events, or people will send me like, Hey, I did a talk on YouTube about the book or, you know, review. And one of the things they'll say is like, I really enjoyed this book, but the hard part was like, I just, I couldn't believe that there would be black women, homesteaders. Like he, he shouldn't have made that part up. And I'll be like, okay. Okay, and but the joy of that is, if that person is genuinely interested, like, in the back of the book, I listed some of the books that I'd read, if they go look at those books, they'll find that stuff. And, and to me, like, the pleasure is, if you have an ounce of curiosity about this, there's so much for you to enjoy, and, and soak up. And the next time you drive through Montana, or Wyoming, you'll just have such a different picture of what this place was, and how it became what it is now. Or you can at least if you're interested,
  
  
  
  Ben 21:14
  
  I almost want to ask this question about like, how do you how do you feel about you know, I think your novels before and I think that's very much true of women have been treated as almost like correctives. I'm thinking about the Ballad of black Tom, where people are like, this is in some ways a response to the legacy of the racism of Lovecraft, and trying to spin on that. I mean, how do you think about, you know, are the stories you're trying to tell always, you know, trying to say, Okay, how do we how do we fit in these conversations where people maybe are not used to having them or telling a story that is going untold in other places?
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 21:48
  
  Well, I would say I think of it in a different way, I think of the excitement for me is, let's say again, back to Lone women, like if you say it's about homesteading in the West, in the early 1900s, there's a decent chance you say like, Oh, I've seen that movie, right? I've read that book. And then I get to be like, you haven't read this one, I promise you. And like, so it feels more like an opportunity. You know, like, I'm a horror head from way back. And one of the great joys, like the thing, one of the things that's most exciting about certain, like moments of my moment of greatest excitement with horror is when someone finds a way to use an old trope in a new way, right? And flip it in a way that makes you go, Oh, I thought that I thought that vein had been mined, I thought that thing was dead. And then somebody comes along and says, if you just come at it from this angle, there's so much to do, you know, I mean, the one that pops into my head immediately is get out. Right? And the idea of saying in that movie of saying like, what we are used to is that the white suburban landscape, that is the safe place. Right there. That is the place that gets invaded. That's not the place. That is dangerous. But then if you make if you use this black body as the main character, at least for me, the minute he enters into that environment, I was like, you're in trouble. This is not for you. And then when it turns out that the answer was it's true like this place the the seemingly upper middle class liberal like leveling, right, because the whole the dad says like I would have voted for Obama for a third time. It's not vilifying, like conservative America or anything like that. It's talking about this Bastion that popular media has media has said, this is the safest place on earth. And and then he found a way to say, or is it? And in a way that was fun and exciting and surprising, right? And so for me, like, anything that kind of finds a new I mean, what's his name? Ari Astor, with hereditary and midsummer, with him saying like, let's say in hereditary case, in particular, this idea of like the family under siege, is the is the horror trope. And then what you begin to unravel is like, oh, no, this, the evil is in the family. Right. And in particular, it's the grandma who is the source of all sorry, spoilers, but is the source of all evil is one of the people we picture as the sort of epitome of good no matter your ethnicity race with grandma. But in this case, she sacrifices generations of her own people to bring a demon back to life. And you just ate for me, I just, it thrills me when people figure out a way to do that and make it work.
  
  
  
  Phil 24:49
  
  I love that I mean, I think one of the one of my questions was gonna be something that you just answered of like, you know, with lone women, you have this story that is already like rich with so So many possibilities of like, these histories that most people don't know about. So why have this supernatural element that I loved? But just like out of curiosity, why did this element come into play? And I think you've kind of answered that in some ways of like, there's a level of people, you know, hear the premise. And they, they might think, Oh, I've read that already. So this is a way that you can kind of come in slant and show something else. I'm curious, though, with, you know, with the trunk, because there's a moment really early on that I think kind of, I don't know, I was like, reading through it. Adelaide has has gotten her her place in Montana. And basically, like somebody is trying to break into the trunk. And she kind of has this realization, I also kind of had this realization that, you know, she doesn't stop this person from opening the trunk, then, like, basically, everybody's fucked me, because it can just kind of run wild. And it was this moment for me as a reader to have being like, well, that really blows up the story and expands it way beyond this very centralized place. Because that that supernatural element can kind of do whatever it wants, when Adelaide is not there. I'm curious, just like, with the trunk, in this case, like, when you're thinking about your stories, and thinking about maybe adding some kind of element like that. How does that process go for you? Like, where do you where did the Trump come from? And maybe what kind of mindset Are you on when you're kind of developing these ideas?
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 26:39
  
  Well, usually, the way it works for me is that there's, there's so I would back up and say, part of the reason I love the supernatural or monsters in particular, right, is that monsters get to, in a way get to tell you how something feels as opposed to how something is, right. So what I mean by that is that, let's say you have a family where the father is an alcoholic, right? And you're trying to say like, how do I teach you? How deeply terrifying it is to be with a person who one day is this? The next five minutes later? Is this? How do I convey to you the monstrousness, and the terror that I could just day by day, I could say to you today, he was great in the morning. And then later in the day, he'd had a few drinks. So he started yelling, and then by night, you know, and I could just lay out the specific factual details of things. Or I could say to you, we were trapped in a hotel, no one but me, my mom and my dad. And then he became so much just, it felt like the hotel had taken him over. He became possessed by a force so evil, that it was going to make him murder us. And then he went around that hotel, in a book with a mallet in the movie with an axe, and he tried to kill me and my mother. And then and the black dude who used who was the caretaker there, right. And you say, like, on some level, the shining, let's say, for that example, the shining gets to be the way that King teaches you how terrifying it would be to imagine that your father who raised you, wants to kill you, that you believe he would try to do but it can't be just that like he got drunk and got violent, it's got to be that there is a force that is pushing him and animating him. And it is 1000s of years old or hundreds of years or whatever it might be. And it is it has caused evil across generations. That's the only way to convey to a reader how a child would feel when his father turns like that, right. And so in that way, I think the amazing thing about the supernatural about monsters is it can teach you the the immensity of a feeling in a way that the just the basic facts often just can't do. At least for me, they just don't do it. Right. And so in the case of lone women, I guess one of the things I was trying to without giving anything away, I would try to wrestle with this question of family and caretaking and the burdens of family, right. Like I know for almost everyone. Family over everything, right is the phrase nothing is more important than family but, but my experience has been that like sometimes the worst thing for family is other family members. And, and so how do you convey that you just say, oh, you know, like someone so stole my money. And then they were mean to be on the playground, you know, it becomes this litany of complaints that people just kind of go Shut up. Nobody believes they were. But then you say like, oh, no, every once a month, my brother becomes a werewolf. And me and my mom and my sister and my uncle have to my father, I say, have to lock ourselves in a steel room. Because if that door was opened, he would kill us. And you say, oh, was he a crack it like, to me, I just immediately like, that's how I would tell you about being in a family with a drug addict. Right? Once a month, he becomes a werewolf. And he would kill us if we open that door. So for me, like that's the beauty of using the supernatural. And the other part of it is that like, then also, if people don't really want to read about a family with a drug addict, they could just read about a werewolf. Right? They could just enjoy the werewolf, like a great thing about a monster is, it can also be fun. You know, like the, the the shining, that Overlook Hotel is endlessly fun and creepy. Right? Even as it helps to be a metaphor for our father who was possessed in a way that would kill his own family? Well, it's just fun. Same with vampires, same with whatever. And so that's what I like about it is you get the deeper meaning. And you also get to have fun with it.
  
  
  
  Ben 31:22
  
  You're already talking about your approach to horror, I had this question about, you know, one of the things that strikes me a lot about your writing is often the horror to me feels less of like gore, or like visceral. Oftentimes, the kind of horror that we're dealing with feels like it's this unsettling, I can't quite get my feet on the ground here, I don't feel it fully feel like I understand what's happening. And I'm not sure I feel comfortable in this space. And I think that's certainly true of changeling. And with this, I mean, one of the things that I was noticing is that sometimes the violence of the of the book happens off stage that will come to and the you know, the gore or the like, attack or that whatever has already taken place. And we're seeing like the aftermath of it. And so can you just talk to me about like, the ways that you're, you know, putting the reader in a space where they're uncomfortable, but we're not necessarily always like really seeing the thing?
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 32:23
  
  Right? Well, the first answer to that is that I'm not a huge Gore fan. In general, like, if a movie has it, certainly, I'll get through it, I'll watch or whatever like that. But I'm not, I don't like, I can't sit there and enjoy the kills just for the sake of the kills. You know what I mean? Like, those are the movies I watch, and maybe I'll enjoy it for the moment. But that's not something I come back to more than once necessarily. And for the people who liked it, that's great. You know, but because that's not my impulse, I think it therefore doesn't become the impulse in my writing. Because, to me, the thing that is horrifying about moments of violence or Gore, whatever he is, who is happening to, right, then it really hurts when it's happening to someone I care about, or when I can feel like the writer has, like they actually care about the person, or the thing, if it's an animal being harmed. Then I'm getting hit on two levels. Like, it's not just a piece of meat, it's a it's a, let's say it's a person. And who was that person and doesn't take much, it might be half a page, letting me understand who they are, and then all of a sudden, they're off, you know. And to me, those are the most effective scares, because they're not jumpscares. They're, like you say, like, they're kind of like the shiver under your skin kind of scare. I'm reading the stand right now. The SATs as much as I'm a Stephen King fan. I never read it when I was younger. And so a friend encouraged me to read it now. So I'm reading it now. And for me right now, without question the most affecting deaths. There's a little part in there where he gives you these just vignettes of here's people who were immune to the plague that has killed most of the earth. But that doesn't mean people don't still die, right in various ways. And there's one in particular about a kid five year old kid, all his family dies. He's just old enough that he can scavenge and scrounge for himself. And but he's, he's wandering, trying to find anybody else. And he's living out somewhere in maybe Indiana, I think, or Nebraska. And so he's in a more rural area, and by chance, he walks over an old well, that had been covered up in the woods snaps underneath and he falls into the water, both his legs break, and he's down there for 20 hours before he dies. And that made me so sad for like, that night. And the next day, it was scary to me when he just the idea of it. And then I was like he's Fucking five. And he was like, Steven, like, couldn't you have at least let him just die from the fall? No, like the horror is there's a five year old in a well with two broken legs, crying in pain, no one on earth thinking he's the last human on Earth. And no one comes to him for 20 hours. And then he dies. Like that is heartbreaking and terrifying. And all in a way that like, telling me, us cut somebody into three pieces. And you, you lavish the blood and the gore. It's fun, but it doesn't stay, you know. And so. So for me, again, like just for me, that's, that's my thing. So even when things get gory or extreme, right, like, like, I know, I'm using movies, mostly. But that's just because I think probably there's a larger frame of reference for folks, right. But like, The Exorcist is pretty gory. But it hurts, because I really feel for that mother and daughter. Right? Like, there's other movies that do worse to people. And I don't care, like in the least. But that movie takes a little while to show me a single mom. She's trying to raise this kid to sweet kid. And then just purely by chance, this demon decides, this is who they're going to torture. And it's not even because it hates them, it's to test the faith of the priests. So they're just tools. And so that even speaks to the sort of the evil of it all is like, you don't even this pain doesn't even matter to this demon. It's just to fight God through this proof. And just being like, God, dang, that's a lot. And man, I love it. Because it hurts. You know? I think Did I hope that answered that question.
  
  
  
  Phil 36:52
  
  Yeah, one thing I really liked about lone women, is, you know, while it's taking place on kind of this, this real world setting, I almost felt more grounded by the the trunk, right from the start of the book, I think, because Adelaide is so connected to it. And I and I think something really cool that I think you do is, since she's so focused on making sure that this trunk is okay, and that the people around the trunk are okay. It opens up all these opportunities, I imagine for you as the writer to then kind of play with the readers expectations about other elements of the book. So like, the mage is, I think, was such I'm not to get too into it. But I just found that those characters to be like, awesome, like, I completely did not know, I didn't know where I was gonna go. And I had such like a roller coaster experience of of that, that arc. And I think that it's just like another kind of element that I imagine you're allotted. When you kind of have this maybe grander thing happening in the forefront. It allows you to kind of play with some of these other elements that might seem a bit innocuous to the reader in the background.
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 38:11
  
  Well, and I have to be honest, they also saved me because they like I was determined to make the what's in the trunk of mystery for a period of time. But I also knew, like, I'm not going to write this version where the last page opens kind of thing. I didn't want to do that, because I hate that kind of thing. Right? Like, I want a mystery. And then at a certain point, I'm like, you gotta tell me, just tell me, you know, but what I discovered was like, but if I give you other threats, other things to be concerned about, then you're still want to know what's what this is about. But you're also like, wait, but what about that thing? Like you're like someone's like in a haunted house when you're walking through? Like, where's the where's the scare gonna come from, you know, kind of thing. And so the mage is served a on a writing level, they serve just a mechanical purpose, which is they were a new threat that distracted you from the questions about the trunk, at least a little bit. And, and then they were also again, like Monster they were, they were human monsters, but they were so fun. I was just having so much fun writing them. And, and just like what they got up to, and it did feel like okay, this is just another another tool and it can and then hopefully the feeling for the reader too was sort of like, Oh, I thought this was about one thing, but this is about multiple things, or multiple threats to Adelaide into the loan woman. And then that feels also more exciting to
  
  
  
  Phil 39:40
  
  Yeah, I mean, the something that Ben and I were talking about right before you came on was I don't think this is too much of a spoiler but like you kind of find out a little bit about what's in the trunk pretty early on. And the in the book and like like to your point I found that to be really fascinating because it changes kind of a Um, your expectations for the rest of the book and kind of the reader how they're going through the story after that. And Ben and I were talking about how, you know, we're not big fans of like the mystery box, kind of kind of storytelling. And now I just felt that that was a really interesting choice. And was that something that you kind of knew you were always going to do kind of have this? Maybe first reveal kind of early on? And then or did that come just naturally as you were? You're going through it? No, I mean, I
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 40:30
  
  knew. I think they were really talking about it's probably about 100 pages in right, like,
  
  
  
  Phil 40:35
  
  yeah, less than I think, yeah.
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 40:37
  
  I knew. So for me the so this book began the first time, it began as a long story that was in an anthology that came out, I think, 2014, I think, or 2013. And it was an anthology is called long hidden, and it was an anthology of like, speculative, historical stories. So they might be sci fi, fantasy, horror, or whatever it is mystery thriller, but like taking real history, and in some way, spinning it in a certain way. And so in that story, the way it ended, was with the things, what's in the trunk is revealed. And then it kind of get result got resolved in a way that was almost like a bunch of like, too happy. Considering the truth of what was considering, like, the thing that what was in the trunk, and what its relationship to Adelaide was, was always there. Right. But the way it ended in the story, kind of, like, kind of said, like, and they lived happily ever after, but didn't interrogate Adelaide, or the parents in any deeper way. Right. And what I knew was that expanded to the not in fact, like, I shouldn't say I knew, in fact, I had a conversation with somebody who said to me, like, I enjoyed this, but in the end, it feels like the, the thing that Trump never got its doom. Like, just to leave it somewhat vague. And I took that, and I was sort of like how, okay, let me, let me think about that. And, and it took a couple of years thinking about that. And I realized, like, oh, sorry, pause for a second. I don't know, this is just a, I'll turn my phone off. There's just a spam risk on me. But I don't know if it's, if it's something that plays on your so I'm just going to turn off the phone entirely. Politics. But it when they said that, I I felt like oh, there's a, there's a deeper version of this story. And for me, like I personally, I hate stories where the main characters just flawless, right? Where they're right. Or, more importantly, never forget, they're there wronged by the world. You're sympathetic to them. And we agree, the world is terrible, but they are special and good. And that's the end of the story. Right? Like, I understand the appeal of that, right? Like, everyone likes to think, oh, I only do good things in the world is terrible to me. And I'm going to try and cope with the world. That's wonderful to say, to believe, right? But that's not true. Like even the best person in the world. Arms, other people all the time in gray in ways great and small. And so I'm a sucker for that. Like, where you think, Oh, this is my person. They've been wronged by the world mistreated by the world. I'm all in with them. And then partway through, you realize, oh, but they also do bad things. Or like, forget bad things. They also fail in somewhat fail other people. And so but let's hope it doesn't mean that they do evil, but it just means they're not perfect. And so when I realized the book had room for that, it was a way for me to interrogate Adelaide. And by doing that, as you know, frankly, a way to interrogate myself and my own things that I'm wrestling with at this at the point when I was writing that book, and try to figure out like, my own culpability in things in my family, and then okay, so and so what might be a way that everyone could come out of this change for the better but also having to deal with their shit. And to me that was a journey that I was excited to go on, but it required on some level, revealing the Mystery Box sooner.
  
  
  
  Ben 44:48
  
  Right? And is something that I think like, ultimately what what you do such a good job of, and what like really works for me is that that early reveal allows you just Keep complicating the story. And that's that's what's like interesting as a reader is like when things just are getting more complex as you go and adding those layers of of depth.
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 45:12
  
  I hope it I mean, I always I always hope it feels like it's added. Yeah. Right, like, not just complicated just for the sake of complication. But, but yeah, but the more time like with anything, the more time you spend with a person, the more you come to see their flaws as well as their strength. You know,
  
  
  
  Ben 45:28
  
  I kind of wanted to ask you this question. You know, I was refreshing my memory about Changeling because I read it a couple years back, and I like went back to the New York Times review of it. And great lengths were spent to be like, what what does Victor write like? Here are all the ways that it's a mashup of all these different genres? Is it literature? Is it horror? Is it supernatural? Is it social criticism? I'm wondering, I kind of just want to ask you like how much any of that matters to you? Or like what you think about like, Oh, this is the thing that I'm trying to do? Or is it just like your content to have people being like, I'm breaking a sweat? How do I describe like, what's going on here?
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 46:08
  
  I think what I've come to be content with is there for a certain subset of the world's readers, they will say I have come to I want whatever ride it is that Victor is going to give me right. And I will say like, you know, sometimes I do think about like, you know, one of the things that people appreciate, is like Martin Scorsese, you're gonna give me a good extra story, right? Which is why sometimes it can be, I think, it doesn't lead as well, when you're like, oh, no, this is about Tibet. This is a story about Tibet. Or, you know, what, no, this one's about Jesus. You know, that people come sometimes kind of go, Well, what, you know, but what I appreciate is that, what leads his let's say, in his case, what leads him is his artistic interest, as opposed to people want gangster films. For me, I give them gangster films, right? That can be great. Like someone you know, that they're reliably going to give you some great action in a movie and and, and that's what you what's his name is Grayson, Michael Bay, right? As much as I know, people say whatever they say about the variety of things. That dude knows how to make action. Unbelievably kinetic, sometimes confusing, but unbelievably kinetic, and beautiful, right? Like, I think I mean, as much as I say those, even those Transformers movies, particularly like the first and second one, some of those transformer battles, on their own, are, like, are perfect. They're beautiful. That one was that transformer skates through a bus. And then they're just attacking each other. It's beautiful, right? And if you didn't have to have a whole narrative built around it, I could watch just like those set pieces from him. Because you can see that's where his all his genius goes. And I do think he's a genius for those things, you know. And then he gets bit like, then he makes pain in game, which I think is a pretty wonderful movie. And people don't go see it because they're just saying I don't get it. But crime from Michael Bay to raucous in it what? You know, it's a great movie, if people haven't seen it. It's a lot of fun. So there, that's a long way to say that there is a commercial appeal to doing what it says on the tin, every single time. And I just keep failing to do it. Like, I'm not saying I refuse to do because I'm some sort of like, I'm too artistic. To do it. I start doing one, like, once, like I say, the changeling. Maybe I started that as like, hey, marriages is beautiful, but it's also hard work. And then it gets even harder when you have a kid. And then at some point in there, I'll go like, and what if New York was full of pockets of weird fairy magic? And what if a baby got kidnapped? And what if there was, and it just builds and builds, but like, I'm having so much fun. And I feel deeply invested in the idea that like, that sense of fun. comes through the page. Right? And that that's what I can give. It's not that I'm better than than the other version that just does one thing and just gives it and it's not that I disdain it. I can't do it. And so I lean into like, this is what I can do. Like if you're the kind of person when you eat dinner, you separate all your foods and you eat them individually. I'm not your I'm not your chef. But if you like if you mix up your food on the plate I'm telling you, I might be for you. That is my that is the way I think.
  
  
  
  Ben 50:04
  
  I really, really love that. Maybe in keeping with that, how do you think about because obviously, you're someone who, you know, writes for comics, you write novels. My assumption, correct me if I'm wrong is that you are involved in some of the scripting for some of the TV shows that you're that you're working on? How is it working, you know, switching between some of these different mediums?
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 50:28
  
  Well, the biggest change, whether you're talking about comics, or TV is just collaboration, like what I am used to as a fiction writer, is, for better or worse, I'm the boss of all the choices, you know, like, my editor will give me notes. My wife, who's also writer gives me notes, my best friend, my agents, all of them give notes sort of like that. But in the end, I make the choices. And we go from there sink or swim, I'm the one who makes those choices. But in comics, it as much as the writing is important, it's a visual medium. And you have to work well with your artist, because that artists will do things on the page with the visuals that your words will never convey. And, you know, like I've, I've been a fan of comics that were beautiful to look at, and terribly written. But I've never been a fan of a comic that's well written and ugly to look at. And I just can't do it. And then if you talk about TV, then you are collaborating. In theory, if it gets to the point where it starts to get cast, and then you start to have like a whole team of people who are gonna bring it to life. You're collaborating with maybe 50 people, right? And all of them want to have a say in things, not because they're trying to change your vision. But because whatever your vision is, has inspired them in some way. That's why they applied for the job or took the job or whatever it is. But now you have to give them room to like it's not what you were picturing. But then what they bring is better than what you were picturing. And you have to be open to that, as opposed to saying, No, it's only going to be what I saw in my head. Because then why hire anybody, you know. And the more important part of that is, whether it's about the comics with the artists or TV with all these people. What is also true is like, just because you're the writer doesn't mean you have the best idea all the time. And the best kind of leader is the leader who says, everyone's ideas can work. And I will genuinely use someone else's idea if it's better than what I had. But it takes time to get to, to that place.
  
  
  
  Phil 52:42
  
  Yeah, I really empathize with that that last statement, especially because, you know, like Ben and I both like have like more of a literary, whatever you want to call that writing background that going to MF A's and stuff like that. And at the beginning of the year, I ended up taking a job working in the narrative, Department of a video game studio. And that collaborative element that you're talking about has been really interesting, I think, probably more so for writers because I think we're just so egotistical that you get myself included, like there's so many times where I'm like, Well, clearly my ideas the best. And it's been a it's been a learning process of like acknowledging like, No, my my idea isn't always the best. And like, in fact, it's actually really interesting. And, you know, thought provoking, and fulfilling to like, work with other people's ideas in your own, you know, and like, kind of make this narrative together. And I'm curious for you, you know, now that the changeling is gonna be coming out soon. And from what I read, I think lone women is also already been sold. The rights
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 53:57
  
  we started working on that right up until the strike, like I had my last Yeah, for that the day before we call home strike.
  
  
  
  Phil 54:06
  
  Yeah, I'm curious like, what, um, what's your philosophy been like for like, at adapting your work? Are you somebody who I mean, you kind of are just getting at it a bit. But like, do you foresee these adaptations to be pretty in line with like, the narrative that you created? Are you somebody who's kind of like, Oh, you want it to be a different thing?
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 54:26
  
  Well, so in the case, so in the case of the changeling there's a there was a woman who is the creator and writer of the show, a woman named Kelly Marcel super talented, an unbelievable advocate. She came on as the creator of the show in 2017. And like, became immediately like, came out and met me for lunch and said, like, we're going to do this together, right, which is very rare, as I'm sure you know. Because most of the time, the producers the channel, they don't want the He egotistical fiction writer fighting with maybe the showrunner, who is the boss, if you're talking about the TV version, right? Better to just, you pay them the author a little money or a ton of money wherever it is. And if you can't you just tell them, thank you very much. We'll take it from here. But that was not Kelly's way, Kelly said, I want you to be working on this with me. And, and she stuck to that. So she wrote the whole first season, that's eight episodes. But the way we worked with the to write the scripts, and then she would send them to me, and then I would give her any notes that I had. And then she would work on a little more, and then she would send it to the producers. But she and I would always have the first conversation, or one of the first conversations about what was in there. And I'm in many ways, very lucky, because the show is absolutely it's the book in many, many ways. Like all she wants to what she wants to do to do with additive. Meaning like, in the changeling, you spent all your time with Apollo is the main character, the husband and father is the main character. But Kelly said, I also want to give Emma the wife more energy and space and time. And she was a new mother at the time, because she felt like you were writing it very much from the point of view of the new father, the new dad, I want to write also from the perspective of the new mom. And I just want it so the great thing was, I hadn't done that that wasn't in my book. So everything she's adding is only like icing on top because it's doing this thing that I couldn't or didn't do. And all it's adding to is like the pleasure of it is she found a way in her brilliance. So that you're seeing Apollo's journey, and then you're seeing essentially Emma's take on the same situations not like what was it not like Russia monitorship like that. They're not like they're not disputing each other. But it's more like, he takes the kid to a book off on a book hunt. And you're seeing him Baba, and then you see her first day at work. Whereas in the book, you just saw Apollo go on his trip. And then on her trip, you start to see the ways that some of the weird insidious things, they start happening to her because a lot of that stuff happened off the page, she would just be reporting it. So now you get to see how it was really affecting her. So in a way, I think I got a little spoiled, because Kelly's touch was so graceful and so kind to the book that we didn't, like, there was never a thing which said like, Oh, I'm just going to take out that entire storyline, I'm going to remove that character, which is pretty common stuff. For lone women, which I'm at like that I'm writing it. Right now I've written the pilot and and if we come back from a strike will presumably open, hopefully open a room and then I'll leave the room and all this kind of stuff. But in a weird way, I'm being much more deconstructive with long women because it's maybe in a way because it's mine. So I don't, in a weird way, like, what I've come to feels like, I don't have to be precious about it because the book exists. You know what I mean? So sometimes writers, I do have friends who are writers who have had things adapted, and they've changed a ton of stuff. And they're pretty angry about it. You know, like, I don't like this, they got rid of this. They didn't use this blah, blah, blah. But the take I've had on all along, it's like, nothing changes the book. The book is on the shelf. Right? So if people want to know what your vision was, as the author, they just read the book. The thing sometimes I think the the petulance or the heartbreak on the part of the fiction writer, the novelist, or the short story, right? Is knowing deep down like, compared to the show, no one's gonna read that book. So they're not going to know my vision, right? Like the all my brilliance is hidden on the page. Why didn't they put it on the screen? Like, I think sometimes that's part of the anger. But, but, but if you can let go of that, like so for long women, like it's not that I'm not suddenly setting it on margin or anything like that. But I'm sort of doing a little bit more playing with the journey out there playing with some characters in different ways, like building up different kinds of threats, and I feel totally at ease about it. Because, again, like because if someone wants to say like, it's not like the book, I say, because it's not a book. It's a show. And the show has different demands, you know, and it feels it feels very fun to maybe be steering both ships.
  
  
  
  Ben 59:56
  
  You know, Victor before we get to our next question, and maybe last year Do you have a hard out here?
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 1:00:02
  
  I would say probably 330. Okay. So another half hour would be? I mean, it doesn't have to go that long, but that would be okay. Well, we'll get you out
  
  
  
  Ben 1:00:11
  
  of here before before then.
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 1:00:15
  
  Phil, do you want to miss a good conference? You want
  
  
  
  Ben 1:00:17
  
  to ask that? That literary question?
  
  
  
  Phil 1:00:20
  
  Yeah. Yeah, um, you know, as we were prepping for their, for talking with you, you're just reading through some other interviews and something that I really was drawn to was and I think was an Esquire you were talking about how, during your first to the release of your first two books, you are kind of chasing this idea of like, literary fiction and how it has to be kind of entrenched and misery and like, kind of good literary work is like serious and sad most of the time. And you know, what you realize, and, obviously, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seemed like what you were talking about is like, what you realized is that it was making writing not very fun for you anymore. And, you know, moving more into like this speculative direction, opened up so many more possibilities and brought brought joy back to your process. And, you know, I think that that whole idea is something that Ben and I have, definitely grappled with, like, from all the way back from like, undergrad all the way through through grad school. I think there's, during my time in school, there's so much of a push for students to not write like, science fiction or fantasy. Yeah. Because that's not that's not, you know, literary and I think we're kind of in a better place now. But I found that even, you know, now that I'm a couple years out of my programs, I still have that voice in the back of my head saying, like, you know, Phil, that sci fi you want to write that's not like, the real stuff. And I've been trying to push myself to, you know, get rid of those negative thoughts. And I don't, there's not really a question there. I just found like, what you were saying to be really, really impactful. And like, I can empathize a lot with with that,
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 1:02:16
  
  as well. I'm very glad. I mean, you know, the other thing I would say is what's always fair and what's always I think, maybe useful is to say, that wasn't actually true about literary fiction. That was my perception. Right? And because there's satirists who are considered literary fiction, you know, I mean, there's humor, and I don't know who Gary Stein guard, somebody like that, who is very popular and very funny, but still, I think, falls under a rubric of literary fiction, as opposed to, I don't know what even he had a I mean, super sad, True Love Story is a sci fi really kind of a dystopian story, right. But it still falls under that rubric of literary realism slash Stein guard, kind of fiction, meaning very funny stuff, and insightful. So it was my perception that misery was the default emotion of literary fiction. And I do think, for a lot of students, it's the place we went to, right? Because you're sort of saying like, well, in the span of a short story, or even in the expanse of a novel, how do I, like, get people shake them to their core? What is the stuff that matters, whatever. And there is a bias toward the idea, I think, broadly speaking, there's a bias toward the idea that it's pain. That implies importance or value, right? It's pain that creates the profound sense of value in on the page. And what I started to do actually was in the last couple of years, every other semester maybe to teach a class I call first novels. And we'll read first it will read novels by novels that writers think they know. Right? By writers that they respect and trust and bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, and say like, Oh, those are the great bah, bah, bah, whatever it is. And, and then we'll actually look at the novels and come to see, let's say, Forget first I was just like, this isn't even a broader conversation about novels. It will say like, do you think the tone of this book is one tone, let's say Moby Dick, right? Perfect example of people. Revere, but not always. Right. And then when we read through it together, we see the comedy that's in it. We see it's like, actually a very silly book sometimes. And then it's a philosophical book. And then it's kind of an adventure book. Like the whole thing. We're Quick get stuck in the head of a whale on a quick he cuts out the guy who's stuck in the head of the whale. And he swims out that's like a Michael Bay movie. That's easily a scene in a Michael Bay movie, you know, and all of these things. And it's also like a deep story about melancholy as a kind of, like, as a psychological concern that Melville was writing about from his own personal experience. And then it's also a metaphor of the Pequod is a metaphor for the United States, and for all the different kinds of people who are stuck on the ship together. And then the whale has a chance to talk about whiteness as a concept. And he's doing this then, you don't mean like, it's all these things. But when a thing becomes sort of a classic, it's, it gets flattened, right, I'm talking about like Moby Dick or Beloved, right? Love. It is a ghost story, right? And a story about grief as a form of ghost that haunts us. But nobody would say I don't take, beloved, seriously, because there's a ghost in it. Right? But that's because it has ascended. Right. But if that book had come out on a small press, I promise you, it would not have won the Pulitzer Prize, to remain like it would have just been you read this weird book by this black lady who works full time as an editor? Like that's what that book would be, you know. So, more than anything, what I took away, there's a long way of saying, what I started to say instead was like, these books that I love, are actually these various mashups of genres. Right? There are moods at the very least right there. There's humor, contemplative, there's drama, there's tons more action than I give it credit for. Because in my memory, I only remember the scenes of great grief or philosophy or whatever. And it gave me when I really started to look at the books, it gave me a new freedom, you know, to say, Oh, like that thing that I thought I was supposed to write. Then no teacher even said to me, you have to do this. It was more like we all had a, there was like a an unstated sort of list of rules. And if you asked anyone in that room, even the professor who came up with these rules, nobody could tell you. Right? But whether it's only right in first person, not third, now, it's only right and second, not third, first, then it becomes it's got to be autofiction. No, no, no. Now, it's got to be reportage. No, now, it's, and it's endless. And you don't understand who made up these rules. And after a time stretch realized, like, I don't think anybody made up these rules. I think they're just sort of like weird floating ideas that are kind of shared on a underground basis, and are ruining everybody's enjoyment. You know. And so in that way, like, I took, like, what I took out of my time in the MFA was, there were a, there were a number of skills that the literary realism I was learning under, gave to me. And they were about like, beauty of language, and depth of character in particular, right, and maybe playing with time in certain ways. But in particular, those two things. And as much as the so the genre I grew up on is horror. I love it deeply. Not always known for beauty of language. And also not always known for depth of character, the great stuff, yes. But the middle of the road stuff, you know, is not really. And so what I said was like, Okay, I'm going to take the two things that literary realism does well, and I'm going to put them into stories where things actually happen. Now I got something. And then I'm going to add in monsters. Oh, now I'm getting excited. You know, and then in more recent years, are saying like, and it's going to be based on real history, history. And I started this, the use of nice elements, I got here, right. And I just slapped them in together. But it's it takes it takes some time to have confidence that I can, I can take all those tools and make you make them make use of them for the books that I want to write. Right. So it's like, it's the big thing for me, it was just, it wasn't to say, Well screw the MFA screw literary realism. It was more to say I'm taking what you do best. And then I'm going to add it to the things in the genres, what my genres do best. And when you put them all together, that's the thing that is even better than either of these two things on their own.
  
  
  
  Ben 1:09:47
  
  You know, I really resonate with, you know, everything that you're saying, I think we both really do we talk about this all the time where it's like, you know, this stuff that we feel like we quote unquote, should be writing again, where did we get this idea from? We're like, does this suck are we miserable? like doing this, and then the stuff that we're like, oh, is it like pretty fun? We keep coming back to like, but is it good, though? It's probably not good. Yeah. Even though that's like maybe the stuff that we're enjoying the most.
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 1:10:12
  
  Well, but and that also leans into I think the the narrative that exists that, like, you're not supposed to enjoy this, right? Like the serious people don't enjoy creating their art, it's supposed to be filled with angst it's supposed to be filled with. But I think some people are just unhappy people like even when they're doing a good thing. Like, there, the state of normal is to be in a place where they're never quite satisfied. You say, That's great for you. But that is not the standard, right? I'm a person who does best when I'm happy doing the thing I'm doing. And I can feel happy doing that. And in fact, from my end, the thing that I have to get pulled back on, it's my editor who does this because my editor he's published, I think, six out of seven of my books. At this point, he hates all things horror and speculative, like, he loads it, right. And so what he's what he's good for, it's like, it's great. You're having a good time. But this doesn't make any sense. Or it's great. You're having a good time. But I don't understand what this is supposed to be about. And that's necessary to write because it's sort of like, oh, no, it's a coven of werewolves, who are also witches. And then at a certain point, the aliens come and he goes, Stop, to stop. What does this mean? I don't understand. Why are the werewolves witches? And I go, I just thought it was fun. And he goes, that's not a reason. Right? So that's the other side of it is like, just fun is also not enough. Right? It's also like, it's fun. And then, but if I can say to him like, well, they're witches, because I can't think of a reason off the top of my head. But if I came up with a good one, then he'll be like, Okay, I get that. But can we lose the aliens? And I go, Alright, no aliens.
  
  
  
  Phil 1:12:10
  
  I love that. I Victor, thanks so much for talking with us. I feel like, you know, you've been talking to a lot of people that work in the games industry. And I think it's always good to get back to just more like fiction writers, because I think it's a good moment for about an hour to get some of these pep talks of like, you know, just write your weird fucking novels already, you know?
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 1:12:30
  
  Well, but you're also I can imagine, for the folks in video games, I can imagine it's maybe similar to some of the conversations I have with people in TV and film. Like, there's so much money riding on something working, right, that you can't just, you can't just go on whims, whatever every choice has to, in some way appeal to, I'm guessing, at least a couple of million people. Right? Yeah. And so in a way, the, the reason I am so happy each time I come back to fiction is I don't want to please anybody in this early stage, except me and my imagined reader. And my imagined reader is my ideal reader, the one who gets all my little references, who loves the genre, mash, mash up, all that kind of stuff. And in the end, I can believe that there, like for a book to give, you only need a few 1000 people. You don't need 5 million people to like that be nice, but you don't need it. You know. And so I can imagine like to give credit to the game people. It's such a, I can't imagine that amount of pressure to be appealing. Right. But that's why it's great that we can also write fiction. Yeah, I think
  
  
  
  Ben 1:13:50
  
  this is a good place to end and just say we really appreciate you coming to talk to us.
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 1:13:56
  
  I think that's the most pep talk I'm ever gonna wear. We just ended there.
  
  
  
  Ben 1:14:02
  
  So that's probably the best gonna save it. And that's my alarm now. Yes.
  
  
  
  Victor LaValle 1:14:11
  
  Well, Philip, Ben, this was a great time. I appreciate you having me on.
  
  
  
  Phil 1:14:33
  
  And that was our conversation with Victor Laval about his new novel lone women about speculative fiction, and everything else in between. Then, how are you feeling after talking to Victor?
  
  
  
  Ben 1:14:48
  
  I feel great. And I also feel like you know, it's interesting. I feel like we get get done with every conversation and then I'm like, time to go back and engage with every single thing that they've done now. And that's kind of how I felt like after this conversation where I was, like I, you know, there's some stuff in the back catalogue that I had been meaning to get to. And now I'm like, in earnest, it's time to get to that stuff.
  
  
  
  Phil 1:15:10
  
  Yeah, I mean, I, Victor, the vowel is somebody that, you know, I've been aware of, for a number of years, mainly through you, and then this like, different like properties. But I haven't spent a lot of time reading his work and loan women was the first novel of his that I've checked out. And yeah, I think, you know, for one reading, reading the book, it's just like, a joy to read his prose is like, really, like, approachable and nice. But then also talking to him. I feel like, I learned a lot about I mean, if anything, like kind of, like confidence in your writing, and like, how much of that is kind of trusting your own process, and, you know, leaning into the things that you've that you enjoy, and that like, the weirdness that you enjoy, and not necessarily worrying about, you know, outside forces.
  
  
  
  Ben 1:16:04
  
  Yeah, I really love his his, like, I don't really, you know, to some extent, I'm not too worried about, like, where I fit. And also, like, I'm just gonna write this stuff that feels good and feels like, I enjoy it. Because that stuff that I, you and I talk about all the time struggling with, or it's like, the stuff that's fun. I don't I don't know if it's the stuff that I should be doing. And I think it's like, it feels good hearing that from someone who you know, is a professor or knows what they're doing, you know, like, is very well published. And so I think like, there's something that, that allows that to resonate in hid in a way where it's like, you know, when you and I are talking, we're like, but should we be doing the fun stuff? Or should we be doing the miserable stuff that feels like it's more literary?
  
  
  
  Phil 1:16:51
  
  Yeah, I mean, just thinking about this conversation, I feel like listeners, you know, if you, you know, found out about the Show More recently, another episode that I kind of feel like this is in conversation with, as with the Gina Nutt episode about night rooms, because, you know, obviously, that that book is nonfiction. And I think, in that conversation, we kind of get into, you know, Gina nuts, affinity toward horror as a way to work through, you know, various life experiences, whether it be like mental illness or, you know, suicide dealing with loss and grief and things like that. I kind of feel like this conversation with Victor does a really good job of maybe giving us that other puzzle piece in terms of why, you know, horror is such a great catalyst for, you know, dealing with really complex experiences, like his whole thing about monsters and how monster using monsters is a great way to actually think about how something feels versus just literally showcasing how something is that's something that I'm really like, chewing on, in my own work right now.
  
  
  
  Ben 1:18:08
  
  Yeah, no, and I think like horror as a genre is really good about this, which is like, when it when it's when it's good, when it's not the kind of, I'm about to get myself into trouble here. But like the schlocky Gore stuff, you know, and there's been asleep, right, I think we're in like, a really great moment for her where you have a lot more like we're getting a lot more of these movies that are like intellectual in the sense that like, the there's the visceral horror, that's like happening, but it's secretly about something else. Right. And I think we've gotten a lot of those get out. As mentioned, I feel like we bring up Baba duck in these conversations a lot. It follows, which I know, we're both really big fans of is always a part of conversations around this stuff, where it's like, oh, we're actually kind of talking about something else. But we're using horror tropes to like get into that conversation. And Victor, I think is really great at at being like, yeah, like this is, this is a way to make that very specific trauma, or that very specific life experience, actually more relatable and more of a thing that anyone can kind of sit down and watch. And I think that's true, right? Where it's like the, you know, when I talk about how much I love, it follows two people, there's plenty of people who are just like, that's a fun time. And like, that's it. And then there are people who are like, yeah, like, let's get into this conversation about like, life and how, you know, our adolescence has escaped us. And, you know, it feels like death is around the corner. And, you know, we're becoming adults in ways that we don't necessarily like feel like we have control over. And so it's like, you can you can start having these double conversations. And I think like, you and I are people who are like, let's have that secondary conversation, but also like, it is worthwhile when I think can work on those two levels, and also just be like a pretty good time.
  
  
  
  Phil 1:19:54
  
  Yeah, I mean, I think another example that just springs into my head is I Nope. But Jordan Peele, his most recent film as being like, a great example of kind of, well, it's maybe less horror. You know, horror ish as his last two, I think it still also kind of speaks to some of what Victor is getting out with, like using a monster as a way to work through like a very kind of hard to grasp hold of the M around the being seen and spectacle, and, you know, and things like that. So, I thought that was really interesting. And then just Victor's whole process about like, visiting a place that maybe he doesn't think he'll be able to return to, and buying a book of local history as a way to kind of re engage with that place, I found to be really interesting. And you know, that, I don't know if you're thinking of this, but something when, when we were talking about Montana, I had to stop myself from kind of going down this tangent, but I know exactly what you're gonna say, I know, you're gonna, you know, Victor talks about, like, you know, going to Montana and being a city guy, and not really having any kind of perspective on what Montana was. And I think I can speak for myself and saying that, and it sounds like YouTube. And like, I didn't really have an idea of what Montana would be like, but when we did our road trip back in 2015, in a different way, I feel like I also had that experience of like, being out of my element, but also really intrigued by what Montana actually was.
  
  
  
  Ben 1:21:36
  
  Yeah, I mean, that was the when he was bringing that up. That was my, my first thought was like, Oh, wow, I remember feeling like we got to have that experience with the loon casts our old podcast for folks who don't know, where we kind of traveled around the country and went to a bunch of different places, exploring themes of death, belief and the supernatural. But one of the experiences that I felt like we got to have was going to a city. And then because we were like, interested in history, or interested in talking to local experts, we got to have this, like, you know, oh, here's the kind of maybe surface level tourist experience. And then like, here's the like, in depth conversation, that is going to be the thing that you think about for the next, like 17 hours while you're sitting in the car, where you're like, actually, maybe learning something more nuanced about the history of a place and like that stuff was really cool. And I think that that is kind of what he's talking about here is like, oh, maybe you only touch this place briefly, but I want to know more about it.
  
  
  
  Phil 1:22:34
  
  Yeah, and you know, I'll be I'll have a shameless plug and be like, Y'all, you should check out the loon cast. You know, I think Ben and I, and our two friends here, and Evan, did a really good job with that show. And I think the Montana one episode in particular is really interesting, because, you know, we visited this ghost town that was like, in in the the mountains of Montana, and got to meet some eccentric folks out there. And it's funny, like, you know, after that experience that we had on the road trip, you know, I went to grad school, and I kind of wrote essays about that experience, but I've never really thought about thinking about those, those histories that we engaged with as a stomping ground for like, potential fiction stories. And I thought that was also interesting with Victor's kind of ethos of like, with with lone women, specifically, of kind of taking the historical and having all of the historical elements be based in fact, and then having one, you know, one or a few supernatural elements that he could then kind of shake the boat with, I felt like that was a really interesting approach. And one that I bet kind of gave him a lot of freedom and fun, which I think it's kind of clear on the page, like a lot of fun to be had with that kind of setting.
  
  
  
  Ben 1:24:02
  
  Yeah, yeah. And just like, what a what a good smart prompt, and I loved how much he talked about, like the history stuff, like really mattering and like getting it right really mattering which is like, yeah, was just very cool. I think it's easy in a in a book of fiction and especially like supernatural fiction to be like, Yeah, sure. This is like all made up. But it's pretty sweet. I think to be like, no, no, like, there are some elements of this that are made up but most of it is like extremely well researched and like definitely happened.
  
  
  
  Phil 1:24:35
  
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I kind of feel I don't know if I don't know if there's are other things Ben that we haven't touched on. I feel like we should I feel
  
  
  
  Ben 1:24:44
  
  like it's worth just talking about like it is cool to me that he's kind of having this moment with like his stuff getting adapted into TV shows. There were two books that were like a huge I think like how to had a big moment. In trying to grapple with the racist legacy of Lovecraft, HP Lovecraft, and one of those was Lovecraft country, which got adapted into, frankly, mediocre show. But like was it was a book that I like really enjoyed of short stories. And I remember around the time when that show was coming out a lot of people being like, Yo, what's going to happen with the Ballad of black POM? Like, that was like a really cool story. And so I didn't ask him because it was like, I feel like it's an old enough work of his that maybe you get tired of hearing questions or questions about it. And also, like, there's clearly these other shows that he's working on right now. But that was like a really impactful book for me where I was like, wow, this is just like, really cool, really smart. It's like doing all of the things that, you know, when we talk about, like, what Victor is doing, where it's like, oh, like, we're doing horror, but we're also doing social commentary. And we're also doing, you know, surrealist fiction, like he's doing all of that stuff in a way that's just like also packaged in a book. That is, I think it's a novella. And it's just really fun. And so I, yeah, it's cool that he's kind of having this moment, because I think that he's also someone who's like, very engaged in the conversation about like, what is horror? And what should horror be doing? I ended up picking up and I remember sharing with you, like, he had the New York Times review of Stephen King's the outsider. And so like, that ended up being the reason that I read the outsider. And like, that was all about, like, you know, I think it was like, how he was appreciating kings approach to writing characters who came from a different background than him. Because I think in that there are there are some non white characters and he was like, Oh, like this, some of what, like what kings doing feels like really good, in the ways that he's like, not taking on the POV of these people, but still, like trying to, you know, understand them and make them sympathetic from a gaze that is like outside of their experience in a really interesting way. And I'll plug that, that review too. But I think like, yeah, I feel like he's someone who's been like, in the horror sphere, and is like, been around those conversations. And so it's like, cool to see his stuff like blowing up in a in a bigger way. I feel like,
  
  
  
  Phil 1:27:21
  
  yeah, 100%. And I think the other kind of element to that, that I kind of took away. And it's not necessarily like this revelatory statement, but I think he did a really good job of unpacking, like, the whole part of our conversation around like literary fiction versus speculative fiction, and how, you know, oftentimes, books that kind of end up getting, like a lot of praise for being like literary. Oftentimes, the inherent weirdness that they embody, gets flattened. So he talks about like, Moby Dick, or Toni Morrison's beloved, as being these works that are deeply weird, they're deeply inter genre oriented, with a lot of different things happening on the page. But oftentimes, especially if you're somebody who's been in like grad school, or something like that, you're kind of trained to not kind of engage with maybe the Mars genre. You know, John, with air quotes, elements of writing, and I think he does a good job of kind of acknowledging well, like, that whole idea just isn't true. You know, like, all great. Writing is similar to what Austin was talking about a couple episodes ago, all great writing is kind of interdisciplinary, it's intersectional it's engaging with all these different things. And that's what makes it interesting, right?
  
  
  
  Ben 1:28:56
  
  Yeah. And I really, I think, like, if there's a if there's a thing that I've been chewing on the most post interview, it's that is that this stuff is allowed to be and often is, like, goofy and weird. And, you know, the conversations that we have around the canon is that it's like all like boring and stuffy and you know, I don't know where that's coming from, but like, a lot of it is like messy and strange and weird and like, that should make you feel okay about you know, some of the more like genre elements, if that's the stuff that you end up enjoying.
  
  
  
  Phil 1:29:29
  
  Yeah, so you know, if anything, as is the case with every writer conversation we have, we need to finish our goddamn books. Somehow, some way but listen, you know,
  
  
  
  Ben 1:29:47
  
  this is the year this is the finally the year this is where it's gonna
  
  
  
  Phil 1:29:49
  
  happen. 2023 We might be dead next year anyway, so
  
  
  
  Ben 1:29:53
  
  we're probably going to choke to death when everything goes up in flames. I don't know.
  
  
  
  Phil 1:29:59
  
  Yeah, I mean it already has. But you know, we're still waiting on the smoke to get us. If you if you enjoy. If you enjoyed this conversation, you should check out Victor's new book lone women, which is available anywhere that you would buy a book, also available on Kindle. And I mean, all the e readers and things like that. And, yeah, if you enjoyed this conversation, also consider leaving a review on the various platforms. We've been seeing y'all kind of hyping us up on social media, and we appreciate that. So yeah, keep it rolling. Love you. Bye. Bye. Thanks again for checking out the show. If you would like to follow me on Twitter, it is three di Cisco on Twitter as well as Instagram. And you can follow Ben on Twitter at sad underscore radio underscore Vlad, we wanted to thank melody Hirsch, who designed all the awesome cover art and design work for the website and the podcast itself. And we wanted to thank Ryan Hopper who does all the intro and outro music, as well as some of the interstitial stuff you hear, and dinner in different episodes. If you enjoyed the show, we'd love it. If you left a review on iTunes, you know, subscribed on either iTunes or Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts. You know, reviews help just get the show in front of more people, and only takes a couple of minutes. So yeah, if you could do that for us, it'd be greatly appreciated.
  
  
  
  Transcribed by https://otter.ai