A couple of months ago, I reviewed a horror novel called THE TROOP, by Nick Cutter and I loved it. By now, it's kind of an open secret that Nick Cutter is a pseudonym for a successful Canadian author and his Goodreads page provides an interesting challenge to readers who don't know his real identity. If you can't find out who he is from the photo, you should call him Nick Cutter. One way or another, THE TROOP is a fearless, emotionally complex and layered horror novel. If you're into horror, don't miss it.
Today, thanks to a very cool publicist, Nick Cutter himself drops by the blog to discuss THE TROOP, horror writing and the state of genre literature in a quick interview. So get to know this amazing literary talent and underrated force in horror fiction that is Nick Cutter. If this interview doesn't convince you to read THE TROOP, then nothing will and you will be missing out on a seminal horror novel.
ANYWAY, without further ado...
Probably with me, it’s always the “How far is too far?” question. I’ve been seen (accused?) at various times in my writing career as taking things a step too far … or several steps. A dogfighting scene that goes eight pages, or a teacup Chihuahua getting its head backed over with a car tire, after which the driver tries to scrape it off the street with a snow scraper the way you’d flip a pancake with a spatula. Now those are older indulgences, I don’t write that way as much anymore … but now, see, we’re talking a horror book. That shackles are off! But that said, even horror readers have their breaking points. So it’s a matter of trying to toe that line without slipping over … or if I do slip over (I can’t help it!) do so gleefully, then get the train back on its tracks. Anyway, point being, I struggled with keeping myself in the straight and narrow regarding how disturbing I should go … I didn’t always win that battle.
What I thought was a high point of THE TROOP was that you were not afraid to cross a moral line of horror fiction and inflict brutal punishment on your underage protagonists. It makes it extremely difficult emotionally for the reader, but a thousand times more real. What was the feedback from your early readers about that?
Surprisingly, this was not their issue. Like you, I was worried about how readers would react to these things happening to kids. But they’ve been much more concerned about the animals—which is fair, as those scenes are there to serve a purpose and are pretty dreadful. They were hard to write, too, but I wasn’t expecting them to generate the most outrage/concern. So that was a surprise. Getting rid of preteens is A-okay, but not sea turtles.
I’ve written horror before, years ago, under a different pen name. The first book I ever published was under a pseudonym. Horror’s always been my first love. I’d be happy to write plenty in this vein, but that’s all beyond my control. If the book, and its followup (another horror novel, different theme) do okay, then perhaps we’ll see more Nick Cutter. I certainly hope so.
Young adult fiction is getting a lot of love on the silver screen as well as in book stores. How would you explain that crime and horror fiction thrive on screen (BREAKING BAD, JUSTIFIED, LOST, the SAW fanchise, countless exorcism movies) and are struggling to generate interest in literature?
It’s weird, I know. Some people blame the horror boom of the 80s and 90s—a bunch of crummy books with lurid covers oversaturated the market, turning a lot of casual readers and even a few dedicated ones off the genre. I came of age during that boom, though, and I was influenced by not only the bigtime masters, Stephen King and Clive Barker and Robert McCammon and Joe Lansdale and Dean Koontz, but some of the lesser-known but still vital and incredible practitioners like Jack Ketchum and Bentley Little and David Morrell. Now it seems like a few horror books come out every year, there are a few dedicated “horror” writers, and the rest are often “literary takes” on horror themes written by literary writers. I’m not saying they’re slumming, and I’m sure they wouldn’t say so either, but it seems that sometimes that’s the only way to get a horror book out there and get some attention is to have it written by a literary writer, who, lover of the genre though he or she might be, is taking a distinctly deconstructivist/literary/ironic take on, say, a zombie crisis or a vampire narrative. I’m glad those books exist, I’ve read many of them and they’re damn good, I just wish we didn’t have to gild the lily quite so much.
Are there other genres you've been tempted to try? If so, what are the novels that makes them look fun and meaningful to you?
I’d love to write a thriller. A page-turner. A detective story. A kid’s story. Lots and lots of things I’d like to tackle. I’ll probably die before I take a crack at even half of those things!
Any way you could give us a hint about what you've been working on?
It’s another horror book set in Challenger Deep, the deepest spot in any of the world’s oceans. 8 miles under the water’s surface.