Interview with Michael Slade

[Bartwald]

Part 1

- 'Death's Door' is your first book translated into Polish. Do you think it is a good novel to start one's Michael Slade adventure with?

Slade: Yes. Each book stands on its own within the Special X series. Special X is the psycho-hunting squad of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It is based on Slade's experience in real life, where "he" (Slade is the pen name for a team of writers) is a Vancouver criminal lawyer who specializes in the law of insanity, and has been active in more than a hundred murder trials. To date, there are ten Special X novels, and even though they lock together into one large story, a reader can begin at any link along the chain. 'Death's Door' is self-contained.

- Some of your fans call 'Death's Door' 'Michael Slade lite' - because it deals with Hollywood and its plot often mirrors that of a Hollywood movie, while others argue that it is your most violent book - because the violence there is indeed shocking. With which of these statements would you agree?

Slade: 'Death's Door' deals with the porn industry and snuff films. It and 'Ghoul' are recognized as Slade's darkest books. I think the second statement best captures the novel. The first, however, is also true. The early Slade books are all three-ring circuses, in the sense that the plot advances along three lines, all of which come together at the end of the story. The later Slade books are more linear: the plot progresses from A to B to C and so on. They are 'lighter' in that they are less convoluted, and in that way mirror the streamline of a movie. Different readers prefer different structures.

- In your opinion, does any of Michael Slade's books stand out as the definitely best one?

Slade: No. In fact, the most satisfying thing for Slade as an author is that each of the books has fans who believe that it is the best. It would be depressing to have everyone focus on one book, as if to say it's all been downhill since then. Some books emphasize horror. Others emphasize mystery. Some have mini-Westerns. Some touch on science fiction. But all are plotted to give the reader thrill after thrill. We tape a long piece of paper around the walls of a room, draw a horizontal line representing the novel and divide it into as many sections as there are chapters. Then each chapter is given a vertical "tension rating" between 1 and 5. If there are ten pages that don't go up to at least 4, we follow Raymond Chandler's advice and "Bring in a man with a gun." Except in Slade's case, that's usually a psycho with a meat cleaver.

[Bartwald]

Part 2

- Were you always happy with the fact that your fans knew Michael Slade is not just one person?

Slade: Yes. It makes him more interesting (you'll note I refer to Slade in the third person. I see him as Mr. Hyde to my personal Dr. Jekyll. In a way, the author is a story character, too). The central core of Slade is me: Jay Clarke. But I have worked with a number of co-writers over the years.

- On the back cover of the Polish version of 'Death's Door' we can read praise for Michael Slade from Robert Bloch, Bruce Dickinson and Alice Cooper. Which one of these do you appreciate most?

Slade: All of them, for different reasons. Bloch knew Lovecraft and wrote 'Psycho.' Alice Cooper fused horror and rock. Iron Maiden lured in a lot of young readers.

- Alice Cooper once said that it irritates him a lot that Ozzy Osbourne gets much more recognition than him while they both record very similar music and it is Alice who has a better voice and more interesting ideas for melodies. Do you feel like that too, sometimes? Towards John Grisham, for instance?

Slade: Not at all. Readers like what they like, and Slade writes what he likes to read. It's a dice game whether a particular author ends up in any one reader's hands. Suddenly you discover someone you never read before, and wonder how all those past books never came to your attention? Why did John Grisham not make it big with his first book? Or Dan Brown? Look how many copies they later sold. And what about Stephen King and his Bachman books? Same author, different names, different sales until they were connected. Personally, I think life is too short to eat yourself up over comparisons. What will be will be.

- In one of the scenes in 'Death's Door' you describe the differences between Canadians' and Americans' approach towards the use of guns. Michael Moore tried to do the same in his 'Bowling For Columbine'. Did you enjoy his documentary? Would you agree with the points he made there?

Yes, I agree with most of 'Bowling For Columbine.' I'm a liberal, so my politics parallel Moore's. One thing that bothered me a bit was the bushwhacking of Charlton Heston. Heston had certainly set himself up for the skewering through his work with the National Rifle Association, but it was obvious to me that the illness he recently revealed had begun to affect his mind. As a result, he was no match for Moore's rapier-sharp wit, and the exchange between them seemed lopsided. I have a natural tendency to root for the underdog, so ironically I found myself feeling a bit sorry for Heston, even though I disagree strongly with his right to bear arms politics!

- Since you are so much interested in history, which of your books would you recommend as those where historical events are shown in the most powerful way?

'Cutthroat' for the Battle of the Little Big Horn: Custer's last stand. 'Evil Eye' for the Defense of Rorke's Drift, seen in the movie 'Zulu.' 'Burnt Bones' for Stonehenge and Roman Britain. 'Hangman' for the history of that means of execution, and the most famous real-life hangmen. 'Death's Door' for Ancient Egypt. And 'Bed of Nails' for everything you ever wanted to know about cannibalism.

- What are your favourite films in the genres you 'belong to' as a writer – horrors and thrillers?

When it comes to horror, I want my movies scary. I'm not a fan of mixing blatant humor with terror. This is a hard question to answer for effect, since what was horrifying at the time a film was released, might now seem laughable to modern minds. But a few of the horrors that shivered my timbers when I first saw them are 'The Fly' (I was 10), 'Psycho' (I was 13), 'Night of the Living Dead,' Dario Argento's 'Deep Red,' 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,' 'Alien,' to mention a few. As for thrillers, the original 'Manchurian Candidate' (I saw it before Kennedy was killed), 'Bullitt,' 'Dirty Harry,' 'The French Connection,' 'Fatal Attraction,' 'The Silence of the Lambs,' 'Se7en,' 'Training Day,' all of which are pretty well the standards. Hopefully, I'll see 'Headhunter' up on the screen one day. It's been optioned three times, but hasn't made it out of development hell.

- A recurring figure in 'Death's Door' is Alfred Hitchcock: his obsession with the actresses he hired and his sudden artistic metamorphosis that started with 'Psycho'. But why do you think he was such a successful filmmaker?

Hitchcock goes back to the birth of film. He was trained in Germany in Expressionism, and it shows. His films are moody, and he got to the subjects first. That can't be overstated. I'm old enough to remember the birth of rock and roll. It's like the Big Bang. There was a moment before rock existed, then WHAM! Anyone born after 1955 can never really understand the initial jolt. 'You had to have been there, right?' as they say. It's the same with Hitchcock. What he was doing in film had never been seen before. Plus, it helped that - like H.P. Lovecraft - Hitch was a psychological basket case.

- Is 'Rear Window' your favourite Hitchcock movie?

No, 'Psycho.' Then 'Rear Window.'

- Seeing what is constantly happening to Stephen King's books adapted for the big screen, are you more excited or more worried about the possibility of one of your novels being adapted too?

Excited. I'm a positive thinker. Some very good movies have been made out of King novels - 'Carrie,' 'The Shining,' 'Misery,' 'Stand By Me,' 'The Shawshank Redemption,' 'The Green Mile,' etc - so there's always a good chance that a Slade movie might hit a home run. But, to carry on the baseball metaphor, we'll never know either good or bad if we don't step up to bat. I'm ready! Where's the pitcher?

- You do very thorough researches for each book - and your readers can easily tell it, as going through a Slade novel is not just following the plot but also learning something about the history, geography or biology connected with the subject of each book. What is the most meticulous research you have ever done?

They all took a lot of work, but 'Evil Eye' ('Zombie' in Britain) tops the list. The Mounted Police have been supportive of the Special X series, and for that book allowed Slade access to their inner sanctum. The lab work, the regimental dinner, the red serge funeral, the chase scenes, the red serge ball are all based on fact, and the climax took me on safari into wildest Africa - Zimbabwe and Botswana - where I almost got killed by a spitting cobra and a female lion. The next one down would be 'Cutthroat.' Trips to China, Hong Kong, and up into the Rockies. That's the fun part of writing a Slade novel. I go out and live the adventure, then sit down and create fiction out of what happened to me.

- Which of those journeys remains most vivid in your memory today?

That's a hard question. For 'Death's Door,' I climbed to the top of the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. You're not allowed to do that, so I asked a sexy woman to distract the guard. What a grueling ordeal it was to get to the top, but when I finally looked down, the people below were literally the size of ants. 'Ghoul' was plotted in St. John's Graveyard in Providence, Rhode Island. I spent a full-moon night sitting on the same tomb that H.P. Lovecraft (I'm a HUGE Lovecraft fan) used to sit on because Poe sat there a century before. Very spooky. I like to joke that 'Ghoul' was ghost-written. 'Bed of Nails' took me into the cannibal caves of the South Pacific, which are stocked with piles of skeletons that predate Captain Cook. Which of those experiences would you think the best? See my dilemma?

[Bartwald]

Part 3

- Don't you sometimes wish to write a book without having to do any researching? One that would be pure action?

No. For me, the action is IN the research. The book I'm currently working on took me mountain climbing.

- One of your trademarks is dealing with main characters in a rather cruel way, so that a reader can never be sure who is going to survive the next novel. In my personal opinion, this makes your books even more thrilling but I know that there are people who say 'I hate what he did to my favourite character in this novel'. The question is: do you sometimes have second thoughts about the decision to kill - or dismember - popular characters? Did you 'save' any of them that way?

When we began Slade, the three lawyers made a pact. Every character's life and sanity was up for sacrifice. At one point along the way, Slade's agent and editor came to me with a contract that said one character couldn't be killed off. I said, "What gives?" And they said, "We both like that character, and you're such a cold-hearted son of a bitch that this is the only way we know to keep you under control." I said, "What if I refuse?" They said, "Then you can knock a zero off the contract price." They say every man has his price, and they found mine. The character is still around.

- Aren't you tired of using the same group of characters for such a long time? Don't you feel like writing a novel with a completely new team? Or maybe even switching to a different genre for a while?

No. No. And no. When I feel like a change, I simply have a new character join the Special X squad. The book I'm writing now introduces and focuses on TWO new characters. As for switching genres, the books combine horror, whodunit, mystery, action, Western, romance, science fiction, non-fiction and erotica. Since each book emphasizes a different combination of elements, I feel like I'm working in different genres, even if technically I'm not.

- I know that some of your fans would gladly see a Special X spin-off novel - especially one featuring Mad Dog and Ghost Keeper. Do you think it would be a good idea?

It could be, depending on what plots come to me in the future. That's the interesting thing about writing a series of novels about a police squad of many characters: you can mix and match them. Canada is fortunate to still have a wild frontier, the Arctic. Eventually, I might set a Special X thriller up North, and if I do, Mad Dog and Ghost Keeper would be the ideal pair to use.

- In a few words, could you please say what you think of the following writers:

Edgar Allan Poe: He's the man! He gave us not only the modern horror story, but the modern detective story as well. That's why the Mystery Writers of America give out Edgars. In August, Slade will be a writer guest at HorrorFind in Baltimore, and I'm giving a reading at Poe's Grave at midnight on Friday the 13th. My favorite Poe story: "The Telltale Heart."

H.P. Lovecraft: He's my favorite horror writer. That's why I wrote 'Ghoul' in homage to him. I made a pilgrimage to all the Lovecraft sites still standing in Providence. H.P. was so weird psychologically. Favorite Lovecraft story: "The Rats in the Walls."

Stephen King: The best thing to happen to horror fiction since 'I Am Legend' and 'Psycho.' Period. I'm a little out of step with hardcore King fans when it comes to my favorites: 'The Shining,' 'Misery,' 'Pet Sematary' (I read all the EC Comics off the newsstands in the 1950s), and so many of his short stories.

Clive Barker: 'The Books of Blood' reinvigorated the genre. This man REALLY meant business!

Peter Straub: 'Ghost Story' taught me how much information about a subject could be worked into a book. Every aspect of the classic ghost story was in that novel. It's my favorite of his.

Thomas Harris: Great stuff, obviously. Look what he has accomplished with just four books. 'The Silence of the Lambs' is my favorite. I was planning to write a novel myself about the Ed Gein mammary vest perversion, but Harris beat me to it...and thank the stars he did. What a story!

- You have already passed through Poland once, in 1967; can we expect your second visit now that your first book has finally been translated into Polish?

I have an idea for a novel set in Eastern Europe that would give me an opening to use all the stories that came out of my behind the 'Iron Curtain' trip during the Cold War. When it's time to write it, I will definitely come to Poland. Incidentally, Joseph Conrad is one of my all-time favorite writers.

- You have your next two books scheduled for November 2005 and November 2006. Is it usual for you to announce two books at the same time? Do you write them back-to-back or is it just one story cut in two, the Kill Bill way?

The answer is simple. Slade signs two-book contracts. Always has. Once I know the publication dates in the new contract, I let the Sladists know so they can look forward to the books. The November 2005 book is the WWII one in which Poland and Poles play such a large part. I'm at work on the climax now.