Author
Interview: T. Blake Braddy
Book title and Subtitle: Boogie House
Genre:
Supernatural Mystery
What is one of your favorite positive sayings or quotes?
I don't know how positive it is, but Christopher Hitchens once
said, "If you want to write, it must be the thing not that you want to do
or would like to do but the thing you feel you have to do. It must be that
without which you could not live. If you've got that, then you'll be all right,
because you'll survive the disappointments."
Who or What inspired you to start writing this book?
I wrote a version of
what would become 'Boogie House' in my senior year at the University of
Georgia. It was a much different idea then, a much different book. I almost cringe
to think what the first version would have turned out to be.
The whole thing arose
out of these two African-American literature classes I was taking at the time.
I fell in love with a mystical novel called 'The Middle Passage' by Charles
Johnson. It was this unbelievably complex book that coalesced really well with
Ralph Ellison's 'Invisible Man.' Both of those books had this feel to them, and
they inspired me. I had thought for some time that I would write southern
novels, and this weird fifty pages of text came out of me in a wet, stringy
mess. It took me only a few weeks to write it.
Then it died, just died
on the page. I hadn't begun writing novels or long works at that point and
didn't quite have the stamina to put something quite so expansive together. I
spent some months after graduation writing short fiction, and then I stumbled
upon this book idea while eating a sandwich on my front porch. That idea would
eventually become this trunk novel called 'The Hunger's Artist' (named after
the Kafka story). It wasn't a very good novel, but I wrote it in a kind of
blind frenzy, cranking out two thousand, three thousand words a day. I wrote
one hundred thousand words in a little over a month, the final ten thousand in
one day, and came out with this unpublishable thing.
But it was a start.
I came back to 'Boogie
House' some years later, maybe three years. I wrote a draft and liked it all
right, but I couldn't quite figure out how to fix it. Took several drafts for
me to get it to a satisfactory point. This was back in 2009, maybe. I let it
sit for a while, and I went off and wrote some other novels. Last year, I
decided, well, this thing has got to go. I ended up publishing it in December,
just under the wire of the new year.
What three words would you use to describe this book?
Grotesque, Southern, Boozy
Tell us about this book.
'Boogie House' is about
a broken man in a broken town in a broken time. At the outset of the book, he's
ruined anything worth having: his marriage, his job, his reputation. He almost
killed himself and someone else with a bottle of Beam and his old junker of a
car. That got him kicked off the local police force.
And he might well have
dug his grave with a bottle opener and a shot glass had he not found that dead
body in the juke joint across the way. Nobody in Lumber Junction seems to mind
at all a dead man found beaten to death, not even the police. Rolson finds
himself, for a few reasons, being drawn into the case, not because he believes
in justice, necessarily, but because he thinks he might be the only man who can
solve it.
Do you have a favorite chapter from this book?
I would either say the first or the last, because I've spent more
time looking at those two than the rest of them combined. The opening chapter
has, I think, a pretty compelling hook and some nice descriptive prose, and the
ending is a hellish nightmare of a thing, if I do say so myself.
Is your book in Print, ebook or both?
The book is available in print and ebook. I'm also working on
editing an audiobook version not read by myself, which is a good thing for
people interested in listening to it.
What advice would you give to other Writers?
Write. Write every single day. Without fail. Finish what you
start. Edit. A lot. Edit until you're sick of looking at whatever it is, and
then kick it out the door. Then keep writing.
Tell us the link where potential readers can buy this book.
Search Amazon for 'Boogie House.' It will come up in all its
deplorable glory. If you buy a copy from my web site -- tblakebraddy.com --
I'll even throw a signature and some other words on there, as well.
Any additional links?
Here are the obligatory
ones.
Facebook:facebook.com/BoogieHouseNovel
Twitter: @blakebraddy
I also do two podcasts:
The HorrorBull Podcast and The Principled Uncertainty Podcast. Look for them on
Stitcher and iTunes.
Is there anything else you would like to share about this book?
Rolson McKane's adventures will not be isolated to the single
volume that is 'Boogie House.' He will appear in a four-part cycle of novels,
and the second, 'The Devil Came Calling,' will be ready this December.
Thank
you so much for taking the time to do this interview and allowing us a glimpse
into your world.
Plan2Win
