[Alessandro Manzetti] I read that you published your first novel Sick People when you were in college in Waterville. Who was your first reader? Would you tell us the plot?
[Sarah Langan] I wrote the story in a workshop led by Richard Russo. It was a breakthrough for me, because, rather than slice of life, it had a meaty plot. In it, a nurse who’s been working for her wealthy patient in Iowa contemplates murder. It was published in the New England Intercollegiate Literary Journal.
[AM] Your first novel, The Keeper (2006), winner of the Bram Stoker Award, is set in Bedford, Maine. A place cursed by bloody past, living a complete decay. This decomposition lives between the pages, swallowing up the reader and the people of Bedford. The incessant rain, Susan Marley, a woman scarred by experiences roaming the streets like a ghost, after her death the worst nightmares come to life. The other ghost is the city itself. What inspired you to create this atmosphere of despair, was it lack of hope? It is terrible as the violence and horror that we will meet then
[SL] I was full of self-righteous rage at the time I wrote that book, like most twenty-somethings. I wanted to make my mark, I wanted to speak for all the people who can’t, I wanted revenge for abuses real and imagined. So, there’s that. I also just like the dark sides of things. There’s an honesty in them, where I’m most comfortable. I don’t like telling lies; I don’t like pretending to be anything I’m not. I find that when you start down that road, you’ll do anything to prevent being revealed as a fraud, and suddenly, your whole life is bullshit
[AM] In your life, what is your personal approach to reality? Are you are more fatalistic or realistic? Are the dreams the ghosts that hover around us or do we create and transform them into reality?
[SL] I think anything is possible. After all, humanity exists despite some serious statistical impossibilities. So, why not ghosts? They tend not to be what I think about on a daily basis—I’m more interested in everyday people and struggles. Those hold their own kinds of horrors, and wonders, too.
[AM] You've been compared to authors such as Stephen King and Peter Straub. For the atmosphere, the realism, the lyricism of your prose. How much have you been influenced by the works of these great authors? What is the element and the most distinctive feature, that we can find in your fiction?
[SL] I’ve read and love them both, along with a lot of literary and magical realism and science fiction. I think what distinguishes me is that I have a more streamlined voice. I’m darker than early King, and unlike him, my characters are often not likeable. Straub is pretty apples and oranges. Our voices are totally different. I might occasionally get as dark as him.
[AM] Your second novel The Missing (2007) winner the Bram Stoker Award, is the sequel to The Keeper and takes the apocalyptic and zombie story roads. Two topics of great success. Despite of this you offer great originality, through your style and the scientific reconstruction of the virus, which spreads the infection turning people into carnivorous monsters. What has changed in your fiction since The Keeper? Which goals and themes have you chosen this time?
[SL] The Keeper was the first horror novel by a no name author published by a major house in about a decade. I wish I could say I’d ridden off previous authors’ successes in the field, but I didn’t. The Missing, while about zombies, was also one of the first mainstream zombie books, so again, I was slightly ahead of the curve, which means I didn’t benefit as much sales-wise from the craze. The monster doesn’t matter much to me. It’s the characters. I’m thinking a lot about the way America is divided in ways I don’t understand lately, and the cannibalism of the middle class. These are themes I’ve dealt with before in Keeper and Missing, but as I mature, I tell the story differently.
[AM] You also wrote many short stories, The Lost (2008) won the Bram Stoker Award. Can you tell us something about this story, let us live the atmosphere?
[SL] The Lost is about a woman who works discount retail at a store called Filene’s Basement. After her father dies, she literally begins to disappers.
[AM] Your latest novel, Audrey's Door, winner of the last edition of Bram Stoker Award, tells the story of Audrey Lucas who moves to a new home in Manhattan, trying to put the past behind. But the house is haunted and hides terrible secrets. In the preface you refer the inspiration from works like Stephen King's The Shining, Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin, Hills House by Shirley Jackson. What is so different in your Audrey's Door that we can find?
[SL] Well, the story is a lot about the arrested development of my generation, and the world we inherited from the baby-boomers, whom I think sacrificed the future for their own personal comforts. This is a very different theme than King’s alcoholism metaphor, and Levin’s treatise on women’s liberation.
[AM] And now, two horror street classic questions:
In this heading we try to learn about new landscape of horror literature, through direct experience of the authors. What are the new trend of horror? Could you name some new authors who are conducting original projects?
[SL] Liz Hand is an excellent writer. So is Sarah Pinborough. I like Kevin Brockmeier a lot, and am looking forward to Ramona Ausubel’s first novel. She just published a short story called Atria in The New Yorker that is one of the best of the decade.
[AM] We leave the reader to imagine of walking along a dark and lonely road going back home, and having to turn the corner. What (or who) does he find around the corner?
[SL] Will Ferrell’s daughter, asking for rent money
Author's Profile
Sarah Langan grew up on Long Island and went to college in Waterville, Maine, where she published her first story, Sick People. She got her MFA in creative writing from Columbia University, and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of three novels: The Keeper (Bram Stoker Award nominated in 2006), The Missing (Bram Stoker Award Winner in 2007), and Audrey’s Door (Bram Stoker Award Winner in 2009), as well as several short stories one of which, The Lost, won the Bram Stoker Award in 2008. Web Site
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Interview by Alessandro Manzetti
HWA Associate Member
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