Flames Rising is currently carrying an interview with Joe R. Lansale.

In response to a question about The Drive-In, Lansdale says, “I was worn out when I wrote it. We had two kids, and both were little, and Karen was working, and I was a house dad and writing between diapers and ass wipings, spending time with the kids. I had two contracts, both close together, and yet I had this idea I really liked and it was pushing me. I think I relate to writers like Philip K. Dick, Phil Farmer, in that there’s a kind of inner passion that drives me, but it also can be very draining. I was trying to go out on a limb, and carry the book less on plot and more on style and pace and satire; I felt it should have the randomness of life, plus this feeling of intervention after the drive in started that did nothing but put obstacles in a person’s way. So it had the conflict of two views going. I was making fun of a lot of things, and making fun of horror films, while loving them at the same time. At that time, low budget films of horror were the most interesting, and they would really go off the rails at times, and I was trying to write a book that did that, but still held the reader. The second book I wrote later, but felt the same way. The best writing experience was the latter, and it seems to be the most personal. I tried to make the novel a character as much as the people in it, and in fact, tried to let the novel itself, the world, the events, become the character as the people were diminished.”

Catch the entire interview here: Joe R. Lansdale

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This