THE MAN WITH THE BARBED-WIRE TYPEWRITER:

AN INTERVIEW WITH NORMAN PARTRIDGE

Norman Partridge is the author of the novels Slippin’ Into Darkness, Saguaro Riptide, The Ten Ounce Siesta, Wildest Dreams and most recently The Crow: Wicked Prayer, and the Bram Stoker Award-winning collections Mr. Fox & Other Feral Tales and The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists. Forthcoming titles include a drastically revamped edition of Mr. Fox, short stories in Subterranean and Cemetery Dance magazines and the anthologies Retro Pulp Tales and Lords of the Razor.

KPB: Norman, following the success of your collection The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists, it appeared you could do no wrong, but recently there has been more than one fan on message boards asking: Where has Norman gone? Did you choose to keep a low profile—a Ten Ounce Siesta, as it were—or did your recent work on the upcoming The Crow: Wicked Prayer movie keep you busy?

NP: When I started out as a writer, I figured I was cast in iron. I thought I’d always see things pretty much the same as I saw them then, and that I’d convey that vision in my fiction. But I changed. I got a little older, maybe a little wiser. I won’t say I’ve particularly mellowed, but I am a happier guy. The end result is that I’m not as comfortable with the bleak view, the dark view, as I used to be. Elements of horror and dark suspense will always be present in my work, but I’ve had to square up the way I’m seeing things now with the kinds of stories I want to tell and the way I want to tell them. It’s taken some time to put it all together.   

KPB: What lessons did you come away with after your experience with the Crow movie? How much input did you have on the project, and would you deal with Hollywood again?

NP: The Crow folks bought the rights to adapt my novel. Beyond that, I really wasn’t consulted. From what I understand, they kept my setting, my villains, and the female lead… as for the rest of it, I’ll just have to wait to see the finished product.

As for Hollywood, I’d love to see more of my stuff hit the screen. I think the kind of stories I write are tailor-made for that treatment, and I’m hoping that the Crow movie will create some interest in adapting other works.

KPB: You’re currently at work on a new version of your award-winning collection Mr. Fox & Other Feral Tales. The original edition has become a collector’s item, somewhat pricey for the average Joe. Did this aid in your decision to do a new version? What differences can the reader expect to find between the two editions?

NP: I’ve seen copies of the original edition go for as much as $400, so that was definitely part of the decision to do a new edition of Mr. Fox. But when I sat down to read the original stories and the dozen or so other early pieces that Bill Schafer and I decided to include, I really felt that they needed a context. I didn’t want to write a bunch of header notes that would boil down to: “And then I wrote… and then I wrote…” So I had to stop and think about it. And what I kept coming back to with almost every story was how it fit into the context of my breaking in as a writer—the lessons I learned writing it, how that particular piece helped me advance my career, what I learned about the business by making the sale. For me, that’s the most interesting part of the book. The Sub Press edition is really addressed to writers starting out today. I’m describing it as a collection, a recollection, and a writer’s handbook.  

KPB: The essays in Mr. Fox are bound to strike a chord among the intended audience.  Are you encouraged by the explosion of new voices in the specialty press arena or do you see it as the ’80s all over again, albeit on a smaller scale?

NP: First off, I know how tough it is to get started as a writer, and how hard it is to get good advice. I also know that I was lucky early on. I had guys like Ed Bryant, Ed Gorman, and Joe Lansdale in my corner. That’s why I feel an obligation to pass on what I’ve learned to the new guys.

I did Mr. Fox with Roadkill in ’92. Slippin’ Into Darkness was the first original novel Rich Chizmar did over at CD. My collection Bad Intentions was the first book published by Subterranean. I know what it’s like to build a career through the specialty press. I also know what the specialty press can do for a new writer, and what it can’t. If I have a criticism of the way things stand today, it’s that too many young writers seem to see the specialty press as an end in itself instead of as a means to an end (i.e., moving into mass market and building a bigger audience for their work). They focus on small markets rather than large. They go for the quick gratification of a micro-press or POD sale rather than fighting the long battle it takes to get an agent and a mass-market deal in New York.

What they don’t understand is that they’re fighting over a piece of a pie that couldn’t feed a mouse, let alone provide the real sustenance necessary for a career. I mean, specialty press horror is a very small pond, and right now it’s brimming. There are far too many books going for fifty bucks a pop, and the collector’s market can’t support it (I won’t even get into the perils of POD publishing here… that’s another story). The way I see it, the end result won’t be much different than the train wreck we saw back in the ’80s with paperback originals. A lot of would-be publishers are going to make promises, announce books, and then fold when the reality of the business slaps them upside the head. A lot of writers are going to get stiffed. And even if things aren’t quite that grim, a lot of books will be published with inflated price tags and extremely low print runs. Some of those books will be bad, some of them will be good, a few might even be great. But the simple truth is that most of those books won’t be read. They’ll be lost in the shuffle, and the writers who did the hard work to write them are going to end up drowning in the small pond before they even have a chance to make it to dry land unless they’re very, very smart.

That’s one of the things I’m trying to communicate in Mr. Fox—how to be smart.   

KPB: While most people know Norman Partridge as a “horror writer” or a “thriller writer” you work is nevertheless tough to pin down with any kind of a genre label. As your friend Joe Lansdale once said, you explore myriad genres “sometimes all in one story.” While this gives the author great freedom, do you think it frustrates publishers, particularly the New York houses who seem to prefer their books neatly packaged?

NP: You know, I don’t think about that anymore. If you’re a writer, it boils down to this: you can write for someone else or you can write for yourself. The latter is what works best for me.

KPB: After a recent reread of your first published novel Slippin’ into Darkness, you expressed surprise at how bleak you found it. Do you think authors tend to pour all their inner demons into their earliest works, perhaps as a form of spiritual cleansing?

NP: Could be. Also, an evolving viewpoint could just be a function of getting older. These days I’d kind of like to believe there’s a chance for a happy ending… at least once in a while. That goes for the people I know and the people I write about, too. But it’s more than just that. When I was younger, my characters seemed more of an abstract exercise. I’ve got more invested in them now. How they handle the cards dealt them is what I’m focusing on. For a concrete example, track down a novella I did a couple years ago, The House Inside. It’s an apocalyptic story, and pretty brutal by most standards. But I loved the way the main character faced down his particular reality. For me, that gave the piece just the right edge to offset the darkness.

KPB: Some of your work falls into the “western” category, though usually in contemporary settings and with your customary blend of romance, horror, and comedy sharing the stage. Do you think you’ll ever write an all-out western novel?

NP: I don’t know if I’ll ever write an “all-out” anything, but a western is something I’d love to try.

KPB: You’ve also edited an anthology (It Came from the Drive-In with Martin Greenberg). How did you find that experience and would you do it again?

NP: Working with Marty was great. The antho itself was a lot more work than I expected. I’ll never say never, but it would definitely have to be the right project to get me to play editor again.

KPB: What can we look forward to seeing from you in the future?

NP: It Came from the Drive-In has just been reissued as a paperback by BP Books. A few of the essays from Mr. Fox will run in Cemetery Dance starting with #50. A couple stories and novellas are in the pipeline, too, and I’ll probably be shopping around a new collection fairly soon. As for the rest of it, I’ll let you know when I type “The End.”

KPB: Thanks for your time, Norman!

NP: You bet. It’s been a pleasure.

This interview originally appeared in Subterranean Press Newsletter