“Is All Your Ink Made of Blood?”- Feast of the Pale Leviathan
Q: I am fascinated by the idea of Feast as a body horror novel, particularly with how the concept of non- and un-aging are problematized in this hypercapitalist hellscape. Are you inspired by body horror as part of your writing? Do you write genre or adjacent to genre? How do you think of the body in your writing?
A: I love body horror! Well, love is a strong word, lmao. I’m absolutely inspired by body horror. I don’t always utilize it in every story I write, but I think that the terror of having a body, of piloting this flesh machinery and always being partially separate but eternally entwined with it, in many ways being trapped within it and looking outwards, affects me tremendously.
Paying attention to life, you see the way that the body is a tool of capitalism, a resource for the upper classes to exploit and manage. You see trans people who strive to change their bodies to reflect their deeper spiritual and emotional selves and face oppression and violence for that pursuit. Growing up Catholic, we’re taught that so much of the needs and wants of our bodies are sins, blemishes on the soul in the eyes of a judging God. And then there is the fact that we are mortal, that our bodies age and fail us.
Growing up, I suffered from intense panic seizures that would sort of “take me over”. Eventually I learned how to exist and think calmly and separately during them, talking when possible to loved ones during the seizure, keeping an eye on myself in case of real danger. I also saw my father suffer a debilitating stroke and lose his faculty for language and ability to work, as well as my grandfather suffer from Alzheimer’s and fade into the ether, so to speak.
So when I write anything, genre stories or literary stories alike, the body and its terrors and limitations are in my mind. Everything good and bad passes through the stained windows of the body and pours out onto the soul.
Q: Owen’s journey seems to be about giving up on the idea of success. How is failure radical, especially in the light of capitalist expectations? How does this affect publishing and literary spheres?
A: I’ll be honest, I really appreciate you getting this from the book because I didn’t fully realize I put it in there! But it’s definitely something that’s been cooking in the pot for a while, lol. Failure is such a terrifying thing at first glance, carrying with it so much weight and pain. Will I regret my life? Will I shame myself in front of others? I think writers are always grappling with this. Even successful writers seem to be terrified their work isn’t enough, that they’re selling out or failing their obligation to others and to their art.
When I was younger, I desperately wanted to be a great writer. I wanted to succeed at everything I did, I wanted people to love what I made so I could be in conversation with my heroes and inspirations, who made art seem so meaningful and enjoyable. I still have the desire to make the best art I can, but I’ve realized so much of the rubric for success is false and misleading and even damaging to us. I’m still figuring it out, and I’m a daily hypocrite giving into the anxiety of wanting to be liked, to have my work enjoyed (and not ignored or far worse, disliked), but it’s from a generally healthier place now, and I know that’s the direction to swim towards if I want to keep at this life and keep peace with myself and others.
Q: Your work is a rejection in some part of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, which argues for a sovereign state to compel civilized society. Meanwhile, Suzanne Collins invokes Scottish philosopher David Hume to apparently the same ends in her dystopian novel Sunrise on the Reaping. How is total control overt versus covert in society and how is genre literature dealing or not dealing with that?
A: I haven’t had the opportunity to read Collins’ latest, but I really do appreciate the consistency with which she is tackling the problems of our times and really enjoyed the Hunger Games books when I read them. I’ve always enjoyed literature that directly grappled with social and cultural issues. I know there are a lot of readers today who seem to distrust or dislike direct themes or moral issues in fiction, which is honestly very confusing to me. I understand reading for sheer pleasure’s sake, to get lost in the imagination, but every work of fiction, every myth and story and poem and reader is an act of persuasion, carrying a world view and value system that it wants to share with others. Even in works that say they’re just there to tell a story, that writer has a sense of right and wrong and what is meaningful and interesting and what is not. So a story that says it has nothing to say is lying to you. We’re all surrounded by subliminal messaging and compelled actions and always have been. The internet has amplified it, sure, but not invented it.
So literature, in all its forms, has the ability to say “This story has something to say. You can hear it out or not” and then try to make the case using the narrative or language as an engine driving the reader towards that message. To me, that is deeply freeing. I think that the declining interest in English courses, in analyzing literature and learning from the history of literature, is setting us down a path where we stop seeing ourselves as equal participants in the conversations of our time, in the power dynamics and cultural norms and systems of oppression.
If we want to be a truly free people, we have to consider everything. We have to engage in the conversation of what this thing is that we’re all building together, even when we believe we’re just a cog in the machine.
Q: I am very interested in how you address the non-aging in Feast. Of particular interest to me was the baby who is baby-aged but developing very differently under the conditions of Levi. How is this book taking into account posthumanism?
A: I’m really glad you dig that aspect of it! Forever baby Sean is creepy but adorable, lol. I definitely had posthumanism on the mind as I wrote Feast. As our society increasingly embraces itself as a cyberpunk dystopia, with the push to look more towards the stars than at our planet and our bodies as our solitary truths, I believe that many of us are collectively yearning for some sort of evolution, to escape the existential stasis of death and aging and the chaos of humanity and the threat of climate change. But if there is a real transcendence for us, we don’t know its true form and likely never will. Only the future will know where the future goes. I think Sean is a big part of that question.
Q: I got real anime vibes from this. I think you mentioned Attack on Titan but I also thought I sensed a family resemblance to Akira. What works outside of literature were part of your inspiration for this?
A: Hell yeah! I’d say this book owes a lot to Akira and Attack on Titan in particular, but I suppose it comes more from a place of disagreement with it. I had a lot of complication emotions about how that story progressed, and that reaction was part of writing this. Some other cultural points outside of literature that I’d say flavored the writing process were Neon Genesis Evangelion, Pinocchio, the Decemberists, Chrono Cross, the Poseidon Adventure, Hieronymus Bosch, Mastodon & certainly a lot more, but those are fun places to start.
Q: There’s a pretty memorable scene where applicants to a secret society are going through the most corporatized orientation. Along with Severance and the reboot of The Office, how is office/corporate culture becoming monstrous IRL? What is your perception with or relationship with that kind of work?
A: I’ve definitely had some rough experiences with bad office culture. One office job I had in the past (during my time in Canada) was a corrupt and mysterious place, where we were given instructions to organize impossibly long lists of keywords for the sake of the company’s funders without really understanding why and what for. I think that offices are forced to maintain an image of forward momentum and pleasant status quo at all times, and while some prefer that “protected space”, it often creates a kind of spiritual vacuum that’s difficult to survive for everyone else, and these days the energy to maintain normalcy is gargantuan.
Q: Keeping on the work topic, how did you choose to depict jobs and working in Feast? I was really interested in the credentials and suitability some people have and don’t have, particularly the hapless lifeguard at the beginning of the book.
A: Oh, I love writing about jobs 🙂 I’ve had a lot of jobs, been working since I was 15. I think Boxcutters has a lot of job stories. I grew up lower middle class and have been stuck in the gristle of the labor market my entire life to sustain myself while I pursue the things that interested me, and those experiences and seeing the kinds of people out in this big blue world is endlessly inspiring, lol.
Q: How do you feel about theme parks and other specifically engineered vacation spots? I really enjoyed how you chose to contrast the illusion of safety with metaphysical dangers; they feel like a few steps away from the dreaded ‘liminal space’ of internet aesthetic lore. Where do you find the danger of the illusion of safety outside of your writing?
A: Theme parks are certainly another recurring interest point for me. A lot of my friends growing up were very attached to theme parks and in the Northeast there’s a lot to go to and interact with (as well as many that are decaying and poorly run.)
The beginning is actually inspired by a real place and a real moment in my life when I fell asleep on a river raft rube and a lifeguard had to come and rescue me because the current was too strong. It was extremely embarrassing but funny in retrospect.
I love “the danger of the illusion of safety” because it really is that, an illusion, and often times we get so aggressive about pretending otherwise, which just endangers everyone even further.
Q: Conspiracy theories and crackpot legends are a big part of Feast. During the aforementioned orientation, somebody is ridiculed for believing in secret societies, however they are applying to be a part of the new city of Atlantis. The Atlantis theory is a fascinating one because it’s based on a misread of a philosophical text, but seems to flourish in neo-liberal or anti-intellectual spaces. How do you use conspiracy theory lore to satirize toxic magical thinking?
A: Conspiracy theories have always been fascinating to me, because they are so arbitrary and furiously maintained by those who need them or benefit from them. You’re right about Atlantis. Plato’s off-hand allegory grew to become this lasting image of an ancient empire lost to the sea. It’s been utilized for a variety of purposes, but very often as a kind of comforting tale for white people. A myth of a fall from unified grace that ties into a bow the cultural construct of whiteness. Conspiracy theories erode our relationship to the world and allow us to disregard the humanity and agency of others to create a story that comforts the small, weak part of ourselves.
Q: Your short story collection Boxcutters is out right now. Boxcutters and Feast of the Pale Leviathan as a double feature; what would you want readers to take away from that?
A: I hope they laugh, enjoy some excitement and mystery and feel a measure of camaraderie and mental and emotional freedom.
Q: Cold Signal is our point of meeting. I think it’s great! What are your experiences running a small litmag in the genre sphere? Does it inform your writing at all?
A: Thanks, friend! It’s extremely exhausting but infinitely rewarding work doing this thing solo, but I love seeing people discover the work, I love seeing friendships form over shared inclusion, I love seeing people form connection points between the pieces in the issues. It takes up a lot of time that used to be writing time, but it’s changed the way I write for the better. I disagree with the idea that only writing improves writing. I think editing and reading and championing the work of others can do just as much, if not more, once you’ve reached a certain stage in your growth.
I can’t keep up Cold Signal forever in this form, but I hope it’s enjoyed for a long time to come and that it’s a fond memory for everyone who takes part.
Q: On top of writing, you and Amanda run Evening House Books, a teeny tiny bookstore which is actively growing at the time of writing. What was your journey to bookstore ownership? What are your next plans there?
A: It’s been unusual and unexpected! Ever since we worked at Powell’s together a few years ago now, we’d hoped to one day start our own, because it made us both feel deeply fulfilled. Amanda was up until recently working at another bookstore and enjoyed the experience and learned a great deal about how a store is run on a smaller scale. About a year ago, we started talking about building up the ground floor: starting online, building a website and giving people a vision for the collections and curation style we’d focus on (Amanda is also a veteran librarian and archivist, which has really given them a lot of tools to work with!)
Our next step was to try and find a place to table, to set up a pop-up. We were blessed to discover the building we’re in now, and the unique model it’s running of small spaces for start-up businesses to flourish in. That day took our long-term plans and changed them irrevocably by giving us the means to get started with little to our names, starting off in a small room and moving very recently to the storefront space.
Our goal now is to slowly but surely build our stock and plan for events, book clubs and more. It’s still difficult work and far from a certainty to survive, but feedback has been pretty great so far and I’m just so proud of Amanda and all their work and how it’s paid off. I’ve contributed, sure, but Amanda should be seen as the true visionary for the store. I’m just glad to be their co-navigator!
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Feast of the Pale Leviathan by John Chrostek is available at Deep Overstock.