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Religion and reanimation: An interview with Kim Paffenroth (Part 2)
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Kim Paffenroth is a professor of religious studies and the author of several books on theology and the Bible.Kim Paffenroth is also the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth, a study of Romero's living dead film series, as well as his own popular batch of zombie novels, including the Dying To Live series and the upcoming Valley of the Dead, in which famous Italian poet Dante, road-tripping across Europe while working on his famous Inferno, stumbles into a full-blown zombie infestation.
In the conclusion of my exclusive interview with Paffenroth (Part 1 is available here), we discuss his attraction to the horror genre, and what his career holds for the future.
Was the horror genre – and the living dead sub-genre in particular – something you’d always had an interest in, or something you just discovered?
I’d been enthralled with the original Dawn of the Dead when it first came out. Just couldn’t get it out of my head. I guess like many people my age, that thought of claustrophobia and being the last people on earth was something that was thrilling as well as terrifying. It was the kind of nightmare you sort of loved to hate and fear and be curious about, all at the same time. And then, when I was in college and grad school, I doubt I thought of a zombie from one year to the next. I guess once in a while, when I’d go to an arcade and play House of the Dead. And then I saw the ads on television for the Dawn of the Dead remake and they blew me away. I was so there. That’s what inspired me to go back and rewatch the whole Romero corpus, and then write Gospel of the Living Dead.
Recently, your blog has featured a word count of the new project you’re working on, as well as some commentary about how the writing is going. Why the open-door policy? Is it to give fans a peek at the process, or is it a way to keep you focused on the task?
Good question. I hadn’t thought of the latter, but maybe that was helping me along. I think I thought of it mostly as a fun thing to share with my very modest fan base. But there was an element of running to the blog and posting as soon as I had today’s word count – kind of documenting and rewarding myself for the day’s work, as a little perk or incentive. It helped that there was almost always good news to report. I don’t know if I’d do it day after day, if the blog entries read, “Despair. Can’t write. I’m a failure.” I guess I’d like to share (and brag) about my success, but setbacks can be kept private.
What’s been the highlight of your writing career so far?
Well, for heart pounding excitement – you have to say the Stoker Award banquet in Toronto that year (2006). Everyone in tuxedoes or sequined gowns. All the suspense of the envelope opening. I was so crazy that night, that we went to a bar afterwards – I’m not making this up – and the barmaid refused to serve me. I said “Huh? Why not?” She said I was obviously intoxicated and it’d be against the law for her to serve me more. And I hadn’t had a drop at the banquet. So I must’ve been pretty excited.
But oh – meeting the fans. Wow. That is pretty elating too. I can’t imagine what it’s like for a really famous author, because just the couple people at a con who tell me they came there specifically to see me – that’s enough of a rush for me. I can’t get over it whenever it happens.
And there are all those high points at the keyboard, alone and private, but still pretty thrilling. I remember writing Orpheus and the Pearl, and making a little scene where the two women embrace and the main, POV character can feel the other woman’s hurt and anguish. And to me, I’d gotten that just right. It felt so good. I guess those are the day to day highlights I enjoy and look forward to the most.
Do you have a list of certain things you want to accomplish, or are you just taking things as they come?
See my enemies driven before me in chains? No, guess not. Well, I want that contract with a big press. I think that’ll happen some day. I don’t know when yet. Before then, I’m just trying to have fun. Well, I hope even after the big contract, I’ll still have fun each day. That’s what this has been about – getting my message out to more people and having the most fun possible with them.
When you started writing, was it just for fun, or were you in fact envisioning a second career?
It was a total lark. I gave myself about a 50/50 chance that anything would come of it. I thought it equally likely that the book wouldn’t sell and would just be a little conversation piece – “Oh, I tried writing a novel once.” That kind of thing. And if it did, I would’ve wasted maybe six weeks, and had fun doing it, so I didn’t see the harm.
Do you see yourself tackling genres besides horror in your writing – particularly your fiction writing?
I think, for reasons of my outlook and interests and personality, that my fiction will always be “dark.” I think the grotesque and the violent are good hooks to grab a reader, and the story may demand such elements in order for it to be honest and true to its message. But I don’t have anything special invested in the label of “horror.”
What’s on the horizon for Kim Paffenroth?
I have two completed novels that are being shopped. The first is a zombie version of Dante’s Inferno, in which the poet stumbles on a zombie infestation, and the events that unfold there give him the inspiration and ideas for his great poem. (Paffenroth is referring here to Valley of the Dead, which is now complete and available for preorder.) That was a great exercise in absorbing Dante’s theology as thoroughly as I ever had, and using my imagination to reshape it in a way that doesn’t include God or Satan or Hell. That was cool.The one I just finished is a ghost story, very atypical of my stuff so far. Very little violence. Mostly just people hurting each other emotionally in the ways that we so often do. One of them being a ghost doesn’t really change that much, but gives the story a hook and feel that I hope will resonate with people. And now, I’ll probably go and write the third installment of the Dying to Live series, as I’ve been asked to and I think I’m up to it.
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