Giving horror a new edge
LaValle discusses weaving social issues into his work; his latest is ‘The Changeling’
In “The Changeling,” Apollo Kagwa loses his wife, Emma, and their son Brian in an unspeakable chain of events but is determined to get them back. He begins his quest for his family’s return and finds himself in worlds only a mastermind like Victor LaValle could create.
LaValle’s “The Changeling” is a horrifying fairy tale about the maze of parenthood, shrouded by the shadows of our own upbringing. The award-winning author blends literary allusions, horror and commentary to create a riveting work that will have readers examining their views on parenthood while worrying if they’ll ever sleep again.
The Times spoke with LaValle by phone about his new novel, why he chooses horror to discuss racism and more. This conversation has been edited. Why is horror/sci-fi/ fantasy a good fit for discussing issues like racism and mental health?
One of the great things about horror and speculative fiction is that you are throwing people into really outsized, dramatic situations a lot. In their ways, things like racism and sexism and classism, biases against the mentally ill are outsized, dramatic issues in real life. To me, it often makes sense to put the two things together. If I wrote about them directly, my fear is that it starts to become too lecture-y and kind of dull. But if I blend them with really dramatic situations, I find that it’s like a little bit of syrup to help the medicine go down. H.P. Lovecraft is an obvious influence; your novella “The Ballad of Black Tom” is both a tribute and critique. Was it difficult to criticize him? It wasn’t difficult, but in many ways it was exciting. When I got into the project, I realized that while I remained a fan of his, I was also talking to him like a peer rather than still feeling like that 10-year-old boy. It’s very difficult for a child to critique an adult — sometimes the criticisms are astute. But a lot of times, they’re not necessarily reasoned in the best way. Whereas I found the way I’m arguing with Lovecraft now are not ways I could have done it when I was a young writer, even in my 20s. I still wouldn’t have been able to do it because I wouldn’t have been skilled enough yet to pull off both telling a story that was also a critique. So in many ways it felt kind of gratifying like you’re not sure if you can fly but it turns out you can fly. In “The Changeling,” Emma and Apollo are both in the literary world. Do people think the novel is based on your life?
I made a point to make them book readers and book lovers, but not writers or professors. She’s a librarian, and he’s an antique bookseller. Before the book was published, the person who mattered most, my wife [writer Emily Raboteau], read the book. She was able to give me some perspective on Emma, on how or why she might’ve done the things she did. It’s not that I was trying to honor her feelings. It’s also that her pushback was better for the book and better for the story and made things more complex. In “The Changeling,” social media play a significant role in parenthood. Can you talk about that — Apollo’s desire for “likes” on baby Brian’s photos?
In the case of the book, one of the things I was interested in was my own tendency to take excessive photos of our kids and then to post them online, almost without thinking, and then to slavishly check back for affirmation from all my friends that our kids are not only beautiful but the most beautiful kids that ever lived. I also wanted to dig into the idea that there’s a degree of vanity: I want people to see that we’re a happy family. I want people to see that I’m a good dad. I want them to acknowledge it with “likes” and comments and hearts. It’s a push and pull of pure love and pure selfishness and vanity. I thought that combination is interesting. It’s not one or the other. It’s both. Much of your work is interconnected: Characters from your novella “Lucretia and the Kroons” show up in “The Devil in Silver.” Why?
Every book I write, I make a point of having some character or some place or some detail from a different book pop up. The character from my first book, “The Ecstatic,” shows up on the last page of “The Devil in Silver,” being admitted into the hospital. This is fun for me because I like to think of Queens as the county I’m trying to draw into the literary map of the world, as all of us writers are doing when we write about a particular place. I like to imagine that all of these people are crisscrossing each other whether it’s in the present or the past. It’s inspired by one of my first true loves, Stephen King; in many of his books, if you’re a close reader, you’ll realize, “Oh, that character who’s in the background here is the lead character there.” If a person ever did read everything you ever wrote, they’d get a map of an entire world as opposed to just one book. The film “Get Out” has a lot in common with your work — have you seen it?
I loved the movie. It was entertaining as well as being so smart and political. What Jordan Peele got right was understanding, “I’ve got to give you both.” What are these white people doing out here to all these black bodies and what’s going on? It was fun to unravel the mystery and then to be sitting there thinking of the idea he’s really trying to portray. One of the things I found exciting was that in American horror, there are really only two types of bodies that are considered endangered: white women or white children. I loved seeing a young black man who clearly looks strong and healthy and smart. How revelatory to say, of course, these folks should be scared in this world. I loved him showing that the black body is not invulnerable.
Jordan Peele hopes to have a film series on social horrors. Should we send him your books?
I can say this: It has probably already been put in the mail. That’s the most I should say. [laughter] Whatever may come.