Interview with horror writer Curtis Lawson

Illustrator Luke Spooner from Carrion House

I've first encountered Curtis Lawson's fiction last year and was blown away by his novel Black Heart Boys' Choir. Lucien Beaumont, the main character, is a musical prodigy who discovers an unfinished song composed by his dead father. Obsessed with completing the song Lucien starts playing a damnation game with the demon Amduscias. I think of this novel as a perfect work, like Athens coming out whole from Zeus' forehead. Lawson's style carries a mathematical beauty and elegance, but at the same time is visceral and emotionally dizzying. When Lawson started promoting his new book, Devil's Night, the title shot up to the top of my TBR list. Devil's Night is a collection of horror stories centered around the legend that every year, the night before Holloween, Detroit, the Motor City, becomes possessed by demonic forces of chaos and destruction. The book is a rocking eruption of original writing fuelled by a devilish imagination. I'd compare it with classics like Clive Barker's Books of Blood or Stephen King's Night Shift as well as more recent works like Joe Hills's 20th Century Ghosts. Curtis was kind enough to answer some questions about his new book and his writing plans.

Axl: On social media, you mentioned Sin City and The Crow as inspirations for Devil's Night. What other books or movies inspired you? And what makes Devil's Night stand out?

Curtis: One of the things I wanted to do with Devil’s Night was explore several different types of horror stories while keeping them tied together in theme and with a loosely connected narrative. The idea for having the stories loosely connect definitely stems from Sin City, but the individual stories all draw from different inspirations.

80’s horror films were a big influence, No One Leaves The Buther Shop being the most notable example of that. Through Hell for One Kiss draws heavily from The Crow. I pretty much lifted the structure of Trashfire Stories from a Batman animated short.

The biggest influence outside of Sin City is probably The Willows by Algernon Blackwood. I wanted to make the environment itself antagonistic, and The Willows is the most exceptional example of that kind of thing that I can think of. The Graveyard of Charles Robert Swede is a direct homage to The Willows.

I suppose I probably drew on IT in regards to creating my version of Detroit. King’s town of Derry is a character in and of itself and I find it to be the best part of the book. 

What makes it different? I think the shared lore and the way in which the stories are woven together makes it stand out from a lot of other short story collections. If I did my job right, the stories also present important questions and shine a light on sensitive issues without judgment or bullshit platitudes. I find it the job of the writer to get people to think, but never tell them what to think.

Axl: In Hideaway Dean Koontz describes Vassago as a rebellious teen whose dark mind attracts a demon, resulting in demon possession. In  Black Heart Boys’ Choir, we have more of a collaboration or pact between Lucien and the demon Amduscias. In Devil's Night, it seems that most characters are trapped by an inescapable demonic force. How do you see, in general, the relation between demonic forces and a character's will? Does the character still exercise any free will? 

Curtis: I suppose it depends on the story. Koontz clearly intended for his demon to be a real thing, so I think Vassago had less free will. It’s been a long time since I revisited Hideaway, so I can’t speak with strong authority on that.  

The dynamic between Lucien and Amduscias in Black Heart Boys’ Choir is different. I leave it intentionally ambiguous as to if the demon is real, but beyond that, even if the reader decides that Amduscias is real in story terms, the character is still a symbol of Lucien’s obsessions, resentments, and trauma.

I suppose there is a question of free will there, but it’s more of a battle between Lucien’s ID (Amduscias) and his ego (Lucien himself). The lack of an avatar for his superego represents how he was failed by society and his parents. That moral compass is simply absent.

I tried to show that by having the adults fail him in some large or small way in each encounter. That’s also why there is no direct dialog from Lucien’s mother and why she pretty much stays hidden away in her room for the entire book. 

Axl: Black Heart Boys’ Choir seems rooted in your personal experiences as an artist struggling for aesthetic perfection. Are some stories in Devil's Night also inspired by personal experiences?

Curtis: Black Heart Boys’ Choir was the most deeply personal thing I’ve ever written. That book was very emotionally autobiographical, and a few of the scenes mirror actual events from my childhood. It was cathartic to write, but it was also emotionally exhausting.

Devil’s Night was a nice change of pace because I wasn’t as intimately attached to the stories. 

D20 is inspired by some childhood friends who grew up in a similar situation to the boys in that story. Breaking Wheel captures my yearning to escape the shitty neighborhoods I lived in and to build a new life away from all that. A Night of Art and Excess ties into the unearned sense of elitism I felt as a teenager– the belief that I was destined for and entitled to bigger and better things and that the world just didn’t understand. 

Those are probably the most personal stories. The rest are just made up of insights and fantasies. 

Axl: Stories like Fire Sermon, This City Needs Jesus, An Angel in Amber Leaves, or The Exorcism of Detroit, Michigan seem to convey an anti-Christian message in the sense that those who want to carry out the work of God seem themselves evil, and angels become demons. But at the same time, a lot of Christian imagery is employed in describing the Devil's Night as a night when the gates of Hell are open. So, I wonder, if you strip away the Christian outlook, what's bad about the Devil's Night. And in what sense does it belong to the devil? 

Curtis: I don’t think I did any of that intentionally… or I guess I wasn’t consciously thinking “Let’s demonize religion.” That being said, I’ve never had much love for the Abrahamic faiths. That shines through in a lot of my work, perhaps to my detriment at times.

As I enter middle-age I’ve grown more tolerant of religion and have even found some allegorical value in Abrahamic myths that I used to abhor, but I think I’ll always have a bit of a chip on my shoulder in that regard.

That being said, I want to express that my problems with religion don’t necessarily extend to the religious. I actually find it quite unfortunate how chic it is to mock people for their belief in God or their adherence to religious tradition.

As for Devil’s Night, I think it is a little glimpse into a much more literal hell than the apostles or Dante ever show us. Have you ever known a really messed up person? A hard drug addict or a career criminal? For people like that every moment is hell because their minds are a minefield of insecurity, resentment, and rage. The real Devil’s Night was an expression of that. It’s the personal hell inside of hundreds of people bleeding into the real world in a tangible way. 

Axl: What are your plans for 2021?

Curtis: I have three short stories scheduled to be published, one in the second issue of S. T. Joshi’s Penumbra journal. I’ll also be publishing a new Adze (a character introduced in Devil’s Night) short story each month via my Patreon page.

For bigger projects, I’m working on a novella for a shared universe project that I can’t really talk about, but that I am extremely excited for. I will say that I get to share a pretty exclusive TOC with a few of my favorite authors. I actually have this huge case of impostor syndrome going into the project, but I hope it gives me a chance to prove that I belong there.

I’ll also be writing my next novel for Weird House Press which is my first deep dive into the Lovecraft Mythos. I’ve been reluctant to play in that sandbox given my deep love for it, but I think I have something interesting to bring to the party. 

You can order Devil's Night here: https://www.weirdhousepress.com/product/devils-night/

You can find Curtis Lawson on Twitter @c_lawson

Instagram @curtismlawson

Facebook @curtismlawson