An Interview with J.L. Benet

What inspired the pen name J.L. Benet?

My mother is Quebecois (French-Canadien), and Jean-X is common in that side of the family (Jean-Francois, Jean-Maurice, Jean-Phillipe, etc.). Loup is French for wolf, so it seemed fitting. I started using just the initials as Jean-Loup, when pronounced correctly, sounds too close to Jean-Luc (as in Jean-Luc Picard). When mispronounced, it sounds like Gene Loop.

I chose to use a pseudonym early in my career partly because I am a teacher and I wanted a separation between my school life and my writing life. My writing has caused some issues when I taught for a conservative school. They had a problem with what I wrote, despite their using the fact that I’m a published author as a selling point when recruiting students.

What is it about werewolves that turned you on enough to write an entire novel about one?

I love the duality of man aspect. I’ve never been that interested in the classic Horror that was focused on the person or people fighting against some monster. I wanted to be in the monster’s head. The psychological aspect of Horror is what really attracts me to the genre, and the concept of having a protagonist and antagonist in one person is a compelling concept for me.

Native American themes are quite prevalent in Wolf Hunter. In what way did you tap into your own Native American roots to make it true to life?

The bearwalker mythos that I drew heavily upon for Jack and his grandfather is drawn directly from the Ojibwa/Chippewa tradition. I based the initial idea on the stories my grandmother told me, but I also did a good deal of research to make sure I got it as faithful as possible, while still respecting the traditions of my elders. I found the elders were rather reticent to talk about the subject, and talk around the topic, only really coming around to telling anything in a rather circuitous fashion, and then tending towards vaguery. I think that holding back made the topic that much more interesting to me.

This novel has been had been in the works for a while, right? What kind of journey did the manuscript take from the first time you sat down to write it to the final product?

It was actually accepted a few times. I won’t name names, but I can speak about the process. I did the normal route for the first rounds, hitting the big mass market paperback houses like Leisure Books and Pinnacle. Not too long after it was finished, I got accepted by a small press that was just starting. After they expressed interest in the book, but before they actually sent me a contract, they decided that Horror wasn’t a financially feasible genre, so they dropped their Horror line. An editor for another small press heard about my reading at World Horror Con (I think it was the one in San Francisco) and asked if I had any full-length novels that might be looking for a home. I sent Wolf Hunter off and it was accepted. Not too long after the acceptance (no work had been done on the book yet), there was a shake-up at the publishing house. My editor left and the Horror line fell to the head of the house. I was told this person wasn’t a huge fan of Horror and was going to pretty much dump the Horror books already contracted into the market with as little work possible. With the suggestion of a few of my friends who know the industry and who had some inside scoop on the situation, I pulled my book.

What other werewolf works did you keep in mind while writing Wolf Hunter? Did you consciously make a nod to any classic works or did you try and steer as far away from them as possible?

As Wolf Hunter served as my Master’s thesis, it did require a good deal of research. I did read a bunch of books that featured Nazi werewolves, but none really did what I wanted to do. There are bits and pieces from actual stories and from non-fiction books about medieval rites and such. I did keep in mind the bearwalker stories, because I wanted to make sure that aspect was faithful, without actually revealing those aspects that are considered sacred. Due to the nature of these stories, there are very few stories in print that feature bearwalkers. It is said that to write about it will bring evil upon the writer. I was told by one of the Chippewa elders that this is the reason why none of the books featuring the bearwalker have been financially successful. I’m not so sure about that, but I didn’t want to tempt fate by revealing things that others in the tribe would have felt sacrilegious.

What’s next on the agenda for you?

It was a secret, but I was outed last World Horror Con. I am currently writing paranormal romance under a different pseudonym. I am still filling the pages with were-creatures, but the pages aren’t dripping with gore (I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t any gore).

Lastly, should werewolves ever sparkle?

I know it may seem like heresy, but I think some werewolves can sparkle. In the Ojibwa stories, the bearwalker will actually glow when going around at night in animal form. That said, glowing isn’t sparkling. 

Who Says Quiet Horror Can't Have Horny Teenagers?

     Because it most certainly can. To be fair, the thrust of Michael Rowe’s Wild Fell isn’t about horny teenagers, and their misadventure is important to the plot and not meant to be a cheap thrill. We learn the fate of a pair of teenagers who die tragically in 1960 before meeting Jameson Browning, the novel’s protagonist.

     Jamie has a few problems on his hands, including a father that lives with Alzheimer’s. He has also been in an accident that has left him with a boatload of money. The condensed version of his is that he buys a house on Blackmore Island called Wild Fell without ever visiting the property (kinda kooky, isn’t it?). While there, he begins experiencing things that will make the reader rather uncomfortable (you have no soul if they don’t, just sayin’).

     At any rate, Wild Fell isn’t your ordinary kind of house, but then it wouldn’t belong in a haunted house novel if it was. It’s true that Wild Fell embodies some fairly traditional ghost story elements, but Rowe’s handling of it sets it apart from the rest. Too many people say that you can’t do anything new with the ghost story, that it’s all been done to death. That simply isn’t true. There are standard elements to the ghost story, but a talented author can take those elements in God knows how many directions.

     And that is what Michael Rowe has done with Wild Fell. Saying that his treatment of the ghost story is imaginative would be unfair. Inventive is a much better word, in my opinion. Rowe takes the story in directions that I really hadn’t expected, not that surprises are necessarily the be all and end all with me. The fact that the direction was genuinely creative and tempting was much more satisfying. It does

     I know I haven’t hit too many specifics about the book in this post—it would be way too easy to spoil good parts of the book if I did. What I can do is recommend this book. I read it on my Kindle, but there’s a part of me that wishes I’d bought the hard copy. I would have something to sit on my shelf, something to be preserved.

     But then I would have waited slightly longer to get my mitts on it, wouldn’t I?

Torture Porn in Horror: A Discussion

     What is ‘Torture Porn’? A panel at the World Horror Convention in New Orleans recently tackled this topic in particular. The actual panel topic was about extreme horror and begged the question of how far is too far.

     In my opinion, torture porn is one of those stories/books/films that’s filled with pain, violence and torture simply for the sake of. There is no true purpose for the existence of that violence and the work has possibly no plot at all. And, I’d hate to say it, but most of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies fall into that category. I’ll give the first movie a pass because it was a cool concept. However, the sequels featured cardboard characters that were destined to be cruelly murdered. I don’t always believe that you have to ‘care’ about any character in fiction, but you should care that they died for their death to be meaningful. Somehow, some way, it should matter to you that they died. Otherwise the audience is simply lauding their death and probably laughing at the acts of violence.

     Jack Ketchum has been tormented by the torture porn tag for a hefty chunk of his career—if not his entire career. Off Season, his 1981 debut novel, wasn’t even published in its entirety until much later due to its extremely violent, but it was his 1989 novel, The Girl Next Door that sent shockwaves through the horror community. And just about everywhere else.

     The jury is out—and may be out for a long time—about the purpose of the novel’s violence. Some readers will tell you that it is about a man who recalls the time he and a group of young men tortured a disabled girl in her basement. Other readers will tell you that the story deals with the cruelty and evil that exists in this world and that we regular people have to share the world with some truly sick individuals. And therein is the real horror.

     I once used the term ‘torture porn’ to Jack Ketchum and he seemed visibly annoyed by it, even though I’m sure he understood why I was using the term. From our discussion (this was in Austin, Texas in 2011), I could tell that he is trying to horrify the readers and not titillate them with violence.

     And that’s another part of the discussion: should the violence be titillating? Should authors be attempting to titillate their readers with detailed descriptions of violence? In my opinion, only the violence that’s needed to advance the plot should be included. If that happens to be in copious amounts then . . . so be it. But certainly it shouldn’t be there if it doesn’t belong there.

     And I would say the same about sex and taboo subjects. You really can’t just manufacture that stuff just to catch a reader’s interest. If it belongs there then that’s cool. If it has no rightful or legitimate place in your story then it really should be left out.

     This is a discussion that bears continuation.

     What are your thoughts?

Rapture by Thomas Tessier

     Maybe I’m an ignoramus, but I’m not sure if I understand why Thomas Tessier named this novel Rapture. Still, it’s a pretty solid book. It was first published in 1987 and later reissued by Leisure, so you’ll need to use your imagination a little bit about the protagonist (technically the antagonist, really), can and does the things that he does.

     Rapture follows Jeff Lisker who returns to Connecticut for his father’s funeral and makes a point of running into a woman he had a crush on in high school. They’d participated in double dates together but never actually dated each other. This triggers a series of events that includes killing the woman’s husband and daughter—with whom he has an affair and he wonders if he’s actually in love with her—all done in in stalker fashion.

     A good comparison that comes to mind is Billy by Whitley Strieber, partly because of the entirely non-paranormal plot. But that isn’t really what makes them similar (you could argue the same about most Jack Ketchum novels). In this novel, a fairy innocuous central character is a true predator that simply cannot be trusted. And, if it’s happening to the characters in the novel, it can happen to you, too.

     What I liked about Rapture is that there’s no clear line between protagonist and antagonist as Jeffrey technically plays the role of both at varying points in the novel. He’s more than a bit of a sociopath—he sees nothing at all wrong with what he’s doing—and, really, that’s the whole point. Some of the world’s biggest monsters don’t see the wrong in what they’re doing. Just about anything they want is fair game to chase after.

     So, even though this book might seem just a touch outdated, it’s worth picking up and giving it a look.

Left-Wing Rants, Cigars and the Macabre -- My Memories of Rick Hautala

“What’s the difference between a horror writer and a pizza? A pizza can feed a family of four.”

 – Rick Hautala in his acceptance speech for the HWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Salt Lake City, 2012

     I came home from Buffalo last night to receive the sad news that Rick Hautala had died suddenly at the age of 64. This is the second such blog post I’ve written in less than a year. Like the first one, the one I wrote about the late Michael Calvillo, everything I’m about to say is true. It’s easy to say all kinds of nice things about someone who’s just died, but in these cases, it’s a given.

     Very often people will bring up the fact that Rick went to college with Stephen King, but I’d prefer to set that one aside. Rick had a million-copy bestseller and he should be remembered as a standout horror author and someone who made his mark on our precious genre.

     He and I shared the same liberal politics. The expression of his ideals sometimes landed him in hot soup with some of his more conservative contemporaries, though I won’t remember him as a political man per se. I’ll remember him as a man who truly cared about people, about equality, fairness, justice and peace.

     Social media has made the world much smaller, but I was fortunate enough to have met Rick in person and to have enjoyed phone conversations with him as well. While he was a Necon regular, his appearance at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City was a true rarity. I caught up with him outside the hotel where he was enjoying a cigar and he told me that it was the first big convention he’d attended in nearly thirty years. I find it hard to imagine, but I know he kept in touch with his horror peers in other ways.

     In my desk drawer I have a tape of an interview I conducted with Rick a while back. This interview will be part of a collection of interviews soon to be published. What’s important about this is Rick’s willingness to take part in the project. Let’s face it: a man in his position needn’t give a rat’s behind about my project. It isn’t something that will advance his career or sell more copies of his books. But he accepted my offer without question or hesitation, which speaks volumes about the man he was. He could easily have turned his nose up at me or not even bothered to answer. But instead he promptly gave me his home number and, when the interview concluded, he suggested that I phone him anytime I felt like chatting horror.

     The horror genre is no stranger to tragedies like this one and it’s always hard to deal with it because colleagues become like a unique family. We share a passion for a niche that’s sometimes hard for others to understand, but we all have each other in that regard. When someone in the genre passes, it’s like literally having a death in the family, even if you’ve only met that individual in person a limited number of times.

     After Michael Calvillo died, I made a point of contacting friends in the genre who I don’t see nearly enough just to see how they’re doing. I learned my lesson about that a while ago and Rick’s passing has cemented this philosophy. I can’t drop him a line just to say hello anymore, but maybe I’ll listen to that interview tape, just to remember all the joking around we did while conducting it, and to further appreciate what the world has lost.

A Book of Horrors, edited by Stephen Jones

    Recently, I picked up A Book of Horrors edited by Stephen Jones. I kind of stumbled upon it by accident, picked it up and then saw that it included an original short story by Stephen King: “The Little Green God of Agony”. King’s story was more or less up to snuff, but what I really want to talk about is “The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer” by John Ajdive Lindqvist. He’s the author of Let the Right One In and the story is translated into English from the Swedish.

     In this story, a widower bribes his son to learn to play the piano because he feels he spends too much time playing video games. They become aware that the house they’d moved into was once inhabited by a child-murdering musician who hung himself inside the house. The strange music the boy plays becomes a connection between the boy and the murderer.

     I won’t spoil this by telling you the rest, but I will say that it’s one of the most legitimately scary stories I’ve read in a very long time. And that’s what I read horror for—to be made to feel genuinely uncomfortable if not scared to death by what I just read. You know, in a tasteful way. And it’s very welcome in an era of sparkly vampire love interests.

     Though I actually borrowed this from the library where I work, this story is worth the price of admission alone. Also notable is “Ghosts with Teeth” by Peter Crowther. As with most anthologies, it’s a bit of a mixed bag (though there is no repetition in it). Also, unlike quite a few Steve Jones anthologies, these are original stories. So, if you want try scary, I definitely suggest picking this up.

Female Horror Writers

     Horror, both historically and in a more contemporary sense, has been dominated by men. That’s not such a bold statement because, frankly, it’s not much of a surprise. But is this deliberate? I’ve known women horror writers who’ve done book signings in which customers would approach, assuming that they’d written a cozy romance and were supremely disappointed to learn that they’d written a particularly gory horror novel.

     As a society, women have been backed into the corner regarding works of horror and terror. Perhaps the notion that women are too delicate to treat gritty and terrifying works with full potency is at the root of it. As horror readers, we should remember that some of the most important works in our genre have been penned by women. Below are five female horror writers that you should check out with all the reasons why.

     Sephera Giron: Sephera might be the most underrated/underappreciated horror writers out there. She hasn’t had a lot in the way of new horror novels in the last few years, but the works that put her on the map are still readily available, particularly in e-book form. Mistress of the Dark, originally published by Leisure, is a book not to be missed. For anyone who thinks that women can’t write horror that grabs you by the throat, I implore you to read Mistress of the Dark.

     Sarah Pinborough: Britain’s Pinborough writes horror in such a way that you can’t differentiate it between the work of a male or a female. From the Pinborough work I’ve read, I wouldn’t say that it’s any different from the work being produced by leading male horror writers.

     Lisa Morton: Her record speaks for itself. This is a writer with more Bram Stoker awards on her shelf than darn near anyone. Known mostly as a writer of short fiction (as prose is concerned—she’s also been a screenwriter), her work can be found in numerous anthologies and genre magazines over the last few decades. You may also want to try her novel The Castle of Los Angeles.

     Mary Shelley: Frankenstein is a seminal work of horror and is also quite brilliant. I re-read it each year. Notably, when the novel was written, it was presumed that her husband, Percy Shelley, had actually written the book.

     Shirley Jackson: Jackson, who died way before her time, wrote some of the most important and, yes, most terrifying work in the field. No, she never wrote a vampire novel, but she did write The Haunting of Hill House and  We Have Always Live in the Castle.  “The Lottery” might be one of the most unsettling pieces of fiction out there.

Here are a few more female horror writers you should try:

Gemma Files

Deborah LeBlanc

Kelley Armstrong