Interview Robert Jackson Bennett

The Creator of Wink

→ Review of American Elsewhere
→ Version française de l’interview

Hello Robert,
your book American Elsewhere will be released next month in France so for the french readers who don’t know you, could you introduce yourself in a few words ?

I’m Robert Jackson Bennett, author of American Elsewhere, The Divine Cities Trology, and Foundryside, which came out just last week. I seem to write a lot about cities and towns where reality has been stretched, augmented, or undermined.

You seem to have a particular attraction for fantasy, horror and science-fiction. Why this kind of literature instead of a more traditional one ? What can you write in this gender that you can’t write elsewhere ?

There are two things I like about science fiction and fantasy. One is the distortion effect: SFF allows us to take ourselves or our present state and distort certain elements, which then allows us to see which other elements remain the same, or change with them. It’s like taking my own conception of the human state and placing it in a simulated environment and running it through experiments to understand how it works.

The other thing I like is that SFF often includes some aspect of a hidden world with a hidden truth: behind a certain street there is a certain secret passageway, and at the end of this passageway is a secret door — and, if you have the key, you can open the door, and behind the door is truth. It’s an immensely appealing concept, because truth in the real world is often fleeting, muddy, or disappointing.

Your novel American Elsewhere takes place in the USA in the middle of nowhere. Wink is a typical US town with all the clichés and at the same time, there is something frightening in the idyllic town. Why did you choose this background for an horror/fantastic story ?

I had been casting around for a new story idea, and I’d come up with this idea of Lovecraftian monsters living in a small town — or trying to, at least. Originally I’d wanted to put the town in New England, but in 2010 or so, my family and I went on a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is a curious, gorgeous place, and in the summer it is about 10–20 degrees cooler than Austin. I remember drinking whiskey and watching lightning play on the mountain slopes on a cool,breezy night, and being overcome with this unearthly feeling, like I had been pulled out of one reality and dropped into another. And that pretty much decided things, in my mind.

New Mexico and the modern American West in general are also linked, in my mind and perhaps the minds of most Americans, with the optimism of the mid-20th century, this idea of boundless expansion and opportunity. It’s a story we tell ourselves, and we elide the bits we don’t like: the consequences of the cult of domesticity, of conformity, of trying to fit to an image we don’t understand and don’t really even want to be. It’s a very loaded idea, and I thought that I would try to explore how difficult it is for humans to manage it by watching a lot of cosmic monsters try to do the same.

“The other thing I like is that SFF often includes some aspect of a hidden world with a hidden truth.”

Mona is an ex-cop who lost almost everything and came to Wink seeking her past. She discovers a mysterious story about a secret lab. Weren’t you afraid to use this kind of narratives schemes — the cop, the lab — aren’t they already seen many times in literature ?

Some of the most fun reading experiences are when it’s an old, familiar trope — a haunted house, a monster in the woods — but a few elements have been changed just slightly so that the audience is off-kilter. You lull them in with a false sense of familiarity, and then disorient them so then they don’t know what to expect.

Your monsters (if we can call them monsters) have an intern hierarchy. In fact, when we look closer to them, we realize that there is a certain biblical representation about them (Mother / Father, the Outcast could be the Fallen Angel, the first five children could be apostles).
What did you want to achieve with your Pantheon ? Some stories from the Bible could be horror stories according to you ?

I suppose I wanted to examine how a non-human entity could still have similar human desires — a restless, ceaseless desire for change, for improvement, an addiction to the conceit that, if I just throw myself into this new thing, I’ll change, and everything will get better. It’s a very desperate version of the adage that the grass is greener on the other side, which is found throughout all kinds of myths and legends, because it is woven throughout the human heart.

Your Ancients could be related to those in Lovecraft’s work. How did Lovecraft influence you ?

I didn’t read Lovecraft until the middle of high school, when I read The Illuminatus Trilogy — which is really a sort of gonzo satirical set of stories — but they did engage with Lovecraft quite a bit, and these parts were the ones I found most compelling.

I suppose what I liked about Lovecraft was it was a concept of science fiction that did not seem at all available much at the start of the 21st century. It was barely science at all. Looking back, his writing was bad, and his racism was much worse, but his original conceits — this antiquarian, dimly-lit, fantastical science mixed with early 20th century egoism — were solid. They’ve become more prevalent as the internet has grown — the game series The Room is basically Lovecraft start to finish.

“New Mexico and the modern American West in general are also linked, in my mind and perhaps the minds of most Americans, with the optimism of the mid-20th century, this idea of boundless expansion and opportunity.”

Many times in the book you joke about Texans love (and American people more generally) for weapons. With the recent shootings in the USA, what is your feeling about their place in American society today ?

Since about the 1980s, Americans’ ideation of property rights has become more and more tied to fear and insecurity. We no longer believe our institutions will defend us when we say what is ours is ours. This creeping anxiety has ushered us toward the ideation of bold, aggressive defense, manifested in the superficially placating totem of a gun. With a gun, the world is assured, you will go unchallenged, and all threats can be effortlessly tamed. Because guns are so plentiful in the American mythos — from the Revolution to the Old West to the Second World War — it does not occur to us that a gun is not a magic totem, but is instead an extraordinarily dangerous tool that requires extraordinary training to use well. By desperately grasping at icons to soothe our anxieties, we’ve made ourselves more and more insecure.

I’m not sure what the solution is. I hope I live to see it.

You have many strong women in your novel (Mona, Mother, Miss Benjamin, Gracie…). What do you think about women representation in SF/Fantasy literature today ?

I think we’re seeing a turning point. It’s bizarre to say it, but the utter lack of consideration or awareness for half of the human population is now starting to recede, well after we did all kinds of math trying to figure out if space ships could be powered by atomic bombs, or if we could make dinosaurs from mosquitos trapped in amber. Tech and science changes rapidly — the human mind, it seems, is slow as all hell.

Your last novel in English is Foundryside, a fantasy universe. Could you tell us more about it ?

Foundryside is the story of Tevanne, a city that has developed the magical technology known as scriving — the method of etching runes on an object to convince it to disobey physics in select ways. Using this technology, Tevanne has established a massive, tyrannical trade empire, fueled by the four merchant houses that dominate the city.

Sancia Grado is a thief operating in Tevanne, stealing magical intellectual property for the four merchant houses — until one day she steals an artifact that could change scriving forever. Since the merchant houses have no interest in letting this happen, suddenly some very important people want Sancia very dead. To survive, she’ll need to make new allies, understand the artifact, and find the secrets that Tevanne and the world of scriving have fought to keep secret for a long, long time.

“Because guns are so plentiful in the American mythos — from the Revolution to the Old West to the Second World War — it does not occur to us that a gun is not a magic totem, but is instead an extraordinarily dangerous tool that requires extraordinary training to use well.”

Do you have some recommandations about a brilliant new book, show or movie that you recently discovered ?

I will say that I think about the show Babylon Berlin about once a week, several months after having watched it !

What are your next projects ?

The sequel to Foundryside, naturally.

What is your piece of advice for the future french readers who will discover American Elsewhere ?

I don’t know what America is going to be in a few years. I barely know what it is today. But hopefully my book lets everyone know that we were super weird even before all this shit went down.

All my acknowledgement to Robert Jackson Bennett.