Getting To Know Joel Lane
Joel Lane was our featured author in the Case Notes section of Black Static #13, with in-depth reviews of his novella The Witnesses Are Gone and short story collection The Terrible Changes, plus an interview, bibliography and some sidebar factoids.
Regular readers will know by now that I like to supplement the contents of the print issue with a somewhat more frivolous, though no less relevant to our appreciation of the interviewee, online experience, a Q&A session in which the featured author is asked to state their preferences on a wide-ranging selection of topics.
And so, without further ado...
Q: Buffy the Vampire Slayer or The X-Files?
A: That's a hard choice. The X-Files, if only because I've watched Buffy more recently and more completely. The two series represent different sides of the weird fiction genre, and both are essential.
Q: Tea or coffee?
A: Coffee. Strong. Java coffee is fantastic.
Q: M. R. James or E. F. Benson?
A: M.R. James. Benson is fine sometimes - 'Caterpillars' is stunning - but James is more thought-provoking and original. I don't think either is comparable to Machen, however. With both James and Benson you know exactly what you're getting... though with James, the delivery system can be unexpectedly oblique.
Q: Nebraska or The Ghost of Tom Joad?
A: Nebraska. It's darker and more intense. I used to listen to it in the dark when I was nineteen and living alone for the first time. The Ghost of Tom Joad is very good though - a return to form for the Boss after years of dullness.
Q: Vincent Price or Alice Cooper?
A: Vincent Price, for the one good performance he gave in a Corman film: The Tomb of Ligeia. Before plums replaced wormwood in his diet.
Q: The Wicker Man or Don't Look Now?
A: Don't Look Now. It's a more complex, challenging and imaginative film. The Wicker Man has a great ending, but otherwise seems average to me.
Q: Breakfast cereal - Cornflakes or Weetabix?
A: Cornflakes. Preferably Kelloggs - own brands don't cut it. And the milk has to be chilled.
Q: Poppy Z. Brite or Kathe Koja?
A: Brite - not that Koja isn't worth reading, but Brite has a very individual take on things and a rich, vibrant prose style. I wish she would write more horror.
Q: Cats or dogs?
A: Cats. But round where I live the dogs are basically weapons, not pets. I'm allergic to cats but adore them. I never like what's good for me.
Q: Jazz music or classical?
A: Jazz. My taste in jazz is mostly limited to bebop-era modern jazz - Parker, Coltrane, Davis, Monk, Rollins, Shepp. I go to see the saxophonist Andy Hamilton in Birmingham now and then. I don't dislike classical music but rarely buy any of it.
Q: Steak or roast beef?
A: Steak. Beef is very resource-expensive though, so we should be cutting down. (Or rather not cutting down, if you see what I mean.)
Q: John Carpenter or George A. Romero?
A: Romero, because he's more distinctive and original - despite the countless poor imitations, Night of the Living Dead is still a masterpiece.
Q: Fritz Leiber - his fantasy or his horror?
A: I can't imagine life without either. I'll have to say his horror, though. Stories like 'Smoke Ghost', 'The Girl With the Hungry Eyes' and 'Dark Wings' updated the core themes and idiom of weird fiction, doing for the genre what Eliot and Rilke had done for poetry.
Q: Reality TV or the Internet?
A: Can both fuck off.
Q: Brandy or whisky?
A: Whisky - especially Johnnie Walker (black label). I look out for it if I'm in a pub and not too broke.
Q: Sylvia Plath or Ted Hughes?
A: Plath, certainly. Though Hughes' best collection, Crow, was clearly influenced by Plath - by her life and personality as well as her poetry. Both are major poets. Plath's Ariel is the most powerful single collection of poems I can think of.
Q: Signed, limited edition or mass market paperback?
A: I love the former but think the latter is healthier, unless we want the weird fiction genre to belong exclusively to a few hundred wealthy people. My own weird fiction collection was built on hundreds of cheap paperbacks, containing the work of Poe, Machen, Lovecraft, Bloch, Bradbury, Aickman, Campbell and many others. No-one in the future will have the opportunity to get to know the genre on a low budget.
Q: Mickey or Donald?
A: Road Runner. Disney is nowhere.
Q: Dracula or Carmilla?
A: Carmilla. It's more insidious and personal. Dracula is important but it set the template for the orthodox 'good versus evil' horror novel, whereas Carmilla had more influence on the psychological ghost story.
Q: U2 or REM?
A: REM, especially Automatic for the People. For a week or so in late 1992, I got up early every day to listen to that album before I went to work. The best tracks on Out of Time are weird and disturbing - 'Country Feedback', for example. I don't think U2 come close.
Q: Cornell Woolrich or Dashiell Hammett?
A: Woolrich, though Hammett was the greater writer. There's a bleak urban paranoia about Woolrich that is exceptionally persuasive: he's a major influence on Bradbury and other genre modernists.
Q: Comic book or graphic novel?
A: I can take or leave either - I've seen good examples of both, but the comic medium never feels right to me.
Q: Prefer writing - prose or poetry?
A: It varies, but these days more often prose.
Q: Peter Straub or Clive Barker?
A: Straub, for the ambition and depth of his writing. Barker talks a good game but he's too locked into a cinematic view of the genre.
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