Clay McLeod Chapman Talks To Macabre Daily About His New Book "What Kind of Mother!"
Chapman in a rare, non-smiling photo. (Photo: Shortwave Publishing)
In another life, Clay McLeod Chapman would be an actor. Anyone who’s witnessed him read one of his short stories can’t help but notice how animated he gets. He’ll just have to settle for “best-selling horror author,” but I think he can live with that.
If you follow his Instagram, you’ll see Chapman appear at readings and conventions all over the country, and even parts of the world. He tours more than the Ramones in the 80s. The Virginia native kindly sat down with me in a Brooklyn cafe to talk about his latest book, “What Kind of Mother,” a chilling tale of grief manifesting as…well you just have to read it. We also talked about his upcoming book “Wake Up and Open Your Eyes,” Glass Eye Pix, and our mutual love of Neutral Milk Hotel.
Lowell Greenblatt: How did a nice Southerner like yourself wind up in the den of sin that is Brooklyn?
Clay McLeod Chapman: I’ve lived in New York for 25-ish years now. I went to college up here and I never left. New York was always on the pillar for me. I was a theatre kid, so with all the Broadway, off-Broadway, and OFF-off Broadway [shows], it was going to be home. Virginia will always feel like home, even if it hasn’t been properly for two decades. It will always be my roots. If I have to write something, I’ll close my eyes and my narrative default will always be Virginia.
LG: Is it true you were an actor?
CMC: Yes and no. I get kind of sheepish about it, because I’m a pretty bad one [Laughs]. I think I’m a ham. I would love to pretend I was an actor, but I never did it professionally. I went to school for 1 year at an acting conservatory and I learned very quickly I couldn’t do it.
LG: Conservatories will do that to you.
CMC: So I dropped out, moved to North Carolina and spent a year living, eating, sleeping, breathing, kind of dating theatre. I loved to write and perform as a “crappy actor” [Laughs].
LG: Anyone who’s seen you at a reading knows you perform like an actor. It’s definitely in you.
CMC: It’s just fun. I love that I’m not on set or on stage. It’s not a contained endeavor. It’s just me, which also allows me to fall into my own schtick. But if Larry Fessenden ever calls and needs a “zombie # 3,” I’d do it in a heartbeat! Just show up on set, pretend to be an actor, then go home [Laughs].
LG: Speaking of Larry Fessenden, weren’t you on “Tales from Beyond the Pale?”
CMC: Yeah, that’s the thing with Glass Eye Pix. They really are the East Coast horror scene. Them and Troma. When Larry and Glenn [McQuaid] finished the first season of “Tales from Beyond the Pale,” I had this weird live talk show on the Lower East Side called “Fear-Mongers,” where I would interview writers and filmmakers. I had Larry and Glen on, but Larry being Larry, he has big ideas. So they thought “what if we did a stage show version of this?” So the second seasons of our respective shows dovetailed into one show. It was amazing because you’re working with these East Coast people that Larry was able to rope in, like Vincent D’Onofrio and James Le Gros.
I won’t admit how long it took me to realize this was a crib.
LG: Your books are incredibly absorbing. “What Kind of Mother,” in particular, made me feel like I was in a spiral all the way to the end.
CMC: [Laughs] Like a toilet flush.
LG: Yes, a sensual bidet [Laughs]. But there’s a moment in the book, which readers would recognize, where a character says “he’s a peeler.” From then on, I couldn’t put it down. Can you talk about how you developed your writing style?
CMC: It’s so funny, because working on that book for a year, the title was going to be “Peeler.” It’s such a pivotal moment in the book, and the line was going to be “he’s a tulpa.” But I got so nervous about using “tulpa” as a concept in the book, because that word felt weighted and loaded. Using “peeler” changed the book for me in this beautiful way and it clicked like it hadn’t before. Then my publisher said we couldn’t call it “Peeler,” so they came up with “What Kind of Mother.”
As for my writing style, it really goes back to the theatre. I was always enamored with Poe. I love first-person narratives like “Hi, I’m the narrator. Come with me on this journey and by the way, I didn’t kill my neighbor, but do you hear that heartbeat?” I love that stuff because I’m drawn in as a reader. The author has no clue who I am, but there’s this level of engagement that I don’t get with third-person narration. I don’t latch onto it as well because it’s so omniscient. There’s nobody saying “Hey, look at you, look at me.” I just love that.
Theatre is living and breathing, and it needs its audience. Movies exist in their own vacuum. There’s a screening of “Twisters” somewhere right now that’s playing whether we’re there or not [Laughs]. You can’t do a play or a show without at least one audience member. For me and my writing style, all I wanted to do was take that invisible barrier, whether it’s a book or a fourth wall, and maybe not break it, but push it behind the audience so they feel like a part of the piece. Or at least feel it couldn’t exist without them. You get an actor behind it and it becomes a long, sprawling monologue. It just comes alive. If I stray too far from first-person, I start to get anxious [Laughs].
[Light spoilers of “What Kind of Mother” ahead]
LG: Now am I wrong or is “What Kind of Mother” a blend of gothic and cosmic horror?
CMC: Sure! You discover things about the book as you’re writing it, or at least I do. I’m also not precious about the book at this point. I pitched it as a tulpa book. It’s about two people, Henry and Maddie, who come together to manifest this thing built on grief.
LG: That’s interesting. I didn’t interpret Maddie as part of the tulpa’s creation.
CMC: Henry is definitely the fuel for the fire, but Maddie is the navigation of it. Without her, Henry would be in his own little world, going through his routine, and nothing would change. But Maddie came along and once that “peeler” moment happened, it kind of pivoted. I wanted it to be folk horror. I wanted it to be entrenched in the region like a lot of folk horror is, but suddenly the concept of the tulpa took on its own form. When you’re stuck in a loop, and all of your life and pain gets blended into this thing, it muddies the waters. This child isn’t just going to magically appear. It has to be something else. For me, the cosmic horror [aspect] is the tapping into something they have no control over.
LG: By pure coincidence, “What Kind of Mother” was just the monthly pick for a local book club, and we had fun getting into it.
CMC: Oh, I can’t imagine. It’s so funny because I get flack from people who say “Oh, I would never do that.” Maddie makes a lot of interesting choices I personally wouldn’t make, but then again I’ve never been in a position where I’m in charge of a “tulpa baby” [Laughs]. You’re dealing with tulpas as a concept, as a thought form, but on the other hand, there’s a price to manifesting one. In order to survive, they need to feed off of their creators. There’s a tax, and it’s usually a part of yourself that you’ve giving over to it.
LG: Like a child.
CMC: Exactly. The more I read about tulpas, the more I realized “This is like raising kids!” I didn't want to put too fine a point on it, but it was fun to let them parallel-park with one another.
LG: You only have one paragraph about tulpas in the book, and reading it, I thought “Wait, that’s what it’s about!” But you still keep it opaque. I know better than to ask an author “Hey, what’s that intentionally vague thing about?”
CMC: Oh man, there were pages of tulpas. It confounded a lot of people. It seemed like people really wanted to know, but it’s a tough sell.
[End of spoilers, but hey, read the book.]
LG: Well, that’s on them. I don’t mind ambiguity, but I like knowing the author lands somewhere on what’s happening, or at least makes the ambiguity compelling. Paul Tremblay comes to mind.
CMC: Oh, he’s doggedly ambiguous, that bastard [Laughs]. He tortures you! It’s like the ending of “Inception.” You just want [the top] to tilt or slow down, but he’s not going to do that for you.
LG: But you do that, too. If there are questions at the end, I still feel like I’ve read a complete story.
CMC: Well, thank you? [Laughs]. I don’t know. “What Kind of Mother” feels very much like a conversation with the reader. You want to feel like you’re in capable hands. I don’t know how capable my hands are with this one, but I think of it like a rocket. You go through takeoff and you feel the bolts start to shake. It’s not a sound capsule, and that danger, that risk, is the joy of it. The terror of it. At least that’s my hope.
LG: Well, I think you achieved it.
CMC: Awesome. [Laughs] As long as you’re still talking to me.
LG: You gave the book a soundtrack, which includes “Oh Comely” by Neutral Milk Hotel, and I have to know where it’s supposed to play?
CMC: It’s at a point where the narrative shifts. “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” is one of my desert island albums. I can listen to it in its entirety.
LG: Me too. It’s a near-perfect album.
CMC: Once it starts, you have to go for the ride. I love “Oh Comely,” and again, it’s the rocket ship. There are bootleg recordings out there, and there’s one where [singer] Jeff Mangum is performing in, like a coffee shop or something. It’s so raw, and it’s basically recorded on a tape recorder. You feel like there’s 10 people there watching, like 2 feet away. The recordings don’t quite sound like [the band]. He’s pounding out these loose, rickety songs. They feel like they’re unraveling because he’s unraveling, and you’re listening to this guy lose it. The song starts and disintegrates along with him. The section of the book where it plays is like Jeff Mangum belting out this heartfelt ballad and just dissolving.
LG: This has all been an excuse to get you here to talk about Neutral Milk Hotel. I regret nothing.
CMC: [Laughs] Cosmic Horror and Neutral Milk Hotel. You think someone has ever brought them together?
Coming January 7th. Along with hopefully nothing else of note.
LG: What can you tell me about your next book, “Wake Up and Open Your Eyes?” It sounds very Romero-esque.
CMC: I really wanted to do a demonic possession story, and I wanted it to reflect our current political climate. I’m still at a place where I don’t know how to talk about it now. I’m terrified about how people will respond to the book, to me, everything. I feel like when you wade into these waters, you put yourself out there. It’s coming out January 7th.
LG: That’s some scary synergy.
CMC: When I started it, it was kind of like “The Americans” meets “The Exorcist.” Now it feels like “The Americans” meets “The Evil Dead.” I’m gonna shoot myself in the foot by recommending a book that’s infinitely better than anything I can write, but I absolutely loved “Come Closer” by Sarah Gran. It’s a phenomenal book about succumbing to demonic possession in a methodical way. I sort of wanted to ape “Come Closer” with culture wars, and have a family succumb to possession from their consumption of news and social media. Basically, everything we’ve been dealing with the past few years. The line is so blurred now, that people thinking you’re possessed by demons isn’t so much a metaphor anymore. I took the figurative and made it extremely literal, because we’re in a place now where that’s a belief system. We’re not in a place in our culture where we’ll get a definitive answer. Like, it’s not the devil or demons. There’s a million different people with a million different voices and there will never be a consensus. It will never be “oh, it’s THIS.” That’s baked into the text because there’s no answer. We think we know. We want to have the definitive answer, but we’re still in a place where we don’t. We’re in some weird times and it’s gonna be a weird year.
Me and Chapman, somewhere in the wilds of Brooklyn
Interview edited for length and clarity. “What Kind of Mother” is available where books are sold. “Wake Up and Open Your Eyes” releases on January 7th, 2025 and is available to pre-order now. For more on Clay McLeod Chapman, check out his website.
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