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Rohrig: How did the books of the Lost Lansdale collection -- WALTZ OF SHADOWS, SOMETHING LUMBER THIS WAY COMES and BLOOD DANCE -- wind up being lost? Lansdale: I think the lost is more (Bill Schafer's) reference. They weren't so much lost as they were held hostage. They're called lost because they were written early on, and they were put away, and for the most part forgotten. I wrote WALTZ OF SHADOWS in the mid nineties, and at the time was quite unhappy with it. It didn't quite do what I wanted, so I put it away, and it actually ended up in the library at San Marcos, Texas, where they collect my stuff. At one point, I was talking to Bill about the stuff I had there, and I mentioned this. He got it and looked at and said, Well, you know it wouldn't take a lot to fix this up. I had been unhappy with it, but I cut it, and as I cut it, I began to realize there was pretty darn good novel in here. Main thing it needed was a judicious cutting. Actually, after it was in print, and I re-read it, I said, This is better than I thought. By quite a bit. SOMETHING LUMBER, to tell the truth, was a children's book I wrote, I really just didn't know how to market it because my agent at that time didn't know how, and it just ended up lying around. That's how those two came about. BLOOD DANCE was the western I wrote, and it sold in 1983 to Ace Books. Ace was bought by Berkley, and Berkley canceled their entire western line, and so I got paid, but the book was dead. I actually placed it two other times and both companies went out of business before it could find its way into print. And I had moved on to doing such different things that I felt like I was doing more mature work. So I felt like a great place for it to appear -- when I remembered I'd even written it -- was in this Subterranean Press series. Rohrig: You're quoted as saying that without BLOOD DANCE there wouldn't have been a MAGIC WAGON... Lansdale: Yeah, I think that's partly true. It's really THE BOAR more than BLOOD DANCE. BLOOD DANCE had something to do with that, but I think I misquoted myself. It should have been THE BOAR. THE BOAR was a really good young adult novel I wrote and really liked, have liked it for years. I did try to market it, and had no luck. At the time the market was so different, and the book just didn't find a home. And it was a book that I wrote that it was a tune up for THE MAGIC WAGON in many ways, even though it's not like it. I think BLOOD DANCE has little elements -- little weird elements -- that I let go when I did MAGIC WAGON. So really both of those books were kind of tune ups for THE MAGIC WAGON. Rohrig: Weird elements? What do you mean by weird elements? Lansdale: BLOOD DANCE has a little touch of the mystic with one or two scenes in it. It's subtle, and I wanted to go farther with it, but I just didn't feel that was the appropriate one to do it in. In THE BOAR, I felt like what I captured was a very down-home, old fashioned style of storytelling, so those two things sort of came together, and I melded them into the tone I wanted for THE MAGIC WAGON. Although it's a very different book. Rohrig: Your books tend to have a particular rhythm. Do you feel that particular rhythm? Lansdale: Yeah, I really do. I feel that there's almost a musical rhythm. When I start writing, until I sort of feel that rhythm -- it's internal -- but it's almost like... music is what I think of, but maybe it's less like music, more like a... sort of the wind blowing and water running over rocks. Everything is just right, and when that happens, I've got the rhythm, got the rhythm of the characters, and that's when I usually know I've done a good book. That's not always true, but that just the way I feel. With WALTZ OF SHADOWS, I think that was one of the problems. I never felt that rhythm. And when I went and cut the book, I began to re-gain or rather find that rhythm that was inherent in the book, but had not felt in the original creation. Rohrig: But you make that sound so very tranquil, Joe. Lansdale: Well, the wind can blow hard, and the water can run fast. That rhythm can build. If you listen to Beethoven. Da-da-da-da. Da-da-da-da. It just keeps building. And I think stories are like that, too. People always talk about a lot of my books being on the cutting edge and all this stuff. I always think of myself as an old-fashioned storyteller that's writing for now. I really feel that I'm fairly old-fashioned -- probably a lot more than a lot of the other people -- as far as the structure, and the way I tell stories, although I've experimented and done all kinds of odd things. If you look through my work, you ll find things that are written in a William S. Burroughs style -- at least one or two, pieces here and there. I've done all kinds of experimental things -- but at the heart, I think I'm a very traditional storyteller. |
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