Rohrig: Do you find yourself rethinking very many of your works?

Lansdale: No, not really. And it's not because they don't need it. There's a side of me that would like to crack every one of them again, but for the most part, I feel like I pretty well attempted to write the book I wanted to write and that it was written at that time, and that it's best to leave it alone. I mean if I went in and tried to tamper with the DRIVE IN, for example, now, it wouldn't be the book it was then. The book I wrote then was a very wild, off-the-wall sort of book, and I just don't know that I could write that kind of book any more. I probably could, but it still wouldn't have that same particular flavor, and I think that I was... not a young man when I wrote the DRIVE IN, but I wasn't an old man either. I was probably in my middle thirties when I wrote that. But I think the middle thirties and the late forties are a very different person. And the stuff I wrote in my early thirties, and certainly the stuff I wrote in my twenties and my teens are all very, very different.

Rohrig: Did you keep that in mind when you were going through these works in the Lost Lansdale series, trying not to tinker too much?

Lansdale: Yes, I did. BLOOD DANCE moves along well enough, but I thought the front end was a little slow, and there were a number of things that I would have looked at differently. I would have explored the characters more deeply, but I felt like no, I wrote this at that time to be a pop western. That's what I sold it as, and I was trying to get into print and still write a good, entertaining book. So I kept in mind that's what this really was... was like one of those old paperbacks you picked up off the rack for seventy five cents in the seventies. And that's what I wanted it to read like. That's one reason why I didn't want it to appear in a larger market, even if anybody would even want a book like that now. I think maybe some of the smaller companies might have, but I thought this is the perfect way to take a look back at the past. I think, too, looking at novels written at a certain time gives you a feel for that time, sometimes better than a novel that goes all out to make sure it's telling you that in 1960s these people are dressed this certain way or this way. Like John D. MacDonald. I read his novels and even the old ones are kind of contemporary. They're easy to read, they're fun, the base of the stories are pretty much the same: sex, greed, the usual things ... the usual suspects. Like when you read THE EXECUTIONERS, you really get a feel for that era. To feel how people interacted with one another, and I really enjoy that. I just feel like a book is of its time, and though you can tamper with them successfully, I guess. I can t. I don't know how to do that. My buddy, Dean Koontz, for example, he rewrote all his books, and they're not even the same books, you know? And that's fine, nothing wrong with it, but I couldn't do that. I sort feel like once you've written something, too, it's done. I went in and repaired spelling errors and goof-ups, and sometimes with the prose... maybe I was so damned dumb, I should have never put it down in the first place. Essentially, I tried to leave the books pretty much as I meant for them to be at that time.

Rohrig: So they can be a representation of that era.

Lansdale: Yeah, so they can be a representation of that, and that's one reason why they're printed where they are. Somethings will find homes elsewhere, but others won t. Like BLOOD DANCE... I don't know that it will ever go anywhere else other than where it is. And the same way with the stories in THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE INDIFFERENT, which are not part of the Lost Lansdale series. A few of those I would allow to be reprinted, but most of them, I never would. They weren't very good when they were first done. I did that in a small grouping just so people could see... that kept bugging me about these old stories... that it wasn't worth bugging me. And secondly, so they could see that some of the stories are actually a lot of fun. They're forgettable or some of them have a nice little punch line. But really it was also an opportunity to write between the stories about that time, about growing up as a writer. And I mean that -- growing up as a writer -- because you do that constantly, and about how it was to write stories at a certain stage in your career. I felt it was a really nice book for a new writer or someone who wanted to be a writer to pick up say, Damn, I can write better than this! This guy wrote these kinds of stories on his way to be published? And I thought it would be encouraging. It was the kind of book that perfectly designed for the small press. The large press would look at you and say you know these stories aren't all that good. But this particular group of people who bought that collection are looking at it in a different way. They have a different interest. I think these books are a hell of a lot better than those stories by the way. I think BLOOD DANCE is a good little tale, and I think THE BOAR is real good, and I would love to have something else done with it. I think WALTZ OF SHADOWS with a few touch ups and the things that I mentioned could be a very good book. SOMETHING LUMBER, I think is a good children's book.

Rohrig: These are good books, but how do you address those true-blue fans who've been critical of your releasing these expensive books?

Lansdale: Well, my feelings are one of the reasons they're expensive is that they're rare. That's easy. The second thing is that I don't set the price. I make my deal with Bill for whatever he's going to pay me, and he makes the choice on the price. He makes the choice on marketing those books. It's not that this is my press. It belongs to Bill Schafer. I make a deal for the amount of money I'm going to be paid, and trust me, it's not that much. It's good money, but it's not that much. It's not like I'm making a ton off these books. That's one thing. The second thing is, for those people who criticize, I get a lot more people who are happy. That's the response I get. Third, if people weren't happy with them, they wouldn't keep buying them. The easy way for people to have these things stopped is don't buy them if you don't like them. So I think a lot of people are getting pleasure out of them. And I can't tell you how many people have told me who have read WALTZ OF SHADOWS, Why the hell didn't you get this printed in the mainstream. It certainly pleased a lot of folks. And THE BOAR. Same way. So I certainly don't feel like I've got anything to be ashamed of. The other thing was I felt like here was an opportunity to give a treat to those people who helped build my career. Small press did not build my career like a lot of people say. It was one of the elements that built my career. I was selling to mainstream publishers from the start. And I was selling to them (small publishers) as well, so they all contributed. So it was a way for me to give back, it was a way for me to make some money -- that's always a part of it -- and it was a way for me to take some books that I thought were unique and interesting -- that maybe the times had changed a lot or maybe I felt like the people wouldn't give it the attention it deserved for it to find a sort of showcase... And it was also a way for me to present to those fans -- I think there were about five hundred of these, like THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE INDIFFERENT -- the sort of oddball stories, some of which they had read and wanted to see in print, but I didn't feel deserved to be in a mainstream collection, but I thought were interesting. Others that I knew were not that good, but that I wanted other people to see them because I wanted them to know the growth of a writer. That book sold out very, very quickly, and the handful of people who got that book... a large percentage of them seemed more than happy with it. Those people who have reviewed outside of that, they have their perfect choice to make good or bad reviews, and I've never been offended one way or the other. And those people who are disappointed in the book, I have no problem. I'm sorry that they are, but most of the ones I've heard that have said that, misinterpreted the kind of book that I was doing. And the only one I've ever heard that about was THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE INDIFFERENT. And they've said, My God, this wasn't a major collection. Well, it was never meant to be, not in the sense that they're saying.

Rohrig: I have yet to talk to somebody who has one of the SubPress books who hasn't read it, who uses it just as a collector's item. The people who are buying them are fans, honest to God readers.

Lansdale: See? I don't write books not to be read. I really mean for these to be read. Some of the limiteds that come out from other publishers, a lot of people just collect those. There's nothing I can do about those. Those are just unique books that are done that people can pass on them or take them. I'm personally am not a collector. I'm a reader. I buy books to read. I collect in that sense. If I love a book, I keep it. It doesn't necessarily have to have the first edition or the one bound in leather. The ones I do have like that are of my own that I have copies of or that people have given to me because I don't buy that way. I'd rather buy ten books to one. But I have unique writers that I really like that sometimes things have been done in expensive editions that I'm willing to pay that money for those particular books so I can read those stories. (The Lost Lansdale series) are unique items so they have unique representation and the price is a little high, but like I said, I don't set the price or the presentation.

Rohrig: I saw in another interview that you have a historical book of fiction up the road. Are you still working on that one?

Lansdale: Yeah, in a sense I'm touching on a historical era with THE BOTTOMS. I'm doing the 1930s. Probably the one I was referring to was THE TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURES OF DEADWOOD DICK TOLD BY HISOWNSELF which is a big novel of the west. It's a black cowboy. It's something I researched for years. I hope that I'll have time to sit down and write it soon.

Also up the road for Joe is a book of memoirs that he's begun pulling together for Bill Schafer, more Hap and Leonard books, screenplays, and comic book work. He says he just wants to keep having fun. Which made me remember Koontz's musing on Joe as that tater baron: Misfortune smiled on him, however, and potatodom's loss is fiction's gain. And ours.

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