Today it gives the Speculative Fiction Showcase great pleasure to interview Jeremy C. Shipp, whose novel The Merry Dredgers is published on April 25.
The Merry Dredgers is an unusual title. Who are the Merry Dredgers and what can you tell us about them?
Depending on who you’re asking, the Merry Dredgers are either an insidious cult with sinister motivations, or they’re a mind and body retreat devoted to spiritual growth and the cultivation of authentic joy. Are the Dredgers loveable weirdos? Are they indoctrinated villains? I’m curious to hear what readers will think about them.
Your protagonist, Seraphina Ramon, is desperate to find out how her sister Eff ended up in a coma. What can you tell us about Seraphina and Eff?
When thinking of Eff, you might picture her wandering a forest under the light of a full moon, puffing a sage-flavored vape pen, whispering greetings to the trees. She might sit on a boulder and spend an hour contemplating the meaning of her dream from last night about a headless witch and a giant talking lightbulb.
When thinking of Seraphina, you might picture her eating a veggie burger in her decaying lemon of a car, listening to a true crime podcast about a serial killer who carves scrimshaw into his victim’s bones. Seraphina will most likely start the podcast over again after twenty minutes, because she hasn’t been paying attention. She’s spent her time reworking her household budget in her head, trying to figure out how she’s going to afford to take her cat to the vet. Eff and Seraphina are very different people in many ways, and they love each other all the more for it.
To uncover the mystery of what happened to Eff, Seraphina has to infiltrate a cult that has occupied an abandoned amusement park. How does she set about it?
According to Seraphina, the best way to learn the secrets of a cult is to join the organization undercover. Personally, I don’t think this is the best idea in the world, but Seraphina never listens to me. She’s stubborn that way.
An abandoned amusement park is a nightmarish place. What awaits Seraphina?
Goblintropolis is an enchanting fever dream of an amusement park filled with psychedelic dark rides and bizarre attractions. Follow Seraphina into the park entrance, and you’ll spot a wolf-themed roller coaster to your right, resting on the blackened earth, curled up like a dead snake. To your left, an animatronic Humpty Dumpty falls off a concrete castle and shatters on the ground, only to reform itself moments later. Up ahead, cultists giggle as they meditate in the hall of mirrors. This is only the beginning of what you and Seraphina will discover in the park.
How far is this novel a departure from your previous full-length works, Bedfellow and The Atrocities?
While The Atrocities is my love letter to the gothic genre, and Bedfellow is a family-centered, psychological tale, The Merry Dredgers is a horror novel where I play around with certain mystery and noir tropes. The narrative voice in my newest book is fun and lyrical and sarcastic.
You have published copious amounts of short fiction. How do your short stories relate to your longer works and where can readers find them?
The main difference between my short fiction and my longer works is that I write my short stories while sitting cross-legged in the hollow of an ancient oak, draped in moss, with wildflowers in my hair. Meanwhile, I write my novels while sitting on a mound of goblin bones in a cavern, with bioluminescent beetles lighting my parchment.
In some ways, writing a short story is more difficult than writing a novel. I have much fewer words to plumb the depths of my short story characters and their worlds. You can find my shorter tales in various anthologies and magazines, such as Cemetery Dance, Dark Moon Digest and Apex Magazine. I also have a few short story collections available, like Sheep and Wolves, and In the Fishbowl, We Bleed.
You live in Southern California in a moderately haunted farmhouse. What does it mean to be moderately haunted?
In a moderately haunted farmhouse, the mannequins only descend from the attic and wheeze cosmic secrets on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. In the middle of the night, I often catch possessed dolls gnawing on the fridge, but since the house is merely somewhat haunted, the dolls lack the preternatural power necessary to devour a whole appliance. During the winter months, gnarled, ectoplasmic stalactites grow from the ceilings and drip the memories of ghosts into our heads. The other months are stalactite-free. It’s all rather manageable. I can’t complain.
What made you decide to write dark fantasy?
I suppose I write what I write because I’ve always enjoyed tales of the bizarre and the ominous and the whimsical. As a kid, when playing pretend with my brothers, we would create worlds populated by ghosts and monsters and other strange creatures. I grew up watching movies like Return to Oz and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Dark Crystal. Dark, fantastical tales are the ones that live and grow inside me.
Do you enjoy horror and fantasy works or range more widely?
Despite the fact that I gravitate toward the horrific and the fantastic, I’ll read anything if the story is absorbing, if the prose dazzles me in some way. I read romance-forward classics, plays, literary novels, middle grade books, ancient epics. Right now, I’m on a quest to read a book from every country. I just finished Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, and I started The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedaya. My next read will be The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun.
Where do you start when you begin to write - with an image or a scene? Or something different altogether.
The seed varies from tale to tale. Sometimes I’ll start with a setting or a creature or a theme. Sometimes I’ll write a list of things that delight me or horrify me, and a story will burgeon forth from there. When writing The Atrocities, I began with a few goals. I wanted to create a macabre yet alluring house that felt more like a living character than a setting. I also wanted to incorporate certain gothic tropes and turn them on their heads.
Horror and Dark Fantasy have come back from the dead in a big way. Why are these genres and their slipstream more popular than ever?
I’m not sure. It could be that reality is the dream of a colossal, cosmic worm, and the worm is experiencing more nightmares than usual lately. It could be that experiencing fictional horrors is a form of catharsis and existential relief.
What are your thoughts about the crop of recent folk horror movies like Midsommar and Enys Men?
I think the appeal of folk horror is layered and complex. These films embrace a lushness of color and art and beauty in a refreshing way. When it comes to films like Midsommar or The Wicker Man or Lokis or The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, part of the appeal is the folk art, the architecture, the costumes, the quilts, the music, the festivals.
On another level, I think people connect with folk horror because, in the real world, we frequently experience the horrors of mob mentality. In America, for example, the spread of QAnon conspiracy theories is basically a cult horror movie come to life. Your main character slowly realizes that a massive number of people around them believe in lizard people and demons. The QAnon community wants to wreak havoc on the non-believers. I think watching folk horror films is one way to help process and think about those aspects of our reality.
Is America the home of horror and what does that mean?
The US definitely produces a lot of phenomenal horror films, books, TV series, games, comics, etc. At the same time, beautiful works of horror are being created all over the world, and I’m sure in other galaxies. Every year, I experience new horror books and films from far and wide, and I feel extremely lucky to have those opportunities.
How does fictional horror relate to the horror of contemporary reality?
Horror can be cathartic. Horror can be subversive. It can help us understand the human experience. It can help us shine a light on beliefs and norms and systems that cause people pain. It can help us find strength. It can expand our consciousness.
Preorder The Merry Dredgers now!
About Jeremy C. Shipp:
Jeremy C. Shipp is the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of The Atrocities, Bedfellow, and Cursed. Their shorter tales have appeared in over 60 publications, including Cemetery Dance, Dark Moon Digest and Apex Magazine. Jeremy lives in Southern California in a moderately haunted Farmhouse. Their twitter handle is @JeremyCShipp.
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