What to Read
What to Read
What to Read
Advertisement
Supported by
Clay McLeod Chapman kept hearing friends say, of their Fox News-watching parents, “It’s like they were possessed.” That’s what inspired him to write “Wake Up and Open Your Eyes.”
Erik Piepenburg
Clay McLeod Chapman knows where readers of his new horror novel, “Wake Up and Open Your Eyes,” will either buckle in or clock out.
The book is set in an apocalyptic America where a conspiracy-driven television network called Fax News unleashes a demonic force that possesses half the country. Noah, a 40-something father, travels to his childhood home in Virginia to find that Fax News has transmuted his conservative parents into bloodthirsty creatures, a painful discovery that forces him on a treacherous journey back to the safety of Brooklyn.
Chapman said that if Goodreads is any indication, the make-or-break passage starts around Page 48, when Noah is assaulted by his horny mother, whose ghastly “flypaper tongue” slurps and “worms up the divot between his lips” before she gruesomely smashes in her skull.
“Fax News took his mommy away, and now he has no one to protect him from all the monsters under his bed,” Chapman writes. “Mom’s the monster now.”
Here’s the thing: Chapman is 47, grew up in Virginia, lives in Brooklyn and is a father and self-described “left-leaning cis white male” with conservative parents. This novel, he explained, evolved from his need to “articulate and find some sort of, if not understanding, catharsis of how you can love someone so much and still stray to opposite ends of the political spectrum.”
Chapman has long written in horror, as a novelist — this is his 12th book — but also in film, comic books and podcasts. New York theatergoers might know him as the playwright-performer behind “The Pumpkin Pie Show,” an evening of creepy monologues that ran for over 20 years in the East Village.
During an interview at a cafe in Ditmas Park, the Brooklyn neighborhood where he lives with his wife and two sons, Chapman talked, and laughed, about finding pleasure in terror and learning to bite his tongue. The interview has been edited and condensed.
How autobiographical is the novel?
It’s not. What I have riffed from my parents is that, in a Southern gentility way, we just don’t talk about politics anymore. We’ve reached the Rubicon where we’re at separate ends of the spectrum. I kept hearing a refrain from other people whose families had shifted in their political views saying, It’s like my parents were possessed. I took that at face value.
Did you tell your parents what the book was about?
I did. Two weeks ago.
Two weeks ago.
I kept stalling. We had a half-hour to go before leaving from the holidays, and I was like, guys, maybe you shouldn’t read this one. They understood. My mom, God love her, wants to support and be a loving parent. But it’s just not for her. My stepfather inherited a surly, punkish teen dude. I don’t know what they did to deserve me writing this book. But that’s the icky turmoil that comes with politics at the dinner table.
Will they read it?
I hope not, for their sakes.
What motivated you to mix horror with politics?
If Sam Raimi directed the Jan. 6 riots, that’s what I envisioned — chaos, anarchy, kinetic energy. I feel like I screamed for 400 pages. Watching the Capitol be immersed by bodies, an assault of people not turning back, a wave that’s not going to stop for the vice president or police officers — that was the moment I said, if I’m going to write this type of book, it has to have that level of trauma.
George Romero’s spirit lives in the story even though the monsters aren’t quite the undead.
I love systems collapsing and nobody knows what the heck is going on. The laws of civil society are gone, decorum is gone. Papa George gave us a template that’s going to be durable for decades.
A question about subtlety: Fax News.
I was the first to do the eye roll. It’s so on the nose. But you have to be. The time to go gonzo is here.
Did any books get under your skin as inspiration?
Sara Gran’s “Come Closer,” in its economy of language, in that you feel every moment of a possession. There’s “A Head Full of Ghosts,” by Paul Tremblay, because, in his ambiguous way, you can never say for certain whether the girl actually is possessed. The third one is a cheat: “Pontypool,” a triptych of novels [by Tony Burgess]. He began this idea of a zombie plague by way of words.
Was the plan always to release the book around the inauguration?
I was very adamant, nearly petulant, with my publisher, wanting this book to come out before the election. Then the election happened. Friends and family have joked about what perfect timing, but I’d rather that not be the case. Dark planets aligned and positioned this book to be a conversation starter.
Anything else you want to add?
I love my family. And I hope they still love me.
Mining Her Country’s Nightmares: In her fiction, Han Kang has probed at the seams of South Korea’s historic wounds. The Nobel laureate’s latest novel, “We Do Not Part,” delves into why atrocities must be remembered.
A ‘Renaissance’ in African Publishing: A new ecosystem of publishers, bookstores, literary magazines and festivals is promoting African writers and changing the stories told about the region.
Anticipated Adaptations: Here are some of the books coming to TV and movie screens in 2025, including Hilary Mantel’s “The Mirror and the Light,” a new “Bridget Jones” and Michael Bond’s Paddington Bear series.
A Turn to Reality: Nnedi Okorafor, an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer, explores a traumatic event in her most autobiographical novel yet.
The Book Review Podcast: Each week, top authors and critics talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here.
Advertisement
