A Fan Interview With Daniel Kraus

For fans of horror novels, Daniel Kraus is considered one of the best authors in that genre. A true fan of horror himself, Daniel has produced such great titles as Rotters and Scowlers that have not only given us great and unforgettable characters, but terrifying stories that make one’s skin crawl. You want to put the book down in terror, but just can’t because of how good his storytelling is.

One might also know Daniel for his writing in the Oscar winning film The Shape Of Water. One thing that makes Daniel stand out is that he does not hold back in his work, including his newest and darkest book yet, Bent Heavens. After reading the book I have to say it is just that, and if you are looking for a great book to read I highly recommend it. I recently had a chance at a private event for young adult authors to sit down with him to discuss the book as well as his upcoming projects.

Question: Listening to you talk about the new book, your readers are so used to the horrific side and edginess of your work, but Bent Heavens feels like something entirely different with the one word coming to mind being “brutal.” What kind of experience can one expect when they turn the pages?

Daniel Kraus: In some ways I consider it the end of an unofficial trilogy of books that started with Rotters, and then Scowler, and then Bent Heavens. I kind of consider them my rural Iowa trilogy. They don’t connect in any massive ways, but they are all sort of about people who are isolated in the country, and I grew up in that area and I’ve always kind of, and more so since I moved away from it I find something eerie about the country. When I’m on the interstate zipping by and I see an old farmhouse in the distance I don’t necessarily think it’s a beautiful farmhouse which it might be. I kind of think, “Nobody can hear you scream in that farmhouse. There’s no neighbor close by and anything could be going on in there.”

So, it’s kind of like space if you think about it.

Exactly! You’re really suspended in space. So yeah, I think this in some ways is my most brutal book. It’s certainly a book about brutality. I do consider it my darkest book, which I guess is saying a lot. But, it’s a tough topic. It is largely about torture which is never going to be a pretty thing to write about.

When you say it’s brutal and your darkest book, it surprising to see Bent Heavens is a Young Adults novel because you don’t normally think of something that dark being associated with that genre. Did you decide to make it a young adult book, and did the amount of brutality in it play a part?

Well you know, I’ve been lucky enough for my young adult books to have editors who have not shrunk away from pretty intense material. I do think, even including my adult books, that this is my darkest book, and I think there’s no reason why a teenage reader wouldn’t want or need to be exposed to this kind of thing. This the world they are about to graduate into if they are not already living in this world. They might be shipped off to war. I don’t buy into the notion that younger readers shouldn’t be reading parts of humanity. Maybe if you’re in second grade, but we are talking about high schoolers.

That’s true that there’s always been the notion in the past that you want to keep young adults safe, but these days with the realities of the world with what they are seeing that feels more impossible to protect them.

Exactly! They are seeing everything in the post-internet age where you cannot protect them from seeing these things. At least what we can do as writers and artist is make them contend with it, to try to make sense of it.  To try and figure out in a moral sense where do they stand on these things. Bent Heavens is going to make them ask of themselves “ How to I feel that my protagonist, who I am behind and support, has taken these steps? And if I oppose them, did I oppose them too late as a reader? Am I not already complicit and guilty along with her?”

One thing that caught my attention from reading the synopsis of the book is the idea of grief. I think all of us have experienced it and deal with it in different ways whether you’re an adult or young adult.  It’s something that controls our action and decision and I was wondering if you could talk about how it effects the main character Liv in her actions and the way she thinks when coming to her own decisions.

Well because her dad disappeared and was labeled as essentially lost his mind she sort of had to change and protect herself. She didn’t want to be labeled as the daughter of a local insane man. So, she protected herself by withdrawing and burying the emotions she was having. I know what that caused in her was a buildup in anger. You really see it in so many different ways. You’ll see it in various court cases where the people are suffering grief because they have lost a loved one; that they are filled with vengeance. They are filled with such anger, and what they really want is for the person who hurt or killed their love to die, or to be severely punished. And I’m not saying that is not a human reaction, but grief can turn to vengeance or it can be expressed as vengeance. That’s kind of what this book is about is when her broken heart becomes a bloodlust to a certain degree where she wants to hurt others as she was hurt.

So obviously they catch this alien and there is a decision to bring it to the authorities or how you put it “Take matters into their own hands.” Going back to grief, is taking matters into your own hands fueled by the closure she needs and does her vengeance come from there?

Well yes. Their thinking is if they turn this alien in that may have abducted her father that it will vanish. Who knows what will happen to it? They may never see it again. Their only real chance for satisfaction or any kind of closure is to deal with that alien themselves, and to try and see if they can get information from it. But really as we saw in famous cases like Abu Ghraib the information gathering becomes less, and the people doing the torturing really start doing it for its sake. They stop having a purpose, and start delivering pain and humiliation because it feels good in a way that it’s getting out various bad feelings out of their body, and that’s a very dangerous place to get into.

You are someone who has written various great stories as well as the adaptation for a best picture winner. Has the recognition for Shape Of Water played a role in the type of books you want to write? Was Bent Heavens always something you were hoping to do and when something like Shape Of Water comes up, which is a different story than we are used to seeing from you, is there a sense of “Should I be writing this book next?” with expectations that are put upon you, or is it that you’ve always been a writer with freedom you’ve been happy with?

That’s a great question. I think the success of Shape Of Water has affected my writing zero. Bent Heavens was always a book I had been planning to write. The next several books were ones I had planned to write. Those books are not all horror. Arguably Shape of Water was a romance and I have other genres to write. I put out a crime book last year. I got my first book for middle and elementary students. It’s my nature to want to try all sort of things, and it has been my habit for over a decade to try and not be affected by positive and negative feedback in the world. That could be a great review, a terrible review, or even winning an Oscar, It doesn’t matter. Those kind of things I want to shut off because since I was a kid, writing the book has been what was fun. That’s what is inspiring and pleasurable. The writing of the book itself, with me sitting there typing is the reward. The positive or negative feedback is beside the point for me.

One of your next projects is for George Romero. I didn’t even know something like that was happening. I’m a huge fan of his and I honestly can’t think of one person better to continue and finish his work than you. How does a project like that make you feel?

Thank you, I appreciate that. It certainly is a book I didn’t realize I had been training for since I was 5 years old when I first saw Night Of The Living Dead. It couldn’t have been a dream come true because it was never a dream. It’s mind-blowing, it’s a little scary. I guess it is validating in a way. But most of all it’s something that felt like an honor and I wanted to, and did treat finishing the book with every possible care. I did it like I was restoring the Sistine Chapel. Most writers would think I went way over the top with my research and how carefully I tried to craft something that was in line with what George was trying to do.


You can find and purchase Bent Heavens as well as any other of Daniel’s work at Amazon, Barnes And Noble or by calling your local bookstore or library.

You can also find information on Daniel and all his work at www.danielkraus.com.

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