Question continued from Part One:
Your book is populated by some of the most aggressive, sadistic and sickeningly unlikable characters I have ever read, and that’s just the church folk. Did you ever worry that your readers wouldn’t be able to see past the violence and into the characters beneath it?
As much as I’d love to think that there is this Crip or Blood with a heart of gold, I just don’t think that’s the case. I do think though, that films, TV and books have given gang members this really one dimensional arc. They sit on the side of the street, flash their colors and their slang and sell drugs. I don’t think that gang members are these really dumb people and I think making the gangs in KS actually think about their actions and show some signs of intelligence is what separates them from Red Gangster, Blue Gangster and Mexican Gangster.
Whenever I see a film about gangs, it’s like they just hire fifty minorities and throw bandanas on them. They might as well be henchmen on the original “Batman” TV series. The same can be said about drug addicts. It’s unfortunate that some of the brightest and funniest people I’ve ever met fell into the addiction trap. Heroin especially eats you up piece-by-piece. I saw an episode of “Dateline” the other night and I was shocked to find out that heroin use has DOUBLED in the last three years. DOUBLED. Not every heroin addict, speed freak or cokehead is some dumbass, white trash face-picker or rock star.
As far as the religious characters go, even though Fat Mac is completely unethical (even by Catholic standards) and what he participated in was wrong, I didn’t want the reader to walk away thinking that the book was an indictment of religion. I promise it’s not. The main point being: if you put a bunch of people in the same room, who all believe in the same thing (whether it’s right or wrong), a gang mentality forms. Catholicism is a really big gang. That being said, The Cloth is just as much a gang in Knuckle Supper as The Knucklers, The BBP and the Battlesnakes.
The Habit… well… she’s just human feces. In a way though, I think her character is important in highlighting one of the main themes of the novel; about everyone wanting and needing to be a celebrity today. If you take the time to notice the elaborate shows that all the characters put on for each other (see: Eldritch and Nomi), you should roll your eyes and ask yourself, “was any of that worth all… that?” If readers feel that these performances are absurd… take a look at YouTube and re-think your stance.
Speaking of Eldritch, the character was developed in the early stages of the book to be 100% satire. He was originally Knuckle Supper’s answer to Huck Finn’s distaste for the overly romantic Tom Sawyer. As I wrote him more and more throughout the book though, I started to take a liking to him. I mean not only is he everything that people imagine when they think about the modern vampire cliché, but he is also the biggest badass of all the characters. That flips the script and turns the joke on RJ, his obnoxious eye-rolling and a-hole social skills.
Why did you specifically choose vampirism as the foundation stone to your book? Did you ever consider writing it without its fantastical subtext?
I absolutely chose vampirism for a reason. Lately, I have been really disheartened by what the vampire has become. Did you know that there is Teen Fiction – Supernatural Romance section at Barnes and Noble, but no Horror Fiction Section? I’m not going to point fingers or blame anyone, but let’s be straight… vampires are serial killers.
On top of that, there is a reason that Bait is 12 in the book and so in love with vampire mythos. In the current crop of teen lit, it’s okay that an underage girl has a relationship with 100 year-old man as long as he looks like a teenager. If I had children I don’t think I’d be too hip to that at all. I mean, I wouldn’t let my 16 year-old daughter go on a date with a 60 year-old, much less a 100 year-old man.
Statutory rape laws are in place for a reason. It’s not as much about how old the person looks as it is how mature they are. Find someone your own age down at the retirement home, you molester. Yuck, I think I just vomited in my mouth. Let me put this in perspective so I don’t sound like I’m Tipper Gore. Whenever I see these really ripped vampires, I think about Jack LaLanne. He’s almost 100 and he’s pretty torn up. I don’t think I’d want him whispering in my teenage daughter’s ear.
Now that I got that out of my system. Vampires are meant to be brutal beings. I made the vamps in the world of Knuckle Supper mortal and although they are fantastical in their own right, I wanted them to seem as real as possible. There is nothing relatable and real about vampires in current literature. In my attempt to deconstruct, I had a difficult time getting through certain parts of the book because I would sigh and say, “well that doesn’t make any sense at all.”
The clearest example of that is that RJ owns a house. How do vampires own huge mansions? How are vampires doctors? I want to move where these vampires live because apparently no one every runs a credit check or reads your resume. I think a red flag would go up with a potential employer if they saw your education listed as University of Transylvania 1832.
At the end of the day, I wanted to make vamps hardcore again. I thought about all these teens who are reading vamp lit right now and there isn’t a whole lot of options for them to graduate to. When I was a kid I though Super Fudge was pretty badass but I didn’t do a report on it in college or put up Tale of the Fourth Grade Nothing posters in my dorm room.
Uncover the roots of Drew Stepeks finely etched visions of street life and death in the following and final installment.
Knuckle Supper: An Interview with Author Drew Stepek, Part Three
Hari Navarro - Hari Navarro is Topic Editor for Suite 101's Horror Film section and Editor/ Writer at online horror review site, The Hell Street ...
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