After reading the The Loop, I had a quick chat with author Jeremy Robert Johnson about the book, writing YA, and what it's like releasing a story about an infection during a global pandemic. The full review of The Loop can be found here.
The Loop is your first foray into YA, and you’ve said that you studied up on the genre before writing the book. Was it a difficult process coming to YA for the first time after your other work?
Not so much difficult as really compelling. Being an avid reader as a kid in the 80’s YA wasn’t really the marketing juggernaut/genre that it’s become today. Most of what I read early on - King/Lansdale/McCammon/Barker/Crichton/Ludlum/Skipp & Spector, et al. - came from the spinning paperback racks at the drugstore. If a book happened to have kids in it, I loved that, but it was an even greater thrill to read about the adult world, and there tended to be more transgressive kicks in “mature” novels.
So, when my agent asked if I’d considered writing YA horror I told her I’d need to do some research (outside of what I’d read as a kid that has since been re-categorized as YA, like The Outsiders and Lord of the Flies (both of which figure heavily in the DNA of The Loop). So I spent weeks reading and analysing contemporary YA, trying to figure out what element of the genre would pull me in and make me interested in writing within its constraints. And for me, with YA, that was the immersion in character and feeling, and that sense that your character could be really flawed and honest.
Funny thing is, though, after my novel Skullcrack City took off editors weren’t asking me for YA anymore. They wanted more of whatever crazy thing I’d accidentally pulled off in Skullcrack. So even though The Loop began as a YA concept, it then mutated into a much more brutal, bleak sci-fi/horror throwback that happened to feature young protagonists. Now it’s YA in the same sense that, say, King’s Carrie or Cutter’s The Troop are YA.
Quite often in YA stories they tend to focus on popular white kids, even if they think of themselves as more of an outside, but you made your leads kids from poor families, people of colour, and people who are bullied by their peers. What made you pick the characters you did for your main cast?
Well, no joke, part of it stems from a vision I had in a sensory deprivation tank. I was pretty blocked on the novel, so I meditated on the work and about 45 minutes into a tank float the word “Lucia” formed from swirling green stars and I knew then that Lucy/Lucia, the main character, was going to be my entry point to the story and the heart of the thing.
After that, I had to ask who she was, and how I could honour her story. Since a big part of The Loop is just me snitching on my hometown, and how rough it was on a sensitive little nerd like me, that led me to think about my friends who had it even harder - kids who were adopted, or multiple amputees, or secretly gay, or living in deep poverty, or surviving as people of colour in this very openly racist town. I mean, I had some brutal experiences as a kid, some of which are hinted at in the book, but my friends had it even worse. And the thing is, despite everything they survived, so many of them were still the coolest fucking kids you’d ever meet. So Lucy and Bakhit and Brewer are amalgams of these folks I knew, and I did my best to pay tribute to how they lived and struggled and how much I admired them.
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| Jeremy's novel Skullcrack City |
Was there one particular thing that inspired you to write the story of The Loop? Is technology running out of control a particular topic that appeals to you?
Unregulated corporate and governmental abuses of all forms fascinate and horrify me, and “technology out of control” is always good for some sci-fi kicks. So that’s definitely one of the core elements that drives The Loop.
Even more central, I think, in both Skullcrack City and The Loop, is this examination of all the ways which so many human systems, especially capitalism, inherently cause us to dehumanize each other. The moment everything is supply and demand and assets, and humans are delineated as consumers and resources, we’re in some way reduced. An economic value is placed on each of us within a system where psychopaths and sociopaths thrive, and mould the rules to their liking. They use everything in their power to deny us our collective strength and awareness by stoking conflict and making differences and otherness a threat. And the things they are willing to do to us and our shared global environment, just so they can stay on top of this fucked up system, swimming in their grotesque abundance…it’s tough NOT to be obsessed with that.
The Loop has some moments where the narrative cuts away to extracts from the podcast Nightwatch, which deals with conspiracy theories. Are you a fan of conspiracy theories, do you find them interesting or a good place for story ideas?
When I was young and into The X-files/Weekly World News/Art Bell/SubGenius stuff I was definitely a fan of conspiracy theories. It’s thrilling to let your imagination run wild and to explore all these weird permutations and possible realities. I didn’t necessarily believe much of it, but I enjoyed it.
Lately, though, it’s much harder view conspiracy theories as flights of fancy, because people are buying into straight-up toxic, demonstrably/objectively wrong bullshit and then they’re acting on it. Before the internet, this stuff would just manifest in, like, your weird uncle hoarding tranquilizer darts, highlighting nonsensical book passages, and claiming Arnold Schwarzenegger had inducted him into something called the Military Mafia. You could wave it away. Don’t invite that dude to the next picnic, you know? But the advent of niche internet cultures, filter bubbles, destabilizing dis-info campaigns, etc. have turned far too many of us into that crazy uncle.
In some ways the story reminded me of things like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Thing in how you were never sure who to trust. Were you tempted to push those themes further in the narrative at all, make it an even bigger part of the book?
Ha! I actually watched Philip Kaufman’s version of Invasion the week before I started the novel, because I wanted that mood to kind of infect the work. And I definitely wanted to have that amorphous aspect of both The Thing and the first Alien film built into the antagonist. That idea of something being so alien to your understanding of the world that you truly don’t know how it works or what it may be capable of…I love that.
I feel like I pushed that sense of paranoia pretty far—especially if you consider Lucy’s underlying PTSD and the fact that she doesn’t really get to trust people even before everything explodes into chaos—but I always wanted to be sure that Lucy and her friends were somewhat trustworthy…that at the centre there was this new little family born out of trauma and the need to survive, but that they could trust and maybe even love each other.
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| Jeremy's novel In The River |
The Loop isn’t your first book, but it is one that you’re having to release during lock-downs and quarantines, how different has the experience of releasing this book been?
Wildly different! So many Zoom readings and print interviews, so few public events and conventions. Honestly, that post-release period where you get to go public with your book and travel and meet readers and go out for drinks and talk books…that’s always been one of the “push prizes” that keeps me going during the long, lonely stretch of actually writing a book. So I have missed it dearly.
The release of The Loop has been a really beautiful experience with so many career-changing high points. But I have experienced most of those high points from a makeshift temporary office in my garage. It’s been odd.
Do you feel that releasing a book that has an element of viral infection in it during Corona has made this an easier sell to people?
It’s been a mix! The Loop was kind of “2020 on crack” with all the quarantine/outbreak aspects, the racial/economic/class conflicts, the shady government, the bio-implants, etc. So for some folks it’s too on the nose, even though it’s so far over-the-top. On the flip-side, a lot of readers have told me that it was really cathartic to see characters struggling through this absolute nightmare version of what we were living through.
My guess is that the vibe you get from it really depends on the expectation you bring—this thing is pretty wild, and it often moves like a thriller, but it’s much more a confrontational and weird and literary horror novel than it is some idealized escapist fantasy. There’s sweetness and humour in there—you have to have that light with the dark—but there’s all kinds of darkness too.
You’ve written quite a few short stories. Do you prefer those kind of stories over writing novels, or do you find each has its own good points?
I prefer writing novels as an overall experience. You get to play with the rise and fall of the story, and you get to spend more time on character. And having that large scope, for me, allows the big surprises or moments to land with more gravity.
That being said, I love the experimental and precise nature of short fiction, both as a writer and reader, and shorts are a great way to express a singular mood or vision or idea.
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| Jeremy's novel Entropy in Bloom |
How has writing been whilst having to juggle the extra stress and workload during Covid, and are there any handy tips you can recommend for trying to be creative whilst having to manage a lot of things?
Well, as a guy who, on top of the writing commitments, has also been a college student and, unexpectedly, a full-time home-school teacher for my son since the pandemic hit, my best tip is:
Be kind to yourself.
You can’t get as much done right now. You won’t. It’s a fucking pandemic. Even if you had good systems for creativity in place prior to the outbreak, it’s likely those things have been disrupted. Life feels pretty unpredictable.
So make space for your art. Accomplish what you can, when you can. And just enjoy the experience of creating.
If people who’ve read The Loop wanted to check out more of your work what would you say is the best thing to check out?
For people who want an even crazier novel: Skulcrack City
For people who want a wide range of short fiction: Entropy In Bloom
For people who want a heartfelt, experimental meditation on loss: In The River
And finally, are you able to tell us about what’s going to be next for you and what people can look forward to seeing from you?
My next big project will be a series of long overdue book re-releases through an imprint called Coevolution Press. Brand new editions of Skullcrack City and In The River are coming, as well as a collection titled All The Wrong Ideas which gathers all of my weirdest short stories with the novella Extinction Journals. It’ll be so wonderful to have all those books readily available again.
Beyond that there are novels, novellas, and film/TV projects in the works, but nothing I can talk about yet. And, fingers crossed, I really want to get out there and tour behind the next book. I need to sign some books and meet some excellent weirdoes as soon as humanly possible…
Anyone who wants to find out more about Jeremy and his work can visit his website to discover more.
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