Steve Gerlach

interview by Allan Guthrie

STEVE GERLACH is an Australian thriller writer who's rapidly making inroads in America. From his first novel, Nocturne, "a non-stop thrill ride that borders on horror" to his most recent, Rage, a look inside the mind of a spree killer, Gerlach's books have consistently defied easy categorisation. If dedication and research mean anything, Steve Gerlach should have hit the bestseller list already... as Allan Guthrie found out when he spoke to him for Noir Originals.

Allan Guthrie: Rage is as uncompromising a novel as has come my way in a long time. I heard it was based on a true story. Can you fill us in on the background?

Steve Gerlach: Yes, it is based on a true event. On Saturday, August 17, 1991, Wade Frankum walked into the Strathfield Shopping Plaza in a suburb of Sydney, Australia and killed 7 people. That massacre is the basis for Rage. I researched the case and used that event as a springboard for Ben, my troubled main character. Around that time, Australia had suffered a series of mass-shootings such as the Hoddle Street and Queen Street Massacres in Melbourne, and politicians, the media and the public were asking why. Why was this happening? How was it happening? And what was the cause? They were the questions I wanted to answer in Rage.

AG: Did you do much research into Wade Frankum's character or is Ben largely the product of an extremely fertile imagination?

SG: Wade was the starting point. I used the news reports from the time plus the in-depth investigations into his character and motives. Add to the mix the guys we all knew at school who were loners and a bit "on the fringe", plus some teenage angst, and you have Ben Jackson in a nut-shell. Everyone was a teenager, so everyone can sympathise with some of the problems Ben suffers from, along with his inability to handle those problems. Ben just goes to the extremes that (hopefully) none of us went to when we were his age.

AG: I described Rage as uncompromising. It is. I think it's an extremely brave piece of writing. I can't help wondering, though, if certain aspects of the novel (I won't spoil it by mentioning them, but readers will know what I mean when they read it) were viewed negatively by publishers whilst you were shopping it around.

SG: Rage has a long history, especially down here in Australia. It was first accepted by a major Australian publishing house, and then rejected as the marketing department felt the content was too strong and could in fact get the book banned down here. For quite a while, I hid the novel away, as even I believed what they were telling me - it was too extreme. But at the same time, I had editors telling me, "This is a great novel, we should publish novels like this, but we can't!"

Then, as the Port Arthur and Columbine tragedies hit the news, and others like them, I knew the book had merit, that it wasn't too extreme, and that the issues covered in the novel were current day issues that needed to be addressed. So it came out again and finally found a market in the US. Leisure books removed only one scene from the paperback release, which they felt was a little too extreme, although the hardback release through Bloodletting Books is uncut. Some publishers were wary, but Bloodletting and Leisure believed strongly in the novel, and I'm proud of the results of their endeavours.

AG: I'm impressed by your comment that you "hid the book away". Under the circumstances, I'm sure many writers would have succumbed to the pressure to produce an expurgated version. Aside from the difficulties you faced persuading publishers to show some balls, what difficulties did you encounter writing from the viewpoint of a protagonist like Ben?

SG: I'm not the kind of writer to produce cut-down or lukewarm versions of my novels just so they can be published. With any novel I write, the subject matter or characters drive the narrative. If they do objectionable or illegal things, they do it because that's who they are or that's what needs to happen. The subject matter of Rage would not work in a cut-down, edited or censored format. What would be the point? It's there, it's ugly, it's violent and it's in your face...just like Columbine was on the nightly news. Why shirk away from that because some marketing executive hasn't the guts to gamble on anything that isn't considered "safe." I don't like going back and re-editing my novels years later either, for the same kind of reasons. Any novel I write is complete in itself, for it's time, with all its positives and negatives, strengths and flaws. There's a couple of scenes here and there in my other novels I'd like to change now, but I don't believe that's my job. The novel is complete, for its time, leave it alone. Modern computers and publishing allow you to change things too easily. Once I'm done with a novel, I'm done. I move to the next one.

Ben is probably the hardest character I have ever written. I didn't know Wade Frankum, I didn't know anyone who had committed mass murder, so I couldn't do my usual research or interviews. Instead, I had to read up on a lot of non-fiction books and articles, medical and psychological journals and so forth. And then I did something I've never done since. I became Ben. Almost like "method writing" instead of "method acting". I dressed like him, I walked like him. I spent two months being a loner and yelling at everyone, pushing people away from me, making my family hate me, visiting cafes, chatting up waitresses who weren't interested, watching video after video of violence. It was my "dark period", my bleak, wasteland existence. I hated it, but it was perfect for the novel. I was Ben and Ben was me for a while, and when I shook off that persona and started to write the novel, I had all the feelings and experiences with me, except that Ben took them to greater extremes.

AG: Great answer, Steve! A continuation of the Orwellian school of method writing, as you say. It's interesting that you say you shook off the "Ben" persona when you started writing. I'd have imagined otherwise. How long were you "Ben" and how long did it take to write the first draft?

SG: I needed to experience Ben, but I didn't want to be him while I was writing. There's a difference between research and writing as far as I'm concerned. So, I took what I could from "being" Ben, then became the writer once more so I could use that research in the novel. A novel written by Ben would be totally different to a novel written by me.

I was Ben for about two months, but the initial draft of Rage probably took only a month or so, full-time, to develop. The storyline was there, and I had the character, so I wrote non-stop to get the story out on the page. It is, in fact, the quickest first draft I've ever written, and I was emotionally exhausted by the end of it all.

AG: That's a really interesting distinction you made there, about a book by Ben being very different from a book written by you. You use limited third person to tell the story from Ben's point of view, intermittently dropping into first person, but did you consider at any point writing the book entirely in first person? And how do you think such a first person narrative would have turned out?

SG: First person narrative is something I tried to avoid in all my writing until recently. Lake Mountain, my latest novel, is the first book I have written entirely in first person. Ignoring 1st person was just a choice of mine, stylistically, as I have always believed 3rd person gives the writer a broader canvass on which to create a story. But I have used 1st person in parts of a novel, such as Rage and also Love Lies Dying. It comes down to what works for the story and the novel as a whole, more than any personal choice of mine. Which is why Lake Mountain is all 1st person, because for the story to be told properly, it has to be in that P.O.V.

I always felt writing Rage completely in 1st person would be very suffocating and very draining on the reader. Being in Ben's head for 350 pages would be a very bleak place to be. But with 3rd person, I - as a writer - and the reader, can step back slightly, see the world in the novel from a safer distance. That way, the 1st person glimpses into Ben's mind are used to a more dramatic effect, and are enough to give the reader a chilling insight into his mental state.

AG: You briefly mentioned a couple of your other novels. Would you care to fill us in a bit more on the rest of your work?

SG: Well, I guess the best place to find out more about my novels is through my official website - there you can read the blurbs of all my books, see reviews and read what others are saying about the novels. It's a terrific site and the guys who run it do a sterling job. I often go there to find out what I'm going too! Haha.

I set a task for myself with every novel I write. No Gerlach novel can be like the others. They have to be different in characterisation (and plot obviously), but they also have to test me as a writer. I always have to try something I've never done before, to push myself and my skills, and that's where the real thrill is for me.

The Nocturne is a non-stop thrill ride that borders on horror. It deals with a group of people fleeing a forest fire in Washington State. They stumble into a town where everything is not as it seems, and they need to try and escape as soon as possible.

Love Lies Dying is a psychological thriller dealing with love, betrayal and the lies we all tell to cover the darker places in our soul. What's real? What's reality? Once we believe our own lies, reality can change.

Hunting Zoe takes place in the world created for Love Lies Dying, but with a special twist that turns everything on its head. It's just been released in Australia and can be ordered via Shocklines.

Lake Mountain is like a road movie (or is it a "road book"?) And I liken it to "Thelma & Louise with balls and maggots". Haha. It deals with two girls, Raven and Amber, who suddenly find themselves with a body stashed in their trailer, and they have a very urgent need to try and get rid of it before they're caught. But getting rid of a body isn't that easy, especially if one of them isn't finished with it yet.

Lake Mountain is in the final stages of editing now, and is being released in hardback in the US on January 1, 2005.

In each of these novels, I set myself a task...a goal that would push me as a writer. In The Nocturne, I wanted to write a non-stop thrill-ride with no let-up, no breaks, no chance for the reader to catch their breath. It starts at 100 miles an hour on page one and never slackens off the pace until the story is done.

In Love Lies Dying, I had three set-pieces, and three main characters. I needed to write a book with a confined number of settings, and dealing with a minimal number of characters. I was also gambling with the twists (which I won't ruin by mentioning here...)

Hunting Zoe was my "campfire yarn" which includes my first stab at dark humour and gives a new meaning to the word "sequel". It's more "real life" than any reality TV show. And it's from here the "Cult of Zoe" began.

Lake Mountain is more character study of dominance and powerplays, while also taking my readers probably further to the edge than ever before in a Gerlach novel. This one even disturbed me! Haha.

And, of course, Rage was all about getting into the mind of someone like Ben, and understanding how he feels and thinks. Just as we discussed earlier.

If I didn't set myself these goals, these tasks, I wouldn't grow as a writer, I wouldn't learn, I wouldn't test myself, and my novels wouldn't be as interesting as I hope they are.

AG: For most people, that might seem like a hell of a comprehensive answer. I'm never happy, Steve. Tell me more about the "Cult of Zoe".

SG: Well, Love Lies Dying deals with the power a beautiful woman can have over a man. She can get him to do almost anything, no matter how extreme, if he wants or loves her enough. Zoe Barber is the lead female in the novel. She's blonde, tanned, taut and terrific, and she's drop dead gorgeous.

I was surprised how many of my male readers wanted to know more about her. They wanted to know if she was based on someone I know (she is, by the way) and whether I could tell them more about her. This struck me as quite amazing, as Love Lies Dying deals with men who will be sucked in by a strong woman who knows the right buttons to press. So, even after reading the novel, and knowing what happens in the story, these guys wanted to know more about Zoe! Go figure?

The book is dedicated to "Zoe Y." and the number of people who want to know who she is strikes me as quite amazing. Suddenly, there was a group of men who wanted Zoe - the fictional Zoe - and couldn't get enough of her. So, this is where the "Cult of Zoe" comes from.

Their behaviour struck me as so strange, that I wrote Hunting Zoe, which takes place in the Love Lies Dying world, where two young men, having read the first novel, head out to try and find the real Zoe. It was quite a hoot to write, and most of the conversations between the two main characters come straight from real life, from my readers who wanted to know more about her. They are captivated by her, by her power and sexuality, and even though she is fictional, they want to find her. So they head out on the road and visit the places first visited in Love Lies Dying.

And even today, the "Cult of Zoe" still exists...in any blonde, drop dead gorgeous girl you see...she could be Zoe. She could control you. She could destroy you. And you'll love every moment of it.

AG: I'm glad I asked! Great story, and I'm definitely going to have to read the Zoe books now. But I'd like to start at the beginning with "The Nocturne". I'm always fascinated by hearing how novelists first come to get published. How was it for you?

SG: Well, it wasn't easy, that's for sure. Australia is not renowned for its genre publishing, so my first two novels (The Nocturne and Love Lies Dying) were released down here in limited edition trade paperbacks from a small publisher called Probable Cause. They all sold out pretty quickly, so that was good, but that meant they were both out of print as well. Thankfully for the internet, people who read the novels told other people about them, and soon there was a groundswell of support for my writing.

I've always written for the US/UK markets (because Australia is virtually dead unless you're writing "Literature" about the outback) and many of my readers were from overseas. I knew Richard Laymon because I ran his official website, and when he was picked up by Leisure Books in New York, I got to know the chief editor, Don D'Auria, very well. So, luckily for me, he requested to read some of my writing, and made an offer on Rage. That was the first US release of my work, and hopefully it won't be the last.

Bloodletting Press in the US is dedicated to releasing the "Gerlach Library" for the collectors market. These are limited edition hardbacks of each of my novels. Rage is available now, and Lake Mountain will be in January next year. The Nocturne, Love Lies Dying and Hunting Zoe will follow, and then so will my next novel (and a few surprises too).

So, from a small Australian specialty publisher, I've managed to reach out to the rest of the world in one form or another. But The Nocturne was released in, I believe, 1997 or 1998, so it's taken a few years to get to where I am now. But I've always believed in my writing, and my readers believe in it too, so I know that I'll get my works out to them in some form and some way, no matter what. They just need to be patient and keep letting the publishers know how much they want to see Gerlach novels on the shelves.

AG: Look forward to those Bloodletting Press releases. Okay, let's get back to craft for a bit. What do you find easy about writing? What's hard?

SG: I take my stories from real life, and I base my characters on real people I know or have met. For me, the hardest part about writing is finding those initial ingredients for the story. Putting characters and events together, so they work, so they excite me and make me eager to write, that's the hardest part.

That's why stories can roll around in my head for a few years before they're ready to come out onto the page. The characters have to be right, the setting, the plot - all of it before I start. It took me over two years before I started writing Lake Mountain because I just didn't have one of the characters right, as far as I was concerned. Then I met someone, the perfect someone for that role, and LM suddenly fast-tracked. It's weird how that can work. I know some people say you can create characters and settings, but I always find it much better and more realistic to use real people, who may
have quirks or a scar or a strange way of playing with their hair, a lopsided smile or a look about them. It's these small little qualities that you can miss if you just make them up out of thin air. So, the more realistic, the more real, the better.

A good example is the "trailer" for Lake Mountain, which is a small 6 minute movie that's been doing the PR rounds of publishers and marketing people in the US and UK. In the trailer, I walk the viewer through the actual places where the events in the novel take place. Nothing beats that. Nothing is more important, as a writer, than being able to stop writing for a while, hop in the car and drive to the very place your current chapter is taking place. And if it's not nearby, because it's in another state or country,
I'll already have enough photographic and video footage to keep me going.

I even shot a 90-minute video of a Jeep Wrangler for my novel Love Lies Dying. Every inch of the Wrangler is on that tape, inside, outside and underneath, just in case I needed it for the novel. As a home movie, it's as boring as hell, but as a research tool, it's priceless!

So, for me, the hardest part is finding real people and real places to populate my novels. Sometimes, it can literally take years. And sometimes it can all fall into place amazingly easily.

The easiest part? In the end, at least for me, it's the actual writing. By the time I'm ready to write, I have my characters, my plot, my setting, so really, actually sitting down and writing is easiest. It's all there in note form or in my head, it's ready to spill, and I just need to try and make my fingers go fast enough to write it all down and make sense of it.

AG: That's some dedicated research! It's obvious then that in terms of your characters you have an extremely sound grasp of who's populating a book before you begin it. Rage aside (where the storyline was to an extent already written for you), what about the plot? Is that something you generally outline in detail, or do you begin with an idea or two and just let it flow?

SG: Usually, I will start with a scene or two, a key scene that will be very important to the novel. It may come from a newspaper report, something I've invented myself, or something I see in every day life. My novels remain unwritten until I have five or six key scenes, all related in some way, all key turning points in the story I will tell.

I certainly don't plot out the novel in any real detail. I feel that way of working stifles the creative process. If I lay out every move and event before I write, then my writing would be no more than painting by numbers. I think it would be very flat indeed. There's no creativity there for me, no spark, no excitement to find out what happens, because I already know it all.

So, for example with Lake Mountain, I had the opening scene, the final scene, and three key events that had to happen, all ready to go before I started writing. That's as much of an outline as I like. I start at A, have to go through B, C and D, so I eventually end at E. How I get there, well, that's up to the characters. After all, it's their story. That way, my readers know that every twist and turn, every surprise in my novels, is usually a surprise to me too - I'm just as surprised when I write it as they are when they read it!

That's where the excitement is. That's where the buzz comes for me.

AG: You say you start at A and work through to E. Have you ever arrived there via Z? Or abandoned E in favour of K? In other words, are your key events fixed?

SG: It can be a hard call sometimes. On many occasions, the characters provide a better solution (or option Z) and you have to carefully consider the new turn that the story can take. Sometimes, it can create chaos for the rest of the story, other times, it's even better than you could have imagined.

In Love Lies Dying, a key scene towards the end had to be changed for this exact reason. At the time, I thought things were about to unravel if I took that new path, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew the option Zoe had whispered to me was the right one to use. And because of it, the story and characters were much stronger. Hunting Zoe, the follow-up story, was all her creation too. It's always important to listen to your characters when they suggest other options, because they may come up with ideas or scenarios you haven't considered.

Sometimes I wonder if all these voices in my head are a sign of schizophrenia, but I guess I'm using my talent for good instead of evil. So that's okay.

AG: From your description of your work it sounds like your writing encompasses the crime/thriller/noir/horror genres. How would you describe it (if indeed you find such labels useful)?

SG: Ah, labels! Gotta love 'em, right? I mean, it makes life so much simpler for publishers and readers. Personally, I don't like them. I read authors from all streams, crime, thriller, horror, non fiction, historical, whatever. I certainly don't like to stick to just one genre, and I hope my readers don't want that either.

I really think it all comes down to packaging. Publishers need clearly defined genres in which to place books. I don't write novels thinking, 'This one's going to be a thriller,' or 'This one can be horror.' I write a story with a premise and with characters. What happens next really is up to those characters and how they relate to each other and the events.

I'd prefer my works to be marketed under the term 'dark thriller' but that just confuses everyone! Personally, I believe horror involves supernatural elements - something I've never cared to write about...not yet, anyway...as I think real life is much more scary - whereas thriller should and does deal with real events and situations that people can find themselves in.

As my novels are more violent and don't necessarily come with a happy ending, I'd call them 'dark thrillers'. Although my works have been termed "horror noir" in the past, I'm damned if I can work out what that means.

But I'm not a publisher and I don't get to make that call. It's their job to place the novels where they think they will have most impact, and I applaud Leisure's decision to market Rage as a thriller and not as horror. I think that was a smart move.

Also, the internet makes it much easier to market yourself as a writer, the way you would like to be marketed. You have more control of your work and your image in cyberspace. But, in the end, the story should be the thing that counts, whether it be crime, thriller, horror, sci fi, horror noir or modern urban noir. The story, people!

AG: Okay, lets check out those eclectic credentials. What have you been reading recently? And what was the last stunningly good book you read?

SG: Because I was researching for Lake Mountain, the majority of what I have been reading recently is non-fiction. Mostly forensic entomology books. Did I mention I research quite heavily?

So I'm more than looking forward to hitting the fiction stacks again, as my to-be-read pile has grown dangerously high. Two books that stand out in recent memory were Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door and Mendal Johnson's Let’s Go Play At The Adams’. Both are works that stay with you long after you've finished reading. I mean, I could mention Jim Thompson, Carl Hiassen, Lawrence Block, Richard Stark, Goodis and Woolrich as well. Each of their books just leave me breathless. There's a hell of a lot of good stuff out there, for sure. I just wish I had time to read them all.

AG: What's the book you'd most like to have written?

SG: Probably I Am Legend by Matheson. That's the book I always turn to when I need pure chills and a kick from the one-man-against-the-world scenario. I mean, there's a whole lot of books I'd like to have written, but for different reasons. The Hot Zone by Preston and Communion by Streiber because they both scared me half to death, or Jack The Ripper: The Final Solution by Knight because it has to be the most elaborate conspiracy theory ever devised. I guess it all comes down to what I'm feeling at the time.

AG: Finally, Steve, what are your career goals for the next few years?

SG: Well, every new novel is a step in the right direction. In the next 10 or so years? I'd like to see more of my work out there. I don't know how many novels will be published in that time, but there's certainly a few more already cooking in the pot now that Lake Mountain is complete. Dead Of Night will be the next novel I'll be working on, and from what I can tell you already, it'll be urban warfare. The city as jungle. And one small boy's fight for survival. Plus, there's A Thousand Mettle Folds and Wynter Quiet, Sumner Snow, but I can't tell you anything more about them right now.

The goal is to get more of my work to the US, that's always been the aim, and it's finally starting to happen, thanks to Leisure Books and Bloodletting Press. So, let's hope we see more Gerlach novels on US shelves in the next few years.