The Pig/The Bighead: Hardcore Horror Author Edward Lee
By: Elaine Lamkin

When horror fans think of horror fiction writers, the names which immediately spring to mind with most are Stephen King and Dean Koontz. But for TRUE horror readers, there is a much darker, much more brutal world behind that of the best-selling writers. Authors like Jack Ketchum, Wraith James White, Charlee Jacob, the late Richard Laymon and Bentley Little are but a few who inhabit this “hardcore” world. And probably the “king” of this wonderfully gory, explicitly sexual, nauseatingly nasty and unrelentingly violent world has to be Edward Lee.

Bloody-Disgusting recently had the pleasure of talking with Lee and even though I’ve read many of his books (and they ARE…intense), I found Lee to not be anything like one would expect from the author of such horrors as ”The Bighead” or “The Pig”. He is very funny and refreshingly unapologetic about his literary creations. And he makes a mean crabcake…

BD: Hello Edward. I’ve spoken with you before but you have a lot of new projects currently cooking. First question though, as one of the “bad boys” of horror, along with Jack Ketchum, Tom Piccirilli, Bentley Little, the late Richard Laymon, J.R. Gonzales and a few others, what do you think qualifies a writer to be designated a “horror bad boy”?

EL: God, I hate the bad-boy label, and I'm pretty sure the aforementioned writers do too. The label I'm happiest with is the most honest one: PULP HORROR NOVELIST. The interesting thing is that all of the authors you mentioned are all outstanding and all uniquely different. That's what I want my work to be: something uniquely mine while still being marketable. The coolest thing about the horror genre is there's a little bit of something for everyone: traditional, romantic, neo-gothic, hardcore, etc., and that wasn't as much the case ten years ago. The readership has not only grown, but it's become diversified. It allows for a lot more creative freedom. I don't want to be the bad boy or the gross-out king or anything like that as much as I want to be able to entertain my cut of the readership. I just want to be Edward Lee. I want my name on a novel to function the same way as a nutritional label on a food product. The label tells you want you’re getting.

BD: I have read almost all of your work and some of your novels are almost like watching a car wreck – you want to turn away but can’t help looking. Perhaps the most infamous is “Bighead” which, correct me if I’m wrong, will probably never be picked up by a “mainstream” publishing house for wide-spread release. What is the fascination for you with the total gross-out?

EL: I don't think it's fascination as much as curiosity: mine as well as the readership’s. Keep in mind we're talking about a different reader-base than what we find in the mass-market. In the ‘70s when I was starting to read horror in earnest, I often found myself wishing that the stories pushed the envelope; I found myself wanting things to be more explicit and more sexual, and then thought "Wouldn't be great to be able to write horror with deeper boundaries?" Of course, that wasn't possible back then. Certainly THE BIGHEAD (and my current project GAST) are far too extreme for the mass-market, but if I toned them down for that kind of release, the books would be useless. That's the difference. Some of my stories can only exist to the max because that's how they were conceived. The grotesquerie is as much a moving part of the story as the characters, plot, etc. On the other hand, if I took a novel like FLESH GOTHIC or CITY INFERNAL and "grossed them up," they'd be equally useless. The difference between the small-press and the mass-market is much more than the level of explicitness; it's concept, character, atmosphere, and things like that, but even more it's the difference between the expectations of the readership. Two different creative worlds, and I've been very, very lucky to be able to exist in both.

BD: Many of your earlier works such as “Creekers”, “Goon”, “Incubi” and “Coven” are either being re-released in beautiful limited editions or are only available through such sites as Shocklines.com (http://store.yahoo.com/shocklines/index.html). At what point do you think you suddenly became THE horror author that all of the hardcore readers wanted to read?

EL: That's not an ambition of mine. All I want is to maintain the readers I have in both the mass-market and the small-press/collector's market. Now that I think of it, the hardcore horror scene would be pretty boring without a number of authors working in it. Authors like Charlee Jacob and Wrath James White (my two hardcore faves) as well as others give the hardcore sub-cult some very important variety. Isn’t it monotonous to eat the same kind of pizza every night? There’s ALL KINDS of diversity out there! Try a slice!

BD: You and Jack Ketchum have collaborated on a number of projects. How did the two of you first meet and how do you work together as your styles, while both very visceral, are quite different? And the two of you also appeared in a recent film – what can you tell us about that?

EL: Jack and I have been friends since around 1990, via correspondence (--yes, pre-email. We swapped jive via letters--) and the telephone, and as I recall, one day it occurred to us that there were these things called "horror conventions" so we decided to go to one (WHC in Nashville, I think, in '91 or '92?) That's how we met. He's one of the coolest guys I've ever known, and also one of the smartest and most skilled. He's the total craftsman of words, more so than anyone I personally know. Our collabs began just for fun, in essence. We thought it would be a blast to see what one would do with the other's partial, concept, half-written story, etc. And it was, A LOT of fun. It's a rare privilege for me to be able to co-write something with someone who's a good friend AND a writer I admire to an extreme. As for our cameo in HEADER? All I'll say is we rehearsed for two days for a thirty-second scene...and we nailed our lines...

BD: In the past year you have written your first children’s book, “Edward Lee Presents Monster Lake” as well as several new titles: “The Backwoods”, “The Pig” and “The House”, “Shifters” (with John Pelan). Would you mind telling us a little about these new works?

EL: SHIFTERS is actually a reprint from 1998, and THE PIG is ten years old, but Necro's reprint of it includes it's novella-length sequel, THE HOUSE (which I sincerely love). MONSTER LAKE is something I wrote based on some creepy childhood fascinations; I was trying to be like R.L. Stine. I have another children's book called THE LODGE which will likely come out down the road. BACKWOODS is my return to Redneckland, because after all this time, I needed to create a new kind of redneck. My fear was that my current mass-market audience would be sick of the redneck element by now (CREEKERS, SUCCUBI, MONSTROSITY), but the book fared very well, and I was very happy when it went into a 2nd printing a month after its release. I really enjoyed re-exploring those roots but at the same time creating a new occultism.

BD: You also have some intriguing new titles that have not been released yet: “Haunted House” and “Slither” (which, while not related to the film of the same title, does have some wonderfully similar disgusting scenes in it). Care to share some information about these eagerly awaited books?

EL: I certainly HOPE that there aren’t any similar scenes; as of this writing, the film hasn’t been released and neither has my novel, which was turned in to the publisher in July, 2005. By the time anyone knew about a movie by the same name, the novel’s title and ISBN were already in the catalogue. I doubt that anyone will confuse the two: my book’s set on a remote island (think LORD OF THE FLIES with promiscuous women in bikinis and lots of sex). From what I read in the March 2006, FANGORIA, the James Gunn flick is about an alien disease. My book comes out in June in paperback (the hardcover in a few weeks). I've always wanted to try my hand at what they used to call The BIG BUG BOOK, like the old Guy N. Smith novels and more recently like the movies you often see on Sci-Fi Channel about big rats, big cockroaches, big snakes, big centipedes, big mosquitos, big spiders, etc. Mine's not about "bugs," though--it's about big worms that have some interesting...proclivities... I’m glad you brought this to mind, though. I got stung once before on the Same-Title thing. In the mid-90s, my final book on my last Zebra contract was originally called SUBCARNATE. The publisher didn’t like it and changed it to SACRIFICE. Sure enough, the same summer that SACRIFICE was released, a novel by the same title (by John Farris, no less!) was also released. There was no similarity, of course, but it was a hassle. "Haunted House" isn't a novel, it's a brand-new 8,000-word short story that will headline a collection of my "presidential" horror story reprints. Overlook Connection is publishing it, though I don't know what the release date is. The material is a lot of fun. (I began “Haunted House” about a month after George Bush, Jr. was inaugurated).

BD: What other gruesome projects can fans expect down the road from Edward Lee? And feel free to spill the beans on any of them…

EL: My favorite interview question! GAST is nearing completion: a 100,000-word HARDCORE horror novel. I think it's more over the top than BIGHEAD, THE PIG, or anything I've written. It's sort of two novels in one: a truckstop porn novel that snakes in and out of a very very grim horror story that’s a period-piece (Civil War era). I couldn't be happier with it. Can't say who's publishing it, and I don't have a release date but I'll definitely keep you posted. When I'm done with GAST, I'll be starting HOUSE INFERNAL, the third installment of my City Infernal/Mephistopolis universe, and I can tell you that I'm GEARED UP! And for any of you who dig Asian horror flicks, the next issue of ASIAN CULT CINEMA is running a commentary/review by me of two Japanese “nun” movies. That’s right. Japanese nunsploitation!

BD: Have any of your works ever been optioned for a film? Could any of your works BE made into a film and do you have any particular book you would like to see made into a film one day?

EL: Sure. Currently MESSENGER, "ICU," FAMILY TRADITION, CITY INFERNAL, GHOULS, PORTRAIT, and, I kid you not, THE BIGHEAD are all under active, paying options. In this business, though, you find out the hard way that an option doesn't mean a film deal will be struck; it means that a production company or a source with credible industry contacts pays you some money to put a hold on a particular property for a period of time during which they attempt to get financing. (Advice: never accept a film-option offer for one dollar or something ridiculous like that!) MESSENGER was optioned by X-Ray Productions who recently released a very cool horror flick called CUP OF MY BLOOD. Check it out, it’s wonderful, and you can buy it or rent it. The truth is, the period of time between an option and an actual film sale can be--and usually is--years. I've only actually sold film rights once--for HEADER. But an option does mean that your property stands a better chance of being made than without it, for sure. With all these options in the fire, you'd think one of them would sell. Please knock on some wood for me! The book of mine I'd most like to see as a film would probably be CITY INFERNAL...though I suspect that re-conceiving Hell as an endless metropolis would cost a fortune. Time will tell!

BD: Who or what would you say has influenced your writing the most?

EL: When I was in the Army, I was trained as a tank crewman - Fort Knox, Kentucky, home of the Armor School. (There’s no gold in Fort Knox, by the way). A friend gave me a copy of the late Brian McNaughton’s pulp-porn horror novel SATAN’S LOVE CHILD. I read the entire book in a few hours while sitting in the driver’s compartment of a 55-ton M60A1-series main battle tank. It’s a tremendous book in its own way, mind-blowing hardcore horror in 1977, predating the true important hardcore progenitors (Ketchum’s OFF SEASON, Laymon’s THE CELLAR, and Shirley’s CELLARS) by several years. It’s terribly hard to find a copy of SATAN’S LOVE CHILD these days (but I have a signed copy!) Several limited-edition publishers offered McNaughton decent scratch to reprint it but he said no. He hated it! (The book’s not about Satan, by the way, and there’s no real love child. Instead, it’s Lovecraft with porn! Little known fact: McNaughton’s title was THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE.) Anyway, this book made me suspect that writing horror might be very gratifying. I once told McNaughton in a letter that SLC was perhaps my greatest transitive creative influence and I think he was offended! After Knox, I was stationed with the 1st Armored Division in Germany (back when there was a West) and spotted a Hamlyn Press hardcover of horror stories which contained all the old masters: Le Fanu, Poe, Oliver Onions, Machen, “The Horla”, “The Shout”, Lovecraft’s “Rats in the Walls”...oh, shit, there was so much wonderful material in it - and I still have it. It might be my most prized book possession. Hence, the paradox: a meld of the old masters, plus Brian McNaughton horror-porn proved to be the force that motivated me to be a writer. I can say, also, that two other books that inspired me when I was in the Army were OUR LADY OF DARKNESS by Fritz Leiber (my ALL-TIME favorite horror novel) and Stephen King’s THE SHINING. (I have a copy of the Mylar paperback and also a copy of the pb of SALEM’S LOT with no title or author name - cherished possessions.)

BD: For someone entering The World of Edward Lee for the first time, what books would you recommend to ease them into your world “gently”?

EL: Gently? There is no gently. But it depends on the taste, since I write in both the mass-market and the limited-edition market. If you want it to the max, check out THE PIG/THE HOUSE book, or pick up GAST when it comes out. If you want what I think of as my best mass-market fiction, try CITY INFERNAL, FLESH GOTHIC, or THE BACKWOODS. (Incidentally, the book of mine I love the most, I think, is INFERNAL ANGEL.)

BD: What horror authors do you enjoy reading and are there any up and coming writers you think people should pay attention to?

EL: The bad thing about being a writer is that it’s almost impossible for me to read as a “reader” anymore. The truth is I don’ read very much these days because of deadlines and burnout. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to a bookstore and just browsed around and picked something up ‘cos it looked like it might be up my alley. There’s no time! I can either spend my time reading other people’s work or I can continue to forge my own career. When I do read, it’s almost always something by a friend of mine. (I just finished Tom Piccirilli’s HEADSTONE CITY and Joe Konrath’s RUSTY NAIL. Both are outstanding.) Other times I go back to re-read older stuff that I’ve always loved: Matheson, Leiber, Lovecraft. I also re-read Ramsey Campbell a lot - my all-time favorite horror writer.

BD: What are some of your favorite horror films?

EL: My second favorite interview question! Over the past decade, I guess, I’ve found myself not liking modern horror cinema at all. I’m sick of the outrageous overuse of CGI, I’m sick of remakes of modern Japanese flicks, and I’m sick of Hollywood one-liners. That’s pretty much all it is now. Instead, I revel mainly in old flicks, especially the Spanish and Italian horror movies of the ‘70s. All the Paul Naschy movies are simply wonderful, and I really dig Jess Franco. The De Ossorio BLIND DEAD coffin set is tremendous! Now THAT guy could make a cool movie! My favorite horror flick? Probably Naschy’s HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB, and the sequel, PANIC BEATS, is fabulous as well. I re-watch a Naschy flick at least once a week. I’m also a Jean Rollin fan and, of course, there’s always Fulci, my favorite of the Italian directors. If it’s schlock, I’ve got it! NUDE FOR SATAN, DEVIL’S NIGHTMARE, EERIE MIDNIGHT HORROR SHOW, GRAVEYARD TRAMPS, SEVEN WOMEN FOR SATAN, THE CRIMSON CULT, DIE MONSTER DIE, BLOOD-SPATTERED BRIDE...these are the movies I love and watch over and over again. I can’t get enough.

BD: What is one thing no one knows about Edward Lee that you think they should know?

EL: Oh, you mean aside from the Women’s Bellybutton Fetish? One of my most hell-bent creative desires is to write a comedic Florida thriller. I actually have several novel ideas that are a total departure from horror, but the biggest kick in the ass is that I never have time to write them because of my horror deadlines!

BD: And that crab cake recipe you gave me before – delicious!!

EL: Glad you liked it! Right now I’m trying to perfect a shrimp/scallop cake recipe. Those two ingredients are tough to bind together without overpowering them. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

April 2006