the other press

om Mellish
DP Contributor

| meet with mossE at the Pen Coffee shop
at the border of Sapperton. He pulls up
on a vintage motorcycle, and dofts his hel-
et. He’s a lanky guy with dyed black
air, wearing engineer boots, black
eather, and lots of silver. It seems to be
im, because nobody else—amongst the
buits and geriatric set that inhabit the con-
dominiums—tend dress like that.

 
 
  
   
  
   
 
 
 

: Pretty cool, huh.

: Yeah. Played here when I was a kid—
you used this setting in your book, a cou-
ple times.

M: After the riot, when they closed the
place down, I came here to play with a

hildhood friend...ah, Tommy—yeah.
IT’: Before the police?

: They—um—-started practising here,
he Pigs. I remember seeing the SWAT
eams, and their dogs...and that was the
pnd of that. Really cool though, like an
bid castle. Couldn't believe the damage to
he cells. Those guys punched holes
hrough the concrete walls. Amazing shit.

If: And you used it for the brainwashing
egment.

: Yeah. And this coffee shop. I was orig-
nally thinking of having [Ray] escape
rough transcendental meditation. But
€ programming session seemed more in
eeping with the idea of control. You

Ow.

Culture
http://otherpress.douglas.bc.ca

Interview with moss€

T: I've got to ask you. What was behind
Seline dying at the end—after all, she is
the main character.

M: Well—Id done a bunch of edits. This
is something that I want to do now, but
back then I just wanted to get it to the
printers. My editor bailed on me—said it
was too scary. I'd sent thing to everyone in
the industry—best letter back was from
Kinsella’s agent who said that I would
benefit from workshopping the character.
Sorry. Getting off track. Umm. The whole
thing is moving towards integrating Seline
with the Marla character—that was the
direction I was moving in. I read it now,
and it’s not flat-out obvious—but Marla
and Seline are the same person. Ray and
Barney are the same character. Got it?

T: Yeah. That makes sense now. So, every-
thing that follows Marla’s head being cut
off is extraneous.

M: All in her head... as it were. I think
the brain continues thinking after its

dead.
T: What’s your favourite character?

M: In DUP Umm...definitely Frottager
Bill (laughs). That guy cracks me up. I
wrote about him in another story. You
know what a frottager is. Right?

T: Someone who humps legs.

M: Yeah (laughs).

 

mossE enjoying the fruits of his labour

T: Just to backtrack, one of the main com-
plaints about your book is the lack of
characterization. That the characters are
too three dimensional, and that you are

working with mainly plot and backdrop.

M: Well—you could say that about
Tolkien too, and even the artists who
work on his stuff find it so inviting
because they can fill in the details. Who
cares about character? Gimme a comic
book any day. Anyways, the piece is a
social commentary about what's wrong
with the Canadian psyche.

T: And, if you could sum that up, what
would that be?

M: Oh—self-loathing. We're all in denial.
I mean, people immigrate here to live in a
fantasy world, and are pretty pissed off
when they figure it out. We've totally
ripped off the First Nations people, pol-
luted the land, and while we're at that
we're completely abusing one another.

T: The dedication at the front of your
book is to the Prisoners of the Drug War.
Could you talk more on that?

M: Well, I think it should be pretty obvi-
ous. It gets back to your other question.
All the characters have been brought up to
hate themselves—and the easiest way to
get out of that place is to medicate them-
selves. I think at one point I go into the
whole “dealing with the symptoms, but
not the cause” issue.

T: And what would the cause be?

M: God, you're like the holy inquisition
or something. Let’s see. This country is a
colony. It’s set up with the idea of domi-
nation. I hate to coin a Hollywood movie,
but we're born into bondage. We're not
waking up, and asking ourselves what
would we do if we could live our lives the
way we want—we're living someone else's.

T: I think one of the most frightening
things in your book was the personifica-
tion of the Hill in New Westminster. I

February 26, 2003

 

kept feeling like it was the back of a mon-
ster.

M: It was originally called the Grom,
which is a play on morgue spelled back-
wards. At the eleventh hour I changed the
name. I should have let it be, but I’m
always taking things apart. I get more into
that in the next book. I wanted to plunge
into that fantasy place that is underneath
New West, and have a twilight land where
cities are built on top of walking hills.

T: The relationship between the hill is
almost symbiotic.

M: What does that mean? (He flips open
a small notebook and writes the word
down.)

T: Mutually beneficial. People are taking
care of the monster, and the monster is in
a sense “taking care” of them.

M: Feed the city—it lives!
T: So is there anything new in the works.

M: Yeah—just got published in a small
press anthology of horror [Thirteen
Stories], and I’m tinkering with the next

book.

T: Earlier you expressed displeasure with
the publishing industry. Is this the reason
you've decided to go small?

M: Well, it’s either publish or perish, as
they say. I’m not going to wait for the bas-
tards to get with it.

T: And often good writers don’t get pub-
lished purely because of economics rather
than art.

M: It’s just really frustrating. I know that
they’re thinking “what sells” and “profit.”
I suppose the best way to go is some kind
of a marriage between the two, but I’m
less interested in romancing the public. If
they wanna get between my covers, they'll
have to read some pretty heavy crap...
and anyways, most people don't like the
smell of sh*t.

 

 

C0 Were aa aa 6

Pe Ya end a ee