Fantastic Metropolis

Neddal Ayad: By the way, I have you on the “never tried other modes of writing” thing. I would say that “Masquerade of a Dead Sword” is definitely a fantasy in the vein of Fritz Leiber or Michael Moorcock.

Thomas Ligotti: That was the only story I was commissioned to write. I had just started getting published and Jessica Salmonson asked me to write a story for her sequel anthology to Heroic Visions. Otherwise, I would never have written that story. Since then, I’ve been asked to write stories for theme anthologies but I’ve always turned down the offer.

Neddal Ayad: I saw a line from one of your notebooks on the The Art of Grimscribe site where you wrote something like, “I wonder what creatures such as Lovecraft’s Brown Jenkin think and feel.” I’d like to see a story written from the point of view of a Deep One.

Thomas Ligotti: “The Shadow over Innsmouth” approaches that toward the end and leaves it to the reader to feel it as a horrific or a happy ending. “The Outsider” also provides a “monster’s” perspective. If a corpse can tell a story, I don’t see why a Deep One couldn’t.

Lovecraft never really gave them any motivation for wanting to mate with humans.

I assumed that it was to give the Deep Ones the ability to walk on land and, ultimately, take over the world. That sounds kind of hacky, but Lovecraft could be quite hacky sometimes, as can we all.

Neddal Ayad: You mentioned that “The Chymist” was your first published story. How long had you been writing before your first publication?

Thomas Ligotti: About six years with the unceasing fever to learn my craft, and a few years of dabbling before that.

Neddal Ayad: Have your thoughts on horror literature changed since you wrote “Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror” and “The Consolations of Horror?”

Thomas Ligotti: Not in the least. My thoughts on life in general haven’t really changed since I was a teenager and first began to reflect on the world.

Neddal Ayad: One of your stories that rarely gets mentioned, but strikes me as one of your creepiest is “The Troubles of Dr. Thoss.” How did that story come about?

Thomas Ligotti: The main character is hypochondriac, as was I at the time I wrote the story. I based the character’s artwork on that of Harry Morris. His first name, Alb, short for Alban, was used because Harry lives in Albuquerque. The rest of it is based on my own fears and sickness and delirious dreams of a cure that will be worse than the disease, which in this case was my panic-anxiety disorder. I also wanted the main character to be pursuing a form of horror art, a pursuit that is the path to his undoing. I’ve never really had any faith in the imagination or creativity as means of purging oneself of demons but more as a degenerate pastime. I’m definitely not a believer in art as a curative catharsis.

I also expressed my atheism in the imagination as salvation in my story “The Spectacles in the Drawer.” Some people call me a nihilist, but my story “The Illusion of Order” makes it clear that I don’t believe in nihilism either.

Neddal Ayad: I believe that both “The Cocoons” and “The Bungalow House” had their genesis in dreams? Are they related in any other way?

Thomas Ligotti: Actually, both “The Cocoons” and “The Bungalow House” are related by their being set in my imaginary version of Detroit. I was living in a place with a lot of cockroaches at the time. I really don’t mind cockroaches except when they run at you out of nowhere. Nevertheless, I find the lower life forms in the collective a constant reminder of the grotesque nature of this world. It’s more their mechanical behavior as feeders, fuckers, and fighters than their appearance. They’re really a perfect parallel to human beings, except that they act without all the illusory rationalizations. This is what makes them so hideous—the fact that they are us. I’ve had many dreams in which humans are reduced, or reduce others, to insectoid creatures and then consume them. I don’t know what the hell that means.

Neddal Ayad: If you believe some of the psychiatric literature, it means that you’re deeply disturbed.

Thomas Ligotti: I’ve never put much stock in dreams, even though it might seem that I do. And what could be more disturbed than the twisted theories that psychologists have proffered for over a hundred years now? Jorge Luis Borges said that philosophy should be classified as a branch of fantastic literature. I would say the same about psychology.

Neddal Ayad: This is verbatim from my notebook, “Themes: Loss of control. Loss of control through/of dreams. Dreams as a backdoor. Dreams usurped. Skyscrapers. Mobs. Why so many Dr.’s, Ms.’s, Misses, Mr.’s? The colour yellow.” Comment please.

Thomas Ligotti: I never notice any of that stuff until someone points it out to me. It was years before I realized how many of my characters were named Dr. Something. Like most people, I’ve had dreams in which I can’t control my body, whether I’m trying to run from something or simply throw a ball. I’m not aware of my use of the color yellow. Now that you mention it, yellow does feel to me like the color of disease and decay. Maybe that’s a holdover from my days as fanatic of decadent literature reading the early issues of the Yellow Book.