Alex Bledsoe, author of The Sword-Edged Blonde, Burn Me Deadly, Blood Groove, and his latest novel, which I reviewed here, The Girls with Games of Blood, kindly assented to let me interview him. The first two novels feature the irascible detective, Eddie LaCrosse, and are an entertaining and lively blend of the Sword and Sorcery and detective genres. The delightfully bloodthirsty and gory Blood Groove and The Girls with Games of Blood are the first two novels in Bledsoe’s Memphis Vampires series, and take you on an atmospheric time warp back to Memphis, Tennessee, in the year 1975. Reading a novel by Alex Bledsoe is a pleasure–he writes the sort of books you can get wrapped up in taken to realms of the fantastic for the duration of the time it takes you to read one.
Strap yourselves in, don’t forget your garlic necklaces, and get ready for Bledsoe’s take on subjects such as growing up in Tennessee, his influences, Robert E. Howard, Ian Fleming, Walking Tall and Swinging Hard, and much more!
Professor Crazy: Hey, Alex, thanks for doing this interview with me!–Don’t bump into the Erlenmeyer flask–it’s so time-consuming getting blood and brain matter out of shag carpets!
You grew up an hour north of Graceland, Elvis’s home, and twenty minutes from Nutbush, Tina Turner’s home. You also quote Parliament’s song, “Flashlight,” at the beginning of The Girls with Games of Blood: “Everybody’s got a little light under the sun.” Then, at your website, you talk about the influences a musician named Duncan Browne had on you as you wrote The Girls with Games of Blood. So, what was life like growing up in Tennessee surrounded by so many musical influences, and what are some of your literary influences?
Alex Bledsoe: My defining musical influence growing up was WHBQ, a legendary AM station in Memphis that is now, alas, an all-sports talk station. Back in the day it was a common touchstone for kids across the whole Mid-South. George Klein, one of Elvis’ “Memphis Mafia,” was a DJ, and Rick Dees was working there when “Disco Duck” came out. Because they served such a broad listenership you could hear John Denver followed by Parliament, followed by Willie Nelson, followed by KISS, followed by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
My literary influences are probably who you’d think: Raymond Chandler, Robert B. Parker, HP Lovecraft, Charles de Lint, and Robert E. Howard.
Though I grew up in Illinois, I now reside in Arkansas, a state you mention in your Memphis Vampire series in passing. I like the atmosphere you create in the series–it helps draw the readers in to the world of Memphis in the mid-1970′s. Why did you decide to set your vampire series in Memphis?
I wanted to set it in a real city, one I knew well and that was distinct enough to almost become a character. As the home of both the blues and rock and roll, as a trading center on the Mississippi, as a crucial place in the civil rights struggle, and as a hub of three states (Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas), Memphis fits.
I’ve read on-line that some reviewers think of Baron Rudolfo Zginski, the main character of Blood Groove and The Girls with Games of Blood, as a villain, albeit a very memorable one. Sure, he’s a blood-thirsty, self-serving vampire, and he generally looks after Numero Uno and always has ulterior motives; but, there are occasions when he briefly demonstrates human emotions (though he’s loathe to attribute them to himself). Would you say Zginski has no redemptive qualities?
I don’t see Zginski as hero or villain; to me he’s the protagonist, which carries no moral judgment. His actions and emotions drive the stories. In The Girls with Games of Blood, he makes an entirely selfless gesture to save one of the other characters, but then can’t bring himself to come out and admit it. I think by the end of the book he’s understandable, if never admirable, and a little tragic. In her cover blurb author Adrian Phoenix says, “Just because a monster’s heart awakens, doesn’t make it any less of a monster.” That captures it perfectly.
I’ll ask you a few questions about your Eddie LaCrosse series, but first, I have a couple more questions to ask about your Memphis Vampire novels. How does Baron Zginski get involved with being the mentor of a small group of vampires in Blood Groove?
He’s staked in 1915 and wakes up in 1975. The “new” vampires he encounters know about their nature only from the movies; as a European who understands the folklore, he’s able to show them what they can truly do, and in turn they teach him about his new era.
Who are Prudence and Patience Bolade, and how is the way they become vampires different from the traditional way one becomes a vampire; that is, being bitten by one and getting your blood drank? Also, why do they have–pardon the expression–”bad blood” between the two of them?
There are many ways to become a vampire in folklore, most of which revolve around bad luck or poor choices. The idea that one vampire creates another is relatively new. I wanted the Bolade sisters to become vampires organically, out of their own natures and actions, rather than being arbitrary victims. And their “bad blood” comes from being in love with the same man.
Going back for a second to music, Patience has discovered a way to provide her body with sustenance without drinking blood like other vampires. What is her method, and why is the vampire barmaid Fauvette jealous of her?
Patience stumbles on a way to drain the energy of people in the audience when she performs, and Fauvette is jealous because Patience doesn’t have to kill anymore.
One of the many cool touches you have in The Girls with Games of Blood is the various cultural references you have, like a Walking Tall Bufford Pusser-like character, the ex-sheriff Byron Cocker, who has had his life story told in the fictional movie, Swinging Hard. You make your ex-sheriff a tainted hero, one who is a racist redneck. Did you like the movie Walking Tall growing up? Do you know if Bufford Pusser also had this dark side to his personality, or is making Cocker a racist entirely your own addition?
My parents took me to see “Walking Tall” when it came out, even though I was only 10. It was entirely inappropriate due to its violence, but because it was a “true” story about someone local, it was considered okay (much like the churches who took their youth groups to see “The Passion of the Christ”).
I saw the sequels as well, and the best sequence in the whole series is in the third one, where Buford goes to the premiere of the first movie and watches the scene in which his wife dies. Seeing a guy in a movie watching a movie about the guy in the movie is about as meta as you can get.
I will say that the definitive accounts of Pusser’s life and death are not the “Walking Tall” films but two books by W.R. Morris, “The State Line Mob” and “The Twelfth of August.” Pusser was neither devil nor angel, and he was definitely a product of his time and place. My character Cocker is similar in the broad strokes, but the details of his life and personality are fictional.
I didn’t mention in my review of The Girls with Games of Blood, but I really, really liked the cover artwork for it. Did you get to select the final cover art for it, or is it just a luckily apropos choice that someone else made? Either way, it’s a great cover!
I thought it was really good, too. And no, I had nothing to do with it. It was all done by the art department at Tor, headed by Irene Gallo.
The hero of your novels The Sword-Edged Blonde and Burn Me Deadly is a wise-cracking, hard-nosed detective in the style of those made famous in film noir and by authors like Dashiel Hammett and Philip Marlowe. But, his adventures and mystery-solving takes place in a realm more like one Robert E. Howard of Conan fame would write about, one of swordplay and fantasy. You combine the two genres very successfully. Who is the “blonde” of the title of your first Eddie LaCrosse novel? What are some of the problems Eddie has to face and overcome to successfully solve the case and rescue the dame?
The title “The Sword-Edged Blonde” was chosen more for its atmosphere than its literal meaning, although it can refer to Rhiannon, the blonde who definitely has two sharp edges to her personality.
Did you find it difficult to mix the two different genres? What made you decide on the name “Eddie LaCrosse”?
Mixing the genres was easy, but keeping it from sliding into parody was trickier. For a long time the hero was known as “Devaraux LaCrosse,” but I decided to normalize a lot of the names. I picked “Eddie” because it seems tough, easygoing, and decent.
Burn Me Deadly does what very few sequels do well, in that it’s just as good, if not better, than its predecessor. Why is it called Burn Me Deadly?
Well, I borrow the initial set-up from the famous film version of Mickey Spillane’s “Kiss Me Deadly.” It seemed pointless to try to disguise it, so I decided to just admit it up front. And thanks for the compliment!
How many novels did you plan for each series? Are you working on a new book currently, and if so, do you have a working title for it, and when can we expect it to be published?
There will be at least four Eddie LaCrosse novels; DARK JENNY will be out in 2011, and the fourth novel in 2012. And as long as I can think of new stories that don’t repeat themselves, and that show us Eddie and his world in a different way each time, I’m willing to keep going.
I’d like to do one more book about the Memphis vampires, to wrap up the thematic ideas and really push the symbolism over the top, but that will depend on the response to the current book. After that, I might return to them one day, perhaps bringing them forward into the 80s….
And next year the first book of what may be a new series comes out. Watch for “The Hum and the Shiver,” a story of country music and the supernatural.
Thanks once again for participating in this interview, Alex, and I and the staff wish you much success in the coming years!
