Interview with an Author - Carl Fuerst
#4 In our Interview with an Author series is Carl Fuerst, author of the recently released THE FALLING CRYSTAL PALACE. Check it out!
What’s your background, what compelled you to start writing?
I grew up a pretty normal kid in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. My dad worked for the railroad; my mom worked at a few places, mostly a grocery store. I always felt drawn to storytelling, and I’m not sure why, but I bet it didn’t hurt that I spent a lot of time alone in a childhood home that was filled with books. I’ve always been attracted to the weird and eerie, and I like how reading and writing gives us a way to sort of communicate what it’s like to exist in a vast and complicated universe that we usually only perceive through our limited physical senses.
What’s are your top three books? Bizarro, or otherwise.
The Brother’s Karamazov by Dostoyevsky
Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky Brothers
The Bad Hotel by Dustin Reade
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
The more you write for yourself, the more other people will read it. (Inversely, the more you write for other people, the fewer people will give a shit about what you wrote.)
What sparked the idea for your latest book?
In 2012 or so, my spouse Annie and I were staying at a huge, sort of run-down, mostly abandoned waterpark hotel for a work conference. I woke up in the middle of the night with heartburn, and left the room to search for antacid. I got lost wandering through what felt like miles of hallways of identical carpet and identical doors, and being a little drunk, super tired, and disorientated, I was overwhelmed by a specific eerie sensation that Mark Fisher defines as “the failure of presence,” a sort of emptiness that he says highlights “the unintelligibility and inscrutability of the Real itself.” By the time I got back to the room, I knew I wanted to write a book about an infinite waterpark hotel.
Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?
Tons! None of the characters are based on real people (honestly!), but most of the events and settings are directly imported from my life. (I’m a big fan of the replica of the MIR space station in Wisconisn Dells, along with the former 3-D Western Blacklight Minigolf/Freshwater aquarium that used to be in the Wilderness Hotel, for example).
What’s brewing? What projects are you working on?
I’m writing about a karaoke host who falls in with a washed-up country music star who may or may not be dead in an attempt to finish a final tour. It’s going really, really slow! The plot is much more straightforward than The Falling Crystal Palace, but it whole thing experiments a lot more with narration and voice.
As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot?
Bison.
And, lastly;
What advice would you give for any aspiring bizarro authors?
Read a ton of books. Listen to Frank Elder’s Bizzong podcast (the final gong has rang on it, but, at least for now, the episodes are still up). Also: it’s a really small community, so reaching out and making connections is both possible and vital.
