RICHARD CHRISTIAN MATHESON
Richard Christian Matheson is the son of legendary horror/sci-fi writer Richard Matheson. He also writers short stories. And if you think that if you’ve read one Matheson that you’ve read them all, you’d be terribly wrong. Eschewing the monsters of supernatural and mythical origins, Richard Christian Matheson favors the demons that live inside of each and every one of us, often times far scarier than any supernormal creatures could be. Here, Famous Monsters editors Ed Blair and Holly Interlandi discuss Richard Christian Matheson’s definitive collection of short stories, DYSTOPIA.
EB. I think the first thing I have to say after reading DYSTOPIA is that this ain’t your daddy’s Richard Matheson. [Laughs] HI. Definitely not. All the monstrous, strictly supernatural situations brought to life by RCM’s father are nowhere to be found. DYSTOPIA, instead, is full of the kind of surreal story that makes sense as you’re reading it but later raises questions. Like, did that really happen? Does it even matter?
6 THE GRAVEYARD EXAMINER • NOV 21 - NOV 27, 2011
EB. Yeah, that’s what surprised me the most. With a few of the stories, like “Dead End”, I started out wondering when the monsters were going to show up and terrorize the couple that had lost their way. But quickly I realized that that wasn’t what the story was about. It was about the claustrophobia that comes with being trapped in a “dead end” relationship. And, in a way, that was far more terrifying than any supernatural entity that could have appeared. HI. I felt the same way about “Hell”, which establishes its uncomfortable environment through the use of heat, language, music, and once again, claustrophobia: “Sirens wailed and moved toward Mulholland as the deejay blew smoke into the mic, spun a ballad and cooed Auschwitz delight.” No monsters, but creepy all the same. I mean, ‘Auschwitz delight’? Yikes. EB. That’s really the crux of these stories, isn’t it? It’s not about monsters in the sense of some unknown being from another world. It’s about the monsters that live amongst us, inside our own heads and in the minds of people around us. I often felt like the stories were looks into alternate psychologies, horrifying emotional and intellectual make-ups that we otherwise might not meet ourselves or, even worse, may realize we have a little of buried deep inside of us somewhere. HI. What makes the writing even more fascinating is how the characters’ mental states affect their outside circumstances. Nothing seems real beyond what they perceive—particularly in stories like “City of Dreams”, which is, interestingly enough, one of the longer entries in this collection. Matheson keeps it short and punchy. EB. Short and punchy is right. Most of these stories are just a handful of pages. But there’s no denying the power of them. He finds a way to pack more into just a few pages than most authors can in a hundred. I mean, “Red” is pretty much every parent’s worst nightmare, captured in all its shell-shocked horror, and it’s just two pages long. How many authors could pull that off? HI. How many could pull it off AND maintain the use of language that this guy does? His words are just gorgeous, like viscous liquid—slowly filling up spaces because they can and know you’re listening. Maybe it’s my own love of sentences, but I found myself not even caring what happened as long as I could keep reading things like this: “I admit I’m easily infected by my enthusiasms. You read about people like me; the ones who do something crazy in the name of human decency only to find themselves stuffed, hung on a wall; poached by life.” Wow. EB. It sounds like you’ve invoked a little of him there. That was very poetic. [Laughs] It’s not just the way that he uses words, which really is great; for me it was that no two stories seemed the same. Even the styles were different. Some were written in a more traditional structure where others took more original forms. Take “Groupies”, for instance, it’s presented like a transcript from a police interrogation. You’ve got this detective talking to this teenage girl who has just done a
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25