The horror genre is vast and full of brilliance. Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Herman Melville, the book of Esther. I’ll happily join that list. – Victor LaValle
One of the most widely read novels by a black American is Ralph Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man.’ It is his masterwork – it won the National Book Award in 1953 and catapulted my man to the highest levels of literary esteem. – Victor LaValle
I wanted to write a story set in the Lovecraftian universe that didn’t gloss over the uglier implications of his worldview. – Victor LaValle
You can’t write a story about a mental hospital in the United States without facing the grand example of ‘Cuckoo’s Nest.’ – Victor LaValle
I realise I might pass down an incurable illness to my son, but living based on what might go wrong seems like less and less of a life as I get older. The one thing I can try to control is whether I teach my child to be ruled by anxiety, by fear. That’s something that gets passed down, too. – Victor LaValle
Shirley Jackson enjoyed notoriety and commercial success within her lifetime, and yet it still hardly seems like enough for a writer so singular. When I meet readers and other writers of my generation, I find that mentioning her is like uttering a holy name. – Victor LaValle
The people I am most interested in are the ones on the edge of losing everything and falling into the last bit of despair. I’m trying to write about how people exist on that edge and how they can come back. – Victor LaValle
Lumpy and lazy; I aspired to lethargy. In the second year of university, I missed half my classes just because I couldn’t pull myself out of bed. – Victor LaValle
In the past, a writer had to go outside and get to know others before learning about their work, but the Internet has made humanity more accessible for misanthropes like me. I read blogs, tweets, Facebook posts and Reddit threads where people detail their jobs. – Victor LaValle
I had a pretty bad time when I was an undergraduate at Cornell University. I failed out of school. I was much, much heavier. – Victor LaValle
Since Queens is the most ethnically diverse plot of land on Earth, we had tenants from all over the globe. The whole world in one building. – Victor LaValle
Education is gathering information and reading… No human being can thrive without some form of education. How you get it is up to you – the important thing is that you get it. – Victor LaValle
The project of Ralph Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man’ is exactly that: to assert the beautiful, bountiful, chaotic complexity of one black American male. And, by extension, all black American males. – Victor LaValle
I like America, where believers eddy around each other like currents of air. Even our atheists are devout! To be an American is to be a believer. I don’t have much faith in institutions, but I still believe in people. – Victor LaValle
The journalistic endeavor – at least theoretically – is grounded in objectivity. The goal is to get you to understand what happened, when and to whom. – Victor LaValle
If you want to learn the true nature of a child you have to watch how she plays. If you want to learn the true nature of an adult you have to watch how she does her job. – Victor LaValle
I know that many authors say editors don’t edit anymore, but that’s not been true in my experience. – Victor LaValle
The profession is never going back to those days when a handful of wealthy people treated publishing like a hobby: one where the business can lose money because the family has lots of it to burn. Frankly, I don’t think that model was ever sustainable, and it really only enriched a small number of writers. – Victor LaValle
Social media give me the privilege of learning about more people than I could meet in my whole life. Taken together, the Internet reads like the grandest character-driven novel humanity has ever known. Not much plot, though. – Victor LaValle
There’s the wonder of being able to do research from your own living room, of course. I do find that my biggest research issue, though, is how to frame my questions. – Victor LaValle
I’m always trying to make myself laugh. I’m the most enthusiastic audience I’m likely to find, so if it doesn’t make me smile then it probably won’t work on you. The jokes that only make me shrug get cut. – Victor LaValle
Here’s the thing: I was charming. Well read and well spoken. Observant and even kind. In other words, I was kind of a catch. And I knew this was true. As long as you couldn’t see me. If you saw me, you’d think I was the sea cow that had swallowed your catch. – Victor LaValle
I’ve spent my life visiting a handful of people who are very close to me when they’ve been committed to one hospital or another in New York. – Victor LaValle
One of the things that doesn’t come up as much as it should, especially in literary fiction, is this idea of faith and God… I feel like those are things that should be wrestled with… because they are such an integral part of our community on every level. – Victor LaValle
In the end, what’s any good reader really hoping for? That spark. That spell. That journey. – Victor LaValle
‘The Ballad of Black Tom’ was written, in part, during the latest round of arguments about H. P. Lovecraft’s legacy as both a great writer and a prejudiced man. I grew up worshipping the guy, so this issue felt quite personal to me. – Victor LaValle
