Sarah Nivala: I’m so happy to get the
chance to talk with you!
Grady Hendrix: Oh, well, that makes one
person!
SN: My co-workers Emma and
Andrés turned me onto My Best Friend’s Exorcism
and I’m grateful they did because I really loved this book. You said in a past
interview that the book is set in 1988 because that’s the year you would’ve
been the same age as Abby and Gretchen. You also talked about how you gave the
first few chapters to your wife and she said that it was contrived or dishonest
so you went back and started tapping into your own memories of what it was like
to be that age at that time. Do you think you could have written it if it was
set in a different decade?
GH: You know, I couldn’t have
set it in a different decade and had it still be honest. I really wanted to not
have to worry about, you know, researching cell phones. I wanted to focus on
what mattered to me, which was the emotional stuff. So the easiest way, for me,
was to get rid of all the extraneous stuff. It was hard enough to imagine
myself back in high school; I didn’t want to have to imagine myself back in
high school but in a completely different era.
SN: Was that disturbing, in a
way? To have that flood of emotions and remember what it was like?
GH: It was actually great! A
lot of experience gets sort of mediated. There’s a layer of pop culture and
references and all this stuff between myself and even my own memories,
sometimes. It’s nice to have the time and the space to sort out what really
happened and what feels like it should
have happened.
SN: One of the things that
fascinates me about this book is that there is so much widely-accepted evil.
Gretchen’s parents or Wallace… Which character did you have the hardest time
writing? Whose head was most difficult to get inside of?
GH: Once they clicked, no
one. I mean, I grew up with all these people. It’s funny you’d say that about
Gretchen’s parents because there is a totally different version of this book
from the Langs’ point of view, which is this: “We supplied our daughter with
this wonderful life: she has a nice house, she gets to go to this really good
school, and she is out of control. She’s doing stuff we don’t understand and we
can’t grapple with it and she hates us and every time she’s around [Abby]
things get really bad. We don’t know what to do.” I really feel for Gretchen’s
parents. I don’t have kids but if I did… I’m the age my parents were when I was
a teenager, and I would have no more clue how to deal with the angst of a
teenager than I would know how to deal with some kind of giant robot punching
me in the face.
SN: One scene that really
stuck out to me takes place when Gretchen explains to Abby that her parents
took her to a doctor to see if she was still a virgin. That really hurt because
I can very vividly remember what it was like being that age and being that
vulnerable, particularly as a young woman. I can imagine how heartbroken
Gretchen must’ve been. That’s where that sentiment about the Langs came from. I
just really feel for Gretchen in that situation.
GH: To some extent, Gretchen
is me working out my life in high school. I mean, I was a mess. If someone had
turned to me when I was in tenth grade and said, “you’ve been possessed by a
demon,” I would have gone, “you know, that actually explains a lot of things.”
I’m glad
you mentioned that scene because that’s such a breaking point, with Gretchen
and her parents. There’s this thing when you get hurt as a kid where you go to
your parents, and you have this “I need my mommy” type of moment. It’s very
primal and that scene is Gretchen’s moment. Her mom doesn’t know what to do and
turns her back on her. That’s when she realizes that no one is going to help her
and that Abby is the only person who might and – Jesus Christ – Abby is so
unprepared for everything.
SN: Gretchen has that moment less
than a hundred pages into the book. She knows that something is happening and
no one is going to understand and no one is going to be able to help her in the
way that she has relied on adults to help in the past. There’s no mom or dad
who can charge into the room and say, “I’ll make it better.”
GH: Exactly. There were some
kids, I found growing up, who either knew or felt like they were alone. You
know what I mean? They are the ultimate protector of their own best interests.
Then, there are other kids I grew up with who always thought, “someone else has
my best interests at heart.” A lot of people waver between those two points of
view, but Gretchen is one of those kids who’s able to say, “I’m on my own.”
Abby’s always looking for someone to help. As independent as she is, she’s
never broken with everyone around her the way Gretchen has.
SN: That’s how Abby defines
herself. She’s the nice one. She’s the one who helps people. She’s the one who
goes out of her way to be there for everyone. So, when she’s put in this situation?
Something snaps. We see that dark moment where she comes home and tries to rid
herself of everything childish. She rips up her stuffed animals. She tears down
her posters. It’s a huge turning point for Abby.
GH: Sometimes I think people
underestimate people who are nice and who like to be liked, like Abby. People
like that: until they get put to the test, you don’t really see the mettle
beneath them.
SN: Abby grows up very
quickly. That moment is when Abby becomes, for the most part, the person that
she will be for the rest of her life.
GH: Oh, absolutely.
SN: Undoubtedly, the core of
the book is the strong friendship between Abby and Gretchen. I will say this,
and I don’t mean this as a dig, but I am wary of men writing female characters.
But, to be frank, I didn’t realize you weren’t a woman until about halfway
through the book! I was really impressed with how you let these characters experience
adolescence in a natural, honest way.
GH: It’s nice to know that it
[feels] right. There’s a lot of stuff, especially right now, about
appropriating other peoples’ beliefs and experiences and I agree but I think
it’s hard to have a rule about it because it’s a line that moves so much. You
can’t make one rule for Book A that’s going to apply to books B, C, and D. To
be honest, it didn’t worry me so much because I really love Abby and Gretchen.
I have so much respect for teenagers. So, I was like, whatever mistakes I’m
making are because I love these guys and I have so much respect for them. Abby
and Gretchen were the heroes that I needed at that point in my life and I made
them because I needed them.
SN: You have a familiarity
with female characters that reads very earnestly. It’s the depth that you give
to these young women and the strength of their character arcs.
GH: Thank you. With Paperbacks from Hell, I read all of these paperbacks from the 70s and 80s and
there were occasionally dudes writing from female points of view and they would
go on and on about bras. They would go on about their characters’ breasts. It’s
so weird!
SN: We actually do think
about them all of the time. It’s really the only thing in our heads.
GH: You know, I’m amazed,
Sarah, that you can even hold a job. Probably ninety percent of your brain
power goes to thinking about your bra.
SN: It’s a constant struggle
to not just abandon work and run to the closest lingerie store. You know? But
that’s our struggle!
GH: That’s your own personal
struggle and that makes you brave.
SN: Oh god. Yup.
GH: I think some writers are
just going, “wait, a woman is just another human being? What?! There must be
some differences, let me try and get those on the page.”
SN: I’m curious to know: what
is your favorite and least favorite horror trope?
GH: Oh, well, my least
favorite… you know, it’s hard, because I have nothing against the slasher
movie, but I hate serial killers. It’s
all Hannibal Lecter’s fault! Because of Hannibal Lecter, we think, “oh, serial
killers have really good taste in wine. Let the serial killer pick the wine for
dinner, they can’t go wrong!” And that drives me nuts. The thing I like
most is this whole tradition that’s never really made it to the US: black magic
movies. These movies always have these big set pieces that are,
like, the ritual and the rituals are so much fun. The curses are just so
insanely body-oriented. You don't disappear in a puff of smoke. You don't fall
down dead. Fish hooks come out from under your eyes. You vomit hair. There are
just such baroque, awful punishments. I love it.
SN: You said in another
interview that you are disappointed in horror films that don't deliver, that
make promises they don't fulfill.
GH: You've got to deliver.
It's something my editor texts me a lot, he says, you know, if we're doing a
ghost story, it's gotta have all the ghosty stuff in it. You can't shy away
from what you're doing.
SN: Right, and you follow
through with that in this book in a very literal way.
GH: I really felt strongly
that Gretchen had to do something that couldn't be fixed while she was
possessed. She had to do something that couldn't get a coat of paint and make
it all better. There had to be permanent repercussions. Abby needed to forgive
her. Abby needed to look at the mess she made and say, “it's okay” and “I know
that's not you.”
SN: What is your biggest
fear? Are any of your fears represented in My Best Friend’s Exorcism?
GH: Oh, sure. One thing that
terrified me in high school was losing control. I felt so many times that I was
doing everything right, everything I was told to do, stuff that was supposed to
be good, and then I would get to the end of it and it would all turn out to be
the wrong thing and I would be in huge amounts of trouble. It was such a
helpless, bleak feeling. That’s a real fear, too. That everything you’re doing
is the wrong thing. As an adult, I’m scared of the normal things. I’m scared of
the dark. Everyone’s scared of the dark. But in terms of deep existential dread…
I’ve been broke a few times and that’s been horrifying. The times I’ve
experienced fear as an adult have been real financial fear.
SN: What is your favorite
moment in the book?
GH: In terms of writing the
book, the one that was the most fun, because it was the grossest, was the tapeworm
scene. However, I really, really, really had such a blast writing the birthday
party at the roller rink.
SN: That scene made me love
Abby instantly. She’s so nerdy and I connected with her. I know you did
extensive research for this book, but what the weirdest or coolest thing that you
learned while doing research?
GH: The stuff about
deliverance ministries and exorcisms in America. It’s really fascinating how
that works. I wound up looking at a lot of YouTube videos of exorcisms and
deliverances. There’s a church, I think in Virginia, that had a clip of a big
“puke and rebuke session” where thirty or forty people were getting
deliverances at the same time and there’s, like, kids in the background and a
snack table. I love how normalized that is for some people. I really believe in
therapy and medication and stuff like that, but you know, I think if you choose
to deal with your problems through deliverance or exorcism, I gotta accept that
that is as legitimate for you as the other is for me.
SN: Yeah, I guess it’s
whatever works for people, it’s really about whatever makes you feel
better.
GH: Yeah, and I do gotta say,
just as a caveat because everyone’s probably seen these stories that percolate
up in the media every now and then where someone dies at exorcism or a kid is
beaten to death at an exorcism. There are people who are just abusing their
kids and they put that “oh, it’s an exorcism!” gloss on it. That’s just
straight up child abuse. There is no way a kid can consent to that kind of
thing. I do feel though that if you are a consenting adult and that’s what you
want to do, you’re responsible for yourself, so fine.
SN: What was the most
important thing you learned about yourself while working on My Best Friend’s Exorcism?
GH: How much of what I
thought I remembered was just bogus. Everything I thought I remembered about
high school and my friendships in high school and everything was so affected by
pop culture! It made me super cautious moving forward as a writer that I am
actually writing about reality and not about things that I’ve seen in movies.
Movies shape things into a narrative, and I think we are really susceptible to
narratives. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end – cause and effect – and
I think that’s a really seductive way to look at the world. It’s like, we’d all
rather eat a donut than a banana because a donut activates the right switches
in our brains. I feel like narrative does that: it activates all of those
switches and allows you to ignore the messy reality.
Earlier
you were asking about horror movie tropes I hate, and there’s a trope in
everything that drives me up the wall, which is that the second things go
wrong, a group of people will turn on each other. You always see that thing,
like in Night of the Living Dead, where all they do is fight and bicker
and eventually they go, “oh, my god! We’ve discovered that humanity is the
worst monster of all!” Every single bit of research that has ever been
done on disasters and crisis situations shows that human beings get more
altruistic and work together in a more cooperative manner the greater the
threat and the greater the level of stress. We don’t turn on each other when
things go bad; we work together. Every time you see that trope, though, it is
so poisonous.
With My Best Friend’s Exorcism, when my wife
turned to me and said “this is garbage,” it was such a wake-up call. If I want
to write stuff, it has to be about real life, it can’t be based on recycled
ideas from other people and from pop culture swirling around out there. If I’m
going to say “this is what friendship was like in high school,” I need to read
all of those letters from high school again. I had to go offline and really sit
and think, “was this what it was like? Or is this just what I like to think it
was like?”
