#Titanuary #QAndA with Edgar Cantero !

Following on from yesterday’s post for #Titanuary, Edgar Cantero kindly answered some of my ludicrous questions for a Q and A which I am delighted to share with you today.

He is the author of the fabulous ‘The Supernatural Enhancements’, ‘Meddling Kids’ and ‘This Body’s Not Big Enough For Both Of Us’ amongst others, the last two are available in ebook and paperback from Titan.

Hi Edgar! Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions as your third novel, ’This Body Isn’t Big enough For Both Of Us’ hurtles towards the bestseller charts!

Thank you!

Question 1- Sell your novel in a sentence.

“I think it’s funny.” It’s the only argument I have to defend everything I do. Good thing publicists have my back.

Question 2- You have re-imagined the haunted house novel, the plucky crime solver adventure and now the hardboiled detective tale. What’s up next for you?

I am working to reimagine some of those reimaginations into other media. Then I’m also writing a new book, but I still don’t know what it’s reimagining yet. I’ll find out when it’s finished.

Question 3- Your second novel, ‘Meddling Kids’ deals with men disguised as monsters, where the real beasts have human faces-if you had to pick a monster to describe yourself as, which one would it be?

Old white man. No mask needed.

Question 4- You are cornered in a dark alleyway by a werewolf. It’s a full moon, you’re going to be ripped to shreds or turned into a lycanthrope. The only escape is through a graveyard where a vampire lurks. Eternal life as a vamp or a monthly bloodlust killing spree-which would you choose?

Are you pitching me a book?

Question 5- Do you translate your own works? And what are the biggest challenges in doing so?

I’ve done it in the past (I co-translated The Supernatural Enhancements to Spanish), but I’m not too interested anymore. First, it is a challenging task. Without going into much detail, I work in three languages, and I find each one is better suited for different things. I find narrating a car chase in Catalan or Spanish near impossible. Languages shape genres, and vice versa. The language you choose to write a book in (if you can choose) somewhat defines the book, and any translation is doomed to be worse. Second, translating is a lot of work, the not-too-creative type, and it also entails following up on the subsequent editing process, proofreading… Long story short, it’s too much time and effort that I would rather spend writing something new.

Question 6- Music Or Silence-which do you prefer when writing and do you make soundtracks to your novels?

I can write in a crowded sports bars, so it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but at home I mostly work in silence. There’s a soundtrack, but it plays in my head.

Question 7-At what moment did you think, ‘Yes, I have made it as a writer?’

I don’t really like that expression, “make it”, because it seems to imply that there is a threshold, a clear line that separates success from failure, and everyone is on one side or the other. If your job is writing, you’re a writer. If you’re a struggling writer, you’re a writer. Someone who churns out copy for an airline magazine five days a week and fan fiction on the weekends is a writer. I don’t think that ten years ago, when I was clocking into an office to write jokes and spent the evenings on a novel that sold 400 copies, I was less of a writer than I am now. I’m just luckier now.

Question 8-In ‘This Body Isn’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’ you completely reinvent the detective novel. It’s hilarious, made me choke with laughter ,  A.Z Kimrean is such an engaging character. Was there an article or something that made you think ‘This is the perfect way to subvert this genre’? What was your flashpoint in making the private eye a chimera?

I can almost guarantee that I first read about genetic chimerism while wikisurfing, and that’s how far the research went. Since then, the chimeric twins with a shared brain became another concept swimming in my head. I had also wanted to write a noir novel since I made a series of micro-stories in the genre for El Jueves magazine. Eventually, those two concepts bumped into each other, I pictured the chimeric twins in Marlowe’s office, and that was it. As much as I enjoy watching Aaron Sorkin characters having dramatic epiphanies, I’ve had few of those of my life; most of my good ideas are just two meh ideas clashing.

Question 9-In ‘The Supernatural Enhancements’ it feels like you took the haunted house stories of Poe, Jackson and Susan Hill and completely made them your own. Have you got a favourite gothic author? Do you read widely in the horror genre?

To be honest, I don’t consider myself a horror fan. I’d say that my first two novels in English being horror was a coincidence. I was reading a lot of horror back when I wrote TSE, though: I had devoured M.R. James and I was hungry for more ghost stories in that fashion (like Edith Wharton’s, from whom I borrowed the title phrase), and I also wanted to check out Lovecraft’s influencers (Dunsany, Machen) and influencees (Derleth, Long, Howard). And of course, I was quite familiar with Poe. I’m against the chronological study of literature, especially when it entails shoving Cervantes down the throat of mid-schoolers, but I like how some of Poe’s stories, being 180 years old, still work for modern audiences. I started writing TSE because after absorbing so many haunted house fiction, I just had to write my own. I actually wanted to stay true to that tradition; I wasn’t trying to subvert it, but that was bound to happen. Writing a gothic novel today that actually passes for the work of a 19^th century author would have much more merit.

Question 10-The fiendishly difficult final question-do you prefer Jammy Dodgers or Jaffa Cakes?

(the links are there in case you have never tried either, it’s an ongoing debate in my house over which is the better biscuit to dunk in coffee!)

Never tried either, but I’ll have the Jaffa Cakes.

Thank you once more for your time, I am an absolutely huge fan of your books and cannot wait until your next one (hopefully there will be a sequel to ‘Meddling Kids’?)

There was one. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/spooky-short-stories/

*The short story, ‘The Meddler’, appears to be available only to those in the U.S at the moment, but hopefully it will one day be accessible to all in one format or another!

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