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12/29/2003: "Interview with a Vampire Writer"

Music: Touch of Grey
Mood: It kind of suits me anyway

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HELLNOTES NEWSLETTER
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Volume 7 Number 37


MICHAEL MCCARTY TALKS WITH MICHAEL ROMKEY

Bettendorf, Iowa writer Michael Romkey is a mild newspaperman during the day-associate editor at The Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus and editor at The Leader-and vampire writer at night. He is the author of seven Ballantine/Del Rey novels about the undead: I, VAMPIRE; THE VAMPIRE PAPERS; THE VAMPIRE PRINCESS; THE VAMPIRE VIRUS; THE VAMPIRE HUNTERS; THE LONDON VAMPIRE PANIC; and his latest THE VAMPIRE'S VIOLIN.

HELLNOTES: Your musical vampire, Ludwig Beethoven, who was in THE VAMPIRE PAPERS, re-appeared as one of the lead characters in THE VAMPIRE VIRUS. What was it about Beethoven that you brought him back for that book?

MICHAEL ROMKEY: Beethoven is a perfect vampire character, at least to suit my imagination. He was brilliant, passionate, romantic and intense, with fierce eyes, a glowering brow, and long flowing hair. But there was also a tragic aspect to his personality. The real Beethoven was not an especially happy person. His father drove him to excel at music. He wasn't what we think of as a friendly person, and I think he was probably rather lonely and unhappy. Again, this fits my idea of what a vampire is: Alone, brooding, a solitary rogue marooned outside the comforting bonds of society, living a life beyond the pale.

HN: What was your favorite vampire book you have written so far?

MR: I always have three favorites. The first is I, VAMPIRE because it was the first and got some themes out there that I've continued to explore. But my other favorites are always the newest book, in this case THE VAMPIRE'S VIOLIN, and the one I'm writing that will come out next. I'm always convinced the new book will be huge. So beneath all the darkness and violence, there's my basic optimism.

HN: THE LONDON VAMPIRE PANIC and THE VAMPIRE PAPERS both have several different narratives just like Bram Stoker's DRACULA did. Was that a conscious decision to follow in Stoker's footsteps?

MR: I get bored easily, and I think modern readers do, so changing points of view is a way to keep the pace going. One of my pet obsessions is that nobody ever really knows what's going on. They only have their interpretation of what they've experienced. Switching narrative voices gives you a chance to see how different people react to the same set of events as they evolve. That being said, I should point out I love 19th Century fiction. I'm not especially a fan of Stoker, but I'm addicted to (Herman) Melville, (Nathaniel) Hawthorne, (Henry) James, and all their brother fossils. I recently read VANITY FAIR-not Tom Wolfe's version but the one (William Makepeace) Thackeray wrote back in the 1850s. (The novel explored the ethical and social pretensions of largely amoral Victorian characters.) It's great fun. Of course, so was Wolfe's modern version about greed in New York City. And I do read "Vanity Fair" magazine, which is sort of a "National Enquirer" for upper-middle-class people with too much money, and those who aspire to be the same. I'm sorry, but I think I've totally digressed.

HN: The violin concerto is one of the most intense and passionate concertos in all of classical music. Is that the reason you chose the violin for the instrument of the vampire in THE VAMPIRE'S VIOLIN?

MR: A great question! You said it perfectly. Vampires are creatures of great sensitivity and passion. And the violin is the instrument with the greatest range of emotion and color, second only to the human voice in expressiveness. It is the ideal instrument for a vampire. The mandolin is second. The piano is third. A huge church pipe organ would be in there somewhere, if it weren't such a cliché.

HN: Do you have any plans to use the characters Maggie O'Hara, Dylan Glyndwr, or Maria Rainer from THE VAMPIRE'S VIOLIN in future novels?

MR: I'm going to have to think of a way to have everybody die at the end of each story, so people won't ask me when they're coming back! I don't know. They may come back, or they may not. I'm going to propose a series to my publisher that follows the same vampire characters through the Middle Ages. Like it or not-and as a writer, I tend to like it not-readers become invested in characters and want them to live on from book to book. After spending a year or more living with them, I am sick of them and only too happy to have them go away. To continue characters from book to book, you almost have to set out with the intention of writing a series, or you don't create enough unresolved questions to carry you through. When I started these books, my editors didn't want to hear anything about a series, though I managed to trick them into publishing a few books dealing with David Parker, I think, without anybody becoming the wiser. The market has changed to the degree that it's apparent readers of vampire novels are especially friendly to serial books.

HN: You are currently working on a new vampire novel. What can you tell us about that?

MR: It's called AMERICAN GOTHIC, and will have the word "vampire" somewhere in a subtitle so people won't think it's about Grant Wood. I'm pretty pumped about it because I've made a definite effort to concentrate on action. There will be very little introspection and back-story in this book, though plenty of atmosphere and mood. And lots of ... well, let's just call it "action." The book is in three parts: New Orleans in 1863; Haiti in 1914; and San Francisco today. To say any more would bring me bad karma. It should be out around April 2004. There will be updates at my website: www.thevampire.com.

HN: Last words?

MR: As long as I get to have the last word, I'm always happy. That's why I'm a writer.