Craig Clevenger author of Dermaphoria
by Daniel Robert Epstein for SuicideGirls (http://suicidegirls.com/)

Craig Clevenger made a lot of the waves in the “weird book” genre with his first novel, The Contortionist’s Handbook. That book has developed a cult following and is being developed into a film by Donnie Darko creator Richard Kelly.

Clevenger has just released his second book, Dermaphoria, and it is about an amnesiac who wakes up in a prison cell. Upon his release he tries to recover his memories through the use of a new drug, Derma.

Buy Dermaphoria

Daniel Robert Epstein: Are you at home?

Craig Clevenger: No, I’m actually on the road. I haven’t done a book tour because it was my first book and it was an unknown entity. But now I’ve been on the road for about two and a half weeks.

DRE: How’s it going?

CC: It’s going really well. It’s kind of weird after spending so long working on a book you never know who else is out there besides your immediate friends and my editor and the sock puppets I talk to when I’m writing. It’s strange meeting a score of people at each venue who actually read the thing and aren’t people I know who are buying it out of sympathy. It’s really strange but also a lot of fun so far.

DRE: Is there a noticeable change from when you did your unofficial book tour for The Contortionist’s Handbook?

CC: Yeah, the last book was critically really well received, but didn’t really take off until about a year later. Obviously I owe Chuck Palahniuk and Irvine Welsh a big debt of gratitude for that, but even those things plateaued after awhile. The Handbook never really took off and it never really died either. It’s just this steady under the radar thing that just keeps pushing forward. In fact, I didn’t find out until last night that the Handbook has gone into a fifth paperback printing.

DRE: Holy cow. That’s great.

CC: By the third printing I figured, “Okay. That’s it. It’s shot its wad,” but it just keeps going. So three years of this steady word of mouth has made a real difference. It’s been a lot of fun.

DRE: Any SuicideGirls show up at the book readings?

CC: Not yet. I’m counting on you for some of that.

DRE: I tried to help out with the last book.

CC: Maybe they have and I just haven’t recognized them as such. Maybe that’s the polite way of saying it.

DRE: So was this was the book that you locked yourself into a hotel room and wrote?

CC: Yeah, actually the last time you spoke to me I was locked in a cheap hotel room, which indirectly ended up being a locale for the story. I hadn’t planned on that. The story takes place in the desert and I knew I was going to have a lot of desert locales out there, but this particular layout of the hotel I liked so much. When I spoke to you I had been there for maybe three days and I saw one other car there. I took a lot of pictures of the hotel and it ended up being a reference for a central locale of the story.

DRE: Did you not put the name of the hotel in because you want to go back or it’s just too much legal hassle?

CC: Because it just wasn’t significant. It was the visuals. I was actually describing a location different from where the hotel really is, but I was describing the layout of the hotel, in particular the worn out concrete dinosaur in front of the hotel.

DRE: The Handbook and Dermaphoria don’t start off dissimilarly from one another. They both begin with a guy who has nothing.

CC: Pretty much. In the Handbook, John Vincent wasn’t an amnesiac, but their structure is very similar. I think Dermaphoria’s structure is more thoroughly fleshed out and more thoroughly plotted, but I effectively begin both books after the climax. I throw the reader and the narrator right into the mix.

DRE: The Handbook had a few autobiographical elements in it. Does Dermaphoria have more or less?

CC: The first one was what I refer to as an emotional autobiography. None of them have any events out of my life, but the first one was a more personal rant. This one is less so. I hope it’s got as much of a heart and a pulse as the first one, but I’m not wielding my axes in the second one. I’d like to think in a perverse way this is a happier, more beautiful book.

DRE: I hope you’re not too happy.

CC: No, don’t worry about that. I’m my usual surly self. Some people find that hard to believe, but I am a romantic at heart. The Handbook was really a story of heartbreak and I think Dermaphoria is the same thing only it deals with the narrator’s one single love versus this anonymous string of them. It’s a love story at heart.

DRE: How much of Dermaphoria was outlined?

CC: Dermaphoria was outlined in more detail than the Handbook, not necessarily from the research and technical detail standpoint, but from an event standpoint and the actions of the narrators. The narrator had very specific things in mind in terms of the story and the event sequences were very specific. In terms of the prose generally what I’ve done in the past is after I get the opening of a book leading into the narrative, I will arbitrarily chop anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 words off. I will just take a cleaver right to it. I find that if I do that, whatever point I end up starting with, everything prior to that is implied anyway. It tends to jumpstart the story much more quickly. All the unconscious lead-in and setting up that I’ve done before that turns out to be unnecessary. People can kind of fill in the blanks and they tend to get pulled in much more quickly.

DRE: Is that something you always plan to do?

CC: Yeah and it’s what I’ve always done. It’s something I started doing in college. I would usually write something and I would find that if I would slowly lead into things that I didn’t need to lead into, not that I’m writing Robert Ludlum thrillers or anything, but I want to hook a reader the same way I expect to be hooked. I don’t see myself veering away from that anytime soon.

DRE: Robert Ludlum wrote the Bourne novels where the main character has also got amnesia.

CC: I didn’t even think of that.

DRE: A lot of people say that amnesia is an overused device. What worked for you about amnesia?

CC: It is an overused device but of course so is changing identities. [Fortress of Solitude author] Jonathan Lethem edited an anthology called The Vintage Book of Amnesia and in the introduction he said one of the reasons writers are so drawn towards the subject of amnesia is because at least from an abstract standpoint, the experience of amnesia is very much like the experience of writing a book. You’re sitting down in front of a blank stack of paper with nothing, trying to create a universe out of nothing. That really speaks to me. This was my second book and I was really feeling the pressure as the Handbook gained a wider and wider audience. Unconsciously what I had done was create a story of a guy sitting in a hotel room trying to fill a notebook with his memories. So indirectly I’m writing a book about a guy trying to write a book, even though that’s not what’s literally happening. It might be an overused device, but as they say, there’s nothing new under the sun. It’s just how it’s done, how it’s spun and how it’s handled. I hope I did something original there.

DRE: How has been the response on the book tour?

CC: The response has been really good. I was worried I was going to lose some readers with this one because i set out to not create the Handbook two. I wanted to confound expectations and really try to create a unique voice for this book. Ideally it would be hard for someone to tell that both books came from the same writer. I think that’s a bit of an overstatement, but my goal was to make a narrative voice absolutely unique and different from the Handbook. It’s been received well so I’m quite happy.

DRE: What made you want to get so far away from the Handbook?

CC: I’ve always said that nobody is more critical and tough on my own work than I am. Nothing I’ve received from any editor has ever exceeded my own criticism in rewrites and cuts and edits to my own work. By extension I raised the bar myself. I said “Okay. Clevenger, you did it once, do it again.” I raised the bar in such a way to say, “Try to do something completely unlike that.” So it was really my own Catholic upbringing I think that forced that on me.

DRE: Do you think religion gets into this book as well?

CC: Religions is not specifically in the book, but the idea of God is. I’m an atheist so while I don’t believe in God, I believe very much in the experience of God and I did wonder what causes that and where people get experiences that they call God and how they interpret those things. So for me, the idea of someone pummeling into brain chemistry to find God is just really fascinating. I read a lot of those really intensely spiritual writers growing up and even though I divorced myself from all of that, I still can’t let go of the idea that we experience something when we die or have some kind of religious epiphany. Maybe it’s just chemicals in our brain but maybe not. That’s what the book is about. He’s really just trying to find God in a chemical.

DRE: Have you found that?

CC: No, can’t say that I have. If it happens I’ll let you know. I’ll send you a postscript.

DRE: Are you looking for it?

CC: The short answer would have to be no. The more I learn about addiction and drugs and human nature, the more I really believe what I wrote in chapter ten. Which is the idea that we’re genetically programmed to be unsatisfied, to always want the next thing beyond our reach. So even if I found God in a drug tomorrow, I’d be looking for the next one. Every crack addict will tell you the same thing. They spend their entire life looking to recreate that first high and they never can.

DRE: Is your drug still Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream?

CC: Oh yeah, it works.

DRE: It’ll keep you awake for a really long time.

CC: It will indeed.

DRE: And it tastes good.

CC: It will also kill your appetite. You don’t need to eat anything else for the rest of the day either.

DRE: How’s it going with your publisher, MacAdam/Cage?

CC: Things are going really well. When I get the question “You guys really like your publisher, don’t you?” I always say, “Of course. Doesn’t everybody?” I guess I’m luckier than most. They’ve given me total and complete artistic freedom on this one. They were prepared to give me another year if I felt like I wanted more time on it. They’ve been very patient and given me absolute latitude. My new editor on this novel was a real fierce bulldog of an editor, but also knew when to give me some slack and was as much of a friend as an editor. So I ain’t going anywhere. I love these guys.

DRE: Anything going on with the Handbook in Hollywood?

CC: Yeah, it’s still going on. The option was renewed last March. There was a built-in 18 month renewal for it so that’s good. It ends around this time in 2006 and then we’ll see what happens. Richard Kelly is still slated to direct, but he’s had a full dance card for quite some time. Hopefully by then the decks will be clear and something will happen. But you can’t be certain. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed.

DRE: How did Richard Kelly get involved?

CC: My agent asked me who my top picks were for directors. I gave him my list and Richard Kelly was at the top and he said, “Well, he’s the new wunderkind. Don’t hold your breath. I doubt it’s going to happen.” Sure enough, it happened. Richard Kelly and his partner, Sean McKittrick, read it and were really impressed. They got backing from Apian Way but that was a couple years ago. I don’t know who’s going to do the adaptation, but I’m hoping that that scenario holds because nothing would make me happier. I think he’s the perfect director for it.

DRE: He was a big deal even before Donnie Darko came out. Have you met him yet?

CC: I have not. I’ve met Sean a couple times. I spoke with Richard once on the phone very briefly, but he and Sean have been neck deep in Domino and Southland Tales. I also think they have a Richard Matheson adaptation on the horizon. I was just overjoyed to find out those two guys were also Richard Matheson fans because I’m a huge Richard Matheson fan from way back.

DRE: What have you been reading lately?

CC: I just now started reading again. For the last several months I didn’t do any leisure reading at all. I was so wrapped up in writing the book. I picked up All The Beautiful Sinners by Stephen Graham Jones which is just an amazing book. Now I’m open to suggestions because I’m going to dive into leisure reading for the first time in about eight months.

DRE: I loved The Shroud of the Thwacker which Chris Elliott wrote.

CC: I love him. He’s amazing. Cabin Boy is very underrated.

DRE: Do you do any real drugs anymore?

CC: I’ve done my share of experimentation, but nothing I really stick with long term. I’ve never done acid and probably never will. I’m just too frightened of it. I was relieved when several people I know who have done acid said I managed to capture some essence of the experience fairly well. My brain is too strange to just let all the voices out of the box at once.

DRE: The last time I spoke to Chuck Palahniuk he says that people will mail him drugs and he’ll just take them sometimes.

CC: Wow.

DRE: Isn’t that bizarre?

CC: Yeah. That is bold. I still enjoy a good pint or a shot, but I actually drink less than I used to strangely enough. I’m just getting old. I don’t bounce back like I used to.

DRE: Have you started thinking about the next book?

CC: I actually started writing the next book. I was going to let my brain breathe for a little while but then something started tapping at the back of my head, so I just started following it. I’m too far down the road now. I can’t do anything else. I’m going to write a third book.

DRE: What’s it about?

CC: The closest thing I’m going to say is that there’s a short story on my website called The Fade. It’s the first short piece I’ve done in awhile. I’m going to be expanding that. That’s the plan right now but anything can change. What’s up on the site now is written as a letter to someone, an estranged relative to a young man named Lyle. The thing I’m working on now is trying to find out who Lyle is, what his story is and how those two people converge. Anyone that wants to see the seed of the next book can go check out The Fade.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/words/Craig+Clevenger+author+of+Dermaphoria/