You are a prolific writer outside the world of Buffy too. Tell us about your latest horror novel, The Ferryman.
You have to import it. It’s funny, because Prowlers just came out in a UK edition, but [for] The Ferryman and my original adult horror novels I have been unable to get a publisher for over here. I don’t know enough people or I haven’t made the right connections yet I guess.
It’s amazing to me because I have readers here. I have a lot of readers here. Prowlers pre-orders were about 75 per cent of what they do on Buffy. That’s pretty good! So, they’re happy, and I’m hoping to eventually get all of my original novels out in England. It’s frustrating. So Ferryman you have to have as an import.
I love that book, and it’s gotten great response. I’ve got quotes from Clive Barker, Charles DeLint and Poppy Brite. I feel like I hit one out of the park on that book. It’s the story of a woman who foolishly enough left a man who loved her dearly for an old college flame just because she couldn’t imagine not giving it another try. He immediately got her pregnant, and as soon as he found out she was pregnant he left her. This is all the story that leads into the story of the book.
As the book begins, she’s in premature labour at eight and a half months, she nearly dies, and she loses the baby. And while she is at death’s door, she has a near-death experience in which she meets Charon, the ferryman of the river Styx. But she denies him and survives and he doesn’t like that, but he’s also fascinated by her because nobody does that, and he becomes enamoured with her, he becomes, in his own twisted way, in love with her, and he follows her back to this world to pursue her.
Meanwhile, while she’s recovering, she’s rekindling her relationship with the man she’d left, and Charon doesn’t like that very much. And that’s what it’s about. It’s really interesting because as much as it has certain elements in common with the big horror tropes, things like Nightmare on Elm Street, it’s probably the most thoughtful thing I’ve ever written. It’s a 400 page contemplation on the nature of death and living.
