Jason Rekulak’s Horror Brings Out the Best in Us | Audible.com
Jason Rekulak’s Horror Brings Out the Best in Us
The writer of “The Impossible Fortress” turns his attention to his favorite genre in “Hidden Pictures,” striking a balance between warmth and terror that makes for the most satisfying kind of horror.
Note: Text has been edited and does not match audio exactly.
Nicole Ransome: Hi, I'm Audible Editor Nicole, and I'm excited to introduce listeners to Jason Rekulak, author of , here to talk about his new horror listen, . Welcome, Jason.
Jason Rekulak: Hi, Nicole. Thanks for having me.
NR: Hidden Pictures' main character is Mallory Quinn, a young woman that's 18 months sober from a serious addiction struggle. I wanted to know what research you did in order to create her and write from her perspective.
JR: Sure. Well, I mean there's two things. Mallory comes from a sort of blue-collar neighborhood in South Philly, and that's kind of my background as well. My dad was a construction worker, and my family's full of nurses. And so I felt very comfortable with that. Some of that was familiar to me, from experiences I had when I was younger.
And then in regards to her addiction and recovery, my sister-in-law works with people in recovery. And years ago, before all this stuff came to light about, like, the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma, she was telling me these stories about how a boy would go to the dentist to get his wisdom teeth removed and four months later he'd be, like, hooked on heroin, because the oxycotin, oxycodone. And she was telling me about things like the pain scale that got adopted in hospitals where their number-one goal was to treat your pain and to get that number down from, you know, 9 or 10 to 2, by any means necessary.
"Fears are so universal... If you're in your house at night and there's a knock at the door at 11:00, I don't care who you are, you immediately are on edge."
When I first started writing this book and thinking about it, I just couldn't believe it. I felt so bad. I mean, these stories are tragic. It's sort of a convention of this genre to give the nanny in these stories some kind of difficult history that might even make her a little unreliable when she starts encountering these supernatural things. So that, to me, at the time when I was writing it felt like a very contemporary version of that. And so I leaned on my sister a lot, you know, and had her read the book and talk to me.
NR: One of the things I really did enjoy about this story is hearing from Mallory's perspective in the first person. How did you go about choosing to write in the first person rather than in the third person? Was that another way to put a spin on the unreliable narrator aspect?
JR: It's a great question because I think I probably started writing this book in third person. But there's something about first person that I just love. I think I started in third person and I switched to first person just to try it, and the pages just started coming that much faster. And I liked her voice because I just like viewing all of this stuff through her eyes, because she's kind of cynical about some of it. The parents seem like a little bit much to her sometimes. And I couldn't really do that with third person. So once I started it, I found so many things appealing about it that I just stuck with it.
NR: And then also Mallory has this sort of sixth sense when it comes to being observed. At the same time that she's unreliable, there's like this, not power but this extra sense of perception that she has that kind of gives her this reliability.
I know that the New Jersey suburban setting can become starkly different in terms of how quiet and you know, if you feel like you're being watched you might actually be being watched.
JR: Yeah.
NR: What made you write Mallory with that extra sense of perception? Especially while she's going through her recovery.
JR: At some point it occurred to me, because I had all these scenes where she's in her cottage alone at night, and the cottage is sort of in the back of the main house where the family lives. She's very excited when she gets it because it's like her own place, and it's beautifully furnished, but it's tiny and it's on the edge of this forest.
I wanted her to have this feeling like there were eyes on her. There was just something watching her. The book opens with this scene that sort of suggests that maybe she does have this kind of sixth sense. But then she's also like, “Well, but I'm not sure this really happened to me.” And she sort of dismisses it. But she has this nagging feeling throughout the book that she is being watched. And I think it just helps contribute to our assessment of her as a narrator, and how much we can or cannot rely on what she's telling us.
This book is part of a tradition of nanny goes to a house to watch little children, where supernatural things may or may not be happening, and her point of view may not be totally reliable.
NR: Usually in stories like this, the kid has a lot more apparent issues. I really found that Teddy was such a sweet kid. In the juxtaposition between what he was doing versus who he was as a person, I really started to understand his parents' reactions a little bit to what Mallory might've been saying about him and some of his actions. What made you decide to draw this character this way? He was super sweet, and usually in tropes like this, the kid has some kind of issue that's apparent.
JR: Yeah. I think when I started writing the book, his character was a bit more of a cipher. Like, I just wasn't sure what I was going to do with him. But then once I understood the full story, and the full mystery—it's hard to talk about this without giving spoilers. But once I accepted all of the other things that are happening in this story, then his character sort of defined itself. Because I was like, well, okay, he is this kind of person in this story. And he's sweet. I mean, a lot of people in this story are not what they look like at first glance. And I can't even elaborate on that without giving stuff away.
NR: I know. I want you to understand, preparing was really hard because there are so many twists. I was like, okay, let me form these questions correctly without giving any spoilers. But going off of Teddy's character, one of the things that I really did love about the narration was that Suzy Jackson, she played the characters so well, but I especially love how she performed Teddy. How did you go about choosing Suzy as the narrator for Hidden Pictures?
JR: I'll tell you, I haven't heard the full audiobook yet, and I'm really excited to hear it. The publisher came to me, I guess they give a passage of the book to a couple different readers to audition, and these people send in, like, three-minute clips where they're reading a little bit of chapter two or what have you. And they said, "Let us know if you have an opinion.” And at first, I didn't think I would. At first, I was like, "Well, you people know best. You're in this business.” I do listen to audiobooks, so I figured, what the heck? I'll give it a try.
And when I heard Suzy's voice, it was just perfect. I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is it.” There is, like, a warmth to it. Mallory's just a little bit out of her element. She's just a little bit uncomfortable in this new world. She's a good person. And [Suzy’s] voice just had all of that, you know? Some of the other auditions, they just sounded a little too jaded. They sounded like they had come out of a chick-lit novel from the nineties about shopping or something like that. And I'm like, she's not that kind of character. She's more vulnerable.
So I can't wait to hear. The passage she read didn't have Teddy in it, so now you've got me really excited to hear it.
NR: Yeah, well, I can't rave enough. I really did enjoy her narration. With that in mind, who was your favorite character perspective to write from?
JR: There were two that I really enjoyed. Mallory has a sponsor named Russell, and he's sort of like an older guy who is also her unofficial running coach. And he's just a really fun character to write, because he's very gruff. If there's ever a film adaptation, it would just be so much fun to cast him. He goes around with track suits on and things like that.
But then there's also a next-door neighbor in the story [Mitzi] who's kind of the kooky elderly woman who, you know, walks around in kimonos and things like that. And she was really fun to write, too. She's just like your typical neighborhood busybody. Very eccentric and colorful. I think I ended up cutting back some of her dialogue, because she would just go off on these long rants where she's just complaining about the prices at Whole Foods and things like that. And my editor's like, “I think maybe you can dial back some of the Mitzi.” But it was so much fun, I couldn't help myself. I would just let her talk and talk and talk and talk.
NR: Yeah, I remember her first description, coming out with the long robe and the many rings. I could see her. And you know what? It's funny that you mention a film adaptation because literally one of the things that I thought was really great about this novel is that there was so much description and it felt very cinematic. So I actually wanted to ask you, what's your writing process like when building your imagery?
JR: I watch a lot of movies. And I love movies, I love books. I'm always thinking about how things look and always trying to set scenes in, like, visually interesting places.
NR: So this is your first horror novel that you've written. Your debut novel, The Impossible Fortress, was more of a coming-of-age adventure story. And I just wanted to know what made you switch to horror for your second?
JR: In publishing, as you probably know, they love it when authors stay in their lane and do the same thing over and over. So, like, “Oh, you're gonna write courtroom thrillers? Great, do 20 of them.” Because it makes it really easy to build their audience and build their fan base. The problem with me is that I wrote this very personal coming-of-age novel, and then I was like, well, now what? What am I going to do now? I'm not going to write another very personal coming-of-age novel, like, I'm done. But I've always loved thrillers. I've always read a lot of horror and suspense. If I had to pick a favorite genre, that's my favorite genre.
So I was like, all right, well, this is what I should do now. If I'm smart, what I'll probably do is stay in this lane and do more books like this so I can build an audience. The problem is, I like to read all different kinds of stories. So, I hope this doesn't happen, but I may wake up and want to write a science fiction novel. And then my publisher's not gonna be happy if I do that.
It's art and commerce, you know? You have to sort of balance both.
NR: Yeah. I totally understand. I had definitely thought The Impossible Fortress, I don't know if you've seen this movie, but it gave me Weird Science vibes. That's one of my favorite movies.
JR: Yeah.
NR: What did you find most fun about writing horror?
JR: I do love all the old horror tropes. I love someone just being in bed and hearing a noise at the door. Like, I just love that stuff. It never gets old. Fears are so universal. This stuff works on everybody, you know? Everybody. If you're in your house at night and there's a knock at the door at 11:00, I don't care who you are, you immediately are on edge. You're like, "What is this? What's happening?" And so I really enjoyed playing with all that stuff.
"I want there to be a warmth to balance all of the scary stuff. I didn't want the world of it to be too ugly, like a lot of horror movies are."
And I was like, "Oh, my book is a ghost story, I should probably have a scene with a Ouija Board." That was really fun. I knew that since there was a forest behind this house, I was like, “This book has to end with people running into the woods.” It's just working with all those elements. It was all fun.
NR: That's great. I'm a huge horror fan, so I completely understand.
JR: Oh gosh, oh yeah, have you seen It Follows? Do you know that movie?
NR: Oh my gosh, that is such a good movie.
JR: Isn't it?
NR: It's like a hidden gem. That was one of the most unique concepts ever.
JR: Yeah, that's why I love it. It's so, so scary. And yet, you know, one of the things I thought was really cool about it, besides being really scary, is that the characters are all pretty nice in that movie. There's really no bad people in that movie. They're dealing with a really tough problem, and they're all trying to do the right thing. And I like the warmth of those characters. It's just a nice balance of all of the scary stuff. I was like, "Well, at least these are good people.”
I was trying to do something similar when I wrote this book. I want there to be a warmth to balance all of the scary stuff. I didn't want the world of it to be too ugly, like a lot of horror movies are. Sometimes you see these horror movies and they're so bleak and they're so, ugh, they're horrible, you know?
NR: Oh yeah.
JR: I just like books that present a hopeful look at the world. I wrote this book in the pandemic, you know? I'm just trying to be optimistic about things, and I actually think that's one thing horror does really well. My favorite horror stories are the ones where you have a protagonist who's evenly matched or capable of confronting this, and they have attributes that are admirable.
Because I think these are great stories for all of us. We all have to deal with problems and difficult things. And we draw on what is best in us to overcome these things. And that's something that you see in a story like It Follows. This group of friends works together to conquer this thing that is very frightening, and they don't understand it. But by drawing on the best in them, they can defeat it.
NR: Both of your novels feature young people as main characters. Do you find it more impactful to write from the perspective of a child or young adult?
JR: I think it is more that I've never been comfortable writing about people older than myself. I should be. I should be able to imagine anything. But I've just always sort of been comfortable looking back and trying to draw on experiences that I went through and maybe using them to inform the story. All of the discomfort that Mallory feels in this super affluent suburb with these highly educated people, you know, that's something I have a little bit of experience with. And that's something that happens generally to younger people.
But I mean, the book I'm working on now, I'm actually trying to write it from the perspective of someone who's older, like a 50-year-old person. And it's weird. It's like, “Oh, wow, this is a very different voice.” I'm not gonna restrict myself to just people under 30. As I get older now, writing about someone in their forties seems more accessible and doable. I'm like, “I think I understand people in their forties, you know, I'm living through it.”
NR: You mentioned that you're working on your next novel. Are there any details that you can share about it?
JR: Not really, no. I'm still trying to figure out what it is. I have like 100 pages. If I finish it, it's gonna take place at a wedding. So it's kinda fun. Everybody likes going to a wedding, right?
NR: Yeah.
JR: But it's definitely like a suspense thriller with horrific elements, so, you know, the best kinda wedding, right?
NR: Oh cool. So as you're writing your next novel, what would you say is your favorite aspect of writing?
JR: My favorite part of writing is always the end. I find the most difficult part at the beginning when you have this blank page and anything is possible. You're always making decisions, and sometimes you're making the wrong decisions so you have to backtrack. But every decision you make—and there's, like, thousands of decisions you have to make when you start—it's like you're building a house and you're not totally sure you have your foundation right. And sometimes you can make these catastrophic decisions that mess everything up, and you have to go back and undo everything and rebuild your foundation.
But eventually, sort of like 70% into the process, you get to the point where it's like, okay, I know everything that happens in this story, I know who all of these characters are, I know what I want all of the scenes to be. And now I can try to make the writing really fun. And I can try to make the writing really good. Like, I feel like that's actually the last thing you should do. People pay so much attention to sort of the surface of the apple, like the actual words. But to me, I feel like that's the last thing really that you do.
I think of writing from the inside out. You're starting with this core idea that becomes a story, and then the very last thing you do is write it where you're trying to choose interesting verbs and cool phrases and funny dialogue. And of course, at this point, since you know everything you're doing, you really can't make a wrong move. And so it's just so much fun and super satisfying. But up until that point, it's just torture, you know? It's just really hard work.
Not everybody works that way. I don’t totally get it. Like, I know there are writers who just, they start writing without any real sense of what the story is, and the book is the book, and it just comes out and they make it work. They go wherever the words take them, and they don't really revise all that much. But boy, I am not. I envy and admire those people, but I am not one of those people.
NR: That's cool. Well, I just want to say Jason, thank you so much for chatting with me today. And listeners, you can get Hidden Pictures on Audible now.
