This is the second part of a two part interview. The first part was published on October 3, my birthday.
Last weekend I finished The Shotgun Rule which is as gritty and dark a novel as I’ve read in several years. It explores violence and life in a fictional Northern California town. Is it good? Let’s put it this way, Stephen King was right when he called it “Stand By Me on Dexedrine.”
I emailed author Charles Huston questions for this half of the interview and he sent his responses quickly.
What's it like to have Stephen King describe your novel as "Stand By Me on Dexedrine"?
Beyond flattering.
It seemed like the town itself became a character in the novel, sort of like George Pelecanos does with his books about Washington D.C. Was that intentional?
I try and give the locations in all my books a certain amount of texture. That can be a relatively easy task when you're writing about New York City or L.A.
In the case of the unnamed town in The Shotgun Rule, the actual geography, physical locations, and the social structure, are all based on a town I lived in. Some things get altered by faulty memory, or simply because I need to take a house on one side of town and relocate it, but I try to play as close to reality as I remember it.
As much as it is about anything, Shotgun is about the town itself. I can't say I was trying to make it a character, but I was trying to describe what I consider a pretty typical place that some people grow up in.
I really liked the character of Geezer especially how he was always searching for just the right word. Can you tell me how you came up with that character and that particular character trait?
I started with the name. It's actually an homage, if you can call it that, to Black Sabbath's bassist Geezer Butler. I always thought that was a tremendous name. It seemed a great fit for a scumbag (which Mr. Butler is not). I built a physical description around the name, but beyond that, it's hard to describe how a character generates. I didn't go looking for his verbal tick, but when it popped up it fit and I ran with it.
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