Interview with John Elizabeth Stintzi
I mentioned last week how I recently read, and loved, John Elizabeth Stintzi’s short story collection, Bad Houses. One reader commented that they’re brilliant— and indeed they are. My introduction to JES’s work was their propulsive novel, My Volcano, easily one of my top favorite novels of 2022. At a time I was questioning what I could pull off in my own novel, My Volcano showed me what I needed: to be unafraid of taking risks. I find the boldness in JES’s work is endlessly inspiring.
I’m also impressed by JES’s range as a writer, which can be seen in both their books I’ve read. (I still need to check out their other two: Junebat and Vanishing Monuments.) They’re a master of playing with absurdity. These stories are delightfully weird and full of humor—and are accompanied by JES’s incredible illustrations.
I’m so glad JES agreed to this interview!
Did you run into any challenges getting this book published on your terms?
No, thankfully, though the inception of my assembling and submitting the book to presses was birthed from frustration with a song and dance I was being put through by some agents following my previous agent leaving agenting. So in some ways it was birthed out of a desire to get back to my own terms.
Thankfully, Arsenal Pulp has always done me well, and they saw potential in the book—and then, as soon as they said they wanted it, I sent them a far better version of it, and eventually then wrote a whole novella that was not previously in it. And of course, they were game with the illustrations in the book. At the end of the day, out of all my books I think this one might be the one I had the least challenges in publishing on my terms. But I do think a lot of that came down to my press trusting me, as it wasn’t our first rodeo (but our third).
I love the artwork that accompanies the stories. Does your visual art tie into your writing process in any way?
I don’t think in any conscious way it has, aside from in my comics, but I think that what I learned illustrating this story is how often I am working with some sort of particular, visual images/moments. I think part of that comes from writing these stories in the surreal/speculative vein, but I feel like I might have a similarly straightforward time trying to do similar illustrations with other works (novels or otherwise).
I feel like there is often an element of “fun”—or at times a sort of shock-value—in some of those images in the stories themselves, which just is a good reminder of how often, despite how dark many of my stories get, I’m a very joyful little gremlin in the gears of the machine. So while I don’t think my visual art is affecting the stories all that much (every story but the novella Foundation was written with no knowledge of eventual illustrations accompanying them), but I do think there are similar sorts of interests and playfulness that lead me into both my visual art and my literary work.
Can you share some reading recommendations?
I’ve been the world’s worst reader since the pandemic began, but here are some suggestions:
—The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, if you want to see one of the writers who made me this way.
—Either Through the Arc of the Rainforest or I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita (ideally both), as I connect really deeply both with Yamashita’s range and the share the same playfulness paired with deep seriousness and relevance. I Hotel is surely in my top 5 books ever.
—The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, which I only just read, and which I think is deeply relevant (and therein infuriating) to our world today, while also being beautifully written.
—Big Kids by Michael DeForge, as it’s a good gateway into his uniquely beautiful comics.
—Upgrade Soul by Ezra Claytan Daniels, if you are into checking out some delightfully, existentially grotesque sci-fi.
Is there a song (or songs) that ties into this book in some way?
If I had to choose one I’d probably say “Burning Down the House” by Talking Heads, but if I could say an artist I’d say Talking Heads feels like the vibe of the book (especially songs like “This Must Be The Place” or “Once in a Lifetime”). I think that Talking Heads is maybe a bit more surreal than Bad Houses, but they also do a great job of riding that line of seeming like they must have some sort of method to their madness in a way that makes them delightfully gnomic—something I at times aspire to, though often I find myself landing closer to the sensible.
Thank you, JES!