Victor LaValle
Victor LaValle
Victor LaValleis an American author who was raised in the Flushing and Rosedale neighborhoods of Queens, New York. He is the author of a short-story collection, Slapboxing with Jesus and three novels, The Ecstatic, Big Machine and The Devil in Silver. LaValle writes fiction primarily, though he has also written essays and book reviews for GQ, Essence Magazine, The Fader, and The Washington Post, among others...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth3 February 1972
CountryUnited States of America
facing grand states united
You can't write a story about a mental hospital in the United States without facing the grand example of 'Cuckoo's Nest.'
cities fan horror maybe seen
As a 13-year-old fan of horror fiction, I hadn't seen too many cities in the literature I loved. It was always small towns, or backwoods locales, or maybe the suburbs.
bad eastern europe fear vulnerable women
Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' was a story about the fear of immigration; the bad old bloodsucker swooping in from Eastern Europe and also preying upon 'our' vulnerable women.
beneath came deformed felt four god
'Dark Gods,' T. E. D. Klein's book of four novellas, felt like a godsend - even if it came from a deformed god, one that lurked beneath our sidewalks.
bad figured giant halloween kids missed seemed whenever witch
For as long as I could remember, the person in E23 pasted the same Halloween decoration, a witch with a giant wart on her crone's nose, but whenever kids rang, the tenant wouldn't answer. At first, kids figured they'd just missed the guy: bad timing. But it seemed impossible that all of us missed him every year.
cow knew observant saw sea swallowed
Here's the thing: I was charming. Well read and well spoken. Observant and even kind. In other words, I was kind of a catch. And I knew this was true. As long as you couldn't see me. If you saw me, you'd think I was the sea cow that had swallowed your catch.
apartment england family grow mansion raised sinister slightly town
I didn't grow up in a small New England town like the one in 'The Sundial.' I was raised in an apartment building in Queens, not in a sprawling, slightly sinister mansion like the one where the Halloran family resides.
balanced chance fear fearing passing stopped
I hadn't stopped fearing the chance of passing on an illness, but that fear had become balanced by the observation that being ill wasn't the same as being beaten.
hospitals ill intimate knowledge life mentally people public survive treated
I have a very intimate knowledge of the world of the mentally ill and of life inside of, especially, public hospitals and the way people are treated in there and the way that they try to survive in there.
atheists currents faith
I like America, where believers eddy around each other like currents of air. Even our atheists are devout! To be an American is to be a believer. I don't have much faith in institutions, but I still believe in people.
based child control fear gets illness incurable less life living might pass passed realise ruled seems teach whether wrong
I realise I might pass down an incurable illness to my son, but living based on what might go wrong seems like less and less of a life as I get older. The one thing I can try to control is whether I teach my child to be ruled by anxiety, by fear. That's something that gets passed down, too.
available cheap darth dressed reminded vader wore
I was dressed like Darth Vader. Vader was my man, even with the villainy. He wore all black and had a deep voice; he reminded me of my uncle. I had a cheap mask-cape combo, the kind available at any pharmacy during October.
access beliefs fan fears great number ways
I'm a big fan of monsters. Number one, they're fun, and two, they're such great ways to access the subconscious fears and beliefs of any group of people.
audience jokes likely smile trying work
I'm always trying to make myself laugh. I'm the most enthusiastic audience I'm likely to find, so if it doesn't make me smile then it probably won't work on you. The jokes that only make me shrug get cut.