Andrew K. Clark
Where Dark Things Grow
Featuring elements of horror, folklore, and magical realism, Where Dark Things Grow is a dark bildungsroman set squarely in the place and culture of the 1930s Southern Appalachian Mountains.
DOSSIER: Ivy Pochoda, who just won a LA Book Prize for SING HER DOWN, said, “With gorgeous language and gothic ghosts, Andrew K. Clark will break your heart on page one and make your skin crawl on the next.” What part of that blurb about WHERE DARK THINGS GROW are you most proud of?
CLARK: I am most proud that Ivy said the book will make your skin crawl but also break your heart; what more could a writer want? I’ve deeply admired Ivy’s writing for years so it meant a lot for her to blurb my debut novel. While I am using supernatural and horror elements, it was very important to me to have believable characters and for readers to become emotionally invested in what they face. It was very exciting to hear Ivy say I’ve pulled that off.
Magical Realism
DOSSIER: Your MFA was based on “fantastical elements within a real world setting (magical realism) as a mechanism to address issues of trauma and grief.” Given that, what’s the title of your next book if you woke up in the middle of the night sometime and actually had a conversation with a ghost or an alien?
CLARK: I love magical realism – by American writers, and writers from around the world. There’s something about that juxtaposition of a realistic setting in which strange or horrible things are happening. I do know the title of my next book: Where Dark Things Rise (Quill and Crow Publishing House, Fall of 2025), which is a loose sequel to Where Dark Things Grow. However, I am working on another project which I think better fits your scenario of waking up and finding yourself talking to a ghost. It’s currently titled Letters to The Mute Priest.
C.S. Lewis … Tolkien Influences
DOSSIER: If you had to withdraw one background element that’s shaped your writing, which would have the biggest impact and why—your early reading of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien when you were a kid, the influence of growing up in in Western North Carolina, or your MFA experience?
CLARK: This is a tough one. Although my MFA program at Converse College absolutely accelerated by development as a writer, I think my background being from WNC and those early experiences with literature are more closely tied to my voice and desire to bend genres. I don’t think I’d have come to love books as soon as I did and at such a young age without Tolkien and Lewis.
What about David Sedaris?
DOSSIER: How different would your writing be if you pulled one of those things or if you had grown up in, say, downtown Raleigh? Would we be reading more of a David Sedaris-like sardonic style of writing from you or something more satirical?
CLARK: That’s a good question. I think the voice would change more if I had more of an urban upbringing versus rural. If we’re talking rural Wake county it might not be that different, but if I grew up in a city it would probably be very different. A pivotal scene in Where Dark Things Grow occurs in a barn and I am not sure where it would be set otherwise because I know that world. I grew up planting tobacco on the back of tractors, hanging it in barns, baling and stacking hay, feeding and milking cows, etc. But I do absolutely love David Sedaris!
DOSSIER: Of course you do. ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY is a national treasure!
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (Music, silence, under a tree on the Biltmore Estate?)
CLARK: Nietzsche said “Never trust a thought that occurs to you indoors.” I agree and try to spend as much time outside as possible, ideally in the woods. A good long hike does a lot for me in every way, but especially creatively. I do sometimes write outside at my home, when the weather is nice. But generally a perfect writing day for me would be starting at around 7 a.m. till about 11 or 12. I do listen to instrumental music with noise cancelling headphones and try not to talk to anyone, take calls, look at my phone, etc., on those mornings. Trent Reznor’s movie soundtracks are my go to. I cannot write to music with any lyrics or singing. But I think the writer is always writing. Whether we are at the keyboard, hiking, working, having sex, driving, etc. It’s in the bones.
Just a Little German
DOSSIER: Do you foresee your novels to always include a Bildungsroman that deals with a struggle between good and evil? (The Dossier guy lived in Germany for five years and had to look it up.)
CLARK: My publicist first put Bildungsroman in some marketing copy about the book and I had to look it up too! I’d seen the word but didn’t use it regularly. I think coming of age stories do resonate with me and I will say my poetry book, Jesus in the Trailer, deals with that topic, as do my first two novels coming this fall and next. The struggle between good and evil is at the heart of every story, I think, even if it’s not always clear who’s “good” and who’s “evil.” I cannot imagine that struggle not being a part of my work. I’d like to blur the lines between the two more, going forward.
DOSSIER: Good to hear. I’ll blame your publicist then. Danke schön.
Website: Andrew K. Clark | Amazon Page