TLO Member Interview: gryeates

TLO Member Interview: gryeates
Conducted by Phillip Stecco


1) How did you first encounter the work of Thomas Ligotti?

I picked up the Virgin edition of Teatro Grottesco in Borders after reading Matt Cardin's interview with Mr. Ligotti online. I'd read a number of writers before who were compared to Lovecraft but I can honestly say this was the first time I'd read the work of someone who was not only equal to Lovecraft in artistic vision and execution but able to take the underlying themes further, fashioning them into something unique, distinctive and deeply disturbing.


2) What are some of your favorite works by Mr. Ligotti?

I'll select two for different reasons. My personal choice is "The Malignant Matrix" vignette from Sideshow and Other Stories. It resonated very powerfully with me, for some obscure emotive reason, the first time I read it and continues to do so. I have no idea why I like it so much and that's why it is special to me.

My artistic choice is "The Bungalow House." After reading the majority of the Ligottian oeuvre, this seems to me to be a story that brings a number of the themes that had been running through story after story to a point of quiet death. I think it is also a perfect summation of what it is like for a sympathetic reader to discover talents such as Poe, Lovecraft and Ligotti and the weirdly transformative, intimate and yet completely impersonal relationship that is subsequently established. Lastly, the pessimistic closing lines of this story are beautifully depressing.


3) What other writers do you enjoy reading?

In the last few years I have been slowly discovering and reading the works of the various authors who make up today's Literary Horror scene and they are keeping my sparse reading hours well stocked at the moment so Mark Samuels, Ramsey Campbell, Quentin S. Crisp, Matt Cardin, Reggie Oliver, W. H. Pugmire & Christopher Barker are who I am currently following. I've also been catching up on the works of Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood and Walter de la Mare as much as I can, not having been overly familiar with them until recently.

Other than that, I tend to read a fair amount of non-fiction for researching my own work.


4) Do you have any favorite singers or musicians?

I listen to a lot of instrumental music these days. For some reason I've grown to dislike vocals. The compositions of Akira Ifukube, Akira Yamaoka and Kow Otani are favourites of mine at the moment and I also enjoy the Metallica-inspired groups, Apocalyptica and Harptallica.


5) Do you have any favorite artists in the visual media?

H. R. Giger has been a favourite of mine for a long time as I grew up with the films featuring his creations. I'm also a great admirer of Edvard Munch for his ability to create such strange and hypnotic nightmares on canvas. Then, there is Francis Bacon for his nether-world of animate carcasses and imprisoned Popes. My final favourite would have to be Toulouse-Lautrec for his ability to draw so accurately and in such minute detail from life.


6) What are some of your favorite movies?

My favourite era of cinema is German Expressionism so Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Metropolis would be three choices here. I also love the Universal horror movies because they took much of their aesthetic inspiration from this era. As a Brit, I am probably committing minor sacrilege by picking Universal over Hammer but there we go.

Two other picks would be John Carpenter's The Thing, which is a popular choice for best horror movie ever, and Jacob's Ladder. To my mind, the latter always seems to be left out of many horror top tens and I can't think why.

Lastly, I will put a vote in for the Carry On films. A series of very British slapstick comedies that I grew up with and which I adore. Their humour is not the most sophisticated in the world but they still manage to get me laughing every time I put one on.


7) Do you watch television?

Not really and I follow the few shows I do tune in for using online players. Those shows being the new "Doctor Who," "The Big Bang Theory," "How I Met Your Mother" and "The IT Crowd."


8) What foods do you enjoy eating?

Pizza. Far too much of it.


9) Do you have any odd hobbies or collecting fetishes?

Not really, I'm prone to having regular clear-outs and I've never been much of a hoarder. I like to collect the small press editions of favourite writers' work when I can afford it.


10) What recreational activities do you enjoy?

As is traditional in the UK, going to the pub covers a fair amount of my recreational time. Other than that, I like long, meandering, lone walks through London and visiting museums, the cinema and galleries.


11) What makes you laugh?

Humour that is bizarre, surrealist, crude and nihilistic so Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Dylan Moran, Frankie Boyle and, of course, Monty Python are favourites here.


12) Life?

That thing that happens when I'm not sleeping or trying to sleep.


13) Death?

It's been on my mind since I was about three years old.


14) Work?

I'd sooner be doing the kind I love and enjoy over the kind that pays the bills.


15) Do you have any interesting work anecdotes to relate?

I've been working in clerical administrative roles for just over seven years so the anecdotes and personalities involved are pretty well covered in "My Work Is Not Yet Done." That should be the handbook issued to anyone who decides working in an office environment will be a life-enriching, or even tolerable, experience.


16) What is your earliest childhood memory?

Being told my maternal grandfather had passed away, I think. I remember very distinctly having a meditation on what death was, what it meant and what it would feel like. My conclusion was that death is nothingness, not even a void, a simple absence of everything. My view on death has certainly not changed much since.


17) What is your fondest childhood memory?

Riding down a country lane on a tricycle with the dappled sunlight coming down through the leaves. I was carefree then. I'm not now.


18) Who has been the most influential person in your life?

Tricky question. There have been a few persons who have been very influential but for wholly negative reasons so I don't want to choose them.

I guess my high school English teacher, Mrs Bury, would qualify as she was the first person to encourage my interest in literature and writing though I know she disapproved of my morbid subject matter.


19) Do you have a special plan for this world?

To make something of myself as a writer, so my plan is a ramshackle work-in-progress with the outcome uncertain and subject to many unquantifiable vagaries. I should probably run for government.


20) What else should we know about you?

At the moment, my website/blog is at the following address: www.gryeates.co.uk

I intend to give this some more attention soon and will hopefully have more news on the projects I'm working on to impart.