A Pulp Fiction Life: Interview with Ron Riekki, Author of 'We Look Down at the Body'
Ron Riekki is a prolific author whose new book, We Look Down at the Body, is out now from Egregious Pulp, a book series by Jokes Review. Poet Tim Staley described the book as “a Beckettian tale told in 12 scenes that wrestles with death and sex, overdoses and Narcan, unfulfilling jobs and unfulfilled humans, strip clubs and guns, moms and suicide hotlines.”
The following is an interview with Ron Riekki about his new book, his process as a writer, and his thoughts on pulp fiction.
Peter Clarke: Tell us about your inspiration for writing this book.
Ron Riekki: I like plays and two-person scenes and quick dialogue and books where the pages turn quickly and just wanted to experiment. The book came pouring out of me. I'm on a two-person improv team called The Absentees with the musician/improv performer Tom Phillips and I love doing two-man scenes with him because you just forget yourself in the moment. There's something about restricting it to two people that I really find intense. Like a therapy session. There were Mamet plays where I loved how quick the dialogue moved between just two characters, so that was something I wanted to explore.
The first thing the reader will notice is the style, which is very stripped down. As you just noted, most of the book is simply dialogue between two characters. Was there a particular work or author who made you think, “This could work”?
There's a long list of inspiration: John Logan's Red, Suzan-Lori Parks, Mamet, Lee Blessing (who I got to study with at Sewanee), some of the dialogue in Miguel Pinero's Short Eyes, Elmore Leonard, Cormac McCarthy, My Dinner with Andre. I got to meet Wallace Shawn at a coffee shop and talked for like an hour and he was gracious and was fun to gush about how much I love that movie. Key & Peele. I also got to talk to Keegan-Michael Key for maybe two hours at a bar in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, and he's just brilliant. I can't believe that these famous people would give me their time like that. And it's amazing I've gotten to meet the people who I absolutely love what they do. Maybe you just gravitate towards them because you respect their work so much. But I do like stripped down writers. That's a reason I love black-box theater and improv. Samuel Beckett. I'm just going to keep naming names so I should move on to the next question. I love writers though. The best.
Do you generally consider yourself a stylist as a writer? Do you have a favorite author who’s known for their distinct style?
What a hard question. But an interesting one. Maybe. I haven't thought about it. I just write. A lot. I love to be prolific. I really respect people who just write a ton, like Joyce Carol Oates. Again, who I got to talk to for maybe a half hour at someone's house in Berkeley. We kinda argued a little, but not much, but a little about feminism vs. class issues/Marxism. But Zombie's a brilliant book. I didn't get the chance to tell her that, but I'll say this. I stumbled upon the book Cult Fiction: a reader's guide at the Harvard Coop and that book changed my life. It introduced me to a whole ton of authors I'd never heard of, but just fell in love with. People like Poppy Z Brite and Iain Banks, who both followed me on Facebook and I just about fainted, as they're heroes. I still can't believe this thing where people I truly admire, I get to sort of have them in my life, if just for a flash, or even if it's a following on social media. The same happened with Erica Jong following me on Twitter. It's such a beautiful moment when these icons are in your life. And it really inspires me to keep writing. I have this strong love of people who create. And, anyway, Cult Fiction is full of great names that people should check out. Too many to list here. And really cool, varied styles. Transgressive being at the heart of it though, which is my favorite writing. Now especially.
The main characters are security guards who come across a dead body. Despite the limited descriptions, the book really pulls you in and feels very real. Were these characters based on real people? Do you have any experience working as a security guard?
Yes, I've worked off and on as a security guard for quite some time. And in the military, where it was very security guard-ish. They're not based on real people, but there was a place I worked at where someone just casually mentioned very briefly, like it was nothing, that two security guards had found a dead body on a shift and gave no other information and I wasn't sure if it was real or rumor, but it sat with me for maybe a decade and then I just figured I had to get it on the page. That was all I had to start with. Two security guards and a body. And I'd take it from there. I actually liked that I had no other information, as I could fill it all in myself, and it just went into interesting directions. As I was writing it, I just forgot myself. It was like when I wrote my first novel U.P. I just escaped into the writing of that book. I hope it happens again. This was a really fun book to write.
This book very much walks the line between pulp fiction and literary fiction, which is a genre-bending area which we love. How did you balance these elements? Did you ever feel them in tension?
Oh, I don't want the line. I'm thoroughly on the pulp fiction side of the fence. Any time I step a foot into the literary fiction side, I'm always amazed. My life doesn't feel like it was a literary fiction life. I've felt like I've lived a pulp fiction life. My life, if I ever get the chance to really do my memoir, is going to be an interesting read. It's been a really weird, strange, odd freaking life I've had. I've just been thrown all over the globe and it seems like the elements of pulp fiction just poured into the characters I met. I mean, the people in real life. Even my relatives feel like they're out of a pulp fiction novel and not out of something that'd win a literary fiction award. Yes, I'm for sure on the pulp team if I had to pick between the two. But I like literary fiction as well, and, truth be told, sometimes they do bleed into each other. It's like when I'm driving in Detroit and then I'm in Dearborn and it's not like some magical shift happens when you move from one to the next. It's not like one street is entirely different from the next, or even one part of the asphalt magically glows and now you're in Detroit. You can't tell which you're in at times. And literary fiction and pulp can be like that sometimes. Which is fun. I like when genres are blended.
Do you have a favorite pulp novel or genre-fiction author?
Holy Lord, too many to name. Just seriously check out Cult Fiction. It's just author after author after author of great writers—but I'll list a few: Kathy Acker, Irvine Welsh (yes, met, awesome), Chuck Palahniuk (met, also totally awesome human), Tom Wolfe, William S. Burroughs (never met, but did meet Allen Ginsberg who was hilariously inspiring), Donald Goines, Iceberg Slim. I'll stop. I'd want to list every author named in that book.
Tell us about your work as a screenwriter. Do you prefer writing books or screenplays?
I love both. I just totally get absorbed in writing. I think it's a whole different rush when you get a screenplay produced though. Film is just addictive. Acting too. I've only got to act in a couple movies, but getting to see Joe Pantoliano act in a movie I was in, where the director let me go on set during filming. He was breathtaking. And did it like acting was as easy as drinking a glass of water. He was flawless. I love that transformation that happens with theater and movies, where the lines come alive. So that's a rush. I know that when this Romanian film company took my script and asked me if they could shoot it in stop-motion, I thought that was just a dream-come-true. I've been a huge fan of stop-motion films like Corpse Bride and Coraline and the Bass and Rankin Christmas specials, so my mind was blown. And then once they did it, I was stunned. I just love how these images I had in my head, like this little boy in his pajamas going to a graveyard to dig up bodies comes to life and it's just so visually stunning. So screenplays, when you luck out and get to see it actualized, is beyond description. But as far as just the writing alone, I really love both. I wish I could write all day. But you have to live.
What are you working on next?
My work schedule is brutal right now, so we'll see. I'm always writing short stories and poems and flash nonfiction. Short stuff. Horror podcasts like Chilling Tales for Dark Nights and Tales to Terrify and The NoSleep Podcast have been really kind to me with utilizing my horror stories, so it's really fun to hear those stories of mine come alive, so I'm sure I'll keep doing that. But I know I have memoir goals and doing another novel and a producer has mentioned screenplay stuff to me, but it's always fell through, so we'll see if something magically appears, but right now it's more of the compact type writing like poems and flash fiction. That sort of thing. Oh, and then I've been performing quite a bit of standup and doing improv shows too for fun.
We Look Down at the Body is available now on Amazon. Pick up a copy!