Author Spotlight: Dr. Kim Paffenroth
Dr. Kim Paffenroth is a theologian and scholar. He’s also a Bram Stoker Award Winning author who is affectionately called ‘the other zombie guy’. I’ve known him for a few years now and consider him a trusted friend. We’ve shared a table of contents in the Back from the Dead Edition of Coach’s Midnight Diner, and we’ve collaborated as author and artist on two of his projects, Orpheus and the Pearl (Magus Press) and Dying to Live: Life Sentence (Permuted Press). Now, with the release of his first Limited, Valley of the Dead, I thought it was the perfect time to corner the good doctor and steal a glimpse into the twisted mind of one of horror’s bright and shiny new stars.
Bob: Before we get into the meat of Valley of the Dead I thought you might share with us what drew you into the world of brain-craving, flesh chewing zombies. It seems an odd compulsion for a theological scholar and philosopher.
Kim: If you’d asked me a few years ago, I would’ve said it was an adolescent fascination. I saw the first three Romero films in the late 70s thru the mid 80s, and I hadn’t really thought of them since. But when I saw the ads for the Dawn of the Dead remake, I was smitten again. I went into total, anti-zombie survival mode. But besides the paranoid fantasies, I also drew on some of the ideas I’d been studying in the intervening 20 years – especially images of sin and social decay, taken from the Old Testament prophets and the poet Dante Alighieri. I rewatched the Romero work, and saw how I could offer an interesting analysis of some of his subtext, which I did with Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth (Baylor, 2006), which went on to win the Bram Stoker Award. While I was working on that, I got the idea that maybe I could write my own zombie fiction, and make the undead carry whatever symbolic meanings I wanted them to. It’s been a fun time since.
Bob: Tackling one of the most important literary figures in history had to have been a daunting task. What did you see in Dante that inspired you to merge your passion for the undead with his most famous work?
Kim: While I was working on Gospel, my main insight into Romero’s deeper contribution was to see how closely his zombies resemble the denizens of Dante’s Inferno – not so much people being punished by a wrathful God, but people who are mindless slaves to their appetites. And that makes the damned or zombies not so much heroic or even scary, as they are just pathetic. Then I got the idea that I could make it work by running the influence in reverse: suppose Dante had been part of a zombie infestation, and then incorporated all the horrors he saw there into his poem. When I went back over the biographical details of his life and was reminded that his whereabouts are unknown for seventeen years – well, that seemed like a plenty big enough window for him to have almost any adventure I wanted to put him through. Then it was a matter of working through Inferno and constucting plausible parallels for each sin, punishment, and horror in the original.
Bob: In your previous works, there is an underlying message of hope and redemption prevalent, as well as there being a sort of moral voice, especially through characters like Milton and Adam, that keeps the reader aware of the tenuous grasp that society has on civilized behavior. It’s like at any minute, we as humans are on the verge of collapsing back into a barbarous state. Is this a conscious motivation behind your work, or is this more telling about where my head is at?
Kim: That’s interesting. I’m going to have to come down definitively in the middle and have it both ways. I certainly think that any situation or society can, given the right circumstances, unravel in the most spectacular and horrific ways imaginable – probably even in some ways we haven’t and shouldn’t imagine. But at the same time, I think most any person, no matter how depraved, can still – even if just for a moment – behave virtuously and humanely, and I think that to totally efface our inner decency usually isn’t just a matter of a sudden “snap” in a crisis, but a protracted process of many bad choices. That, to me, was the moral beauty and complexity of the new Dark Knight – the Joker was terribly right about Dent, but he was totally wrong about the two ferry boats. People really are both ways.
Bob: One of my favorite stories from you is the as yet unpublished Miriam which is stylistically quite similar to your approach to Orpheus and the Pearl. Both are very lyrical and, to me, unique in that they are like a bridge between modern storytelling and the Victorian and Gothic traditions.
Kim: That’s a good way to describe the effect I was trying for. I don’t always read contemporary stuff. If I have the choice, I’ll always reread something from the nineteenth century, or at the most recent, Flannery O’Connor – someone who probably better deserves the idea of “bridge” that you describe: at the sentence level, her prose is very minimal and sparse, and yet she has these scenes that would have to be described as Baroque, in terms of the complexity of the inner dialogues her characters are having, or in the richness and absurdity of the imagery she paints. So, anyway, my only point is this: an older tone or style can be refreshing or liberating in its own way. It adds another dimension to one’s tastes and repertoire.
Bob: You’ve got a Stoker, a thrilling and well received zombie series, and now your first limited. Tell me what it is that motivates you as an author. Where do you hope to see yourself in the next few years?
Kim: I have some ideas that I think are interesting and edifying, and I want to share them with other people. Up until a few years ago, I thought writing scholarly essays and books would be the way I’d share those ideas. Now it seems fiction is a better vehicle, with a wider and more diverse audience. I’m happy I found that outlet. As for where it’s headed: I think every author wants to reach more people, so of course I want my audience to grow in the years to come. Where will it max out? In the thousands? Tens of thousands? More? That I can’t say, but I’ve already reached far more than I ever expected, so I have no complaints.
Bob: Can you share with me what current projects you’re working on now?
Kim: I’m shopping my first non-zombie novel, a contemporary ghost story. It’s a quieter, less violent story (though the couple moments of violence do have that “Oh, hell!” quality, standing out against such a calmer background). But mostly, it’s about the very mundane, spiteful things we do to hurt each other in little ways, and how we might get some redemption and healing. Maybe it’s my most “spiritual, but not religious” story, as the source or goal of this redemption is never implied, though of course anyone could interpret it in light of their own religious commitments. I have another zombie anthology due out from Permuted later this year, The World Is Dead, where the hook is that the stories take place long after the dead rise, so it’s more about how people and societies have adjusted to this new “given” of human life. I’ll be working on the third installment in the Dying to Live universe, so expect more smart zombies and bad humans there. And with all this buzz about Dante (as well as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), I’m wondering if another mash up of zombies with the classics of the Western canon is now in order.
Bob: Thanks for joining me here in the Author Spotlight, Kim. It’s been an honor and a pleasure. Where can our readers find you online to keep abreast of all things Kim Paffenroth?
Kim: No, thank you, Bob, for taking the time, and for such thought-provoking questions.
I’m on Facebook and Twitter, though I still can’t get used to those, especially not Twitter, so don’t expect too much interaction or information from me there. My blog at http://gotld.blogspot.com is my regular outlet, where I post most every day with writing updates, news, movie reviews, zombie related cultural artifacts, and, especially during an election year, my occasional political rant.
