~
Richard Laymon - Biography ~
"I'm a guy who has been fighting in the trenches for about thirty
years"
Richard Laymon was born in Chicago in 1947 and he
grew up in California. When he was just a kid he would write in his room while
his parents thought he was doing his homeworks. He wrote fiction and poetry
for the
literary magazines at his high school and universities, such a premature activity paying off for the first
time in 1969, when he sold his first short story to ELLERY
QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE.
His second sale, to the same magazine, arrived only four
years later. Subsequently, he sold short stories
regularly to U.S. mystery magazines such as EQMM, Alfred Hitchcock's
Mystery Magazine and Mike Shayne's Mystery Magazine, and a few to
'mens' magazines, such as CAVALIER and GALLERY. They were
each buying more than a dozen new stories every month. A few stories from that
period can be found in the collection A Good, Secret Place. Those
early efforts were basically dark crime stories, since there were poor markets
for short horror stories, back then, yet many of them contained elements of the
grotesque and bizarre.
During
the seventies he attended graduate school, where he earned a Masters Degree in
English literature from Willamette
University, Oregon. He also obtained a teaching credential and
he became a certified librarian. He also worked as a high school English
teacher, editor of a couple of little mystery magazines, publisher of a
periodical for pipe smokers, clerk in a university library, clerk in a junior
high school. Later, he also received an MA from Loyola University, Los Angeles.
His career as a horror writer actually got spinning under
the influence of the reading of 'Salem's Lot, by Stephen King. The book, in fact, gave him the cue to write The Cellar, his first
best selling novel, with which he detached from his previous nasty, dark
suspense thrillers, veering toward the supernatural horror. He decided to come
up with a new sort of evil being, rather than build a novel around standardized
phenomena like vampires or werewolves. The 'beast' was the result. THE
CELLAR was also inspired by visits to a couple of California tourist attractions:
the Hearst Castle and the Winchester House. The original title for the book,
besides, was BEAST HOUSE. Unfortunately for him, the John Belushi
film, ANIMAL HOUSE, came along so Laymon's U.S. publisher decided to
change the title, even though Laymon himself never thought highly of the
choice. This is also showed by the fact that later, in the mid '80s, he
released Beast House,
intended as a sequel to THE CELLAR. Again, things didn't turn out
exactly in the expected way, since BEAST HOUSE wasn't actually marketed
as a sequel. The Cellar
sold well over 200,000 copies, it ended up on the B. Dalton bestseller for a
month and it was even chosen as one of the 100 Best Horror Novels of All Time edited by Stephen
Jones and Kim Newman.
His second novel, though, titled THE WOODS ARE DARK,
didn't sell up to expectations in the US and it was a real flop. Since then the
relationships between Laymon and the American publishing industry were always
kind of strained. His career virtually tanked in the States, where many
publisher's mid lists sank between the '80s and the early 90's. Laymon, though,
managed to escape a total pitfall with an accurate distribution of all his
books in the UK. England has been publishing him regularly from the start. New
English Library bought THE CELLAR in 1979 for an amount that was 6-7
times higher than Warner Books paid for it in the US. NEL (Hodder) then
continued to publish his novels regularly as paperback originals until Bob
Tanner became his agent. He asked NEL to start doing his books in hardbound.
They refused, so he sold them to W.H. Allen. Because he hadn't officially left
NEL, the first two W.H. Allen books were published using the pseudonym Richard
Kelly: MIDNIGHT'S LAIR and TREAD SOFTLY. Then Headline House took
over as Laymon's publisher, and over the years they did a great job, granting
him success in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and so on.
"In spite of success in
England, the money for quite a few years wasn't enough to support myself and my
wife and daughter - Laymon remembers - and we went through some really rough
times". At times he wrote a few "non-horror" things but after a
while he decided against it, not wanting to muddle through hackwork, and found
himself some outside jobs in order to stay afloat. He went to jobs as an office
temp, later as a report writer for a law firm. This gave him the opportunity to
make some money while he continued to write his own brand of novels. 1990 was probably the year when things started going
considerably better than ever before, since Headline offered him a multi-book
contract, so he could even "replace our old clunker of a car with a brand
new Jeep Cherokee - which we still drive".
Nowadays
Laymon is published in the US by St. Martin's Press, who are publishing his
novels in hardbound, but he's also being put back on the American market by the
newly ascendant imprint Leisure Books, who've brought out an edition of Bite
in June '99.
He's
had three novels nominated for the Bram Stoker Awards and Flesh
was named Best Novel of the Year in 1998 by Science Fiction Chronicle.
He currently lives in LA, California, with his wife and daughter.
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His
production could be roughly divided into two main streams: there are quick,
little fast-paced books (MIDNIGHT'S LAIR, ONE RAINY NIGHT) as well as
more complex book (BLOOD GAMES, IN THE DARK). Most
of his fiction goes very light on supernatural stuff, as approximately half of
his novels contain nothing supernatural at all, and are straight-forward,
realistic stories about bad stuff that could happen in real life. What prevents
them from being classified as "mystery fiction" is naturally the
strong presence of horror elements.
One of the distinctive features of many of Laymon's novels is the
attention to the details, which often turn out to be important and play a
significant role in the story. What may be strange is that Laymon himself
doesn't always know where the story is headed while he's still writing it, and
several times he admittedly found his books developing almost by themselves.
This loose-reins-approach, which is usually applied to the characters
development process, as well, accounts for the high unpredictability of many of
his works and for the verisimilitude of his characters. The latter, in fact, usually brew in their creator's mind acquiring
their own personality, only to be purposefully unleashed at the right time,
quite free to behave at their own will. Few, though rigid limitations and
controls are imposed by the author in order to actually lead the story
throughout its denouement. "I know where I want to go, but the characters
will often do something unexpected. Things hardly ever work out the way I
expect".
After
he's come up with the basic idea for a book, he usually sets to explore the possible
developments of the story, drafting a few cool scenes and jotting down his
characters, the geographical area where the story is going to take place, etc.
A mere "idea" often evolves into a novel if it retains the potential
of being developed in at least 600 manuscript pages, otherwise being put aside
to become a short story.
RL usually writes the first chapter of a novel within an hour or so after the
premise has been tackled, then the book is built alternating writing and
plotting as the story goes on, without an actual map of every twist and turn
that he'll come up with.
In
his normal working day he gets up and reads for about an hour, then he usually
writes from about 8.30 to 11.30 a.m., he has lunch, watches some news on TV,
reads again or takes a short nap. He usually goes back to the word processor at
about 1.00, writing until 3.00 or 4.00 p.m. He has a pretty loose schedule and
he happens to take a day off in the middle of the week. He writes an average of
30 pages per week on a novel, rarely hitting 50 to his great delight. He spends
something like eight weeks per year away from home on several trips, during
which he has to interrupt his writing activity, mainly using that time for
research.
Nudity,
voyerism and general erotic content have always been other typical traits of
Laymon's production, thus increasing his difficulties with most prudish
publishers. His characters usually have a sexual appetite that certainly beats
the average levels of other authors' creations, and he
doesn't necessarily leave the room or look the other way when they change
clothes, bathe, have sex, or use the toilet. This fair amount of "bare
skin" in his books most likely serves a twofold purpose: conveying the
"vividity" of his characters by making them behave as real people
usually would; creating books that are fun, at least according to his personal
taste, to read.
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Among
his favorite authors is Dean Koontz,
who's also a great friend of his, admittedly
helping him with his advice and support through the years. He also likes
writers such as Bentley Little, Jack Ketchum, F. Paul Wilson, Michael Slade,
Michael Cadnum, Ed Gorman and many more.
He
got his first computer about the time he wrote ALARUMS and he's been
using it since then, abandoning the old typewriter. He's not much of a
technology fan, hence fax and modem have only recently made their appearance in
his house. He got on the Internet because Headline was running an ad for him
and he wanted to see it. Since then he's discovered the beauty of e-mail,
hardly ever surfing thorugh the net. His destinations are most often Masters of Terror, where he
answers his fans' questions in a message-board, or Richard Laymon Kills or Vince
Fahey's official
US Laymon website.
As far
as movies are concerned, he's always been a fan of horror flicks. His special
fondness for 'splatter films' is not surprising, and it is even present in some
of his books, such as OUT ARE THE LIGHTS and NIGHT SHOW, which clearly reflect this fascination.
His
favorites are the best known: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW
MASSACRE, THE HILLS HAVE EYES, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT,
2000 MANIACS, HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH, IT'S ALIVE, MOTHERS DAY...
A
few of his works have been optioned to be turned into movies, and screenplays
were done of THE STAKE, but nothing has ever actually been filmed and
currently there's nothing stewing in the pot. So far, he's written a few
screenplays based on his books, but he hasn't taken a very active part in
trying to break into films, even though he'd certainly like it if something was
released.