HASHTAG is: A twisted and sinister crime story with characters and a world you'll be clawing for more of from the author of DIRTBAGS.
The repercussions are felt across the American South when a pizza joint in sleepy Lake Castor, Virginia is robbed and the manager, Odie Shanks, is kidnapped. The kidnapping is the talk of the town, but it's what people don't know that threatens to rip asunder societal norms. Odie chases dreams of Hollywood stardom and an explosive social media presence while his partner in crime, Jake Armstrong, pursues his own vengeful agenda.
In the meantime, corrupt and lazy Deputy Roy Rains has a hard-luck time of covering up the crime in order to preserve his way of life.
And college student Melinda Kendall has hit the highway in a stolen ride with nothing but a .22 and limited options, on the run from her drug dealer boyfriend, the Mississippi State Police and the media, trying to escape some bad choices by making even more bad choices.
All three are on a collision course from hell in this crime story that reads like a blood-spattered road map of the American South.
The repercussions are felt across the American South when a pizza joint in sleepy Lake Castor, Virginia is robbed and the manager, Odie Shanks, is kidnapped. The kidnapping is the talk of the town, but it's what people don't know that threatens to rip asunder societal norms. Odie chases dreams of Hollywood stardom and an explosive social media presence while his partner in crime, Jake Armstrong, pursues his own vengeful agenda.
In the meantime, corrupt and lazy Deputy Roy Rains has a hard-luck time of covering up the crime in order to preserve his way of life.
And college student Melinda Kendall has hit the highway in a stolen ride with nothing but a .22 and limited options, on the run from her drug dealer boyfriend, the Mississippi State Police and the media, trying to escape some bad choices by making even more bad choices.
All three are on a collision course from hell in this crime story that reads like a blood-spattered road map of the American South.
Eryk:
HASHTAG
came to me one day when my car broke down and I ended up in a
twenty-four hour diner to wait for a ride. At that time, I would have
done anything to get out of that particular fix, including robbing
gas stations with a career criminal. Basically, I listened to Dylan's
HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED over and over again while filling up three
spiral notebooks with the story. Originally, there was more going on
(including an entire subplot starring Jake Armstrong's former
employer and a trio of lackluster security guards at a bus station)
but over the course of several rewrites, it got boiled down to what
was published.
Gef: Would you say
the writerly jitters were bigger in writing your sophomore novel or
your debut novel, Dirtbags? Or is it all just another day
at the office?
Eryk:
Somebody
somewhere gave me the indispensable advice to write your second book
while you are querying the first. That prevented a lot of jitters. I
received a lot of positive feedback for DIRTBAGS, and that builds a
lot of pressure. In a sense, it may have been easier to write a
second one if everybody hated the first one. But there was a lot of
second-guessing and wanting to tinker... I was grateful when it was
finally taken away from me.
Gef: How cozy a fit
does social media offer for crime fiction, do you figure? Seems like
the biggest stage yet for folks, fictional and otherwise, to let
their frailties flap in the wind.
Eryk:
I
dig what social media has done for crime fiction. I've been
introduced to some of the craziest minds in crime writing, thanks to
Twitter and Facebook, etc. Some days, when writing stories is a total
chore, it helps to read some hilarious quip by Mike Monson or Max
Booth III. People like yourself have been quite supportive and ten
years ago, we might not have made the connection. However, I've
learned my particular brand of flapping frailties can get me in
trouble, but what would you expect on the social media site of a guy
who wrote a book called DIRTBAGS?
Gef: How would you
say you've progressed as a writer thus far? Still feel your a ways
from gauging that yet, or have you noticed some changes in your
approach to the craft?
Eryk:
I think I've gotten crankier, for one. The other day a kid
kicked a ball into my yard and he needed a thesaurus to reckon what I
was hollering at him. When I first started writing, I would write a
lot about things that made me very angry, and there were a lot of
them. These days, it's hard to be angry when you've made your dream
come true. So I borrow what makes other people angry and put my
characters in those situations.
There's a big
difference between cranky and angry...
Gef: Anything
particular you've taken from your experience with filmmaking to apply
to writing?
Eryk:
Scriptwriting
has helped my fiction because I don't bother bogging myself down with
too many details. I can't stand reading a book where they take pages
to describe what a guy looks like or the landscape of a valley... I
find that's where my writing starts to sag the most, is describing
things that folks don't want described. Elmore Leonard once said
"Leave out the parts people tend to skip." Let's get these
folks in there to do what they have to do and have them do it hard,
rather than run up the word count describing what a water tower looks
like. WE KNOW WHAT A WATER TOWER LOOKS LIKE.
Gef: How much
emphasis do you place on setting as character? There's a bit of a
shared universe here between Dirtbags and Hashtag,
do you see that continuing?
Eryk:
I
love setting. I think stories in life and in fiction have a
sociology. A crime story in Texas is different than a crime story in
Canada, and that is because of where it is set. I am a huge proponent
of the New South. I think there is no wilder, scarier place in the
world than the American South and I love it, warts and all. I am
wrapping up work on another novel that takes place in Lake Castor,
but have outlined another which does not. However, they will probably
always be about the South.
Gef: What do you
consider to be the saving grace of noir?
Eryk:
I
think the saving grace will be its ability to have fun. I mean,
everything about noir novels is fun. Writing them, reading them,
talking about them... Horror and sci-fi used to be fun, but they get
so bogged down now in the politics and award fiascoes, etc. If you
don't believe me, walk into any horror or sci-fi convention and
openly declare that you like a particular author and watch how
divisive things get. That spirit of FUN keeps original storylines and
characters popping up in each title. Even books laden with despair
like Steve Weddle's Country
Hardball or
the novels of Benjamin Pike... they're tons of fun to read. Do you
honestly think Tommy Pynchon had fun until he "slummed it"
and wrote Inherent
Vice?
Gef: Last year you
offered up a soundtrack for Dirtbags. Were there any
songs in particular serenading you as you wrote Hashtag?
Eryk:
This book could not have been written without Bob
Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. I strongly encourage everyone to
read this book alongside that album and see what happens. Also, while
writing about Deputy Roy Rains, I listened to lots of Texas swing,
like Milton Brown and Bob Wills. Sweet Melinda listens to lots of
Skynyrd and CCR, so I did as well.
Gef: What's the
worst piece of writing advice you ever received? Or what piece of
writing advice do you wish would just go away?
Eryk:
People
always say to be a writer, you must write every day. I need
vacations. I need to go out and BS with people. I need to get into a
scrape or two. If all I did was sit in front of a computer and write,
and I follow that other axiom (WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW) then all I would
know about is lower back pain, eyes gone shitty, and a slowly
expanding waistline. No, I encourage everyone who wants to write to
get out and do things. Try crack. Have a threesome. Steal a car. Roll
a hobo. If you are supposed to "write what you know," then
you need to get out there and know things.
Gef: Any kind of
guilty pleasures when it comes to books or movies or whatnot? Got
some southern gothic My Little Pony fan-fic
tucked away in your trunk, maybe?
Eryk:
I love a good space opera. They are all the
same, but I'm so hooked on movies where a rag-tag team of astronauts
ends up in the furthest reaches of outer space, then bring something
on board which systematically eliminates them one-by-one. Alien,
Sunshine, Deep Space Nine, Supernova... I'm
a sucker for those things.
I love disaster
movies, but not the shitty ones. I'm a bit of a misanthrope, so when
I watch nature retake its domain by laying waste to man... it's like
porn to me.
And when I get
angry, I always watch Jaws. Cheers me right up.
Gef: What projects
are you cooking up that folks can expect in the near future, and how
can folks keep up with your shenanigans?
Eryk:
I'm
on Facebook and Twitter and my website is erykpruitt.com.
I have a short film based on my short story "The HooDoo of Sweet
Mama Rosa" which will be hitting the festival circuit this Fall.
We'll have a local screening before it hits the road. Also, another
film called "Keepsake" comes out this year that I wrote and
was directed by the uber-talented Meredith Sause. They both are
slices of Southern Gothic that I'm way proud of, so I hope to show
them off to as many people as possible. I'm working on a short story
collection called LUFKIN, so keep your eyes out for that. And I'm
finishing off what I hope to be my third novel.
So
I've been busy.
