It’s Halloween night and as seething sweets seekers troll
the streets, a local gang of outcasts known as the Ferals desperately search for their missing friend. Grandma Collins’
old-country stories about Stingy Jack have come true. The veil between the living and dead is thin and children’s
souls are irresistible. The Ferals must face the thing that lurks in the dark to rescue their friend before it’s
too late.
Delving into the lore of the jack-o’-lantern, most people adorn their porches
and steps with carved pumpkins to ward off evil spirits. However, what if the pumpkin lanterns aren’t warding
evil, what if they are attracting it? In this reimagined tale of the Celtic lore, the Ferals must find an
Underworld wandering entity that collects children to trade their souls to the Devil.
I asked Brian Serven a few questions about the book, and you can read the answers below!
Q: In a genre where it seems like everyone is trying to come up with a new twist or a new feel, what inspired you to take on the seemingly challenging task of writing such a classic Halloween story?
A: The inspiration for Lore of the Jack-O’-Lantern, in part, came from attending an event called Long Story Short: Dark Tales at an art space in Portsmouth, NH. Three presenters shared stories of haunted house experiences, UFO sightings, and an excerpt from a local author’s horror novel. I shared with my brother that I thought it would be fun to write a story that would fit into a short time slot at an event like this – so, the audience could hear a full story and not just a small part.
A year later, I received an invitation to share a story, which I agreed to do, although I didn’t have anything written yet. With just a few short weeks to come up with something, I decided that in the spirit of the season, I wanted to write something definitively Halloween-themed. General horror has no season, so I started thinking about the roots of Halloween and its rituals. Pumpkins carved with leering faces really epitomizes Halloween, more than any other icon.
That’s when I came upon the lore of Stingy Jack and carved turnips. Like many oral stories later written down, there were variances in the details of the stories, but the common thread was compelling. Naturally, I took some liberties with his story – one being that for Jack to encounter pumpkins, like we carve here, he had to be in the Northeast during the era of the story. The overall approach though was a nod to the timelessness of innocent children facing universal fears.
I read a much shorter version at the Dark Tales event and then was invited to read it on a radio show a month later. Once Halloween was over, I removed all time constraints and allowed myself to follow the characters and let the story grow and mature. Contrary to impressions, it wasn’t written for children, but because it was written to be read before a general audience, it is accessible to everyone.
After the book was published, I was able to perform the live reading with character actors reading dialogue, illustrations projected on a screen to be seen as the story is told, sound effects triggered, and I wrote seven original music interludes that were played live between chapters. The essence of the live performance was captured in the audiobook, which is more like a radio play. The live performance element was also the reason I chose to write it in present tense, which I know is unpopular, but I wanted listeners and readers to feel the urgency.
So, really, perhaps the deepest driving inspiration is wanting to create an immersive experience. I wanted adults (and children who would one day be adults) to feel nostalgic, to long for the place and time, to remember their childhoods, and to be able to come back to it because it's not about some mind-blowing plot twist, jolt or shock. This book tries to create a little world to lose yourself in as your shadows grow longer and Jack Frost gives you a chill at night.
Q: What are some of your favorite urban legends and well-known scary stories? Did any of them serve as inspiration when you were writing Lore of the Jack-O-Lantern?
A: I trust that growing up in southeastern New Hampshire, really the center of New England, played a role in imbuing my psyche with tales of horror and the macabre. From the fears of the indigenous peoples who strived to live in harmony with the land and spirit world, to the migrating old-world fears of early Puritans and Protestants that were mixed with new world unknowns, to the unrelenting shore lines, dark valleys, towering mountains, and foreboding forests, and finally to authors like King and Lovecraft weaving tales of madness and ancient evils – it’s hard to pin down specific means of inspiration.
I’ve always been fascinated with the origins of lore, myths, fables, and hymns. With these influences in mind, I composed an extension to the last song on the audiobook, He Just Keeps Coming, that features voices including my own, family members, friends, and children.
One of the liberties I took with Stingy Jack is that as he wanders looking for prey, he whistles a somber tune. In the audiobook you can hear the melody (if you can call it that) throughout the story. There are two songs that feature the melody. The first is We Saw Jack, where in the middle of the building song, there’s a break, the melody is played on guitar before the drums kick in symbolizing the kids running.
The second song, He Just Keeps Coming, features the melody combined with the words, “Like the plague, he just keeps coming.” The idea behind this is that (in my own world of Stingy Jack) when Jack would come along to snatch children, townsfolk would hear the eerie melody in the air as he left. They remembered the melody and coupled it with the words, “Like the plague, he just keeps coming.” The parents of future generations sang those words, using his melody as a tale of warning. Hoping that if their children heard the melody, the words would leap into their minds, and they’d run home to safety.
Q: Are you working on anything new? Is there any intention to continue writing spooky tales that are fun for all ages, or can we expect to see different things from you?
Before writing Lore of the Jack-O’-Lantern, I had taken a step back from a hardcore band I’d been in for a couple decades called BACKSTABBERS INC. The audiobook version of Lore of the Jack-O’-Lantern allowed me to bridge storytelling and music, which I’d really missed composing. I’m sort of swinging on a pendulum between storytelling and music composing.
Like most artists, I have an untold number of ideas and projects, but at the forefront, there are two literary projects I’m dividing my time between.
One is a flash fiction / short story / lyrical prose collection named Nocturnum Malorum that will be home to stories like “Agora”, which is about an entity that secretly visits victims at night (Nocturnum Malorum translates to “Night Troubles”) and scrambles their minds creating what would be diagnosed as agoraphobia. It’s a lofty project that would require visual artistic talents beyond my skill set to capture the essence of the stories as well as many of the lyrical prose pieces would be accompanied by music, which I’ve been slowly working on.
The other major project is a novel that I had shelved to prioritize Lore of the Jack-O’-Lantern and the subsequent audiobook production. I’ve been ruminating on the potential of it being part of a series that addresses my views of the afterlife, told through three novels. The other two novels have been outlined and parts written, but I really need to nail down the first. I will be seeking BETA readers for the first novel in early 2025. The content is undoubtedly more mature than Lore of the Jack-O’-Lantern, though I trust if categorized, these books would be considered Quiet Horror, a subgenre often considered accessible, which was also the approach to Lore of the Jack-O’-Lantern.
You can purchase the book, along with a physical CD of the audiobook, on Brian Serven's Etsy shop here. You can also find the audiobook digitally on Bandcamp and other vendor sites.
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