We welcome author Grant Longstaff to DEMAIN with his exciting new stand-alone title Between The Teeth Of Charon (cover by Adrian Baldwin) – released as an ebook on June 24th.
After Jack’s wife passes away he is asked by their friend, Ellen, to fulfil a promise his wife made a long time ago. Reluctantly, Jack agrees and, along with Ellen and her granddaughter Dani, the three return to Hethpool Grange – a forgotten hospital in Northumberland – to confront a dark and brutal past. A past Jack has tried for almost sixty years to forget. But there is something waiting for them in Hethpool Grange. Something which has not forgotten, or forgiven, their sins. And it is hungry.
Grant Longstaff Talks To Demain Publishing
(Originally featured on the Demain Publishing Blog, 5th February 2022 HERE)
DEMAIN PUBLISHING: Welcome Grant to DEMAIN, loved reading Between The Teeth Of Charon and can’t wait to unleash it (so to speak haha) – no better place to start than at the beginning: can you tell us all a little about yourself.
GRANT LONGSTAFF: Hi Dean and yes! I’m from Gateshead, a town in the north east of England. The poor relation of Newcastle. I’ve always loved stories. Books, TV, film, theatre, games even – sometimes you just want to lose yourself. Growing up in Gateshead, there was a need for it. I suppose it was inevitable I would eventually want to try and tell stories of my own. I’ve been writing for the last few years and I’ve had a handful of stories creep out into the world. Between the Teeth of Charon is the longest of those and my first solo release.
DP: Is it? Well, well done! Thoroughly deserved. What would you say was your first introduction to the horror genre?
GL: That came unexpectedly when I was around five or six years old. My mother entrusted me to my great grandparents whilst she went to work. My Granda, who we affectionately called ‘Nutty Granda’, had recorded a film for me to watch. He sticks me in a chair, pops in the VHS, presses play and leaves me to it. Turns out the film was the 1989 classic, Puppet Master. Rated 18. A film about murderous puppets. I had nightmares for weeks. Probably goes some way to explaining why my Granda was given his Nutty moniker.
DP: Oh my lord! That’s the one directed by Charles Band for Full Moon if memory serves. Great movie. I like your Granda already. Tell us about Between The Teeth Of Charon.
GL: Between the Teeth of Charon tells the story of Jack, a pensioner, who has recently lost his wife, Nora. Jack is asked by their friend, Ellen, to fulfil a promise Nora made a long time ago. Reluctantly, Jack agrees and, along with Ellen and her grand-daughter Dani, the three return to Hethpool Grange – a forgotten psychiatric hospital in Northumberland – to confront a dark and brutal past. A past Jack has tried for almost sixty years to forget. The abandoned hospital is fertile ground for horror, there have been many books and films with such a setting. I hope Between the Teeth of Charon adds something.
DP: I don’t see why it won’t. I really enjoyed the characters, the plot and the story as a whole so again well done. As you say there have been other books/films with a similar setting so could you write from ‘memory’ or did you have to do a lot of research?
GL: I spent a lot of time researching the history of mental health treatment before and during writing. I read testimonies from people who had endured years of abuse. People left broken by the institutions who were supposed to help them. Of course there were historical accounts from places like Bethlem/Bedlam, but not all the stories were dredged from the days of overcrowded lunatic asylums in the 1800s. Many were from people still alive today. We’re talking about relatively recent history. I also read up on lobotomy (also known as leucotomy). I have always found the concept chilling; a procedure that can reduce a person to just a shadow of themselves, carried out with a tool modelled on an ice pick. So many patients were needlessly lobotomised, the amount of harm this operation caused far outweighed the good. Alongside this I trawled through images and videos made by urban explorers to get a feel for the architecture and decay which Jack, Ellen and Dani might experience. Most of the research didn’t make the story, but it did inform how I envisaged the world of Hethpool Grange and the horrors which may have taken place there.
DP: And personally I think you really succeeded in dragging us into that world! Are any of the characters based on real people?
GL: No, the characters are fictional. But I will say that I know a lot of strong and driven women, both in my family and among friends. I hope their strength bled into Ellen, Nora and Dani. Jack on the other hand is much closer to me – guilty of being a bit of a passenger. I was not prepared for this therapy session…
DP: Haha that’s what happens my friend. I was wondering, did the novelette take a long time to write?
GL: It was written in two parts. I wrote a chunk, went away, and returned a few months later to finish it. I probably took three months or so to write each part. I’m a terribly slow writer. Believe it or not the idea for this story – or rather some iteration of it – has been kicking around for about 20 years. It looks a lot different now to how it did back then. Unrecognisable. When I was a teenager I envisaged writing a sprawling novel about a small town living in the shadow of an old hospital. Probably heavily influenced by the work of Mr King. A few years back it developed into story with multiple points of view. The town was exorcised, replaced by a group of disparate characters drawn to the hospital for one reason or another. I wrote 30,000 words before abandoning it. Over the years, the story kept shrinking, becoming smaller and more personal, until it became what it is today.
DP: And I think it’s much better for that (though I will admit I like the idea of a sprawling novel in the small town too…). Who influences Grant Longstaff?
GL: Where do I start? There are of course the big hitters. Stephen King. Shirley Jackson. Joe Hill. Richard Matheson. I’m also in awe of Paul Tremblay and Stephen Graham Jones. They have such an easy way with words, their stories seem to zip by effortlessly. I mean, I’m sure they have to work at it, but they make it look so bloody easy! There are so many others I could name or talk about. Check out any of the following: Michael Wehunt, Ray Cluley, Lynda E. Rucker, Nathan Ballingrud, Victor LaValle, Carrie Laben, Norman Partridge, Hailey Piper, Max Booth III, Eliza Clark, Ian Rogers and so many more I’m forgetting right now. When I grow up I’d love to be able to write as well as any one of them. I’m also regularly motivated by Dan Howarth, Kev Harrison and Paul Feeney. They keep me turning up at the keyboard and hold me accountable. Bastards.
DP: Some great names there and you should be proud that one or two of them are now your stable-mates! Let’s talk about ‘horror’ – what does that mean to you?
GL: Stephen King said it best when he said, “we make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones”. Horror gets a bad reputation, but it does what all other fiction does. It allows writers and readers to explore elements of real life through the safety of a lens. The universal themes are the same. It’s just that with horror things tend to get a little bloodier, a little weirder. The horror of real life is always closer than we think. At least in fiction we can understand the rules. There is solace in stakes and silver bullets when you compare it to the terrifying unpredictability of reality. Not sure where that came from. Yikes.
DP: And what a great place to finish…Thanks Grant for your time, all the best with Between The Teeth Of Charon.
Grant Longstaff
Grant Longstaff is from Gateshead; a small, suitably dismal town in the north east of England where nothing much happens. He had no choice but to write fiction. His work has appeared in the Bram Stoker Nominated Arterial Bloom edited by Mercedes M. Yardley, Shallow Waters Vol. 8 and Aurealis Magazine and on The Other Stories and Tales to Terrify podcasts. Between the Teeth of Charon is his first solo release. You can find him on Twitter @GrantLongstaff or visit www.grantlongstaff.co.uk
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