Excerpt:
Autumn, 1907: late one morning, some kind of torrid, invisible beast seemed to wrap itself all around Fingal T. Smyth’s body. Each one of his toes twitching fiercely, he exited the castle and scanned the distant, Scottish Highlands. Go back where you came from. As the entity wrapped itself tighter all about his person, Fingal blinked back his tears. I’m melting, I am. Aye, it’s the heat of fusion.
Gradually, the beast’s heartbeat became audible—each pulsation. At the same time, too, the illusory heat of transformation emitted an odor as of oven-roasted peppercorns dissolving in a cup of burnt coffee.
Over by the gatehouse, Fräulein Wunderwaffe appeared—the little German girl wearing a plain-sewn robe and square-crown bowler. In that moment, she no longer seemed to be a sickly child of seven years: her inscrutable expression resembled that of a wise, indifferent cat.
Perhaps even some kind of lioness. Fingal cringed, and he recalled a fragment of conversation from three weeks earlier.
“She suffers from a most unnatural pathology, an anguished, maniacal obsession with cats,”
Doktor Hubertus Pflug had explained. “Ever since the poor girl was a baby, she has always regarded it her fate to one day metamorphose into a glorious panther, for she believes herself to be ein Gestaltwandler. Do you know this word? It means shapeshifter and refers to someone who possesses the power to take the form of anything in nature.”
The heat radiated up and down Fingal’s spine now, and his thoughts turned back to the present. Aye, it’s a change of phase. I’m melting into a chemical compound. Despite all, he greeted the girl and willed himself to flash a grin.
Fräulein Wunderwaffe did not return the smile. Hand on heart, the little girl drew a bit closer.
Then, as the hot, animalistic presence undulated all across Fingal’s body, the little girl’s eyes grew wide. Until the little girl’s expression turned to that of a vacant stare.
A moment later, her feet pointed inwards, she removed her hat and undid her long, flaxen hair.
Again, he cringed. “If you’ve noticed something, ignore all. This hasn’t got anything to do with you.” A third time, he cringed.
A most ethereal, lyrical, incomprehensible hiss commenced then: from the other end of the winding, decorative-brick driveway, each clay block shining the color of blue Welsh stone, a sleek Siamese cat with a coat of chocolate-spotted ivory had just appeared. And now the creature raced toward his shadow.
As he looked into the animal’s big, searching, blue eyes, the chocolate Siamese studied the off-center tip of his nose. Then the animal turned away, as if to compare the peculiarity with that of some disembodied visage hovering in the distance.
Out upon the loch, meanwhile, a miraculous rogue wave suddenly arose—and now the swell crashed against the pebbly strand.
Not a moment later, a cool flame crawled across Fingal’s throat. The strange fire rattled, too—not unlike the sound of fallen juniper leaves caught up in the current and dancing against the surface of a stone walkway.
Crivens. By now, the alien, pulsating presence held him so tight that he could barely breathe.
Before long, he fell to the earth, and as the dreamlike flame continued to move across his throat, he rolled all about—until the illusory sensation of cool warmth wriggled and twisted and dropped into his neck dimple.
He crawled over to the little girl and grabbed her ankle. “Get on up to your physician’s room, eh?
Please. Go on and wake Doktor Pflug and tell him what’s happened.”
The Book Junkie Reads . . . Interview with . . . M. Laszlo . . .
How would you describe your style of writing to someone that has never read your work?
My writing is clear and to the point. Every sentence has to be lucid. There is no attempt at beguiling the reader.
Do you feel that writing is an ingrained process or just something that flows naturally for you?
Honestly, writing is both ingrained and naturally flowing. A writer’s unconscious mind handles all that—something like a muse.
Do you take your character prep to heart? Do you nurture the growth of each character all the way through to the page?
Yes and no. The thing is we can start out with a character and give said character a big problem. However, only by drafting out the tale can we begin to hear the character ask for and/or demand different nuances and variations.
Do you people watch to help with character(s) development? Or do you build upon your characters during story creation?
I only ever build upon the character during story creation. Still, every character is a bit of a composite and embodies things we observe in people—both strangers and friends and relatives, etc.
Do you have a character that you have been working on for a long time that still isn't quite ready, but fills you with excitement to work on the story?
Absolutely. My computer is filled with such things, but I’ll get to all that eventually.
Have you found yourself bonding with any particular character(s)? If so, which one(s)?
There is no bonding. Still, one must maintain a friendly tone. There is no reason to hate your point-of-view character or characters. Even if they are flawed, the author must at least try to see the good in that person. If the author does, perhaps the reader will see the good, too.
Do you have a character that you have been working on that you can't wait to put to paper?
Yes, of course. This is due to the fact that a well-explicated character can serve to teach the reader something important about the mind, politics, death, good and evil, honesty and dishonesty, ethics, and education. A good writer wants to create characters who can teach the reader something important.
Can you share your next creative project(s)? If yes, can you give a few details?
I’m working on a coming-of-age novel that will show some of the pitfalls that other coming-of-age novels don’t always show. It’s always a good idea to try to add something different to the coming-of-age genre.
What are some of your writing/publishing goals for this year?
No other goals other than the aforementioned coming-of-age work. I rarely bite off more than I can chew.
Have you ever felt that there was something inside of you that you couldn't control? If so, what? If no, what spurs you to reach for the unexperienced?
I have always wanted to grasp the riddle of the universe, and I have never been intellectually satisfied with what I’ve read; hence my book, On the Threshold.
If you could have dinner/dinner party with 7 fictional characters, who would they be?
Dr. Frankenstein, Gatsby, Kafka’s Joseph K., Bartleby the Scrivener, Valentine Michael Smith, and Jim Nightshade and William Halloway from Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.
If you could spend one-week with 5 fictional characters, who would they be and where would you spend that time?
It’d be nice to spend time with the rabbits from Watership Down by Richard Adams. Hopefully, we’d just spend the time in a peaceful place where all warrens are safe from destruction.
If you could go ANYWhere, money is not a concern, and spend one full year. Where would you go and what would you do with this time?
I think I’d go to a small town in the Midwest and take piano lessons. Books may be best, but music is also quite a beautiful thing in this world.
LIGHTNING ROUND
What genre do you read?
Anything and everything. Non-fiction is wonderful, too.
What genre do you write?
Trans-genre/slipstream. My stuff has elements of any number of genres including historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and several others.
What was the first book you fell in love with?
Pickle Chiffon Pie by Jolly Roger Bradfield.
What was a book you said you would never pick up again?
Dry political novels sap my will to live. Also, I found Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates to be relentlessly depressing.
Which fiction character do you love?
Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein.
Which fiction character do you love to hate?
Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They remind me of my father.
What beverage do you drink while reading?
Coffee. Usually Dunkin’ Doughnuts decaf.
What do you snack on while reading?
Caramels stuffed with vanilla.
Have you always enjoyed reading?
I think so. It’s just that for me the switch from comic books to literature took several years—really from the sixth grade through the ninth grade.
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