Dark bleatings everyone! Due to my insane level of excitement about the release of The Perfectly Fine Neighborhood, I took it upon myself to harass the authors involved until they agreed to be interviewed. Er… I mean, I asked them nicely and they immediately, kindly complied. So let’s start with Jeff Strand.
Jeff Strand is an author who needs no introduction, so I won’t bother giving him one.
I’m just kidding. Strand is an author of multiple works and lives in the permanent limbo between horror and comedy. He’s really good at straddling that line, so much so that I’ve nicknamed him Jeff ‘The Sassy Straddler’ Strand. He’s a Bram Stoker Award winner, a major talent, and in my opinion, quite a hoot. The guy who wrote the novelisation of ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes’ is clearly someone I’d like to hang out with.
Kayleigh: Hi Jeff! Prepare to be grilled! Firstly, can you tell us a bit about your story in The Perfectly Fine Neighborhood? Was it influenced by anything outside of the theme?
Jeff: The inspiration came directly from The Perfectly Fine House. If a married couple was separated by death, perhaps the deceased spouse wouldn’t be satisfied with sex via a surrogate. From there, I came up with the idea of a dead woman who hired an assassin to kill her living husband. Hey, he’d said he couldn’t live without her…
Kayleigh: It’s an excellent take on the theme! You’re so experienced now, can you remember what first made you want to write?
Jeff: I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I don’t come from a family of writers, but my parents were both avid readers, so it made its way into my DNA.
Kayleigh: I think my love of reading and horror came from my mum and aunties. They’re all rabid Stephen King fans. He was my gateway into the genre. What was yours?
Jeff: A book called Things You Always Wanted to Know About Monsters But Were Afraid to Ask by Tony Tallarico. (Having just looked up the spelling of his name, I see that he died last year. Damn.)
K: I’ve just added that to my wish list. Do you have a favourite author or book these days?
Jeff: Robert McCammon’s Swan Song. If you want an answer from this century, Nick Cutter’s The Troop.
K: The Troop is fabulous! I’ve yet to read Swan Song. Name a book that you wished more people talked about!
Jeff: Of mine? I’ll go with Bring Her Back. Maybe that’s my favorite of my own work. Because I promoted it as a tale of revenge instead of a horror novel, sales weren’t quite where I wanted them to be, but that one is daaaaaark.
K: I was about to ask if you have a favorite of your own work?
Jeff: It changes every day. For the purposes of this interview I’ll say Cyclops Road. No, Blister. My Pretties? I dunno.
K: Are you working on something new right now (she asks hopefully)?
Jeff: Always. The only way I can do this full-time is to be prolific, so I’m always working on the next book!
K: Yay! Can you tell us something about yourself that people might not know?
Jeff: For 20 years I worked a day job that involved analyzing numbers, and I was very good at it. Most people probably assume that “detail-oriented number analysis” and “wrote the novelization of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” aren’t compatible skill sets.
K: That’s good to know for when I next get stuck trying to work out my taxes. Finally, and most importantly…. what is your zombie apocalypse plan?
Jeff: “Well, I had a good run.”
K: Er…. *crosses Jeff off my Zombie Apocalypse Survivor Team’ list* Thank you, Jeff! It was a ple…. oh, he’s already escaped. I shouldn’t have loosened the ropes until I finished talking.
If you would like to grab a copy of The Perfectly Fine Neighborhood, look Jeff up, or check out his work, all of the links you need are below (any pictures are embedded with links):
Happy Goat Horror 
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