Christopher Bollen (born November 26, 1975) is a novelist and magazine writer/editor who lives in New York City.
When you create a fence, you keep people out, but you also limit your mobility.
People aren't doing whodunits anymore.
I feel that I'm solid at description.
I have always wanted to be either a cinematographer or a veterinarian.
There is a value to moving more slowly through a story.
For me, cultivation of my own style really started by looking at people. There are just some really beautiful people in the world. When you're walking down the street, or you're at a restaurant, someone catches your eye because they have their own look. It goes way beyond what they're wearing-into their mannerisms, the way they smile, or just the way they hold themselves.
There's a great scene in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre [1974] that I'm obsessed with: Sally is being chased by Leatherface with a chainsaw. And she runs into thorn bushes. And she's getting tangled up in it because she's running fast. But Sally needs to move slowly in order to get through the bushes - she will get farther faster by going slowly because her hair and clothes won't get tangled and caught. There's something really beautiful about understanding that, while someone's chasing you with a chainsaw, you have to move more slowly in order to get away.
There is something very romantic about the orphan figure in American literature.
Talking to all those great writers and artists for the magazine was a form of graduate school for me.
I'm ultimately not so much of a professor as a progresser. And I'm ready to move away from what I consider to be this weird mid-century dream that I feel pulls us as a country, and us as a culture, backward.
It's always surprised me that mainstream America had the good taste to like R. E. M. It doesn't have the digestible quality the general public tends to look for in its favorite musicians.
I smoke cigarettes when I write, which is disgusting, but it really helps me.
I also remember when I watched Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer [1990] at, like, age 15. That scared the crap out of me. Because it didn't operate inside the usual conventions of the horror genre in the way that I could accept. I can accept horny teenager counselors being murdered at camp. But I couldn't accept the derangement of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, which was that anyone could be murdered at any moment - whole families, with no build-up music and no meaning. It terrified me.
There's also something sexual about watching the nubile girl in terror. But you do take on her fear as your own.
I was a very scared child.
Safety, reputation, their lives, their friends, and their world. Writers typically try to avoid that because it's not expedient.
The death drive is parasitic. It runs off of other drives, leeching off of them.
Secrets are never secure because they are always at risk of being found out.
I definitely don't take any of intrusions in my private life personally. You learn how to have a sense of humor pretty quickly. I honestly don't keep up on it unless it's something that would hurt someone else. I can take care of myself, that's not the problem. But it's just not fair to bring anyone else into the picture.
I don't think secrets are a bad thing. I think there's this idea that everything needs to be transparent in order for it to be free.