In “The Monster Fucker Club,” five teenage girls are dissatisfied with living in a world of people who bring AR-15s to school, ban books from libraries, and trash the environment with cheap plastic conveniences—yes, that world—and they’ve found a seductive escape in the embrace of some local monsters. These monsters might be dangerous, but they’re also fiercely loyal, very protective, and always horny. Most of all, they allow the young women to be weird, and who doesn’t want to be weird when the adults of a generation have made “normal” such a fucked-up, fake, and wasteful way to be.
A.V. Greene is a writer living in the Ozarks with her family and a collection of carnivorous flora and fauna. For more, visit http://avgreene.com or follow her on Twitter at @avgreenewrites.
Marissa van Uden: Thank you so much for joining us to talk about writing and monsters! You did this masterful thing in “The Monster Fucker Club” where the so-called sinners put themselves into dangerous situations to chase their fix, and yet their drug of choice—monster sex—is also something that protects them from all the mundane horrors their parents’ generation helped to create. Can you tell us about what inspired you to write about this push/pull between mundane and mysterious risk. How did the idea for the story first come about?
A.V. Greene: Writing this story felt like a collision between several heavy pieces of mental machinery. I’ve been a little worried about what in the world I would say if anyone asked me to explain myself for this one, so here goes!
I’ve been falling in love with fictional monsters, human-ish and otherwise, for most of my life, but I’m entirely aware of how misogynistic the bones of a typical Beauty and the Beast-type romance are. Beauty (or Christine Daae, or Mina Harker, or whoever) is so obnoxiously morally pure. Her motives are selfless; her love is true and unconditional. Her corruption must be prevented at all costs. Excruciatingly boring.
But then there’s Little Red Riding Hood, whose tale is so much more drenched in sexuality and taboo (earlier versions involve cannibalism and a not-at-all-subtle final sequence in which she willingly throws all her clothes on the fire and gets into bed with the wolf before being devoured). Beauty may be blameless, but Little Red makes a choice to step off that path. And sure, the moral of her story is, don’t step off the path, but she’s still a far more interesting character for having done it.
So, I wanted to write about monster crushes with Red’s bad girl energy and without allowing my protagonists to be avatars of imperiled femininity, which is such a damaging and easily weaponized trope. These are girls who are fully aware that they’re making bad choices, but they do choose instead of letting anyone else choose for them.
As I wrote them, though, I discovered they were living in the present American moment instead of my own teenage past, and that actually became the heart of the story for me. Right now, there are mainstream extremist groups working tirelessly to silence marginalized voices, particularly voices of color and LGBTQ+ voices, in what is purportedly an attempt to “protect childhood innocence.”
Now, I don’t for one second believe this has anything to do with kids or their wellbeing and everything to do with organized bigotry. Still, the sheer absurdity of the adult world clutching its pearls over library books while continuing to subject children to school shootings, escalating climate change, and the heavy shadow of our uncertain future is staggering and far more obscene to me than a sexy encounter with the Mothman.
MVU: Amen! So well said. The main character constantly feels like there is a plastic divider between her and the reality she is expected to participate in. When she tries to live this supposedly “good” and “normal” life, she is repulsed by the indifference to ecosystem destruction, the wasteful convenience, the humaness. She craves transcendence, not happiness.
Do you think that the insatiable pursuit of happiness (which I think in modern times has become the endless pursuit of convenience) is contributing to making people more anxious, depressed, and disassociated from the natural world and each other? Is it slowly making us all into monsters?
AVG: Absolutely. Or maybe I think that our relentless pursuit of happiness is making us less monstrous, and that’s what’s ruining us. It’s like we’re trying to turn the messy experience of being a human mind trapped in our weird, hairy, smelly, nervy human bodies into the minimalist neutral décor of a stylish Airbnb. I don’t think anyone actually wants that, even as the hearts pour in on social media and push us deeper into these weird plasticky simulacra of ourselves we’re piloting around our worlds.
While I’m at it, I also think happiness is a really limited and self-serving goal, and most of us, deep down, know it. There’s so much more to being alive than being happy.
Drosera capensis, aka Cape Sundew, aka Murder by Sparkles
MVU: That’s a good point. I’d take monstery messiness over the churning masses of simulacraany day.I loved your short story “Highway Hypnosis” published by Uncharted Mag. It’s a truly hypnotic piece that draws the reader in on the journey and builds slow dread. I don’t want to give too much away for readers who haven’t read it yet, but I noticed some overlapping themes there. This line in particular stuck out to me: “Because you, like this predator, are hungry for something.”Is there something that attracts you to these curious young characters who have a dark hunger in them, and who may be actively desiring to meet the monsters in the woods?
AVG: Thank you so much for reading it! I wrote that story in Gwendolyn Kiste’s excellent LitReactor course “Monster Mash.” After I finished it, I didn’t feel like I was quite done exploring some of the doors it opened, and “The Monster Fucker Club” definitely came out of those unquiet waters. I think I’ve been trying to make sense of my own teenage years, which are even more confusing to me in retrospect than they were at the time, which is saying something. Looking back, I’m struck by how badly I wanted those external monsters to come along and give me permission to break the rules, while more or less ignoring much of an anarchic mess my own emotions, choices, and desires already were.
Besides, if there are monsters out there, there’s also magic. And that means there’s more to the world than parking lots and listicles.
MVU: When and where do you tend to get most of your writing done? Do you have any particular writing rituals you perform to get yourself in the right headspace?
AVG: I lead a very ordered life, with well-structured routines that the parenting books say are so important, and I get a lot done at work and at home by being hyper-organized and efficient. So, for me, it is vital that my writing be a place where chaos absolutely fucking reigns.
I got serious about writing right after having a baby, because that experience provided absolute clarity about the reality that I was going to die eventually and so I’d better do the things I wanted to do while I was alive. That meant that if writing was going to happen, it was going to happen on an incredibly unpredictable schedule for a duration I couldn’t control, and I’d be doing it despite being exhausted and working through a bit of postpartum depression. This, incidentally, was excellent prep for writing throughout the past few pandemic years.
So the only ritual I have is that I fire up Word or Scrivener and I go, whenever and wherever I can. I’m an incorrigible pantser, I bounce between projects with wild abandon, and it’s such a tremendous source of joy for me to behave like that.
It’s not the only way to write, of course, and I’d probably be more prolific and make more effective use of my time if I were more disciplined. But I’m truly the happiest and most honest as a writer when I’m channeling Schmendrick the Magician from The Last Unicorn,yelling, “magic, do as you will,” and just going for it.
Sarracenia hybrid, aka American Pitcher Plant, aka Mama Tuba (as named by the author's daughter)
MVU: As a huge Schmendrick fan, that made me smile so much!What books, films, or other art have most influenced you as a writer, and was there anything you’ve consumed recently that has had a profound impact on you?
AVG: Any discussion of this particular story has to include a mention of the great Hailey Piper. I’m not sure this story would have existed if her Queen of Teeth hadn’t slithered into my life and dared me to Go There.
I’m also a huge fan of Stephen Graham Jones, Gemma Files, Rivers Solomon, and T. Kingfisher, and I’ve recently discovered the incredible work of Christi Nogle, Patrick Barb, Mary Rajotte, R.J. Joseph, Victoria Nations, and Kathleen Palm. It’s a particularly great time to be a horror reader, basically.
I’m always up for rereading Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson, Watership Down by Richard Adams, A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle, or anything by Angela Carter or Shirley Jackson.
I’ve been really gut-punched recently by How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu, The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan, Bewilderment by Richard Powers, and The Book of Eels by Patrick Svensson.
And, of course, shoutouts to all the monsters.
MVU: Was there a particular moment in your life when you knew you wanted to be a writer? Did you have other writers or artists in the family growing up?
AVG: Yes! I was in kindergarten, staring at Whisper the Winged Unicorn, and I got to wondering if I could ever write as neatly as the words were printed (because in my little-kid brain, in a world where home printers weren’t quite so ubiquitous, I assumed someone had actually handwritten them). And then I had a lightning flash moment of realizing I wanted to write words in a book for someone I’d never met to read. And that’s pretty much been my most dearly held dream ever since.
My mother was a teacher and holds a PhD in English literature. She writes poetry too, although she won’t let me talk her into submitting it for publication. My love of reading came straight from Mom, and she never limited what I could read, for which I’m extremely grateful. Did I read some age-inappropriate stuff? Oh, most definitely. Most definitely. Thank god.
My whole family was also very involved in community theater. My brother and sister grew up to pursue theater professionally, and they’re both talented artists and writers on top of that. They’re both amazing at everything they do, and I can’t tell you what a privilege it is to be related to them.
MVU: In your online bios, you mention living with a collection of carnivorous flora and fauna. I’m intrigued. Please tell us more about these carnivores you live with and how you got into keeping them.
AVG: As far as the fauna goes, we’re actually at a historically low body count in my house right now—three humans, a tiny, nervous cat named Serif, a freakishly large feline cannonball named Pumpkin, and a nineteen-year-old bichon/poodle mix named Larry, who doesn’t see or hear much anymore but still loves everyone very much.
I’ve always had pets in my life—at one point I lived in a one-bedroom apartment with two corn snakes, two cats, two rats, and a rose hair tarantula named Fluffy (the tarantula was the best-behaved of us all). I was never much of a plant person though until my sister sent me a Venus flytrap for Christmas. I’ve been kind of obsessed with carnivorous plants ever since. They’re just so charismatic and fun to fuss over. Right now I’m keeping sundews and pitcher plants in addition to VFTs. Not only are they all delightfully weird, the whole idea of a plant that eats meat is such an incredible bit of genre blending, you know?
MVU: Thankyou so much for sharing more about your story and writing! Can you tell our readers where else they can find any of your published or upcoming work, or share anything you’re excited to be working on at the moment?
AVG: Definitely! I’m very excited about a new project germinating right now that I think is going to grow up to be a horror novella—it’s meaner and bloodier than I usually get, and it’s been fun/cathartic to really let loose on the page like that. I also gleefully overshare in my newsletter and link to my other published work at avgreene.com.
