Given what’s going on with the world, you might think this would be a bad time to offer sanctuary to a stranger, even if they have a child with them.
But that’s exactly what Charlie does in Christopher Golden’s new folk horror thriller novel The Night Birds (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook).
And yeah, it ends up being a bad time. It’s a horror novel; not a warm and fuzzy novel.
In the following email interview, Golden discusses what inspired and influenced this horror story.
Photo Credit: Shivohn Kacy Fleming
To start, what is The Night Birds about, and when and where does it take place?
Charlie Book works for the Texas Department of Wildlife. His latest research project is the Christabel, a half-sunken century-old freighter just off the coast of Galveston that has a forest of mangrove trees growing up through its rusted hull. Book is living on the ship as he studies it.
In the middle of a tropical storm, he’s approached by his ex-love Ruby Cahill and another woman, a stranger. The two women have a baby with them, and Ruby pleads with Book to hide them on board the Christabel. They’re on the run from a group of women who worship ancient Icelandic magic, and who want that baby, and will do anything to get him.
Where did you get the idea for The Night Birds, and how different is the finished story from what you originally conceived?
Like many stories, it started with two ideas that felt linked to me: these two women on the run with a baby, pursued by…well, let’s call them the Night Birds…and the story of Book and Ruby, whose deep love was shattered by tragedy, and who are thrown back together again in the shadow of their past pain.
The missing ingredient was the Christabel, which is based on a real freighter that sits half-sunken off the coast of Australia. That forest of hemlock trees is real, it’s just on the other side of the world from where I’ve set it.
So, is there a reason the Christabel is off the coast of Galveston, Texas as opposed to some other coastal city in the U.S.? Or, not to be obvious, the coast of Australia?
A lot of my books have taken place away from the U.S., but I wanted this story to take place here. It required certain elements: a place with a history of devastating hurricanes, a place with a busy history of shipping, and a place where mangrove trees grow. Galveston was the perfect choice.
The Night Birds is obviously a horror novel. But is it a specific kind of horror novel?
I don’t ever sit down and try to figure out those labels. Sometimes they just sort of happen. Alma Katsu started referring to me as “the king of horror thrillers” last year, and some others have followed her lead. I’m not making any claims along those lines, but I do think many of my novels fall into that “horror thriller” category. There’s definitely a heavy folk horror element as well, which might not seem to match up with the thriller element, but it really does.
For me, it’s in the same arena as my novel Road Of Bones. In fact, in my mind, it takes place in the same fictional world. I like to dig deeply into certain horror tropes and legends about evil and monsters and then get work imagining what the roots might have been of those tropes and legends. It’s a common theme in my work going back decades.
Also, how scary is it? I know scariness is relative, but there’s freaky scary and there’s gory and there’s WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!?!?
I never know how to answer that question, and I rarely try. It think there are some freaky scary moments, and more importantly to me, some really unsettling parts of the novel, but for me, if I’ve created an atmosphere that’s unsettling and a momentum to the story that creates some anxiety in the reader, that’s more important than “scary.” Scary really is so subjective.
You’ve written or co-written over 100 novels, including, most recently, All Hallows, which I really enjoyed [and interviewed Golden about here]. Are there any other authors, or specific stories, that had a big influence on The Night Birds but not on anything else you’ve written?
I don’t think so. I’m always working on several projects at once, and I think every time I sit at my computer, I’m tapping into the stew of influences that have rooted in my brain over the years.
I will say that over the past decade I’ve become a huge fan of Golden Age Hollywood films, and that’s definitely influenced the way I think about how I put characters together in a story. The relationship between Book and Ruby wouldn’t be what it is if not for my love of those films. Though I do think they’ve also influenced relationships in my novels The House Of Last Resort, All Hallows, and the novel I’m currently writing.
Speaking of old Hollywood, do you think The Night Birds was influenced by any movies? Or maybe TV shows or games? Because anytime anyone mentions “birds” within a five mile radius of the word “horror,” I immediately think of Hitchcock…
The Night Birds wasn’t influenced by Hitchcock, though I’m sure the fact that birds can be frightening was something I first learned from that film. I also recently read the original Daphne DuMaurier story for the first time [“The Birds,” published in her short story collection The Birds And Other Stories], but I’d already written the novel by then. Both the film and the story are fantastic.
And then, to flip things around, do you think The Night Birds could work as a movie, TV show, or game?
It would work beautifully as a film, probably better as a film because it takes place over such a short period of time, but I do see ways in which it could be adapted into a really compelling series as well.
And if someone decided to adapt The Night Birds into a film, who would you want them to cast as Ruby, Charlie, and the other main characters?
There are so many actors I see and really react strongly to. Jodie Comer and Austin Butler worked well together in The Bikeriders, so I could easily see them as Ruby and Book. Aldis Hodge [Cross] would be a great Gerald. And if we’re really doing “wish list,” then obvious [Wednesday‘s] Jenna Ortega for Luisa.
So, is there anything else you think potential readers need to know about The Night Birds?
Only that I loved writing this book so damn much, and that I hope it creeps you out!
Finally, if someone enjoys The Night Birds, what novel of someone else’s that you read recently, and scared the crap out of you, would you suggest they check out next?
Holy shit, read Incidents Around The House by Josh Malerman. The creepiest novel I’ve read in at least ten years!
