Today I am interviewing C.J. Leede, author of the new horror novel, Maeve Fly.
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DJ: Hi C.J.! Thanks for agreeing to do this interview!
For readers who aren’t familiar with you, could you tell us a little about yourself?
C.J. Leede: Hey there! I’m a horror writer living out in California with my boyfriend and our rescue dog pack! I grew up in Austin, TX and New York, NY, and I’m a big hiker, road tripper, and forever Trekkie. Maeve Fly is my first novel, coming out this summer with Nightfire, and I’ve got two more following!
DJ: What is Maeve Fly about?
C.J.: An LA theme park princess by day, Sunset Strip barfly by night whose world is upended when a new hockey player moves to town. It’s about loneliness, Halloween, the things we cling to, and overall is a sordid debaucherous love story.
DJ: What were some of your influences for Maeve Fly?
C.J.: American Psycho, Story of the Eye, and Notes from Underground all factor in heavily! But also My Heart is a Chainsaw, The Final Girl Support Group, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Faust, Fight Club, and I’m always reading Stephen King, so I feel like that’s got to have worked its way in too. Also just Los Angeles and its history! All the gritty and shiny dive bars, the Sunset Strip, the *large theme park in Anaheim*. This story never could have come to be if I hadn’t moved here from New York! I tried to include everything that I felt was vital to this town.
DJ: Could you briefly tell us a little about your main characters? Do they have any cool quirks or habits, or any reason why readers will sympathize with them?
C.J.: Maeve enjoys misanthropic literature at dive tiki bars, internet trolling, strange and unsettling youtube videos on repeat, obscure music and trivia, all things Halloween, the grit beneath any shiny surface, masturbation (the weirder the better), theme park visitors, authenticity, audacity, anomalous princesses, non-conformity, pina coladas, and routine. She would do anything for the few people she loves, even if it ends in a bloodbath. She’s a lot of things that maybe aren’t the healthiest, but she is at her core endlessly loyal… in her own wolfish way.
DJ: Aside from the main characters in the story, who is a favorite side character or a character with a smaller role in the story? Why?
C.J.: Tallulah, Maeve’s grandmother, is a powerful Old Hollywood legend, and I myself aspire to be her. When I wrote scenes with her in them, I felt as though she commanded the room, even as I was the one writing. There is the Bartender– insane, and real name never known–, Maeve’s drinking companion who is either a Johnny Depp impersonator or possibly Johnny Depp himself, and two very capable and Halloween-loving cops. But perhaps the real star of the show is Tallulah’s decrepit old familiar, Lester the Cat, who always finds a way to put Maeve in her place.
DJ: What is the world and setting of Maeve Fly like?
C.J.: The Sunset Strip and Maeve and Tallulah’s house on the hill above it, the Anaheim theme park, and Maeve’s go-to secret tiki dive. Neon, leather, low light, red light, basement levels, Halloween fog, plastic body parts, bats, Jack o’lanterns, ice, smog, old cigarette smoke and dried liquor on a barroom floor, princess castles, late night music venues, tunnels, highways, and the Chateau Marmont.
DJ: There are many different definitions of horror in the genre, so I’m curious, when you write “horror”, how is it that you try to scare your readers? Do you go for gore? Shock? Maybe build up tense moments? Or perhaps it is the unknown?
C.J.: You know what’s funny is I didn’t think too much about what would be scary. It was more that I just wanted the story to flow and for each scene to contribute something to the narrative. Maeve is not a morally upstanding character, and there’s a moment in the book in which her actions start to look as though she is. So I had to include a scene reminding the reader that she isn’t, and it’s a bloody one. I think (and hope!) the horror of this book is just the idea that someone like Maeve might exist, and more than that, the idea that we might find things in her that we feel reflect some part of ourselves, even as she is committing atrocities.
DJ: What was your favorite part about writing Maeve Fly?
C.J.: This book was so cathartic in a time when I needed a release. And I hope that’s what it is for readers too! It’s campy and insane, and none of it should be taken so seriously. Maeve Fly is a scream and a naked full moon dance and Halloween party spattered in fake blood. It’s debauchery and chaos in pursuit of feeling alive and celebrating all the dark and beautiful aspects of this fleeting life.
DJ: What do you think readers will be talking about most once they finish it?
C.J.: Well I hope mostly that they’re just talking about having fun living in Maeve’s world for a time! But maybe they’ll also be talking about various places a person might insert eyeballs or eggs…
DJ: Did you have a particular goal when you began writing Maeve Fly? Was there a particular message or meaning you are hoping to get across when readers finish it? Or is there perhaps a certain theme to the story?
C.J.: Honestly, it was the book I needed to write. I was having a tough time and facing a lot of loss in my life, and I was feeling helpless in the world. So I put a character in a similar position, but I made her more powerful than I felt. I gave her permission not only to feel rage and grief and all the emotions we shut off within ourselves, but I encouraged her dark impulses. I gave her a world to act on them to the craziest degree. She is a monster, simply because she is. It was empowering and fun and sexy and thrilling, and I hope it will be the same for readers.
DJ: When I read, I love to collect quotes – whether it be because they’re funny, foodie, or have a personal meaning to me. Do you have any favorite quotes from Maeve Fly that you can share with us?
C.J.: Oh man! Well I’m not sure, but maybe I’ll share a couple that some readers have mentioned in recent weeks:
“Men have always been permitted in fiction and in life to simply be what they are, no matter how dark or terrifying that might be. But with a woman, we expect an answer, a reason.”
“I love Halloween because all the time, everyone wears masks. But one night a year, they do it openly… The hidden parts of the world are exposed, if only for one night. And those things that are truly dark are a little less alone.”
“We are what we are what we are, after all. And I am a dead Playboy Bunny and I am a fly and I am a wolf, and I am any wise man’s worst nightmare.”
DJ: Now that Maeve Fly is released, what is next for you?
C.J.: I’ve handed in another book that is unrelated to Maeve Fly but deals with a lot of the same themes. And then I’m working simultaneously on two other projects that I am very excited about. More on all of it soon! (But I promise lots of blood and adventure and sex and chaos, always)!
DJ: Where can readers find out more about you?
Amazon Author Page: Amazon.com: CJ Leede: books, biography, latest update
Author Newsletter: They can subscribe to the mailing list on my website! CJ Leede – Author of Maeve Fly
Blog: Blog – CJ Leede
Goodreads: C.J. Leede (Author of Maeve Fly) | Goodreads
Instagram: CJ Leede (@ceejthemoment) • Instagram photos and videos
Website: CJ Leede – Author of Maeve Fly
DJ: Before we go, what is that one thing you’d like readers to know about Maeve Fly that we haven’t talked about yet?
C.J.: Careful, she bites!
DJ: Is there anything else you would like to add?
C.J.: If you love Halloween and rockin tunes, check out the Maeve Fly playlist on my website!
DJ: Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to answer my questions!
C..: Thank you so much!! I so appreciate the support!!
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***Maeve Fly is published by TOR Nightmare and is available TODAY!!!***
Buy the Book:
Amazon | Goodreads
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About the Book:
By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every child’s favorite ice princess.
By the neon night glow of the Sunset Strip, Maeve haunts the dive bars with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, imitating her misanthropic literary heroes.
But when Gideon Green – her best friend’s brother – moves to town, he awakens something dangerous within her, and the world she knows suddenly shifts beneath her feet.
Untethered, Maeve ditches her discontented act and tries on a new persona. A bolder, bloodier one, inspired by the pages of American Psycho. Step aside Patrick Bateman, it’s Maeve’s turn with the knife.
About the Author:
Born in Los Angeles and raised in Austin, TX and New York City, CJ finds her truest home in America’s highways and backcountry. She now lives in California with her boyfriend and rescue dogs, and you can almost always find them out on the road, reading, writing, oddity-hunting, somewhere.
CJ holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University, and a BA from NYU’s Gallatin School, where she studied Mythology and the Middle Ages.
In her novels, CJ is interested largely in Place, each town or city or state singular and unique in the ways they birth their inhabitants and vice versa. She is continually in awe of the bounty of strangeness, horror, and beauty that this country affords us, in all the exposed and hidden corners. Her true loves are deeply flawed loners and misanthropes, recluses and outsiders, those called to live beyond the confines of a traditional life. Freaks, monsters, adventurers. She is a helpless sucker for old dogs and “special” dogs, for dive bars, storms, cocktails, illuminated manuscripts, roadside attractions, and all things Star Trek.
Alongside Maeve Fly, CJ has two more horror novels coming from Tor Nightfire.
Bookworm M.D. 
Awesome review, DJ! I just read the book and loved it.
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“Interview”😁
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