KMWR: I always love to know how a story comes to the writer. Can you tell us about what it was like writing the first draft of "Tree Candles"? In the first few paragraphs, a character describes the tree candles and their fire as "some kind of magic." How did you find and stoke the magic for this story?
TPB: “Tree Candles” was an experiment. Usually, I write a story and then try to find it a place that fits. In this case, I began with a list of markets looking for stories, and I saw an anthology looking for werewolf stories, and I thought to myself I've always wanted to write one of those, so I wrote “Tree Candles” as if it were commissioned, which I’ve never done before. Ironically the anthology didn't take the story, but I was happy to place it with Feign Lit!
The setting is one I’ve worked with before. I have a kind of cycle of stories set in the 70s in a place called Wight Plains with some recurring characters and character types. You might call it literary suburban horror.
The opening image of the story was based on, well, having a teenaged son. . .
In the case of the tree candles themselves, that was based on real experience. Back in the day, my friends and I used to light the dripping sap of these pine trees in the woods near my house just like in the story, and it's a wonder we never burned down the place. I never knew who started the first tree candle in those woods, so I just kind of made-up that it came of claw marks, and the story took off from there, building in part on my experiences as an adolescent, in part on my experiences as a father, and, of course, drawing on popular werewolf lore adapted to my needs.
KMWR: I love how this story subverts our expectations of classical monsters, in this case of course, werewolves. Additionally, I love the risk in using second person as the story's point of view. It brought up ideas of displacement, avoidance, and identity. For quite some time as I've sat with your story, I've thought about who we turn into when no one is looking. You write, "You never asked, 'Isn't it dangerous,' but you did ask, 'Who gashed the trees?'" I love how this moment brings those ideas above together. How did you end up deciding the story needed to be told this way?
TPB: I love playing with classical monsters and finding a new angle on them. I’ve argued that it’s like writing a sonnet. You’re given a set of “rules” to follow—in this case, wolf-behavior, uncontrollable desire, a hidden life, the full moon etc.—and you make something new out of them, so that the rules become a kind of structure rather than a limitation, and there’s a pleasure for the reader in seeing something old done in a new way.
As far as the second-person narration goes, it was, at first, not so much a decision as just the voice that the story came out in. But in retrospect, I could say that this sort of second person functions for me as a variation of first person. The narrator is really talking to himself, trying to rationalize all he's been through, seen, done—and not done. So, he's saying to himself “what could you do?” which really means “what could I do?” But somehow when you transfer the question to the second person, the deniability of agency starts to feel more reasonable, less like excuse making—even though that's pretty much what it is. It's a clever unconscious rhetorical device for displacing—and disavowing—accountability.
The decision part came in, in deciding to keep the story in the second person. Because I had my doubts. Because in general, I'm averse to second-person stories. They can be distracting. The “innovation” can wake the reader from the illusion of what John Gardner calls the “continuous dream” of a story. And it can feel affected, like the writer’s signaling “this is literary fiction” or “this is me (self-consciously) testing the boundaries of form.” So, I actually wrote a more conventional third-person version and ran both by beta readers, including some of my students, and almost everyone agreed it was better in second person—even if that made the story a bit more difficult—and, in the end, I agreed despite my reservations.
KMWR: In the beginning, the father never questions the danger of the tree candles as he loses himself in the feral delicacy of werewolf-dom. Things change once he has his son. "Your life was a battle, you realized, between the animal and the Godly soul, and as you got older, the one got weaker and the other stronger. But was it faith, was it God’s grace, or was it just old age?" The son claims that he and the other boys still have their Godly soul, but I'm thinking they will lose themselves in the fervor of the wild. Does the father fail at being a good master?
TPB: I think the question of whether the father failed at being a good master of his own animal soul is an open question. Did he really put up a good fight, or did he just let the animal soul take over? Is his argument—that it's too late to stop his son—a rationalization or a recognition of reality? How much rein should you give the animal soul? This is a question I ask myself, and I don't have an answer. Sometimes we can manage our animal instincts, but we can never eradicate them, and so we have to make compromises. But how do we know when the compromises are genuine, or we’re just surrendering? I don't think anyone has the answer--or at least I don't. I think what the story suggests is that some of the boys will lose themselves in the wild and some will not. And it remains to be seen what will be the fate of the son. It's a risky business being in the world and we don't all succeed.
KMWR: What is your ideal writing session, and what do you like to have nearby as you write? TPB: I write best in the mornings. Often between 10:00 AM and noon. I take Flannery O'Connor at her word that two hours a day suffices, although I can't really say I stick to that regimen regularly. I need somewhere quiet. Over the past few years, I've taken a membership in a public workspace, and when I'm writing I get myself a room or a quiet place and set up shop with a cup of coffee and maybe a light snack.
In the old days, I used to have a routine I borrowed from a writer named Gerald Mundis who died a few years ago where I would have these little toy trains, one of which was the caboose and the other baggage cars. And at the beginning of every writing session, I would disconnect the caboose from the baggage cars, which was a ritual way of disconnecting my writing from any psychological baggage such as the desire to become famous or make a lot of money or even just get published. I don't do that anymore as a routine. But I would certainly suggest it for any writer who finds themselves getting bogged down in fear and/or ambition. Sometimes I say a little prayer before I start my writing day, asking for blessings for my family and for the world and asking that I be a better man and a better writer, kind of like an athlete before the Big Game.
KMWR: What have you been reading recently and what would you recommend?
TPB: I’m always reading like ten things at once. I have a book in every bathroom in my house, a few by my bedside, and half a dozen Audible books going on my phone. I recently re-read Philip Roth’s short novel Ghost Writer—which is an odd duck of a book, but interesting, as well as finishing his novel Everyman, which was depressing in an inspiring kind of way. I’ve been reading Stay Awake, a collection of short stories by Dan Chaon. His tales have a cool kind of weirdness about them. and I’m half-way through Gore Vidal’s Julian, an addictively readable novel about the eponymous Roman emperor. My reading is all over the place. What would I recommend? It’s not terribly original, but I’m also reading Will You Please Be Quiet, Please, Raymond Carver’s first story collection, and I’d recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the genre.
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Thomas P. Balázs is a fiction writer, essayist, and professor of English. His short stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Horror Library, The North American Review, and The Southern Humanities Review. The author of Omicron Ceti III, he teaches Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Look for his biweekly musings, Perplexed Jew, on Substack.
