Christopher Moore is known for a number of highly humorous bestsellers, including LAMB: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST’S CHILDHOOD PAL and the offbeat vampire tale BLOODSUCKING FIENDS. But the one that’ll go on his tombstone is the twisted, halo-askew THE STUPIDEST ANGEL: A HEARTWARMING TALE OF CHRISTMAS TERROR. With ANGEL newly available in VERSION 2.0, with an extra chapter at the end, we caught up with Moore and threw a few questions his way. This is how they fell:
BOOKGASM: Why do you think THE STUPIDEST ANGEL was such a hit?
MOORE: I think it hit all the right buttons. It had a cute cover, a funny title, a great price-point and it was a true satire of the traditional Hallmark Channel Christmas story.
BOOKGASM: Do you think it would have done as well with a Santa-suited zombie on the cover instead of a cute cherub?
MOORE: Nope. Cute cover and small form-factor were always part of the idea. It needed to look like a Christmas book. I think it brought a lot of readers to my work who might have been put off by a zombie Santa.
BOOKGASM: Do you think that the reading public is becoming more open to fiction that before would have been shoehorned as “genre fiction”?
MOORE: Possibly. At any given time, if you look at the best-seller list, fully half of it is what I would call “imaginative fiction.” This hasn’t been a fast change, by the way. Stephen King and Dean Koontz have been at the top of the best-seller lists for 20 years, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a horror best-seller before ROSEMARY’S BABY or THE EXORCIST, so call it a 35-year climb. It’s been a slow crawl, but between the resurgence of Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, the horror folks, dragon and elf folks, and the writers who sort of skate across genres like Gregory Maguire or myself, and movie franchise tie-ins like STAR WARS, you’re talking about 60 percent of the fiction sold in this country.
Another 30 percent or more would qualify as “crime” fiction, but many authors have transcended that genre to top the best-seller list. While there are literally hundreds of writers who aren’t known outside of the mystery or sci-fi genre, the edges of those genres are becoming more and more fuzzy as even authors in sub-genres make the list. Diane Mott Davidson, who writes food mysteries, but is now making the list regularly. I’m sort of fudging the figures by just looking at the New York Times list every week, but that’s a pretty good measure of what is transcending genre, and there’s a lot of it.
BOOKGASM: Is there a difference in your mind between serious literature and stuff that’s just fun to read?
MOORE: I suppose, but I’d find it hard to delineate. Some of Steinbeck is awfully fun to read, some, not so much. Is GRAPES OF WRATH literature, and CANNERY ROW not? I find Mark Twain fun to read, but I have no idea if his work is considered literature. It wasn’t in his day. I have friends who really don’t enjoy a book unless it plows headlong into the problems of human existence, or explores some aspect of human suffering. I mean, they really enjoy that. Not my cup of tea, but they like it. On the other hand, I think TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is a brilliant book, and if it’s not literature, then I don’t really want anything to do with literature. Takes a big bucket to hold this fiction thing, and sometimes, no doubt, something fun and something that’s literature is going to get sloshed out at the same time.
BOOKGASM: Do you roll with an entourage after winning the Quills award for best science fiction/fantasy book?
MOORE: My crew consists of two cats who do not acknowledge my existence unless I am holding a food packet. I did have the award put on a platinum chain, which I wear with my various other bits of bling, like my sixth-grade high-jump trophy, the door handle from a ’72 Bentley and a slightly moldy Cristal cork. That’s the way I roll, dawg. Word.
BOOKGASM: What are your favorite holiday books?
MOORE: I like HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS and William Wharton’s short story, “A Midnight Clear.”
BOOKGASM: What are your favorite books of all time?
MOORE: CANNERY ROW, SWEET THURSDAY and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Kind of anti-climactic now, huh?
BOOKGASM: What are you reading now?
MOORE: I’m reading THE BOOK OF JOE by Jonathan Tropper and Billy Collins’ new one, THE TROUBLE WITH POETRY. I tend to read his books over and over for months.
BOOKGASM: Are you working on anything new?
MOORE: Yes, I’m editing the galleys of my latest, A DIRTY JOB, and I’m working on my next one, YOU SUCK: A LOVE STORY, which is a vampire story.
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