away in a heartbeat. GS: We were delighted to hear that The Ritual has been shortlisted for the British Fantasy Awards. When did you find out about that and how did you react when you found out, especially when you saw some of the heavyweights you’re up against? AN: A Facebook post alerted me to the shortlist. And I was flattered and delighted to have my book voted that far by peers. I’m also pleased The Ritual is under consideration by the first juried panel. No award system is perfect, but that one now feels fairer and more valid, at least as regards the shortlists. GS: So, your horror novels Banquet for the Damned, Apartment16 and The Ritual have been very well received so it is with some excitement that we heard that your latest book Last Days is now out. Can you give our readers a sense of what Last Days is about and how it came into being? AN: Thanks for the anticipation. As a story, Last Days is about two guerrilla film makers who make a documentary about the enduring paranormal rumours about a hippy death cult that destroyed itself in 1975. Their investigation takes them through four countries and deep into occult history. But it’s very much a novel of our times – Last Days is a story about the rise of the sociopathic intelligence, its pathological self-interest disguised as religious fundamentalism and leadership and “the talent”. It’s about a portion of humanity’s tireless search for perfect victims. And it’s need to control, undermine, domi-
nate those it comes into contact with, while destroying any opposition to its vulpine greed and monomania.
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ture. In my novels I explore a lot of my own fears, but the force I try and underwrite every story with, is probably the brief, half-understanding that one is close to something so vast and indifferent to us, a full revelation of it would be unbearable. I stood on a mountain top in Snowdonia last week and looked up at the moon, with 890 metres of thin air below me, and within the wonder and awe I felt, was a terror of being an insignificant speck on a planet, that itself was a speck within infinity. It reduced me to a child again for a few moments. If I can capture some of that in a book and transmit it to a reader, I’m doing well.
GS: Now that Last Days is out, are you sitting back and relaxing or are you beavering away on your next project? AN: Bizarrely, as each novel is published I enter the last two months of writing the next one. And that is the hardest, but most satisfying and consuming period of time for me on a novel. Right now I have a new book published in May, and I deliver the next book the following month. So I have no time to kick-back. While waiting for my editor’s response on the delivered book, that usually comes in early August, I take July to write short stories I have promised to collections, develop new outlines for novels, and begin research for the book that will follow the one I will have just delivered. Not to mention publicity requirements for the book that has just been published. So it is a seven-day operation right now, and in this particular period there are always three books jostling for attention at the same time. But as it has taken me so long to get here, the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. GS: To change tack, this is probably the typical horror writer’s question, but what scares the bejesus out of you? AN: A great many things. I could go on all day about my fears. But am also genuinely afraid of disclosing them in case someone wanted to use them against me. I’m a haunted and paranoid crea-
GS: Who are you reading at the moment that you would recommend our readers pick up (other than your own work of course!)? AN: I’m on a real Patricia Highsmith kick. She was a master of claustrophobic tension and apprehension, of perceived and actual victimisation. Read Strangers on a Train to see what I mean. I’ve also not long finished The Devil All The Time by Donald Ray Pollock, which is just sublime. GS: Finally, is there an exclusive, never heard before piece of Adam Nevill related news or gossip that you can give us? AN: There is another film option imminent on another of my horror novels. My next novel is in its fourth draft, and is called … House of Small Shadows. I have also developed a way of resolving seemingly irresolvable problems in plot. But am keeping it to myself.
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