"There's no one big thing, no one big fix to this nightmare. However if everyone would just do that one little thing that they can do - if enough people do that, then that is something. That's not nothing in this world."
- Craig Spector

PVW: How would you describe To Bury the Dead?

Craig Spector: It's the story of a good man who does a bad thing for the best of reasons. It's a very elemental story of exactly how the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions. It's about a man who did something because he felt he had no choice only to realize that he did. He not only has a choice, but he always did, and just didn't realize it. That's not just the story of one man. One of the things I dealt with in the book is that everyone had a choice. Everyone has a choice. It's not over yet. One of the more dangerous things I try to communicate is that even victims have a choice. What's scarier? Not having any power, or having power? With power comes responsibility.

If you translate this into a larger cultural thing, what we seem to be lusting for is power without responsibility. In my humble opinion, there's no such thing. It does not exist. Power carries responsibility and responsibility yields power. You want power, take responsibility. You can't change everything, you can't fix everything. You can however choose how you're going to respond. And in there, that's where power lies, in accepting the responsibility for the fact that you can't change everything but you can still do something. You can change something, even if it's only yourself.

In the month before my brother died, he called up my sister and he was opening up for one of the rare times in his life when he would speak about what he was feeling. And when he did, he surprised everyone with his ability to articulate, because my brother lived his whole life thinking he was stupid when he was not. He could get very down on himself. He said in that conversation that he felt all alone. But when he died, 200 people showed up at his memorial service.

I was the designated speaker of the family. After the service, I've got all these people coming up, regular working people. I'm having thirty-second meaningful moments with each and every one of them as they're doing the line that's part of our social ritual for these things. Again and again, I'm hearing it from these people and it's very heartfelt. It's not simply a social function, they're all saying how much he meant to them. What surprised me was how much I meant to him, which came as a bit of news, given our relationship. The other thing they were saying, one and all, independently of each other, was "I wish there was something I could've said, could've done, I wish there was something."

I knew what they were feeling. And I sort of morphed into a southern country preacher. This is in Virginia, where I was born and raised. My roots came back. I was looking at these people and just trying to be honest with them, and I said, I know what you're feeling, I'm feeling the same thing. I too wish there was something I could have said or done to make this not be what it is today. But in answer to your question is there something I could've done or said? The answer is no. There is no one thing that anyone could've said or done to make this not be what it is. There's no one big thing, no one big fix to this nightmare. However if everyone would just do that one little thing that they can do - if enough people do that, then that is something. That's not nothing in this world.

"The groundkeepers of the lawn mow around it. The property owners do not touch it. It is sacred ground. And that thing is still there, a year later, and it has no reason on Earth to be there, except for this - people put it there."

And being a writer, and thus charged with the task of ascribing fictional order to fictional or often real-life chaos, this much is true. This actually happened. The day I got the phone call from my sister, she went to the murder site. She had fashioned a little white cross and written his name on it. She put it in the ground where he bled and died. She put a flower there. And in the time it took me to get there, other people put things there. They put flowers, a little flag, a bottle of beer, a note - the dedication in my book is an actual note left at the murder scene. By the time we were doing the memorial service, when my brother had already been reduced to 2.2 pounds of granular ash, that thing was there and it was bigger.

That fragile little memorial is still there. It's gotten rather large. It's a thing in the world and so the world has an effect. Storms come and knock things down and they get set up again. The groundskeepers of the lawn mow around it. The property owners do not touch it. It is sacred ground. And that thing is still there, a year later, and it has no reason on Earth to be there, except for this - people put it there. And why they do it, I don't know. I don't know why any more than I know who they are. I just know this: people put it there and they walk away from it with whatever meaning they brought. It tells me something as a writer that if everybody could do that one little thing, that is something. And maybe that's all it ever is. Maybe that is ultimately as good as it gets. It ain't much, but it'll have to do. It's better than the alternative. I feel a little better knowing that that sad little thing still stands than I'd feel if it had never taken place at all. What does that tell you about life and death and human nature?

PVW: How does that make you feel?

Craig Spector: I'm still trying to figure it out - I'll probably be coming to terms with this approximately as long as he'll be dead, which is to say, for the rest of my life. But I know this: the people who read this interview, the people who come to a horror site or read scary stories, they do it for their own reasons, because it's fun, because it's thrilling. Is there any other reason they do it? That's what I'm curious about. My book is my book. It's a story. And I hope people love it and I hope it sells well, because then I get permission to do it again. But it's just a story. This is reality. And just like I have to deal with it in my life as a person and as a writer, everybody who reads my book or reads this interview, they have to deal with it in their own lives.

PVW: How does what happened to your brother relate to your book?

Craig Spector: That's a real strange experience, apart from the fact that I had completely finished the book six months before my brother was murdered. Suddenly I get this shocking news, and I guess in retrospect I was given
an opportunity to see if I had done my homework, among other things. I had done a lot of research, not just the firefighting and the tech stuff, but also into support groups for families of murder victims. I felt a certain responsibility when I was writing the book, even before I became personally involved in that kind of thing, in that I didn't want anybody who'd actually lived through this to feel like their experience was either being cheated or exploited. Because while in its guise as thrilling entertainment, there's something here worth examining. But if you're going to go there you have to commit to it. Suddenly I find myself in the club, this sad and unfortunately large club. I was getting the book back in galley form at the time and part of me felt like should I inject some element of this real life experience into what had purely been a fictional experience before. I had to wrestle with it for a while before I decided no. I'd already covered it as best I could. I was heartened - I can't really say pleased - but I was heartened that it held up to the actual experience when I found myself living it. I do understand intimately why someone would do what Paul did, in another world. This is what we have to live with. This is what I as a man have to live with. As a brother, as a family member, I have to live with this for the rest of my life. But this is what we all have to live with, if not personally then by proxy as a society. It's the kind of stuff that we have to come to terms with, and the terms that we ultimately come to, they're entirely our own to make. We can change a lot of things, but we probably can't make it just. But we can change the way we feel about it. We can at least first and foremost feel something about it. I guess that's what drew me to the story in the first place. And I hope that's what draws people to the book.

I wanted this to be a book not of answers, but of questions. I wanted it to pose, not theoretical or academic or rhetorical questions, but real life and death questions. And I want people to answer it for themselves. It's not my place to tell anybody else how to feel about this, it's just my place to present them with it.

"I love monsters, I love the supernatural, I love that kind of mythical paradigm, but this is the real stuff. This is life and death."

The character of Paul is a very black and white man in a very gray world. He thinks in terms of very functional, very pragmatic good and bad things. And he tries to make it better as best he can. That was a thread that was always one of the things that Skipp & Spector was interested in. That kind of underlying morality in amoral circumstance. Where is the line, and where do you stand on either side of it?

For my part, I wrote it one way as a twenty-five year old. As a forty-two year old, it's changed and yet it hasn't. It's almost a bad word to say its more mature but there is a certain benefit that comes with mileage. Relating it back to the thing with my brother, this is horrendous, let's be frank, this sucks. But one of the things that is true about this, is that it forces you to decide not just who are you, but who you want to be. And what you're going to be in the face of this and how you're going to act in the face of this - in the face of something that is completely incontrovertible and can never be taken back, never be undone. What are you going to do about it? This is darkness in the world.

I love monsters, I love the supernatural, I love that kind of mythical paradigm, but this is the real stuff. This is life and death. People who may be bad or may just be doing bad, and conversely people who may be good, or may just be doing good. Where's the balance? Where's the line? Where do we all stand about it? This thing with my brother and what I tried to impart in my book is that this is the world we live in for better or worse. And it is what we make it with what time we have. It's horrible, it's beautiful, it's by turns. It's everything. But what are you going to make of the world that you live in? You can give yourself over to the darkness, but what lies down that road? Everything has a price, and everything has a cost. We all gotta choose. Without getting too philosophical about it, To Bury the Dead is a book of questions and choices. And they're as much the readers' as anybody in the story.

That's the thing about my brother's story. You can draw it from a dozen different angles, but one way of saying it is this: one night he went out to Taco Bell, stopped at a bar, and came home dead. He wasn't expecting it. It was two guys in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong attitude, and one brought a knife to a fistfight. When that happens to someone that you know or love or share blood with, it really draws it in very intimate terms. How long do any of us have? I don't think that you should be unduly afraid of that, but I think that it should be a motivational factor in how you choose to live your life, which is basically today. All you get is today and a dream and that's it. That's all you ever got and that's all you ever will get. So live like you mean it.

Regarding my brother's murderer, reporters have asked me along the way how I feel. They're expecting the punchline: "I hate him, I want him to burn in hell." I don't hate this guy. I don't like him very much. The end result, I don't want him to just suffer. Just suffering is easy. I want him to do the really hard thing, I want him to do the scary thing. I want him to understand. I want him to comprehend on some fundamental level - cause I don't think he'll ever get into the more sophisticated strata - I want him to understand just what he did. And I also want him to be someplace where he never gets a chance to do it again, cause frankly he can't play well with others, so he has to go away now. But unfortunately he'll be back next year.

PVW: Excuse me?

Craig Spector: Yup. You want to hear something really scary? Consider this: my brother went out for tacos and came home dead. Why? Because he disrespected someone. This guy he disrespected, back in 1998, some other poor schmuck disrespected him in a road rage incident, probably by driving too slowly or something. This man, Richard Earl Moore, was disrespected by a motorist in 1998, and he chased him for five miles. He cornered him in a residential cul-de-sac, jumped out of his truck with a knife, and proceeded to beat, slash and kick this guy's car, trying to get in to kill him. And he was arrested. He later plead to a lesser offense, to misdemeanor offenses. The actual act involved, if you ask me, was "murder interrupted." For his efforts, he got fifteen months, suspended. That was 1998. All he apparently learned from that was "next time I gotta work on my technique."

In 1999, my brother happens along, in a modified road rage. It was the alley behind the bar, and it started with cars. My brother disrespected him by coming around the corner when Moore was blocking the way, and Moore decided at that moment, "I'm going to kill him." But he knew from previous experience - needing to work on his technique and all - "next time I'm not leaving any witnesses, except for my girlfriend, but she doesn't really count." And he murdered my brother, stabbed him eight times. Moore shanked him like a jailhouse stabbing, and he left him to bleed out. Then he went and threw the knife in the James River. He had his girlfriend drive him to her apartment where he took a shower and had her launder his clothes. Then he went to bed and got up the next morning and I hope he had a nice breakfast.

"That score is clear: to win by putting a murderer back into the community as quickly as humanly possible."

Six days later his girlfriend grew a conscience. She was looking after herself because she was legitimately an accessory after the fact, because she had washed his bloody clothes. Now this guy gets arrested again. The Moore family mortgages the farm to get their baby boy out of jail, and a bunch of sleazy lawyers made a pot full of money. After the lawyers finish doing their dance and everybody finishes playing the game, he ends up pleading to manslaughter. A ten-year sentence with seven years and ten months suspended and credit for time served. That score is clear: to win by putting a murderer back into the community as quickly as humanly possible. The police and the D.A. did everything they possibly could, but it's a game. It's not about justice, it's about winning. One side has to play by the rules and the other side doesn't. And we all just get to build bunkers.

Richard Earl Moore is a white male with the Virginia Department of Corrections ID# 340843.
He currently resides in the Indian Creek Correctional Center of Virginia and is serving a sentence for which his projected release date is October 8, 2010.

He'll be out next year. Now consider, Richard Earl Moore tried to kill somebody in 1998 and all he learned from the experience with the justice system is "gotta work on my technique." What do you think he learned from this? If I were grading him on a curve, I'd give him a solid 98 out of 100. I'm sure next time he'll get a straight A. He threw his last knife in the James River, but knives are cheap and plentiful, I'm sure he can get another one. The thing about this guy is that you can throw a rock and hit a motherfucker like this. He's a sociopath, but he's no Hannibal Lecter. He's not even interesting. He's just a garden variety, semi-literate, blue-collar, scumbag sociopath with anger management problems. And there's a billion of them running around out there. What do you do with that? You think about that and then think about my book, which was written beforehand but fairly well detailed the general experience. Why would he do such a thing? Well, because. What would you do?

"I don't how long I'm going to be here. Longer than I expected and probably less than I'd like."

The only safety that I can see is prepare yourself: prepare for the worst, and get comfortable with the idea that you are going to die. Come to terms with that. Let that knowledge, let that certainty seep into you, and then decide what you're going to do about the rest of your life. I don't how long I'm going to be here. Longer than I expected and probably less than I'd like. I'm sure that when I'm sitting there getting ready to go down that cosmic pipe, I'm going to be asking for fifteen more minutes. One thing I did resolve myself to fairly early in my life is that I'm going to do it like I mean it. I may leave regretting that I didn't have a little bit longer, but I won't leave regretting how I spent the time I had. I think that's the best it can be.

PVW: Do you prefer solo writing or do you miss collaboration?

Craig Spector: I don't have to miss collaboration, because I'm constantly collaborating in a wide variety of projects. Half of what I do is collaboration and I genuinely love it. But it is very refreshing to have that sole authority. It's nice to just simply say "It's this way because I say so." The risk is mine. The reward, I guess, is everybody else's, and I get mine on the flip side, which is actually the way I prefer to do it.

I think it's important for any writer to know why they're doing what they're doing. For me one of the big things is contact. I'm perfectly fine inside my own head. I can rattle around in my madness and be at least dizzy if not happy. But what I really love is that moment where I feel like something that was crawling around inside my head managed to get out and make contact with somebody else, in anything near what I thought it would be when I put it out there, and then all the surprises after. As a writer to readers, I want the reaction. I don't want a preconfigured reaction, obviously I'd prefer they like it rather than hate it, but I really want to just know what they think. And not just what they think of it, but what it makes them think as a result of it.

A lot of what I tend to do when I'm writing is I'm trying to be catalytic to myself first and foremost, or not even to myself but to the idea. I'm weird as a writer because I have this weird out-of-body experience when I'm writing. It's not me. I'm just the agent of delivery. I'm just trying to get it out there as clearly as I can. Then I'm looking forward to what everybody else thinks because that's what makes life interesting. But then again, in life as in destiny, life is not a monologue, it's a dialogue with you and everything else. To that end, it was weird at first. I had to come out of this whole period of turbulence and ask myself "alright who am I?" I know who I am, but I've been spending the last x-many years being told I'm various things, so who am I really? Finding that and deciding that for myself on my own terms, that is a great experience. This is my voice, this is who I am, this is what I actually have to say. I'll take my chances, just give them to me. And if you won't give them to me, I'll just take them anyway.

"Shut up and write.
The world is a cruel, uncaring place?
Shut up and write.
It's run by giant corporations who don't care about the true purpose of the writer?
Shut up and write."

PVW: As a new solo writer, what advice would you have for beginning or aspiring writers?

Craig Spector: I do not envy the young writer trying to break in now. The 21st century is not a kind place. But then again the frontier never is, is it? For every cow that grazed and grew fat in the Wild West, there were a lot of cowskulls laying beside the trail. But I said this about ten years ago in an interview, and it has never been more true: shut up and write. The world is a cruel, uncaring place? Shut up and write. Its run by giant corporations who don't care about the true purpose of the writer? Shut up and write.

I said that before, but I know some things about it now that I didn't know then. You have power, if you take it. Quit bitching about all the power you don't have, and just use some of the power that you already do have, if you would just pick it up and use it. Because here's the thing: you as a writer are possessed of a weird gene. The writer in the corporate world is part witch doctor, part chattel. They don't know what it is that you do. You do some sort of bastard voodoo. They wish they could figure you out so they could eliminate you, cause you're a nuisance. You're a pain in everybody's ass. That's your job.

Down but never defeated

But be professional about it. Learn the rules, because that's the only way you'll know what you need to break. Utilize the power you have. Stop being a victim. It has never been more true than it is now. Waiting for the world to roll out a red carpet to your door? Well, if you want a red carpet, easy ticket big print ride to stardom, go buy a Lotto ticket, you've got better odds. If you really want to get into this hard, often brutal game, do it. But if you're going to do it, quit bitching and write.

For anybody who says "I want to write," I ask "do you?" See it for what it is, then turn it back on yourself and ask why do you want to do this? Why? It's not a question designed to make people go away, it's a question to make people who aren't serious go away. If you're really serious you don't have a problem with that question because you have the answer and if you don't have it, you'll find it pretty quick.

"As a writer you have one thing that all these corporate monkeys don't have, you're an alchemist, you can create something out of nothing. They are only who they are because somebody else said they're that."

And here's the beauty of it: as long as you do the work, you don't have to wait for other people to give you permission, and you don't have to wait for people to give you validation. Listen to everybody, because everybody is a valuable filter, and they may be telling you something you need to know. Listen to them, but ultimately decide for yourself. At the end of the day, do you what you have to do, and take your shot. Stop trying to jump through other people's hoops. Just write the thing you gotta write, be as true to yourself as you possibly can, write it like a demon, and take your shot. And then it could happen for you. Is it gonna be the Robin Leach dream team ticket to everything you ever wanted? Probably not. But can you make it? Maybe. If you're good enough. But good enough isn't enough.

And when you look back over the last three or five or ten things you've written and you don't see a mark of growth, or refinement, of focus, you're not doing it right. Go back and do it again. Don't wait for the world to give you permission to be who you are. The world is never going to give you permission to be who you are, you give you permission to be who you are. But as a writer you have one thing that all these corporate monkeys don't have: you're an alchemist, you can create something out of nothing. They are only who they are because somebody else said they're that. You are who you are because you say you are, and then you do it. If you find yourself as a writer spending more time talking about writing than actually writing, cut it out. Shut up and write. And then, who the hell knows?

Interview Copyright 2000 E.C.McMullen Jr.