Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Indie Spotlight: Marc Joan's Hangdog Souls

Welcome to our Indie Spotlight series, in which TNBBC gives small press authors the floor to shed some light on their writing process, publishing experiences, or whatever else they'd like to share with you, the readers!



Today we are shining the spotlight on Marc Joan's 

Hangdog Souls





Described as "ambitious and spectacularly accomplished literary fiction for fans of David Mitchell and Haruki Murakami", Marc Joan’s debut novel, ‘Hangdog Souls’ (literary horror; Deixis Press) is set in India over a 300-year span (1770-2070). But what was the genesis of this idiosyncratic, label-defying work? Marc explains-:

“Some of the inspiration behind ‘Hangdog Souls’ clearly comes from my upbringing in South India – I spent the first 12 (and most formative) years of my life there, and the memories remain vivid. So the settings in the book come directly from places where I grew up – Tamil Nadu, the Nilgiris, the Palni Hills, Bangalore, Ooty, Kodai, Mysore -- and the books’ characters are flavoured with the habits and personalities of people I knew in those places. Regarding style, the book reflects my natural inclination towards dark/speculative fiction: it is somewhat gothic, somewhat macabre, and has elements of horror and subtle sci-fi. At the same time, it has a strong literary edge, and I don’t apologise for that – I like reading literature which feeds the cerebral appetite, so naturally that is also what I like to write.

“Interestingly, however, I was not aware of a (likely key) driver behind the book until well after I had finished it. I am what is known as a ‘Third-Culture Kid’ – brought up in a country and culture other than that of one’s parents, a home which one later leaves to ‘return’ to one’s passport country. The TCK experience is different for each TCK, of course, but for some it can be quite difficult, perhaps wrenching. Anyway, I recently found out that there is a growing body of work, by researchers such as Antje Rauwerda and  Jessica Sanfilippo Schulz, on TCK-authored literature. It turns out that TCK authors often write about similar themes: notably, guilt, migrations (and the losses that thereby arise), and the lack of a sense of home. When I heard that, the penny really dropped: in retrospect, I can find those elements in probably everything I have written, and they are clearly there in Hangdog Souls. For example, one of the book’s protagonists is struggling with guilt and shame – which have arisen through deaths associated with his migratory life – and is trapped between alternative realities! It’s just not possible to get any more TCK-ish than that.

“Perhaps this shows that authors are not always conscious of, still less in complete control of, what they write. We are all products of our histories as interpreted by our memories; in each of us, the subconscious weaves a story to make sense of those recollections; and when authors write fiction, their narratives inevitably emerge from that same subconscious loom. Writers can tinker with characters and settings, I think, but the fundamental themes they return to come from some hidden, unknowable place, and I suspect are quite resistant to change.”


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Marc Joan spent the early part of his life in India, and the early part of his career in biomedical research. He draws on this and other experience for his fiction, which has been published in magazines including Lighthouse Literary Journal, Structo, Bohemyth, Smokelong Quarterly, Hypnos, Chroma, Madcap Review, Danse Macabre, The Apeiron Review, STORGY, Literary Orphans, Bookends Review, Sci Phi, Weird Horror (Undertow Publications), The Dread Machine, Sein und Werden and Nightscript. His novelette, ‘The Speckled God’, was published by Unsung Stories in Feb 2017; he is a contributor to the forthcoming Comma Press anthology ‘Mirror in the Mirror’, the Night Terror Novels anthology Ceci n’est pas une histoire d’horreur, and the DBND anthology ‘Ghost Stories for Starless Nights’. His first novel. ‘Hangdog Souls’, was published by Deixis Press in July 2022.

Marc has been placed in various competitions as follows: he was a finalist in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2017/2018; Runner Up in the Ink Tears Short Story Competition 2017/18; received a Special Mention in the Galley Beggar Short Story Competition 2017/18; long-listed for the Brighton Prize 2017; reached the last 60 (from nearly 1,000 entries) of the 2018 BBC National Short Story Award; received an Honourable Mention (placed in the top 4%) of the 2020 CRAFT Short Fiction Prize; was winner of the 2020 Punt Volat Short Story Competition, and finalist in the same competition with a second entry; was long-listed in the 2020 William van Dyke Short Story Prize (one of 20 semi-finalists from over 400 entries); achieved Highly Commended in the Gatehouse Press New Fiction Prize, 2020; was finalist / selected for publication in the 2020/21 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award; was short-listed in the 2021 Short Fiction / University of Essex International Short Story Competition (one of seven short-listed from ~780 entries); was long-longlisted in the 2021 Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize; proceeded to the second round (top 5% of entries) of the 2021 Bridport Short Story Prize; and had two stories long-listed in the 2021 Exeter Story Prize.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnfcPFqBme8  


 


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