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Lee Rozelle on his Southern Gothic Bizarro fiction: “I do my best to recode genre stereotypes”

Chris Well

The author talks combining “absurdist humor and body horror in Southern tales” for the murky horror fiction collection BACKWATERS.

In this exclusive interview, Lee Rozelle tells Monster Complex the monster movies that made that kid grow up to be this author, explains the unique spin on his horror fiction, and shares the unexpected thread that binds his new collection of stories together…

Horror author Lee Rozelle has written fiction like Ballad of Jasmine Wills (a novel that takes on reality TV, body shaming, and hicksploitation) and nonfiction like the scholarly book Zombiescapes & Phantom Zones (which studies how writers have portrayed nature in a monstrous manner). His short stories have been published in the likes of Cosmic Horror Monthly, Southern Humanities Review, Anthology of Bizarro Vol. 1, Shadowy Natures: Stories of Psychological Horror, If I Die Before I Wake (Better Off Dead Series), and the Scare You To Sleep podcast. A professor of English at the University of Montevallo, Rozelle’s areas of expertise are ecocriticism and critical theory. 

Rozelle’s latest book is the anthology Backwaters: 12 Murky Tales, a short story collection about fish monsters. “It’s Southern Gothic Bizarro, for lack of a better term,” the author tells Monster Complex. “A sub-sub-subgenre that’s in turn freakish, giddy, and hideous.”

Below, read our interview with Rozelle. We also share more Backwaters.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Backwaters: 12 Murky Tales
Lee Rozelle
Montag Press

Dare swim these waters?

Welcome to Tallapoochee, a Southern backwater plagued by an experimental toxin that’s turning townsfolk into genetically modified freaks. Follow a puzzling trail of atrocities committed by an enigmatic river cult. Delve into thrilling and funny tales of body horror, bizarro, and the weird.  Read the unthinkable testimonies of the living and the dead.

This “water-breaking” collection of twelve intertwined stories combines body horror and Southern Gothic humor in a clash between a cabal of dark scientists and gospel-preaching wrestlers with a secret past. In turns terrifying and funny, Lee Rozelle’s new fiction is a shocking journey into murky medicine, conspiracy, and the horrors of watershed destruction. 

REVIEW: “Like Flannery O’Connor, but with toxic mermaids and body horror.” (CARLTON MELLICK III, author of Full Metal Octopus and The Haunted Vagina)

Find Backwaters on Amazon

Q: How do you describe the fiction that you write? How do you explain your unique spin on your fiction?

My recent work combines absurdist humor and body horror in Southern tales with strange-yet-relatable characters that you’d rather not be around but love to read about. It’s Southern Gothic Bizarro, for lack of a better term, a sub-sub-subgenre that’s in turn freakish, giddy, and hideous. Boo Radley with self-esteem needs taking handfuls of probiotics from shady international corporations then growing sore-infected squid legs, then going to his class reunion—like that.

Q: What experiences or stories (books, movies, TV, whatever) pulled you into this world as an author?

There was a period when I was around ten years old when my mind was very open but vulnerable, when I took in things deeply and was emotionally moved by what I saw. And I would sneak back out to the living room of our trailer and watch late movies. There was one made-for-TV movie, don’t know the name, where dead people’s body parts like their eyes were used in surgery and the people who got the body parts began to have the dead organ donors’ memories.

That messed me up. Bad. For years I felt this coldness, this proto-existential deadness inside my childhood mind. My feet were having growing pains. I could not sleep. I begged to go to see movies like THE BEAST WITHIN and THE HOWLING. The trauma led me deeper and deeper into this dark and sorrowful tunnel. I’ve never quite escaped it. And I will NEVER be an organ donor.

Q: What inspired this new book? You mentioned it’s a collection. Is there a theme of some sort that they have in common (even as separate pieces)?

I didn’t know it when I wrote the first two stories—“A Dead Cat Christmas” and “Lyle and the Space Man”—but the “unrelated” works I was writing were connected by strands that I hadn’t yet seen. They were connected by water and an enigmatic woman. The stories started trying to become a novel, but I didn’t let them.

Q: What are your pet peeves that you’ve seen done with these kinds of stories? (And how do you avoid the same problems?)

I try not to say negative things about artists or their work. Having devoted parts of my life and myself to create from my imagination and captivate an audience, I know how painful it can be to have your work misunderstood.

My problems come from my inability to fully experience emotions, the way that I will not let myself feel things too deeply, which sometimes makes sensitive moments in my work feel like cheesy standup comedy. To fix this problem, I try to really develop my characters so I can empathize enough to make readers care about them.

To better answer the question, I deal with age-old Southern Gothic elements but do my best to recode genre stereotypes like “dying mama with a heart of gold” or “evil plantation guy” in provocative, counterintuitive, and interesting ways.

Q: What are the best ways for readers to connect with you and keep track of news and updates?

Thank you for this opportunity! Find me on the Slasher app, on X @LeeRozelle1, and my website leerozelle.com.

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