The idea that the concepts of right and wrong can change under different circumstances has always fascinated Utah horror author Dan Wells.
“When are we as a society allowed to kill someone?” Wells asked. “I can’t shoot someone on the street, but if they break into my home and threaten my family, I can. And that fascinates me — that circumstances can change our concept of right and wrong. … I love pushing that idea into different directions to see how far it will go.”
Wells’ latest book release, "Over Your Dead Body" (Tor Books, $26.99), the fifth book in his popular John Cleaver series, continues to follow teenage John Wayne Cleaver, a diagnosed sociopath who believes he is fated to become a serial killer due to his constant homicidal urges.
Living with a set of rules to keep his impulses in check, John finds himself in a situation where he must kill monsters — murderous monsters that live disguised among humans — for the greater good.
“The first three books, speaking in very broad English major terms, are about John learning how to feel,” Wells said.
The second half of the planned six-book series, which is divided into two trilogies, focuses on how John deals with his new sense of feeling and caring.
“John has pretty much spent the first three books doing anything he could, breaking whatever rules were there, in order to stop the monsters,” Wells said. “And now it’s time for him to learn that sometimes you need to save the victims instead of punish the perpetrators, and there is a significant difference between those two concepts.”
“Over Your Dead Body” focuses mostly on characters John and Brooke. While there are still monsters to deal with, most of the book focuses on the pair interacting, traveling and getting to know each other, and on John trying to help Brooke without knowing how.
Because the book has such a different focus from his other books, Wells said it was the hardest book he has ever written.
“I kind of wanted the book to feel purposely aimless, which was, in hindsight, a very difficult goal to set for myself,” Wells said. "They are hitchhiking around all over the country, and I kind of wanted to tell the idea of the 'road movie,' that kind of classic Americana thing where you are discovering yourself and find somebody else in the middle of this journey. And to be able to tell that kind of wandering story without the book itself feeling directionless proved even harder, far harder than I had expected it to be."
Aside from the feel of the book, readers will see John's arc shift a little.
“When I was writing the other books, it was that concept I talked about earlier, ‘How far are you willing to go to do what is right?’” Wells said. “What John had believed is right for four books is that these monsters are preying on people and they need to be stopped. He is willing to do whatever it takes to stop them. And here in book five, he has lost everything except for Brooke. … I really wanted this book to end with John making what is really the first selfless decision he has ever made.”
While the John Cleaver series deals with monsters and murder, the heart of these stories is about a boy just trying to be good and do the right thing.
Wells said mainstream literature is often more concerned with ambiguity and relativity. Horror, on the other hand, uses horrible situations that force characters to make choices, he said.
“I would go so far as to say that horror is the most intrinsically moral genre of storytelling we have, because it is primarily concerned with good and evil, and sin and punishment, and the possibility of overcoming darkness and finding redemption,” Wells said. “… As time wears on, I am increasingly convinced that horror fiction is the genre that really allows us to dig into these questions of right and wrong in a way that others don’t.”
But it’s not only John who deals with the choices of right and wrong. Wells wrote his stories with two sides: John’s growth and character arc, and the monsters’ emotional arcs. One of the things that makes the John Cleaver series unique is that the monsters have their own tragic flaws.
Wells said the monster John deals with in “Over Your Dead Body” is “very unique and very strange.”
“Keeping that focus on what the monster is doing and why was very important to me in this book as well, even though it was so different than the others,” he said. “It’s always something that I keep in mind — who the monster is and how I can treat them as a real person.”
"Over Your Dead Body" does not include any swearing or sexual content but does contain some violence.
If you go ...
What: Dan Wells book release and signing
When: Tuesday, May 3, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Weller Book Works, 607 Trolley Square
Web: samwellers.com, thedanwells.com
Hikari Loftus is a graduate of the University of Utah. She blogs at FoldedPagesDistillery.blogspot.com.