Hell Followed With Us: An Interview w/ Author Andrew Joesph White
A pile of human ears is only one of the graphic and defining images of best selling author Andrew Joesph White’s Hell Followed With Us. He tells the story of a group of queer learning to survive both a monstrous world and the monsters within themselves. It’s a novel that seemed to melt reality around to become the perfect story for the moment. White generously agreed to an interview to discuss the work and what makes it so effective.
Dylan James Harper: One of the elements of Hell Followed with Us that pops out to readers right away is the vivid descriptions of the supernatural elements. Images of protruding rib cages and limbs at unnatural angles stick out right away. What were some of your inspirations when it comes to this sort of graphic body horror?
Andrew Joesph White: I’ve always been a video game fan—if you are too, you can probably point out the influences as you read. (Ending the book with a literal boss fight? C’mon.) Games like Dead Space and The Evil Within have been part of my life for years, so it was only natural to draw from those as I created the horrific world of this book. It helps that body horror comes easily to me. As a trans author, the changing body is an innate source of interest, as are the emotions—both positive and negative—that come with it.
I also just like monsters, no matter how gross they look, and think they should get the chance to be a hero more often!
DJH: Your excellent descriptive writing and deep sense of optimism feel uniquely suited for the historical moment we’re in; how has the world around us inspired your writing in general and this story specifically?
AJW: It’s not very often that my work is described as optimistic, but now that you say it, I agree. Just because the stories I write are brutal and hard to stomach doesn’t mean that they aren’t hopeful by the end. There’s so much pessimism in the world that it feels cruel to present stories where the queer kids don’t make it out alive at the end. My queer kids will always make it out alive.
To be honest, Hell Followed with Us wasn’t originally meant to shed light on a societal ill. It was just a way for me to unpack my personal connection between transness and monstrosity. Not knowing that I was trans as a child warped my mindset and left me more connected to monsters than other people—and the autism didn’t help for sure. It wasn’t until the book took on more and more meaning that I realized what I was really writing about, you know? The reclamation of monstrosity and horror by queer people, the strength of fighting back, the power of community—all of it is a reaction to the world we live in today.
DJH: A prominent setting throughout the novel is the ALC, an LGBTQ+ youth center that serves as a safe house for many of its members in an exceptionally unsafe world; was this based on a real-life organization?
AJW: The Acheson LGBTQ+ Center (the ALC) was based on large-scale queer organizations like the Los Angeles LGBT Center and The DC Center for the LGBT Community—I took direct inspiration from mission statements, floor plans, photos, etc., with the aim of making the ALC as welcoming and true-to-life as possible. Truth is, though, I’ve never actually been a part of any of these organizations myself. Even my university’s queer student org was a bit overwhelming for me. Despite that, it was important for me to create a place centered around queer solidarity and survival, and the remains of an LGBT center felt like the most natural way to do that.
DJH: Neopronouns are featured several times throughout the story; was it important to you to continue to normalize these in a literary context?
AJW: It absolutely was! I know there’s some contention surrounding neopronouns, but to be frank, it’s all pointless bickering I don’t care for. Some trans people use neopronouns and that’s all there is to it. As someone who doesn’t use them, I figured the least I could do was help make their usage a bit more mainstream. (It’s weird to call my book “mainstream,” but, hey, we hit the NYT bestseller list, so I guess it is?) Plus, it’s been so heartwarming to see the responses I’ve gotten from people who use neopronouns getting to see them in a book.
If you’re looking for more neopronoun rep, check out Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee!
DJH: At the start of many chapters we get small slices of the lead up to a Christian group’s terrorist attack; what’s unsettling about these segments is none of them feel at all dissimilar from real world events and rhetoric; what about this type of extremist organization works so well to contrast the story’s protagonists?
AJW: I believe the Angels—this extremist Evangelical group—work so well in Hell Followed with Us specifically because of what you mention in the question: they’re based on real-life beliefs I’ve encountered as a trans person in America. They’re a violent conservative group trying to take control of the world’s destiny, and it’s incredibly real. Making the rhetoric as accurate as possible to real-world fundamentalist sects was integral to making this world believable. When placed next to the protagonists, a group of kids just trying to survive a collapsing world, the similarity helps to highlight the exact same struggle kids are facing today.
DJH: Several of the characters are queer the diversity extends well beyond that, with several intersections along lines of race, mental health status, etc. Was it a point of emphasis of for you to present a cast of characters that accurately represents the world we inhabit rather than the demographically limited casts we’ve historically seen in the literary world?
AJW: Oh, for sure. Not only did I make an active decision to incorporate an inclusive cast, but I also did all I could to make sure those people were represented accurately—or at least with as few mistakes as possible—without falling into stereotypes or overstepping boundaries. I always say that I’m not the judge of whether or not I did a good job of that. Only the people who are actually part of those demographics can do that. But when so, so many different kinds of people are fighting back against the Angels’ real-world counterparts, it felt not just inaccurate, but almost like lying, if I failed to include them.
DJH: Do you have upcoming projects and where is the best place for people to find out more about your work?
AJW: Sadly, I can’t talk about my upcoming projects at the moment—just know that I do have stuff in the works that I can’t wait to discuss in the future! If you want to be one of the first to find out when I spill the beans, or just check out the short stories I’ve already published, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram @AJWhiteAuthor, on TikTok @AndrewJosephWhite, and at my website andrewjosephwhite.com.