As much as I adore Agatha Christie - and I think people make this claim about murder mysteries in general - it's often a very conservative mode of storytelling. Usually it's the greedy, climbing, new-money slimeball who wants to take from the aristocracy.

Christopher Bollen

Categorized in : Thinking Climbing Murder Mysteries

It's always surprised me that mainstream America had the good taste to like R.E.M. It doesn't have the digestible quality the general public tends to look for in its favorite musicians.

Christopher Bollen

musician quality america

There's a structure to a detective story that I can easily understand. I understand playing that particular game. It's like solving a puzzle. Or creating a puzzle.

Christopher Bollen

creating games stories

The first horror movie I saw, in first or second grade, was My Bloody Valentine [1981], where there's a deranged killer in a miner mask stalking a small coal town.

Christopher Bollen

coal valentine towns

I was never afraid on stage. That's where I was the least afraid. I could just do what I do and I had the amplification and the lights.

Christopher Bollen

amplification stage light

I'm really much better at asking questions than answering them, since asking questions is like a constant deflection of oneself.

Christopher Bollen

oneself

I like to be alone, I mean, I really love to be alone more than anything else, and I don't really like to talk about myself to death, and I don't like to share too much, and I don't really have dreams of extreme fame or even extreme respect.

Christopher Bollen

dream fame mean

There seem to be two ways of generating interest from the reader: withholding information or by telling the reader on the first page exactly what's going to happen.

Christopher Bollen

interest

People aren't doing whodunits anymore.

Christopher Bollen

people

It's really hard to write about art in general. But it's exceptionally hard to fictionalize art and make work that isn't a parody, or is something that could withstand critique and exist in the art world as a valuable object, or a true piece.

Christopher Bollen

writing world art

Safety, reputation, their lives, their friends, and their world. Writers typically try to avoid that because it's not expedient.

Christopher Bollen

safety trying world

There are certain moments where artwork might seem like it's part of someone's career - if you really know the art world - , but I did my best to prevent that overlap.

Christopher Bollen

moments world art

If you've been in the art world for more than eight years, you realize another generation is making the exact same work as the previous generation - but treating it like it's never been done before. It becomes very cyclical very quickly.

Christopher Bollen

done world art

Secrets are never secure because they are always at risk of being found out.

Christopher Bollen

risk secret

I don't think secrets are a bad thing. I think there's this idea that everything needs to be transparent in order for it to be free.

Christopher Bollen

secret thinking

When you create a fence, you keep people out, but you also limit your mobility.

Christopher Bollen

fence people

It's just as political, what you do in the bedroom is just as political as what you do in public.

Christopher Bollen

bedroom political

Why I love chess and tennis - the volleying aspect, and the fact that your competitors' reactions and motivations and bluffs come into the game itself.

Christopher Bollen

tennis motivation games

I'm convinced I was the only kid ever who had a Death on the Nile [1978] movie poster and a Murder on the Orient Express [1974] movie poster on his bedroom walls.

Christopher Bollen

wall murder kids

I was obsessed with Agatha Christie in sixth grade.

Christopher Bollen

sixth-grade grades obsessed

I also remember when I watched Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer [1990] at, like, age 15. That scared the crap out of me. Because it didn't operate inside the usual conventions of the horror genre in the way that I could accept. I can accept horny teenager counselors being murdered at camp. But I couldn't accept the derangement of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, which was that anyone could be murdered at any moment - whole families, with no build-up music and no meaning. It terrified me.

Christopher Bollen

horny horror-genre teenager