Interview with Theodore Lee

Theodore Lee is the author of ACE OF SHADES, a weird thriller that stars Detective Shades in the role of anti hero.

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Hi Theodor,

thank you for joining me in my reclusive mansion in the woods for this interview. Don’t mind the stuffed clown, that guy has simply delivered one too many parcels to my home. And please excuse me for not inviting you to my miserable copy of a bat cave, but it’s flooded. Again. It’s the plumbing, you see? The plumber was also a clown.

Instead, let me ask you some questions:

Ace of Shades seems to be like a cauldron where a lot of stuff has gone in. There are so many references to pop culture – and maybe not so pop but rather nerd culture as well – that I’m bound to forget a lot. But I need to ask: In what way did David Fincher influence your novel? (Note for readers: David Fincher is the director of the movies fight club and se7en, both with Brad Pitt)

I’m a big cinephile and Fincher definitely ranks on my top ten favorite directors (a list that no doubt exceeds ten). But I think anything you’re passionate about is bound to seep into your writing or work. Funny enough, though, I hadn’t watched Se7en until after already incorporating the seven deadly sins, though I suppose it’s quite a common trope among fiction these days since its use in the 1300s, particularly with Dante’s Divine Comedy (Purgatorio).

I know all about top ten lists that stretch easily to twenty! Sometimes even more … But if we’re already talking about movie Davids, we should also mention David Lynch, who is famous for Twin Peaks. Have you ever watched the series? If so, was the Red Room in Shades’ mansion an allegory to the black hut and the red room in Twin Peaks, where both symbolize the origin of all evil?

Surprisingly, I haven’t seen Twin Peaks yet but I’ve heard a lot of good things about it. There’s an H.G. Wells short story titled “The Red Room” from 1894, essentially about this guy (the narrator) who spends the night in an alleged haunted section of this old castle to dispel the rumors of its haunting, but as the night unfolds, paranoia and fear set in, and he starts to fall into madness. In the end, it’s left to debate whether or not what he sees in there is real or just a manifestation of his fear which has taken over.

Talking about similarities! And pop culture references – have you always planned to use song titles as chapter titles, or did that just happen at some point? My guess would be that the chapter “we didn’t start the fire” DID start that particular fire and you might have changed your chapter titles to songs after that one, but that’s just a guess. Then again, Ace Shades itself sounds remarkably like a famous Motörhead song. And he himself is the embodiment of the song “I wear my sunglasses at night”. How much music did go into writing this novel?

I tend to make playlists when I’m working on a novel or script, and I thought (from the beginning, really) it would be a fun little thing to do with every chapter. I’m pretty analytical with little details, so I tried having songs/lyrics that coincided either with what was going on in each chapter or the overall theme of the story. I love music, and I’m a musician, so it only made sense. I did the same with Black Is the Night (Ace of Shades’s sequel), as well.

Oh, I would love to read that – and I’m curious about the playlist, that could be interesting to lose to while reading. One really mysterious point is Shades origin – should we consider him a former Amish? Those names in the flashback, and the fact you named his home village Ordnung, which is German for Order, had me ravaging my brain about that for a while. (Also, was it planned as a reference to M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village?)

I’ve always been attracted to ambiguous stories. From the get-go, I wanted to tell a story with hidden layers, things to dissect the closer you look into them. I think as with life, perspective plays a huge part in how we view things, impacting everything with a simple change in outlook. So, as for your question: The answer depends on the reader. I have my answer, and I suppose it’s also cemented more in Black Is the Night. (But to answer your other question: no, that wasn’t the intention, though I do love that movie).

I have very fond memories of that movie, to be honest! One thing that is very famous in nerd culture is the fourth wall break. I think you’ve done a marvelous and creative amount of it during this novel, but it also had me hesitating: in a kind of way, some passages of your novel can be read as a critic on today’s mainstream media. Was that part intended? Any deep meaning you wanted to hide in the novel and might now fear readers haven’t got it?

To a degree, yes, absolutely. In many ways, I always wanted to tell a story about stories. A love-letter to them, really, by taking long-used tropes and subverting them, deconstructing the very notion of what they are. Taking a “hard-boiled” detective with no memory of a past life and making it the very center and heart of his investigation. Going back to my love of film (as well as graphic novels and literature), I wanted to tackle a story where a character’s point-of-view (an absurd, unreliable view on reality) is filtered through their feelings and emotions. He sees the world like a movie itself, and because of that, there comes all the ramifications: hyper-violence, aesthetic over practicality, binary thinking, a disconnection to the world, etc.

Ah, yes, the unreliable narrator is a trope that can easily fail – but I think you nailed it! Last but not least, what is your favorite drink or cocktail? And just to be sure here, could you answer that question for Ace, too?

My favorite drink lately has been coconut water, though I’m also partial to a good Thai tea. Alcohol-wise? An occasional draft beer is always nice, especially on the road, whilst being able to support local businesses. As for Ace, if we are to believe his origin in the Ordnung, I suppose alcohol is the last thing on his mind (it would be nefarious, after all— the same reason Raphael always wears a hat), so I could see him enjoying a good ol’ fashioned sweet tea.

Thank you so much for your time!