People grow up, though, or so Andrew has been told. His interests expanded, limited world views were shattered, horizons increased in scope. Mental health problems became intractable, psychedelic medicines and following one’s dreams were recognized for their curative powers. Atheism became raving pantheism became ‘wrong question, dude’ as Andrew found himself no longer young enough to know everything or believe anything. Instead, he finds himself writing characters who think they know everything.
If you really want to stroke Andrew’s ego, tell him you’ve never read anything like his work before. It makes his writing nearly impossible to market but at least I’ve got chicken, as young Leroy Jenkins once proclaimed to a bunch of nerds in the mid-aughts.
What’s that? You want bog-standard biographical info? Lawyer, father of one, man nearing middle age who gets his jollies pushing and bending and licking the literary envelope.
Happy?
Andrew Marc Rowe’s latest book is Hi De Ho, Infecterino! The Come Up.
Website & Social Media:
Website ➜ http://www.andrewmarcrowe.com
Facebook ➜ https://www.facebook.com/andrewmarcrowe
TikTok ➜ https://www.tiktok.com/@bawdybardwrites
Tell us about your book! What inspired you to write it?
My book, Hi De Ho, Infecterino!: The Come Up (The Parasol Files #1), is my take on the zombie horror genre. Except that it's a psychedelic-soaked zombie horror comedy. My fiction is pretty much exclusively raunchy comedy, which skirts the line of bad taste and frequently goes over it. It's also usually filled with my insights into spirituality based on my own experiences. I was born an atheist in an atheistic family. Technically, we're United Church, which my old man once said is a step away from heathenism. Really, though, I grew up totally skeptical of all things religious. Why should I believe in anything of which I have no direct experience. My frustrations led to me eventually getting a copy of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and thumping it like I was a Baptist with a Bible.
Ye gods, I was a bit of an insufferable nerd as a teenager.
Anyway, I fell into a depression in my twenties, one that eventually saw me go down to Peru, drink ayahuasca, and have my own direct contact with spirit. I am in no way part of any organized religion, but when the inutterable reality of Source or God or consciousness itself comes to you and then infiltrates your life, at some point the skepticism breaks when things keep getting weirder and weirder and you have to admit that there is more to this whole reality thing than was previously assumed.
There's no putting a psychedelic experience into art, not really. The real stuff is ineffable, which means it cannot properly be put down on paper. All of the religious texts fail at their one job, in my view, be it the Bible, the Koran, the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita or whatever. They cannot give you an experience of the divine. Psychedelics, on the other hand, can. The McKenna brothers once talked about psychedelics as being superior to religion because the only thing that is required is courage, not faith. You've got to have the balls to put the substance in your mouth and that's enough. Religious experiences are not guaranteed with psychedelics, but they certainly are possible, with the right set and setting.
The Parasol Files takes those ideas, mixes them with Adam Sandler CDs and the edgy (read: offensive) comedy I've always loved, and puts it in the context of a zombie apocalypse. Someone can take one look at the book and think 'this is some dumb BS where the guy wants to get away with making a million dick jokes,' and that's true, to an extent. It also plays on apocalyptic horror, though it's meant to have a much lighter tone than say, the Walking Dead. It's a shit mix of the sacred and the profane, which is, in my view, the best kind of ice cream sundae there is.
How did you choose the title for your book? Did it come to you right away, before you started writing it, or did it come later?
My process starts with a title. I barely have any idea what I'm about to write, except some vague notions of genre. I actually thought I was ripping off a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode, the one where Ned Flanders became a zombie. Ned never actually said 'Hi De Ho, Infecterino!' in the show, but it was a bit of a Berenstain Bears effect. So, it turns out it was brand new creative, not something ripped off. The title suggests the vibe of the story - it's not exactly sedate, and it's meant to be funny.
Tell us about the cover design process. Did you have a basic idea of what your book cover would be like?
It drew inspiration from Dr. Strangelove's cover, with the fellow riding the bomb down to Earth. The zombie on the cover is doffing his mushroom cap, to give it a bit of ye olde 'tea and crumpets' jolly English type of verve, and the bomb is heading into London (that's Big Ben below). I told my cover designer what I wanted and they gave it to me, more or less.
Who is your cover designer and how did you find him/her?
I use Miblart, which is a Ukrainian service with multiple artists working under their flag.
What has been the readers’ response to your cover?
I have been told that it is beloved. I never actually heard any laughs, or even smirks, but that is the intended effect.
What tips would you give to authors who are looking for a cover designer?
Don't skimp.
Anything else you’d like to say about your book?
I'll go with blasphemy-lite: it's as important as, if not more important than, the Bible.
The Boat Repair Bible by Bloomsbury Publishing, of course.
See what you've done with that question? Now I've engendered the ire of the boat repair enthusiasts, and everyone knows what they're like.
Hi De Ho, Infecterino! The Come Up is available at Amazon.
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