Macromere Press

Macromere: Since today, September 6th, is the 17th anniversary—or deathiversary, as we should now be calling it—of Christopher Coe’s passing, would you mind telling us about “Christopher”?

David: Not at all. “Christopher” was one of the early ones in the genesis of He Who Shall Remain Shameless. It was written after “Chris” and “Harriet”, and I’m pretty sure it was actually the third story out of all of them to be written. I felt I had something with the concept and themes behind the first two stories, so I thought I’d keep going. I wasn’t sure who was next until I was alone in a classroom at San Francisco State University, where I was then taking some classes for a graduate certificate in post-secondary teaching, and I scanned the bookshelves. I always scan bookshelves when I’m in a room. Anyway, there was a lot of fiction on these shelves, books that no one had picked up or held or otherwise touched in a good long time, and one of the spines was very thin. It stood out to me because it was a Vintage Contemporaries paperback—you know, the ones from the eighties and early nineties that have a very specific design, quite sleek and respectful.

M: They don’t make ‘em like they used to.

D: I took this slim volume down and it was I Look Divine by Christopher Coe. I’d never heard of Christopher Coe. His author photo in the front of the book was haunting. He wasn’t exactly looking to the side, but his head was turned from a direct confrontation with the camera, and he looked as if he didn’t really want his picture taken. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or if he was about to cry. I felt a strong sense of tragedy in this photo, a tragedy that continued into the work itself.

M: We’re ashamed to admit none of us have read I Look Divine yet.

D: You should. It’s a good book. Highly unsettling. Very short. It’s shortness was the thing that struck me the most about it. It’s a novel, but at only 109 pages in paperback format it could really be considered a novella. It works as a novel, though, and it works well. I mean, is He Who Shall Remain Shameless a novel or is it a short story collection?

M: We say it’s a novel. A novel in stories.

D: But is that just a fancy way of saying a linked short story collection?

M: Maybe….Does it matter?

D: Probably not. Sooo…I was fascinated by Christopher Coe, and I decided to research him. I couldn’t find much. But his life, what little of it there was available for the public, what more of it could be created and thus saved by the David Michael Ewald of He Who Shall Remain Shameless, that was worth writing about. So I wrote a new encounter that became “Christopher”. 

M: It’s certainly the shortest of all the stories in HWSRS.

D: It is. Just under 2,000 words. I remember submitting it to the online magazine Morbid Outlook because they wouldn’t accept any story over 2,000 words. And Morbid Outlook accepted it. No changes were made to the submitted story, but significant changes were made between the story published in Morbid Outlook and the version included in He Who Shall Remain Shameless.

M: Such as….

D: Such as an expansion of this idea that drives the entire novel, or novel in stories: Other people on the Internet have Christopher Coe’s name, and David Michael Ewald the narrator and hero is afraid that the Christopher Coe of I Look Divine and Such Times will be replaced permanently by all those other Christopher Coes, even Christopher Coes that have yet to be born. That’s what it means to be ‘Internet dead.’

M: Replaced on the Internet, erased from the Internet—and thus from all public memory. Forgotten in the worst way possible.

D: You got it.

M: A big part of “Christopher” seems to be the discussion of one’s art, and how one’s art may not be enough to sustain the memory of the artist.

D: Exactly. Certainly Mr. Coe’s two novels are out there, but he died tragically before he could write and publish more, and in this meritocracy we now live in, I—like the David Michael Ewald of HWSRS—felt it’s a tragedy to have to be ranked, and therefore judged, in this way.

M: So it comes down to sales rankings.

D: It shouldn’t have to, but that’s one of David Michael Ewald’s biggest sticking points with the Christopher Coe of “Christopher”. The sales rankings of those two novels have to increase, or else.

M: What about your own sales rankings, the ones for He Who Shall Remain Shameless?

D: Believe me: I’m prepared to join Christopher Coe.

M: As are we. Thanks for taking the time etcetera etcetera.

D: Etcetera.