#32: Five for Them, One for Me, with Christa Faust

Christa's latest, THE GET OFF, is out March 18

There are damn few people as bad ass as Christa Faust; this includes you, me, and, well, just about anyone you know. It’s fact, and we’d do well to accept this and keep moving forward.

Because for more than 25 years, Christa’s written some of the most singular and subversive crime novels you’ll find anywhere. She’s probably best known for her novels featuring former porn star Angel Dare, beginning with the Edgar-nominated MONEY SHOT (2008) and followed by CHOKE HOLD in 2011. But Christa brings her unique energy to every project, though, including numerous media-tie novels and comic book projects.

And she’s lived a life as interesting as any she could put on the page, working in the Times Square peep booths, as a professional dominatrix, and in the adult film industry both behind and in front of the cameras for over a decade, starring in dozens of racy fetish-oriented videos.

Christa’s wrapping up the Angel Dare series with the long-awaited THE GET OFF. Set in the world of professional rodeo, it finds Angel on the run from the police and—to her surprise—pregnant. It’s a thrilling and emotional close to the series, and it reaffirms what we all know: Christa is simply one of the best there is.

Christa’s also the latest Five for Them, One for Me.

Let’s go.

FIVE FOR THEM

1. What was the origin point for your new novel THE GET OFF?

It doesn’t really feel like a single point, more like a tangled continuum. I always planned to have three books in the series and wanted each of them to take Angel into a different world, but I didn’t know what that final world would turn out to be. The idea to look at rodeo came during a series of conversations with fellow author Ben Whitmer, and once that idea had ahold of me, I couldn’t imagine it any other way. Rodeo, like MMA and porn, is a very strenuous, potentially dangerous physical activity and the people who participate in it are using their bodies to entertain an audience. That’s my thematic through line in all three books.

2. You’ve talked about your “submersive” writing process, where you become entrenched in a subject before writing. What was this like for THE GET OFF, which is set in the world of rodeo?

When I want to learn about something, Wikipedia just doesn’t cut it. I need to talk to real live humans and observe them in their natural habitat. I need to listen to what they have to say and also pay close attention to what they don’t say. To that end, I travelled to Helotes, TX to attend a small local rodeo. (I was much more interested in the smaller scale events than the big stuff like the PBR or NFR.) I reached out to the organizers and asked if anyone was willing to talk to a nosy New Yorker like me. No judgement, just observation. They invited me to come on down.

Some people were a bit stand offish at first, but I was able to assure them that I wasn’t an undercover animal rights activist looking to do an expose or some bucklebunny trying to hook up with their husbands. I originally thought that I was going to write about bull riders, but once I got down there I was immediately drawn in by the bullfighters (also known outside the sport as rodeo clowns.)

I spent nearly two years following a group of bullfighters on the rodeo trail. I attended freestyle bullfighting events where they show off their techniques and athleticism as well as the more traditional rodeos where they worked protection. For the uninitiated, rodeo bullfighters don’t “fight” bulls like they do in Spain. They distract and control the bulls while the rider gets to safety. This concept of putting your body directly in the line of fire to protect someone else wound up being the key to the final chapter of Angel’s story.

3. Angel Dare is pregnant in THE GET OFF. Talk about the importance of discussing women’s bodily autonomy, especially at a time where that very right is under threat.

I knew that Angel would be pregnant in the final book back in 2010, long before the recent downfall of Roe v. Wade. The inciting event (so to speak) takes place in CHOKE HOLD and at that time, I chose that plot element because I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone as a writer. I don’t have or want kids and find even the idea of pregnancy profoundly disturbing, so it was a real challenge for me.

Needless to say, a lot has changed since then. We have elected officials doing everything they can to subjugate and control our bodies and our lives. More and more women are dying from lack of care. Intensely misogynistic, anti-feminist backlash has given us Pussy Grabber 2: Electric Boogaloo. These are Interesting Times for everyone, but for uterus-havers even more so.

While the concept of Angel’s unplanned pregnancy was there from the beginning, as I was writing and rewriting over the ensuing years, it started to feel more and more relevant. Necessary, even. Walking with her through the brutal, viscerally terrifying, and deeply fucked up body-horror of it all during this particular moment in history gives her journey a darker and more complex resonance.

4. In the years between the second and third Angel Dare novels, you’ve written several comic books, including HIT ME and BAD MOTHER. Did the difference in style and discipline of writing graphic novels influence or change how you approached THE GET OFF?

Building new skills and increasing the size of my writer’s tool kit is always a benefit to any project, but the structure and nature of comic writing is very different. Comics are a primarily visual medium and it’s harder to get inside a character’s head. Angel Dare novels are all about her voice and her POV. They are subjective and intimate, and they don’t allow the reader to remain an outside observer.

5. I know you don’t write much short fiction, but you’re in the upcoming CRIME INK: ICONIC, an anthology of crime fiction inspired by famous queer icons. What can you tell us about your story “Hollywood Prometheus”?

Here’s the elevator pitch: A shy young man who works in the LA county morgue investigates the gruesome murder of a young hustler at a party in the Hollywood Hills. It’s set in the early 1950s and nothing is what it seems.

I knew that it was a risk to chose director James Whale as my icon, seeing as Christopher Bram’s excellent FATHER OF FRANKENSTEIN (the novel on which the film GODS AND MONSTERS is based) already exists. But being an older person who lived through a more sexually open time and is now facing down the barrel of a more conservative (and dangerous for people like us) time, I felt very connected with him. If you want to know more, you’ll just have to read it for yourself.

ONE FOR ME

You’ve written numerous film novelizations and tie-in novels, including three books for the TV series FRINGE and the novelization for SNAKES ON A PLANE. Did you have any ideas for one of these books that the companies felt went too far?

Back in 2009 (or so) I got asked to submit a pitch for a tie-in to the movie SEVEN. I wanted to call it ATE but ended up with a less cheeky title. Anyway, the villain in my story was a cannibal chef and the big finale featured a kind of human Turducken, a fetus inside a baby inside a toddler. In the end, the publisher didn’t end up doing any books in the SEVEN universe so I’ll never know if they would have gone for my gory, gonzo idea or not.

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LEFT COAST CRIME 2025

I’m at Left Coast Crime this week. Described by Rob Hart as Bouchercon’s “smaller, West Coast-only cousin,” Left Coast Crime is in Denver this year. Because it’s scaled down from the “drinking from a firehose” experience of Bouchercon, LCC is a great chance to connect more with readers and to also hang out with some of my favorite writers. It’s also an opportunity to explore cities I don’t get too often, and Denver is—as you’d expect—absolutely gorgeous.

I’m really thrilled to be sharing a panel stage Friday with Christa, Marco Carocari (BLACKOUT), and Scott Von Doviak (LOWDOWN ROAD) to discuss “Noir: How Dark Can We Go?” (As evidenced by Christa’s “One for Me” response, we can go pretty fucking dark.) The panel’s moderated by Mark Stevens (THE FIREBALLER), and I can already tell you it’s gonna be a good time.

The rest of the time I’ll be hanging out at the event, chatting up folks, and there’s always a chance I might be at the bar.

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That’s all we’ve got for now. Thanks for coming. See you next time, and hey, let’s be careful out there.