Matthew Zakharuk
Dystopias, queerness, monstrousness
Hey everyone,
At this point everyone is aware how much I enjoy making space for queer creators. Today we have Matthew Zakharuk, author of the upcoming Imago, talking about the process of writing the book and several of the themes within it.
Matthew Zakharuk writes transmasculine lesbian fiction with a focus on the monstrous, the dreadful, and the thrilling. Imago is out soon, and this dark academia, monstrous dystopia is one hell of a ride.
Chaos Gays: You’re here today to talk about your new release, Imago. To start off, could you tell me (and everyone else) a little bit about the book?
MZ: Imago: A Dystopian Gothic is my debut novel, a story with a skeleton of a gothic horror and the meat of dark academia, gaslamp fantasy, and dystopian fiction. It's also a story of queer desire, transmasculine and lesbian existence on the margins, and a love letter to everyone who feels like a monster
Imago follows Ada, a young student desperate to secure a safe place in an authoritarian society, to an elite Institute in the polar North, where she's drawn into a bloody conspiracy and discovers secrets behind the magic her society relies on.
Chaos Gays: I love this! So from there, what was it like writing the monstrous as something that is accepted and loved within a narrative?
MZ: So, of course in fiction everything is a matter of framing. A monster is only a monster if you frame it as one. For instance, plenty of queer erotica may feature classic monsters, but they're not "monsters" in the sense of the narrative role they occupy.
Positive monsterhood in horror is a little more complicated, because a monster isn't just a scary-looking creature but also a instrument of the narrative. There's a reason why traditional monster horror works. You need to understand what makes it tick. And since horror is a genre anchored in the reader's emotional response, riding the line between "this is a monster but not THE monster" is tricky. If you paint a picture of a monster, it takes a lot of smoke and mirrors, from prose to composition to plot, to frame it as something else.
The idea that the real monster is Man or Society or what have you, that's nothing new. A lot of modern subversive horror--and even older, early-to-middle XX century horror--contains those themes to some extent. Where I wanted to go with "Imago" were two ideas:
1 - To explore desire towards the abhorred and the monstrous, what draws a marginalised person to essentially embrace and hyperbolise their margins.
2 - Who gets to be a monster to whom? Who gets to do it without punishment?
Ultimately in the narrative of Imago, a monster is an individual with power. But the only thing that is actually named a monster within its universe, is an individual that's not supposed to have power.
Chaos Gays: That makes a lot of sense! So the source of 'evil' (for want of a better term) is something that never gets labelled as a monster while the labelled 'monsters' are more than they seem? Is that correct? And if so, can you talk about the kind of readers you hope would get comfort from this?
MZ: Yes! While the world of Imago is somewhat hyperbolic to the average modern reader--it was very loosely based on real-world historical regimes, but ultimately it was constructed to serve a narrative purpose rather than convey history--but it carries a seed of something that permeates our modern societies. The people that are supposed to hold power--the proper men and women, but mostly men--do so with little and incidental challenge, their evils banal and selfish and often obvious but still just kind of the way of things. You can resent the way of things, but fighting it is an uphill battle that gets you labelled a Sisyphus. Fight loudly enough, and you'll be seen as crazy and hostile. Not to be approached.
Because what gets labelled a "monster" is a dog that bites back. You might not like the man in charge, but that doesn't mean you've learned to see past the monster at the human beneath the name. And so Imago was written for people that have felt monstered and othered, those that have felt like all they ever wanted was to be left happy and alone, only to be told--directly or not--that their wish is somehow a violent one. That they're crazy and hostile.
Chaos Gays: That actually leads me to another question: what was it like as a writer trying to do worldbuilding for the dystopian world of Imago?
MZ: The dystopia came about semi-naturally in the process of crafting the story. It's something of a truism about Eastern European writers that we only write worlds that suck copious amounts of ass--it's true of the pretentious ones like myself, anyway. (We have comedic writers, I promise.) So that wasn't the initial goal, but when your lived experience is a constant uphill battle in a world that doesn't care for your continued existence and actively obstructs you in ways both inane and malicious, it just kind of happens. Considering the themes of Imago, producing Social Commentary TM was just sort of inevitable.
The key thing to understand about how dystopias work is, it's not about things being bad all the time. What makes dystopias tick is the existence of relative rewards. You sell out your neighbour to the police, you get the better house. You look like everyone else, you get to have jobs that don't kill you. Limit the contact with the outside world, make dissolution difficult by withholding resources, and you're good to do. It's about the little sticks and the mouldy carrots.
Chaos Gays: That makes a lot of sense. So what was this story as a whole actually like to write? Did you come across any particularly difficult or easy parts for you as a writer?
MZ: As is often the case for me, once I had a solid grasp on the POV's voice, it was relatively smooth sailing. I outline in an almost rehearsal-like way, by writing out a very detailed, multi-page summary that I internalise and rarely actually consult. That is just to know where I'm going with this and that the sequence of events makes sense.
The difficulty of writing Imago came from the fact that, despite appearances reader-side, it's not actually a narrative driven by character. Ada's character and arc is very important, but the plot itself almost does not care about her. I'm much more used to stories where the protagonist is, if not the instigator, then at least the driver of the plot. Ada's not--as is typical for gothic horror--and she's angry about it. Structure-wise, much of Imago’s engineering was cohering disparate pieces that move molecule-like around particular events rather than in reaction to the main character's decisions. That's the source of both the decision to write Imago in third person--even though there's basically only one POV--and the addition of epistolary asides.
Chaos Gays: That's really interesting. So, you've already discussed this a little but I wondered if you'd be willing to discuss your original goals and inspirations in writing Imago?
MZ: Sure! Imago started out as something of a challenge for myself to write a book structured as a gothic horror--a genre I tend to either absolutely love or be bored to death with, due to the combined effect of its pacing structure, the sometimes incidental and archetypal nature of its characters, and my own ADHD. I wanted to know what--for me specifically--makes me love it, and what makes me want to put it down.
I'm similarly a big fan of historical dramas, especially queer historical dramas, that take place in XVIII-XX centuries. But, for a litany of reasons that generally come down to gatekeeping and cishet-imposed standards in entertainment and arts, I also often find them disappointing in practice. By-the-numbers--oh, will this pitiable queer be doomed to a tragic end? will they be inspirational to the cishet audience? yes and yes, of course!--uninterested in modern queerness and its link to the past, centred on the upper classes of society and again, so hopelessly hetero- and cisfatalistic. So, Imago is kind of what I would want from a historical queer drama set in a patriarchal world. "If you can't get it in the store, homemade is fine," and so on.
Chaos Gays: So in that case, could you show off some of the really unique parts of this story? I don't believe in anyone claiming they're the ONLY one doing something, so I mean this more in the sense of 'this is what makes you want to pick up THIS book rather than others in a similar genre'?
MZ: I think Imago’s more unique qualities come from the intersections of its genres and tropes. If you want to see dark academia that explores how dystopias utilise higher education in their function and takes aesthetic inspiration from Central and Eastern Europe, consider giving Imago a go. If you'd like to read about magic conveyed via linguistics with science fiction-like themes of progress and its cost, you could give this book a go. If you enjoy queer narratives of resisting a patriarchal world, but you're weary of misery voyeurism and coming out stories, maybe Imago will have something you want.
Chaos Gays: And going forward, do you have any specific writing goals?
MZ: I'd like to write a series. I'm a bit scared of commitment to a multi-book project--it's one thing to let a reader down with a standalone, another thing to disappoint with a sequel or a conclusion--but on the other hand, a good series is a great ride for both the author and the reader. I have two works-in-progress at the moment, so I'll see where I get with them once I start drafting them.
Chaos Gays: That makes sense! And lastly, as a fun question, is there anything you HAVEN'T been able to include (either in this book or others) yet that you wish you could?
MZ: A greater variety of queer expression and identity, especially in the background! This is partly always the case because stories have narrative economy and you can only introduce so many meaningful characters before it starts falling apart. So you can't really think of it in terms of representing as many people as possible, it's just not going to work.
In Imago’s case, though, the side effect of writing a rigidly patriarchal and conformist world is that queer identities are heavily marginalised and made invisible. There's a hard limit on what you can portray with tertiary characters when you need to create the impression that your primary characters exist in a world hostile to them.
Chaos Gays: That sounds awesome! I hope you get to feature it! Thank you for talking to me, too!
So, for anyone who has read other interviews you will know that I always encourage people to support creators featured here if they’re interested! There will be links below and if Imago sounds like your sort of thing, now you know where it is!
Links:
Website: matthewzakharuk.com
Imago Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Imago-Dystopian-Gothic-Matthew-Zakharuk-ebook/dp/B0CN3L8N1F
Imago Itchio: https://mattwritesmonsters.itch.io/imago
Imago Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199259650-imago
