Matthew Carter has always
been interested in what makes the human
mind twist and turn, seeking the moment that
a person's thought process goes from a sane
and productive mechanism to a form of mental
cancer. Carter lives in Romulus, Michigan,
and 'Liquid Soul' is his first novel.
PageOneLit.com:
Where did you grow up and was reading and
writing a part of your life? Who were your
earliest influences and why?
Matthew Carter: I grew up in Romulus, Michigan, which is a
suburb of Detroit. I liked reading at a early
age and that only grew over time. Writing almost
seemed to sneak up on me and I can't really say
for certain when I started to putting pen on
paper. As I got older I felt a greater love for
writing each and every day. It started out as
something that I didn't mind doing, to something
that I liked to do in my spare time, to loving
to do it on a daily basis while letting time
completely escape me.
My earliest influences were
Stephen King, Jayne Anne Philips as well as Detroit
sports columnists Mitch Albom and Bob Wojnowski.
Stephen King really made me think at things from a
whole new angle. The way he pens many of his stories
I feel are completely plausible and to me, there is
nothing more frightening than a dark story that
could possibly be true. No matter how strange and
unbelievable it seems out of context, he makes it
seem possible that the terror he speaks of is just
right around the corner.
Author Jayne Anne Philips' style helped me create
a style similar to hers but with my own twist to it.
The way she was able to make the ordinary seem so
very interesting, I felt as if I was a part of the
story. No matter what the story was about I always
felt like not only did she pen
Before being a fiction writer I had dreamed of
being a sports columnist and I actually wrote sports
articles and columns for my high school paper and my
community college paper as well. Mitch Albom and Bob
Wojnowski were, and are two of the biggest names in
sports in Michigan and beyond. They both write a
personal style with their own personalized hook.
PageOneLit.com: Why do you
write?
Matthew Carter: I write because it is a part of me. If I
didn't write I would be denying myself my most
basic need. If I don't write for any length of
time I feel as if I am wronging myself in some
way or another. Writing for me is a way for me
to create certain worlds I wouldn't have known
existed. It allows me to escape the real world
and into my own universe. No matter what happens
in my life I always seem to find the most
comfort when I am either writing or reading. I
am able to center myself, no matter how dark the
content I am writing about.
PageOneLit.com: Tell us about
your new book LIQUID SOUL. Explain your
title LIQUID SOUL as it relates to your plot.
Matthew Carter:
Liquid Soul is about a man who is able to become his
victim for a moment in his/her life. He never knows
who he will end up becoming and what kind of
experiences he will have. In many ways it is like a
drug he is addicted to and finds a certain comfort
in it. He also sees Liquid Soul as a spiritual
occupation and his paycheck is in the next world. It
offers him an opportunity to become someone else for
a short time and as he wanders alone in life he
thinks about how it would be to be someone else for
just a moment. He views Liquid Soul as the truest
way in which to experience this rush.
Liquid Soul is the idea that the soul is in
the blood and flows through every part of every
person. The narrator is able to become his victim
for a moment in his victim's life through his/her
blood.
PageOneLit.com: LIQUID SOUL's main
character is
and no
ordinary killer and he way he kills is unusual -
Explain. Where did this story come from?
Matthew Carter:
His murders are mostly by random, although he thinks
that their deaths are brought forth by a greater
purpose, as if God had picked him to kill his
victims. He doesn't like to leave any kind of trace
he was there and he is desperately afraid of being
caught. After his experience is over he buries his
victims' bodies in the back together in an open
grave so they can all be together.
The people he becomes he views as a part of his
family and feels an extreme gratitude for allowing
him to be a part of this almost religious
experience.
This story came from a curiosity I have about how
other people live their lives and what it would be
like to be someone else for just a short period of
time. I just let the story come to me and let it go
from there. Much of what I write is spur of the
moment and I just let the story take on a life of
its own.
.
PageOneLit.com: "I Don't have a past. i don't
have a future. I just need liquid soul."
Explain
Matthew Carter: To him, there is absolutely nothing else in life.
To say that this was an obsession would be a gross
understatement. There is absolutely nothing else in
his life. He devotes his life to Liquid Soul in any
way he can and whatever happened in the past doesn't
matter, as for the future, he is mostly content on
where Liquid Soul will take him. His faith in the
experience is absolute so to even wonder about
Liquid Soul is to question its power and he has
little interest in that.
PageOneLit.com: The cover of LIQUID SOUL is
outstanding -- Who did the cover?
Matthew Carter: Thank you! I threw out a few ideas on the
cover. I wanted to have a red moon prevalent
because to me the red moon is a beautifully dark
omniscient force lurking in the sky. Kind of as
if it was his God following him, making sure he
was carrying out what It wanted.
PageOneLit.com: LIQUID SOUL would make a
great film -- If Hollywood called and asked you
to cast the film who would you cast and why??
Matthew Carter: Thanks! There are a few people that come to mind
but nobody specific. People like Guillermo Del Toro,
Bruce Willis, Sean Penn, and Robert Downey Jr. are
ones that immediately come to mind.
PageOneLit.com: What do you hope to achieve
with LIQUID SOUL?
Matthew Carter: I would really like people to see the layers
involved in the story. Perhaps people will see this
as more than just senseless murder without a
purpose. I look for people to view the book as
something that isn't as cut and dry as it readily
appears.I hope to get people to look at life
differently. While we are all connected, we are
still separate from each individual person and
separate from their thoughts, feelings, emotions and
experiences. How we view something is entirely
different from someone else even though we may have
had similiar perspectives. One of the things I
wanted Liquid Soul to show is that even if you could
become that person and know what generally they were
feeling, you would never really know what it means
to be another person.
PageOneLit.com: What was the last book you
read?
Matthew Carter: The last book I read was 3 weeks with my brother
by Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks. Very good book
about life. I just started reading Under the Dome by
Stephen King.
PageOneLit.com: What's next?
Matthew Carter: I am writing a few books right now and hopefully
I will be finished with at least one by the end of
the year. One, called Nowhere Man is about a guy who
takes the law into his own hands and makes himself
judge, jury and executioner to those do evil in the
world. His borders know no bounds and nobody is
immune from his attacks. He kills the way they
lived. Whatever they did wrong in their life, that
is the same way they are killed.
PageOneLit.com: Do you have any hobbies? What
are they? How do they enhance your writing?
Matthew Carter: I love to read a wide variety of books, I am a
huge sports fan, I also love art, and poetry All of
these things help give me new perspectives into how
to view life as well as the fiction that mimics
life. Books allow me see different viewpoints.
Sports allow me to see the highs and lows of life.
Art and poetry give me something new each time I
look at them.
