THE MONSTER INSIDE US
JASON CHIREVAS ON WRITING FIGHT
CARD: MONSTER MAN
I’ve
always found losers more interesting than winners. Let’s start there.
Fight Card: Monster Man is a story about losers. Losers of varying degree, but losers nonetheless. The only character in the book who may be doing what he wants to do, who has achieved what he set out to achieve, is the villain of the piece. That should tell you what to expect in this story.
But
then, that’s noir, isn’t it?
And noir is one of the things that drew me
to Fight Card.
Pulp
and noir – two terms thrown together a lot, but which don’t really have much in
common – collide head-on in the traditional Fight
Card books. When I pitched Monster
Man, I knew three things – I wanted it be noir; I wanted it to evoke pulpy
Hollywood B pictures of the 40’s and 50’s; and I wanted it to be about losers.
Another
thing I’ve always found interesting is the good guy trapped in a hulking body.
It’s easy to write and envision a big, muscle-bound, guy as a thug or a villain
– but what if Goliath is the good guy? That paradigm shift was what I wanted to
explore in Monster Man. It was also
the biggest challenge – how to take a big, hulking, boxer and not only make him
the hero, but also make him a loser?
Enter
Rondo Hatton.
Rondo
Hatton was an actor in several second and third-rate horror movies in the
1940s. Hatton had a disease called acromegaly – essentially a form of gigantism
– which gave him a menacing, distorted appearance.
RONDO HATTON
Hollywood exploited this
characteristic, casting Hatton as some variation of a monstrous character called The Creeper in most of his movies – with
little more than lighting needed to make him look like something underworldly.
Hatton’s success, if that’s what it was, was short-lived as he died of an acromegaly-releated
heart attack in 1946 at the age of 51.
A big,
hulking, boxer with acromegaly. The idea fascinated me. But, as Fight Card guru Paul Bishop asked, was
it possible for such a person to actually box?
My
answer – Primo Carnera was the heavyweight champion of the world from 1933 to
1934. He was 6’ 7” tall. He also had acromegaly.
Now,
if you choose to read up on Primo, you will find his rise to the title may have
had some influence from the mob, but the real reality was Primo Carnera was a
huge guy, with acromegaly, who got in the ring and banged it out with guys like
Jack Sharkey and Max Baer.
Plus,
mob influence – how noir is that?
So,
with a real-world precedent in place, Ben Monster
Harman was born. Ben is a big, hulking guy who learned the disciplines of
fitness and boxing from Father Tim at St. Vincent’s Asylum for Boys in Chicago.
Like a lot of Father’s Tim’s boys you’ve read about, Ben looks to the pro ranks
for his salvation when he’s old enough to leave the asylum. However, World War II and then the illness –
which he comes to call Hatton’s disease – puts an expiration date on Ben’s time
as a boxer.
So,
that’s Ben. But he’s not the only desperate noir loser trying to fight his way
through Fight Card: Monster Man.
The
person just past his or her prime is another facinating concept for me. In Monster Man, we also meet Victoria – a
never-quite-was movie actress who settles uncomfortably in the harbor village
of Mamaroneck, New York.
Sparks
fly when Victoria meets Ben, who is in town to perpetuate an underground boxing
scam with Pete – who is Ben’s manager and also a fellow refugee from St.
Vincent’s.
The
idea of two losers – both fallen from different walks of life, which might have
granted them some celebrity – trying to use whatever they have left to get
ahead, really interested me. It made me care about the characters and what
would become of them as they make choices that put them on a slippery path to
disaster.
At
their best, I think B movies and the kind of fiction Fight Card represents are great for two reasons, both arising from
their brevity. First, the short running times and page counts force writers to
power the plot along at lean, stripped-down pace. Second, events move so
quickly, and circumstances are usually so dire, it forces the characters to
expose their raw, base selves. Crisis is when you learn who someone really is
and humans in crisis is what Fight Card
is all about. We put our fighters – and the people who love them – through hell,
turning the story on its head before you, or they, have time to react.
Monster Man was a fun book to write and I hope
some measure of that enjoyment will carry over when you read it. I’m proud to
be part of Fight Card. It’s exactly
the kind of fiction I always wanted to write and I’m happy to see I wasn’t
alone.
Keep
punching, Ben. You and Vicky may find a way to win yet.
