"Willa" This probably isn't the best story in the book, but I love it very much, because it ushered in a new period of creativity for me-as regards the short story, at least. Most of the stories in Just After Sunset were written subsequent to "Willa," and in fairly quick succession (over a period of not quite two years). As to the story itself...one of the great things about fantasy is that it gives writers a chance to explore what might (or might not) happen after we shuffle off this mortal coil. There are two tales of that sort in Just After Sunset (the other is "The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates"). I was raised as a perfectly conventional Methodist, and although I rejected organized religion and most of its hard and fast assertions long ago, I hold to the main idea, which is that we survive death in some fashion or other. It's hard for me to believe that such complicated and occasionally wonderful beings are in the end simply wasted, tossed away like litter on the roadside. (Probably I just don't want to believe it.) What that survival might be like, though...I'll just have to wait and find out. My best guess is that we might be confused, and not very willing to accept our new state. My best hope is that love survives even death (I'm a romantic, so f**king sue me). If so, it might be a bewildered love...and a little bit sad. When love and sadness occur to my mind at the same time, I put on the country music: people like George Strait, BR549, Marty Stuart...and the Derailers. It's the latter who are playing in this story, of course, and I think they're going to have a very long engagement.
"The Gingerbread Girl" My wife and I live in Florida for part of the year now, near the barrier islands just off the Gulf of Mexico. There are a lot of very large estates there-some old and gracious, some of the bloated nouveau sort. I was walking with a friend on one of these islands a couple of years ago. He gestured at a line of these McMansions as we walked and said, "Most of these places stand empty six or even eight months of the year, can you imagine that?" I could...and I thought it would make a wonderful story. It grew out of a very simple premise: a bad guy chasing a girl along an empty beach. But, I thought, she'd have to be running away from something else to start with. A gingerbread girl, in other words. Only sooner or later even the fastest runners have to stand and fight. Also, I like suspense stories that turn on crucial little details. This one had a lot of them.
"Harvey's Dream" I can only tell you one thing about this story, because it's the only thing I know (and probably the only thing that matters): it came to me in a dream. I wrote it in a single sitting, doing little more than transcribing the tale my subconscious had already told. There's another dream-story in this book, but I know a little more about that one.
"Rest Stop" One night about six years ago, I did a reading at a college in St. Petersburg. I stayed late, and ended up driving home on the Florida Turnpike, after midnight. I stopped at a rest area to tap a kidney on the way back. You'll know what it looked like if you've read this story: a cellblock in a medium-security prison. Anyway, I paused outside the men's room, because a man and a woman were in the ladies', having a bitter argument. They both sounded tight and on the verge of getting physical. I wondered what in the world I'd do if that happened, and thought: I'll have to summon my inner Richard Bachman, because he's tougher than me. They emerged without coming to blows-although the lady in the case was crying-and I drove home without further incident. Later that week I wrote this story.
"Stationary Bike" If you've ever ridden on one of those things, you know how bitterly boring they can be. And if you've ever tried to get yourself back into a daily exercise regimen, you know how difficult that can be (my motto: "Eating Is Easier"-but yes, I do work out). This story came out of my hate/hate relationship not just with stationary bikes but with every treadmill I ever trudged and every Stairmaster I ever climbed.
"The Things They Left Behind" Like almost everyone else in America, I was deeply and fundamentally affected by 9/11. Like a great many writers of fiction both literary and popular, I felt a reluctance to say anything about an event that has become as much an American touchstone as Pearl Harbor or the assassination of John Kennedy. But writing stories is what I do, and this story came to me about a month after the fall of the Twin Towers. I might still not have written it if I had not recalled a conversation I had with a Jewish editor over twenty-five years before. He was unhappy with me about a story called "Apt Pupil." It was wrong for me to write about the concentration camps, he said, because I was not a Jew. I replied that made writing the story all the more important-because writing is an act of willed understanding. Like every other American who watched the New York skyline burning that morning, I wanted to understand both the event and the scars such an event must inevitably leave behind. This story was my effort to do so.
"Graduation Afternoon" For years following an accident in 1999, I took an anti-depressant drug called Doxepin-not because I was depressed (he said glumly) but because Doxepin was supposed to have a beneficial effect on chronic pain. It worked, but by November of 2006, when I went to London to promote my novel Lisey's Story, I felt the time had come to give the stuff up. I didn't consult the doctor who prescribed it; I just went cold turkey. The side-effects of this sudden stoppage were...interesting.[Do I know for a fact that quitting the Doxepin was responsible? I do not. Hey, maybe it was the English water.]