Are you a Blues fan? Beyond Robert Johnson, who are your favorite artists?

You don’t have enough room for all the blues people I like. But I do like Johnson and Muddy and Lightning Hopkins, Howling Wolf, really love John Lee Hooker, a lot of blues influenced artist, like my daughter Kasey Lansdale, Janis Joplin, and the list could go on forever.

Did you find there were any unique challenges in fusing Southern Gothic with Noir tropes?

Not this time out. The book wrote itself. Actually, that seems to be a fairly natural place for me to be as a writer.

“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“No,” Tootie said. “It’s not him.”

As to “who,” did you have anyone specifically in mind while writing “The Bleeding Shadow”?

There were the influences of Robert Johnson’s legend and the Lovecraftian gods. I just wanted to tell a good story and keep it moving. I’ve always been fascinated with the Johnson legend. I like Lovecraft’s ideas better than I actually like his fiction, and this was a chance to play with those ideas and connect them to Johnson.