With its eerie atmosphere and creeping sense of dread, Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher is a horror novel that lingers long after the final page. We caught up with T. Kingfisher to talk about crafting gradual tension, researching parasites, and the appeal of horror that builds rather than shocks.
Wolf Worm builds such a quiet, creeping sense of dread. What drew you to telling a horror story that unfolds so gradually rather than relying on sudden shocks?
One thing I really love in a novel, whether it’s horror or sci-fi or mystery, is when I spend half the book wondering just what the hell is going on. Not that it’s confusing, but that there’s some very weird mystery at work and I want to know what it is. I like a complicated build rather than a shock—Severance rather than Texas Chainsaw Massacre. (Of course, the problem there, as many TV shows have taught us—Lost, X Files, I’m looking in your direction—is that you have to know what you’re building to, rather than throwing random elements and hoping you figure out how to tie it together by the finale.) So with Wolf Worm, I wanted there to be a central mystery that both the reader and the protagonist are trying to get to the bottom of.
You have a background as an illustrator. Did that influence how you visualised the creatures before putting them into words?
Oddly enough, because I was an illustrator, I had been avoiding writing a book about an illustrator. I didn’t want to start down that road where eventually all your main characters are writers living in your home town—I already have a problem where way too many of my characters are gardeners! But for this book, I needed someone who was going to pay incredibly close attention to insects without knowing all that much about them. And I’d been kicking around an idea for ages about a scientific illustrator who was hired to document some kind of eldritch Lovecraftian horror, so the two ideas dovetailed together. (Though I still kinda want to write a book about some poor illustrator hired to document Cthulhu…)
Wolf Worm often blends dark humor with unsettling moments. How do you strike that balance without undercutting the tension?
Hoo boy, that’s one of those questions that people ask and I don’t have a good answer. I think it’s mostly instinctive. I don’t consciously think, “Hmm, we just had a jump scare, better have a joke now.” But I also think it’s easier than it looks. People in terrible situations make jokes. Hang out with EMTs or heck, watch some re-runs of M*A*S*H*. As long as the humor feels like a coping mechanism, readers seem willing to accept it.
Some elements in the story are rooted in real-world references. Can you share a bit about the research behind the book, and how you balanced realism with fiction?
I did probably 90% of the research for this book before I ever thought of writing it. When I first moved to North Carolina, I rented half a duplex that backed onto a greenway. It was full of birds, so I took up birdwatching after a few months and started feeding them. That attracted squirrels. And before long, I started to notice that the squirrels had…lumps. Big lumps. Being a morbidly curious person, I learned all about the squirrel botfly, then other botflies, then a whole slew of similar parasites. I didn’t do anything with that information except horrify people on the internet, but it was lodged in my brain.
Years later, I was living near where Wolf Worm takes place and had absorbed enough regional history that I had a pretty good start. I was also very much assisted by an entomologist I know who works at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, who gave me a wonderful behind the scenes tour and was kind enough to read over the manuscript looking for errors.
Honestly, the research that threw me wasn’t about the bugs at all, it was working out exactly where the timeline fell in regards to the Civil War and Reconstruction. I spent a lot of time doing math.
Finally, for readers intrigued by the real-world elements in Wolf Worm, are there any particular topics that you’d encourage them to explore further?
While screwworms are overshadowed by botflies in this book, I strongly encourage anyone interested in either bugs or just amazing stories of international scientific cooperation to look up the Screwworm Eradication Program. The reason that Americans today don’t all know and fear screwworms is entirely down to this program. In some ways, it’s a more impressive feat of long-term planning than the moonshot, and up until very recently, it was astoundingly successful. (I did not mean this book to be ripped from the headlines, I swear! I turned it in in 2023!)
For those few peculiar individuals who maybe don’t want to read about parasites infesting their flesh, the Lumbee people of North Carolina are very real and have a fascinating history. It is absolutely worth visiting their tribal website to learn more.
