I've always been a bit of a pessimist in regard to mankind.

I think my characters - well, at least a few of them - are hoping or searching for some kind of contact with god.

I really have no idea what the French think of my characters, or why The Devil All the Time did so well there.

Look, girls don't care how many push-ups you can do. They just want to get high and wear flowers in their hair. Maybe steal a car.

I'm trying to break myself of that habit [of not writing out a first draft ] because I'm working on a couple novels and I know if I tried to write those books the way I wrote the stories it would take me years to finish.

I really have no idea where the darkness comes from. Other writers have said that there are two subjects worth writing about, love and death; and since I'm a complete flop when it comes to love, I chose death. Too, maybe because of where I came from, I do find it easy to empathise with and write about certain groups of damaged or downtrodden people: the poor, the addicted.

J.R. Angelella is a truly gifted writer. Zombie is one of the smartest, strangest, and most beautifully crafted coming-of-age stories you will ever encounter.