That's One Hellish Prom Date: An Interview with Henry Corrigan

Henry's been here before so this interview is pure chaos. How much chaos you ask? Well, the book is about some Eldritch prom night horrors having their own nightly fun, the questions are about snacks, disco balls, and flamingos, and it's a little over an hour long. 

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Transcript

Booked All Night 0:02

Welcome to Booked All Night, the podcast where hot takes, meet craft notes, and no one gets enough sleep. I'm Jess. I'm Katie. I'm Julia. I'm Maggie. Get ready for unhinged hot takes. A whole lot of books, midnight giggles, and zero shame. Grab your blankets, booklets, it's time to get booked all night. Welcome to Booked All Night, the podcast where hot takes, meet craft notes, and nobody gets enough sleep. I'm your host, Jessica Mary, and today we are joined again by Henry Corrigan, best-selling author of Party of a Lifetime and A Man in Pieces. So welcome back to the pod, Henry.

Henry Corrigan 0:38

Thank you so much for having me. This is I had so much fun the last time. I'm really excited for this. Well, you should be.

Booked All Night 0:44

We are taking the chaos to a whole new level, so I'd say brace yourself, but you sound braced enough.

Henry Corrigan 0:50

I do my best.

Booked All Night 0:54

So to start off, just to get to know the characters and party of a lifetime, we're gonna play a quick game of superlatives.

Henry Corrigan 1:00

Okay.

Booked All Night 1:00

And you're just gonna tell us who best fits that description. The first one is most likely to accidentally start a cult by offering snacks.

Henry Corrigan 1:11

That would be uh Toby or uh uh well Toby or or Tina. Tina is his drag name. So the uh but yeah, Toby would actually uh no would absolutely start a cult by offering snacks. Yeah.

Booked All Night 1:23

You you know you know you really understand your characters when you're like, no, I know immediately who that that chaos goblin is, exactly.

Henry Corrigan 1:31

Yeah.

Booked All Night 1:32

Uh least likely to remember where they parked their car for a week.

Henry Corrigan 1:36

Oh god, that would be Kyle. Yeah, Kyle. I love Kyle. He's uh he's a big strapping dude, he's a lot of fun, and he's a great in an emergency, but yeah, he's totally the guy that would forget where he put his car.

Booked All Night 1:52

Most likely to survive a zombie apocalypse by hiding in a closet.

Henry Corrigan 1:56

Becca. Yeah, that's my main character. Becca is the Becca is my mechanic, and she is my um bi female main character, and but yeah, she's she is she becomes more of a warrior, more of a fighter as the book goes on, but she at the very start, yeah, she's definitely the person that will try to like find like the safe places to hide first, then throw themselves at danger.

Booked All Night 2:19

So to be fair, that's like the smart way to survive the zombie apocalypse. That is true.

Henry Corrigan 2:24

Yes, it is, yeah.

Booked All Night 2:26

The next one is least likely to resist stealing someone else's dessert.

Henry Corrigan 2:32

Gabby. Yeah. Gabby is my uh soccer captain of the soccer team, potential Olympian use, and uh love interest for Becca, you know, and she's yeah, she she's an athlete, and they anyone I think anyone that can tell you, anyone who dedicates any real time to athleticism will tell you that you they they they run on fuel a lot. So yeah, they they they need fuel a lot. So no, she would definitely be the one to pick out somebody else's snacks, yeah.

Booked All Night 3:01

Yeah, uh as a former athlete, I used to eat an entire pizza and then go play tennis.

Henry Corrigan 3:06

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Booked All Night 3:09

Yeah. And lots of people are always like, that didn't make you sick. I'm like, no, I'd be hungry by the time I was done because I just played tennis for like the next five hours. So Yeah.

Henry Corrigan 3:18

Well, what was the the videos from a few years ago? You would see uh professional athletes and they would show like the meals that they would eat before like the night before that they would do it. I think it was uh Brock Lesnar. He was former UFC world heavyweight champion, for former professional wrestler, WWE world champion, and the amount of food that he would put away is on almost ungodly. Yeah.

Booked All Night 3:40

Yeah. I think one of them had come out and they were like, it's like I eat like 3,500 calories in like a sitting. I'm like, yeah, that tracks, but also holy holy crap.

Henry Corrigan 3:49

Yeah.

Booked All Night 3:50

That's that's a lot. But I mean, like, I have I have the story. My mother loves to tell the story. Um I'd had a tennis tennis tournament, a track event, and a chess tournament all in one day. And when I came home, I was starving. And uh my mother had just gone food shopping. I ate $300 worth of food and she was livid, but I like I couldn't stop. I was so hungry. I was just running on empty all day, and I'm like, I need food.

Henry Corrigan 4:20

Oh god, you poor thing. I'm so sorry. And I feel bad for your mom, especially especially now for the size of people's grocery bills now. It it's oh god, can you imagine what that what that $300 back then would be worth right now in the what it would have cost you at the grocery store right now? Even twice as much.

Booked All Night 4:37

Yeah, I can tell you if I ate $300 worth of food today, I would still be hungry in that exact same scenario because it would not cover as much. That'd be just insane.

Henry Corrigan 4:47

Yeah. Yeah.

Booked All Night 4:48

Yeah. My last superlative is most likely to replace every light bulb in a haunted house with disco balls.

Henry Corrigan 4:54

Ha ha. Toby. Yes. Yeah, Toby. Toby would absolutely do that. Yeah. Toby or Tina, well, whichever ego or alter ego you're dealing with, yes, absolutely would do that. Absolutely. They would have a grand old time in a haunted house. Yes. Toby would be the person who would actually make friends with whatever entity it is that's in the that's haunting the house. They would be, they would sit them down and just be like, bitch, no. You, you, you, we ain't doing this. Okay. I am living rent-free. I got a roof over my head. We ain't we ain't doing this, okay?

Booked All Night 5:27

I can think of several people in my life that would be like, sit your bitch ass ghost ass down. We need to have a talk. This is unacceptable. Leading walls, I gotta clean that shit. Absolutely not.

Henry Corrigan 5:40

Yeah.

Booked All Night 5:40

Oh my god. Alright, so actual book questions. Sure. Party of a lifetime turns prom night to a literal hellscape, or at least a reattempt at Prom Knight into a literal hellscape. Where did this idea come from?

Henry Corrigan 5:55

I got stuck on the idea of rites of passage, you know, and the like prom night and all these big things. And it suddenly occurred to me that a lot of rites of passage matter more to the people that are watching them from the previous generation than they do to the people who are actually in them. So, you know, and the like the kids, like I went to I went to two proms. I was very lucky. Like I got invited one in my junior year to um one of the seniors' proms. You know, I had a wonderful time, it was a great time. I had my prom and everything. It was a great time, but it was also there's so much that's involved in it, and so many people that have hands in it, and it just becomes more about everyone else's memories than it does like the memories that you're making yourself. So my my characters, then Becca particularly, had so many interferences, so much trauma and d and drama that she was dealing with at the time, that they walked in to prom that night and it was just like, you know what, hell with this, okay? Let's have a little fun, we'll get something to eat, we'll dance a few songs, and then we will walk our asses right out with our middle fingers raised. Because like the like the the Queen Bee of the Prom Committee is like making all their lives hell and has been their Becca's bully for a long time. So it's like the all the trauma that they went through during their first prom, it's like we never actually got a chance to be and have fun ourselves, to do this the way that we want to do this. So Becca calls her friends together and says, Let's do this our way. Let's just go and do what we wanted to do that night, which was just go straight down to the beach. Sit down at the beach at night, get a little bit tipsy, and just have fun in the sand and just by the water. So and that's what they set out to do, and it does not end that way.

Booked All Night 7:53

I yeah, we my junior prom was ridiculously expensive for what it was. Like we went to one of the local venues, and like you could choose uh chicken that you didn't want or seafood that I couldn't have, and the music was super loud, and it was just not this magical experience that everyone said that it would be. In my senior prom, I borrowed a dress, I brought my teddy bear. Real story, I brought my teddy bear and went with my friends, and we had a great time, and then we did go down to the beach, because that's what you do here in Jersey. And I will never forget, I'd had my hair curled and like all nice, and I brushed my hair out in the morning.

Henry Corrigan 8:42

Oh, you poor thing. Yeah, that was.

Booked All Night 8:54

Um like seriously, my hair had poofed out to like inches off of my head. It was so, so horrible. And my friends get making fun of me all day. They'd be like, look, we found a a stuffed animal, look like you, and they pick up a poodle. I'd be like, mmm.

Henry Corrigan 9:10

Yeah, yeah. I get it, yeah. My my daughter uh my daughter's eight, and she does dance class, and they have their recital coming up, so they had dance pictures, you know, for for the the for the thing. The amount I mean, thankfully she's at the age where my dog where my wife doesn't have to try to put everything into a bun, you know, but it's still it's like the amount of gloop and stuff that goes into her hair, the makeup and everything like that, and it's like trying to get everything cleaned off afterwards, it's yeah, it's a lot.

Booked All Night 9:37

Yeah. It's a process. It is.

Henry Corrigan 9:40

Yes.

Booked All Night 9:41

I I used to teach dance, I used to teach like uh five, six, seven-year-olds, and first off, getting makeup on them is its own thing. Yeah, yeah. Uh but like we wouldn't put lipstick on them until they were about to go on stage because they could not be trusted.

Henry Corrigan 10:01

Yeah.

Booked All Night 10:02

And I had done like this is how you get your your sock bun done because everybody has to have the sock bun for the recital.

Henry Corrigan 10:10

Yeah, yeah.

Booked All Night 10:11

And I'm like, this is this is the amount of hair crap that you have to put in there so that it stays down, because we're gonna be at this recital for a very long time.

Henry Corrigan 10:22

Yeah.

Booked All Night 10:23

And one woman was like, okay, and then like we go home, we brush our hair, they go to bed. I'm like, no, they take a shower. They take a long shower and they wash that shit out of their hair because otherwise this is gonna hurt.

Henry Corrigan 10:35

Yeah. Yeah, I know. And then there's the costumes as well. Like the costume, I mean, some of them are very fun, are very pretty and very wonderful. But I remember the last season when my daughter, my daughter's been doing it for like four or five years, and last season the dance teacher broke out the costumes that she wanted for the theme for that year, and she even she said, she's like, I have no idea what it is uh that what's wrong with these companies that design these costumes. That they seem to have this, they seem to believe that children don't have a neck. Yes. And it's like this tiny little thing. It's like there's no way that this goes around a living human being. Like we had like she we had to get all kinds we had to get creative to be able to get and add things to be able just to get it around her neck so that she wasn't being strangled the whole time.

Booked All Night 11:21

Yes.

Henry Corrigan 11:22

Yeah.

Booked All Night 11:22

They're like, you're seven, your your neck is about as big as my wrist, right? That's how that works? Yeah.

Henry Corrigan 11:27

No, no. Like no. Yeah.

Booked All Night 11:29

No, yeah. No. So, next question about books to bring us back to, you know, why you're here. Uh, Monotony twists each character in a very unique way. So, how do you decide what element of their personality gets amplified or warped?

Henry Corrigan 11:45

I match the person that they are with the monster that I wanted to emulate or to to bring about and everything. And the but the the and I love I have a uh a real love for like classic cinema, classic monster cinema and classic, you know, monsters and the like, and I wanted to do a take on them that you don't see very often. So, like I have my own take on werewolves, you know, that instead I I this might be a little bit of a spoiler, but instead of the uh wolfing out, and instead of like being covered in fur, they lose all form of hair. They're completely hairless, and they're literally, you know, like instant the one instance in the book is the characters are uh trying to recoup in the van after having their lives nearly taken by another different type of monster, and all of a sudden they hear this aroo suddenly that but it's not like a true wolf howl, it's uh sounds like someone yelling aroo at the top of their lungs. So you get an idea as to what kind of werewolf it is that you're dealing with, and then so they uh that went very much with a particular character of mine. I don't want to give away who it is, yeah, and which one matches with which one, but there's uh the the monsters that I really wanted to emulate for at least for this book, for um this um this part of the series, because it I'm I have a series planned for it, is um Werewolves, the The Blob, um Stepford Wives, and the Skinless Man from Hellraiser.

Booked All Night 13:22

Oh yeah.

Henry Corrigan 13:23

Yeah. So Stepford Step Yeah.

Booked All Night 13:25

Stepford Wives has always creeped me out so much. Yes, yes.

Henry Corrigan 13:29

So I wanted to take Stepford Wives, but have someone have be disturbed by how much of sensation and their own physical feeling of their own body that they lose as they stay in monotony. You know, you talk about like losing agency, you're literally losing portions of your body. You can feel each portion of your body that's going numb. So yeah. And it's you're not only losing uh feeling of it, but you're losing control of it. So that as that's happening while this while your body is trying to, while you're trying to fight for your life, you're losing your own sense of self.

Booked All Night 14:04

So Oh, so adolescence.

Henry Corrigan 14:06

Yes, that's a good way of putting it. Yes, yes, that is an excellent way of putting it, yes. So yeah. I I had these, I these um Kyle, Becca, Gabby, and Toby are hands down my favorite characters to torture. So I've had an a lot of fun with this book of putting them through hell and just and seeing what it is that I can do with them. But the yeah, the the monsters that I wanted to bring about were those were those four the the the werewolves, the skinless man, the stepford wives, and the blob. Because that's some of them are not things that you run into all that often, especially the blob. That's not something you run into very often.

Booked All Night 14:49

Yeah, that's that's definitely like I know that because I was part of B film society, and like I don't think many people from my generation and down are like the bl they'd be like the blob, what's the blob? And I'd be like, It's the blob! What do you mean what's the blob? Like it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a blob.

Henry Corrigan 15:08

Yeah, no. It's like um Little Shop of Horrors. Like nobody like I I know the I the reason I know the film is on uh Audrey 2 is I know it because of the musical, you know, and the well the musical film, you know, Rick Moranis and everything, and Steve Martin. And it wasn't until I think only a few years ago that I saw the original, you know, and what it was and that that one is I I gotta love Roger Corman because you can clearly tell that this was, you know what, we've got time to be able to make a film. We don't really have a script, we're just going with it. And we're just because we we've we've we've already paid for all the equipment, we've got all this stuff, we're losing money if we don't use it, so let's just throw crap together and we'll figure it out. And that's and that's how Little Shop of Horrors came about.

Booked All Night 15:54

Yeah, that tracks. That tracks. I love Little Shop of Horrors. It's so much fun.

Henry Corrigan 15:59

Yes.

Booked All Night 16:00

So much fun. So your book teeters uh between teen drama and grotesque horror, were there moments where you felt the chaos kind of wrote itself?

Henry Corrigan 16:09

Yes, yes. Um the uh and the it's it's funny because there were times when the both the chaos and the teen drama and the sass really wrote both really wrote themselves because I was having so much fun with the characters, and there were so many different details and things that I wanted to throw in about their lives and their interactions and the like, and afterwards when I was done, I went back and I just realized, okay, this is this is too much. At least in the terms of like the drama and the details. It's like I need to pair this back because there's it's bogging things down, it's slowing the novel, and it's not really helping anything. So that's my that's my my biggest thing during editing is that when things are really flowing and come and ideas are great, it's fabulous. But when I go back to take a look at the edits, it's like, alright, what do I really need? What does this story absolutely need? And that was the some of the biggest pairing down that I did. So the teen drama was just started flowing because dialogue is a lot of fun for me, a lot of fun for me to write. And then the chaos that was thrown in that I was just having an absolute blast with because I was just having I I I I wanted to to really, really, really skewer the idea of like small town 1950s, you know, perfect ideal like America, and I just put in as many um little digs as I possibly could.

Booked All Night 17:34

What a perfect time to put digs in. I always I always laugh because I have um I have a Marilyn Monroe collection of movies. And I used I used to like watch them with my grandmother and stuff, and a lot of them are like very, very, very sexual. And I'm like, this was made in the 50s. Wasn't the 50s like a conservative time to be around? And and I have more from like the 20s, I have a lot of like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, because I love old films, and I'm like, there are so many sexual jokes and like not just me in a modern day time reading into this, they are making sexual jokes. And it like blows my mind because our history books are like this was a very conservative time. People were like appalled by this. I'm like, were they? I don't I don't think that they were.

Henry Corrigan 18:20

It's I think it's the cognitive dissonance that we're that we're still dealing with is because people want control over it, but they still want to be able to be excited by it. So they don't want it around like all that much. They say they don't really want it around, but and when they're in the dark of the theater or in the dark of their own home, they're absolutely digging for it because it is something that they that they need. And the one of the things that I remember, um Clara Bow, she was one of the the It girls from I believe the 1920s, the early, the silent era. And the um I remember I I ran into a gentleman who was his entire thesis and everything that he did, he wa he he was a um he'd gone to school to study like silent era films and like, and he was talking about how Clara Beau once wore a dress that even today would be would be blowing up everywhere because it was so risque, and it was a just sheer everything right down to her toes. And that's and I so yeah, the these the the risque, the the sexiness, everything, it's there. It's always been there. It's just that the people have been trying to control it or deny it or use it for their own ends for far too long. I mean, you look at the um you talk about Marilyn Monroe, you look at the sex comedies like Doris Day, you know, the sex comedies from like the fifties and sixties and like you know, there's a lot of innuendo that's in there. And the even going back further to um Cary Grant and Bringing a Baby. That's it, bringing a baby. My my wife is a huge like uh classics fan, and I've become one over the years, and the thanks to her. And yeah, bringing a baby, the the two of them, like um oh god, I can't think of the actress's name. Um but her her the back of her dress literally rips off, and the the two of them are standing basically hip to hip, trying to protect her reputation and so that she's not walking through the restaurant half naked. But she but they're in lockstep, like hip to hip as they're walking. It's like, okay, I you know, y yeah, you're not protecting anything here.

Booked All Night 20:26

Right, like not a single one of us is suspicious of what's going on over there, right?

Henry Corrigan 20:30

Like no, absolutely not. No.

Booked All Night 20:33

Absolutely not. That brings us to the very first official game of the podcast, which is space 'em or embrace 'em.

Henry Corrigan 20:40

Okay. I love your games. Your games are so much fun.

Booked All Night 20:44

I love games. I love games. They torture guests, they're always fun. They are, yes. I I think you might have played this one with us last time you were here. I don't remember.

Henry Corrigan 20:52

I believe so, yes, I do. Okay.

Booked All Night 20:54

Well, then you remember that you are traveling through the cosmos with a cargo full of tropes and cliches, and oh no, you're getting sucked into a black hole. You are only going to get to see two options at a time, and you have to keep choosing until the magic number that I rolled before the interview comes down, and we have added in that you only get to go through two rounds. So you have to get down to the magic number with only two rounds going through. Yep.

Henry Corrigan 21:17

Okay.

Booked All Night 21:18

Okay. So, your first two are a vampire who's allergic to blood or a haunted smartphone.

Henry Corrigan 21:25

Oof. I'll go with the vampire, because the haunted the smartphone, then that could really um I mean the the vampire who's allergic to blood, I can live with that. That that'd be fine. You know, we can talk, we can figure something out, or whatever it is. That that'll be fine. The haunted smartphone could ruin your entire life. You know, it ruins like your fine it could drain your bank account, could like ruin, you know, friendships, relationships, and everything like that. It's like it yeah, no, no. I I can deal with the vampire. The phone would be way more aggravating.

Booked All Night 21:55

Is that why my phone keeps saying ducking? Is it haunted? Do I have a haunted? Smartphone? Bullshit. Fucking autocorrect.

Henry Corrigan 22:05

Oh god. No. The phone. I mean, I I use my phone all the time. I say I how it's how I make like notes and um updates on certain things as I'm as I'm writing during the day. But yeah, it anything that that's that haunted, no. It would be way too aggravating and too much uh to be able to try to exercise that before it ruins my entire life. No.

Booked All Night 22:29

You're next to the prom queen who literally controls gravity or a demon that moonlights as a DJ.

Henry Corrigan 22:36

Oh, the demon. Yes, yes, absolutely. I mean, especially because the here's the thing. The the prom queen, like she is uh she's uh one of the central figures in my book, you know, and the and so no, if if she's anything like uh Stephanie from my book, then no, absolutely. I don't I don't want her, I don't want to be near her whether she has powers or not. The demon who still moonlights as a DJ, I can work with that. Because at least he knows like he, she, they, whatever they are, you know, they can they can cut a move. They can cut so they can cut a groove. Then they can dance, they can you know what it's like to actually get up and move and the like that. I would be happy with that. Yeah. So at least if I if I'm gonna go to hell, at least I'll have a good soundtrack. That's fair. That's fair.

Booked All Night 23:26

The next two are a magical closet that eats socks, which I don't think is all that magical, because I'm swear to god my closet does that, and a cursed diary that writes back.

Henry Corrigan 23:37

Oh. The least uh worrisome of the two would be the closet, because um, you know, obviously, I mean you can just keep like, you know, you don't need to use the closet for the socks. You can just keep them in your drawer, and that'll be fine. That's true. Yeah, so you'll be fine. But the you know, that's the least dangerous. But the one that intrigues me the most is the diary, because it's cursed to write back to you. So does that mean that it's cursed where it's going to um I I I I loved The Magicians, uh, the TV show, and I won and there was a section where they had a a uh one of the magical keys in one of the later seasons where it manifested the ugliest, most negative version of yourself that only you could see and hear. You couldn't turn it off, you couldn't fight it, you couldn't do anything against it. It was just there until you pass the key on to someone who'd never held it before. So, is it cursed in the idea that it would constantly critique and and neg everything that you put down, all of your private secret thoughts, or is it cursed in that it would be like, I don't know, dealing with like a brooding vampire almost? Like it's just, you know, I I don't know.

Booked All Night 24:48

I think I think it depends on what you put in I think it depends on what you put into it, because like you know, like if if my teenage diary wrote back, it would probably be like, shut the fuck up. Like, oh my god, throw me away. I don't want to listen to it anymore. But like, as an adult journaling, it might be like, okay, you need therapy. Yeah. But that's okay. Yeah. Like, yeah. No, I wouldn't go with that.

Henry Corrigan 25:14

Yeah.

Booked All Night 25:15

Okay. So I would probably go with that.

Henry Corrigan 25:17

Yeah, I will keep the cursed diary. If it's like that, then that that's at least, you know, it it's, you know, it br that that almost runs into like the idea of AI. It's like this thing is going to, you're not really sure if what's writing back to you is a consciousness or whatever it is, but if it's at least helping you to be able to deal with it, alright. I I will at least I will at least put up with that. The the closet I can deal with. Yeah. So, yeah.

Booked All Night 25:39

I think my closet moves during the night and needs my socks. It's the only it's the only reason that my socks disappear, I'm convinced.

Henry Corrigan 25:46

Yeah, yeah.

Booked All Night 25:47

Yeah. The next two are an overenthusiastic ghost tour guide and a sentient high school hallway. Ooh.

Henry Corrigan 25:59

I'm gonna go with the hallway. The the overenthusiastic tour guide, I've had I I've met people like that who are overly enthusiastic way too damn early in the morning. And it just grates on my soul. Yes. It's I remember um this woman who I I had a class with her, and she was a another student, and she was a person who was, she was a uh a greeter, I believe, for um HR early in the morning for like people, and she was just so overly peppy. And and even at like two o'clock in the afternoon when we're having this class, I'm like, no, I I would I I would absolutely turn around and not want to have to deal with this. The cur the uh the sentient hallway, that kind of reminds me uh I I haven't really read the comics, but the um Doom Patrol from the DC comics. They uh there's a character in there called Danny the Street. He's a sentient street, you know, and he can make like a whole town and everything that he can put together, and he's a really cool guy. So high school can be a lot of drama. There's I had a lot of hell going through high school myself, but it was but I would I would deal with the hallway just because I think it would have a lot to say to all the drama and everything that was going on, and all the kids that really needed someone to talk to.

Booked All Night 27:18

That's fair. The last two before we go back for the last round are a villain with a phobia of mirrors and a talking cat with a dramatic flair, which I think actually exists in producer Rob's house.

Henry Corrigan 27:30

Yes, the cat. Absolutely the cat. Yes. Cat states. Yes. You gotta you gotta I mean the villain, okay, yeah, the the I that's fun. You know, I do I always love a good villain. One of my favorite songs is still um oh goodness, um Poor Unfortunate Souls. You know, still one of my favorite songs of all time. But the but yeah, the cat just with a dramatic flair, yeah, absolutely. That would be that would just be money. I I would absolutely love that. Yeah, my daughter would I my daughter would absolutely love that. Yeah.

Booked All Night 27:58

So yeah, it's so back to the top of the list, but this time without the things that we have ejected. So we have a vampire who's allergic to blood, or a demon that moonlights as a DJ.

Henry Corrigan 28:10

Oh, let's see. Uh-huh. I will go with the DJ. Yes. And we'll go with the yeah, I will go with the vampire, the DJ, because he is the um, yeah, like I said, he he's gonna be fun because he's gonna have like the at least a good soundtrack as we're going to hell. So I will deal with that. That's fair. Yeah.

Booked All Night 28:26

A cursed diary that writes back or a sentient high school hallway.

Henry Corrigan 28:31

Oh. I'm a big fan of books. I really am. I'll go with the diary, just because I love I I still there's still many, many days. Well, like I I I you know, I type on the computer, I use my phone to, you know, take notes and stuff like that, but there's still many, many days when I just need to connect to a like pen to paper. And just that's the only way that I feel like I'm actually getting something out of my head. So you can't. That's fair. Yeah.

Booked All Night 28:56

Yeah. I I draft best when I have pen to paper. Like I have a specific notebook, which I was actually looking for earlier, and it has a bunch of like classic lip um poets and author portraits, but they're redone like members of Kiss on. Is my my little rock notebook, and I have no idea where it is right now, which is kind of terrifying. But that's like it's like the perfect size, it fits in my bag, and the paper's really soft, and it just like gets the groove going, you know? Like it's so good.

Henry Corrigan 29:27

Yeah.

Booked All Night 29:29

So the la so you are left with a demon that moonlights as a DJ, a cursed diary that writes back, and a talking cat with a dramatic flair.

Henry Corrigan 29:38

I hate tossing aside the book because I love books so much, but I think the cat would absolutely win out of everybody because he a cat, a talking cat with a dramatic flair, that would be so much fun, I think. It would be. Yeah, yeah. And my one, I would appreciate it, and two, my daughter would appreciate it. Just having coming home and having somebody having like a pet or a friend to be able to like just sit and talk with and get dramatic with. Yeah, I think she's uh yeah.

Booked All Night 30:03

Here's a dramatic cat. Do non-dramatic cats exist? Um I have yet to meet a cat. Yeah, I have yet to meet a cat who's not like Sassmaster and just like Yeah. Total attitude.

Henry Corrigan 30:17

Yeah, what's the old saying? My my friend of mine used to say that, you know, uh dogs have owners, cats have staff. So yeah, yeah. So yeah, I can see that. Yes.

Booked All Night 30:28

Although sometimes I feel like my dog has staff. He's he's uh so Ringo's a service dog and he comes with me everywhere to help me with things, uh, but he is like a princess. Nobody can no one can sit in the back seat with him. He gets very upset if somebody sits in the back seat with him. And he won't step in puddles, which sucks because like when it rains and there's puddles everywhere, he'll drag me around the puddle, and I'm like, dude, I already don't walk great. Can we not do this? He's like, no, it's a hazard. I can't I can't get my paws wet. That's ridiculous. That's too much of you to ask me.

Henry Corrigan 31:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see that. Yeah.

Booked All Night 31:06

Yeah. Yeah. Brings us to uh the very first round of totally chaotic questions, because you've been here before, so I don't have to ask you these questions again. It's wonderful. Here we go. If you could replace every demon in monotony with a snack, which snack would rule supreme?

Henry Corrigan 31:23

Oh my goodness. Uh the snack that would rule supreme would probably be the whatever it is that's called the the world's hottest chip, potato chip or whatever, the one that like comes with it's like wrapped or it's like rep specialty wrapped, like you have to wear like special gloves even to be able to open it or something like that. That would that that would definitely be it. And um yeah, the their ho the Monotony, at least, is uh ruled by a um a gentleman host, and he's very much my take on like father knows best type of demon, and yeah, he's um he would be like the the thing kind of thing that you really just can't touch, and he kind of rules over everything, thinks he's so wonderful, but it's just the that's the thing about something like that. There's no good reason for this. Absolutely none. Like there's no good reason for that super crazy hot chip that can put you in the hospital. It's just human stupidity and cruelty. You want to see people get hurt, you want to see people, you know, running for their lives or potentially in danger, and there's no good reason for it. So that's true. Yeah, that would absolutely be him. There's no good reason for him. It's just cruelty and stupidity.

Booked All Night 32:36

Every year uh on his birthday, my friend Brandon makes burgers, grills for everybody, and he always does like varying levels of spice in the burgers. So you've got like the base burger, and then he calls them like the Sundari burgers because he's a really yeah. One year they used uh scorpion peppers and ghost peppers.

Henry Corrigan 32:56

Hmm. Yeah.

Booked All Night 32:58

And I just watched all of the guys die. Yeah. Like like they were sweating, like they couldn't drink enough water, and they they couldn't get cool. They jumped in the pool, it was still not enough. I'm like, you knew what you were eating.

Henry Corrigan 33:14

Yeah, yeah. I'm look- I'm a big hot sauce fan. I had hot sauce on my I'm when I made breakfast this morning, I had hot sauce on my eggs, you know, habanero, like little hot sauce bottle and everything like that. I love hot sauce. I am not a fan of hot for no other sake than just being hot, you know?

Booked All Night 33:31

Yeah.

Henry Corrigan 33:32

My my mother sent me now because my my stepfather is also a big fan of hot sauce. He actually puts more hot sauce on his eggs than I do. And he he'd gotten uh a set of hot sauces, and he tried one of them, and it and my as my mother put it, she couldn't she'd never seen him just turn that red that fast. And he just like he was coughing, he couldn't, you know, he he couldn't talk, it was it was just brutal. She sent them to me to give it a try because you know she knows how much I like it. And one of them is like a scorpion, a little scorpion bottle of uh scorpion peppers, that not peppers, but sauce made from the scorpion peppers. It's good, it does have actual flavor, but a little goes a long, long way. It's it's still in my fridge. I use every once in a while I'll break it out and do like one or two, maybe three drops at most, and mix it in. But yeah, it's it's a lot. It really is. Too potent. Yeah.

Booked All Night 34:29

I I am not into spice. I am a big buttabitch as it comes to spicy food, and I I couldn't possibly like I can't even do like base buffalo wings, you know. Like I'm just like, nope, it's too much. I can't.

Henry Corrigan 34:45

That's my wife. My wife doesn't like spicy food either. I mean, it's her I mean, because of me, I think her tolerance has gotten a little bit, you know, higher, but it's still not something that she enjoys, really. So it's yeah. No, it's fine. You know, it's I mean, my my grandfather was the kind of guy who would buy like exotic peppers and leave them drying in his garage, you know, and then make like sauces and little like dips and stuff like that out of them. So yeah, it it was yeah, it's something that I at least inherited from him, but it's it definitely skipped a couple of generations. Yeah. Definitely.

Booked All Night 35:19

Would you rather have Becca narrate your life or a sentient stapler?

Henry Corrigan 35:33

The sentient stapler, I think, would I I would love to hear the voice of the sentient stapler. That would just be fun. But um, you know, Becca and I think would get along the best just because of having her like narrate my life because there's she's got parental issues, she's got all kinds of you know, from bullying in high school, so there's a lot that her and I like tick the boxes on, you know, and so it's the so and there's also the the I guess the constant worry and anxiety of how you're being judged at any time, you know, so you're constantly worrying about what it is, how you're coming across, you know, and the I forget what it what the term for it is, what the psychological term for it is, but you you spend so much time overanalyzing how you're perceived through other people and worrying about like, you know, what their reaction is, you know, if it wasn't as high as you were expecting, what does that really mean for your relationship going forward? So that's something is that rejection-sensitive dysphoria? Something, maybe. I I don't know the psychological term for it, but it's it's something that I but it's at least something that I understand. So at least you know, something that I felt, and I think Becca would understand that as well. And come, you know, coming from like the home life that she's had and all the problems that she's had. So yeah, Becca would absolutely be the person that I would want to narrate my life. I think her and I would get along really well.

Booked All Night 37:01

I'm really interested about the sentient stabler.

Henry Corrigan 37:03

Yes, I am too. I'd really I would love to hear the voice. Yes, I would love to hear the voice of it. You know, I I yes, yes.

Booked All Night 37:12

Click clack the entire time.

Henry Corrigan 37:13

Yep, yep.

Booked All Night 37:15

So if your anxiety became a disco-themed monster, what would its first words be?

Henry Corrigan 37:25

If it were a disco-themed monster, what would its first words be? You're not ready for this. You're not enough for this. I think that would be it. It would just be yeah. It would it would just be this constant presence of like you don't really belong here, and you're not ready for it, you're not enough for here. And that would be yeah, that it would be like the soundtrack just playing as this monster is just going. That would be just a broken record all the time. Yeah, how much you don't how much I don't belong here, how much I don't, how much I'm not enough for what it is that's needed, and like. Yeah, that that would be absolutely it.

Booked All Night 38:08

As it roller skates around you with an afro, just yeah, absolutely down, yeah.

Henry Corrigan 38:13

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Uh that's like um what what's it? Um Bare Naked Ladies, the songs where like when you look at the songs, a lot of the songs that they're known for are very peppy, they're very upbeat and like. You look at the lyrics, and the lyrics are the lyrics are very, very down and very, very much depressed. And they and they're dealing with lots of like heartbreak and doubt and like, and that's that yeah, that would be my demon. It's it's a peppy move. It would be a song that you could move to, and a song that would eventually make you want to slit your wrists. It's just no. That's that's what I would be dealing with. Yeah.

Booked All Night 38:51

Yeah. That honestly sounds like my anxiety. Although it probably wouldn't be disco, it would be really obnoxious pop punk from the early 2000s.

Henry Corrigan 39:00

Oh, yes, yeah, yeah.

Booked All Night 39:02

Uh same four chords over and over and over and over again. That that would drive me to Yeah.

Henry Corrigan 39:09

Anywho. Mine will probably sound like my mine would probably sound like Love Shack from the B-52s, honestly. It's yeah, yeah, yeah. Great.

Booked All Night 39:18

It's gonna be stuck in my head the rest of the day.

Henry Corrigan 39:20

I know, I know. It gets stuck in my head too, and it's just like, oh god, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Booked All Night 39:26

Uh how many flamingos would it take to defend monotony from a prom invasion?

Henry Corrigan 39:34

How many flamingos? One. Because yes. In the um Miami airport, uh, because I I have I've flown down a couple of times. My my family is my my mother and my stepfather have been very kind to both me and my family, and they've and they've flown us down a couple of times to be to visit them in Florida for so we stayed with them for a few days, and every and we go through the Miami airport, and in the middle of the Miami airport is I cannot remember the name of it, but there is a gigantic pink flamingo that sits in the middle of the Miami airport. And it this one, and its uh beak is pushed right against the ground, like it's holding up the ceiling. It's it it's absolutely enormous. It's beautiful, and that is the one that you would-I can see that flamingo just stomping its way through monotony to to defend whatever it is that's uh you know, good that's coming after the town. It's yes, that uh whatever that flamingo's name is, I can't think of it right now, but yes, that looked absolutely that one flamingo would absolutely look after the town.

Booked All Night 40:43

Beautiful. If your book's Hellish Prom had a theme song, what would it be?

Henry Corrigan 40:50

Oh the it would have to be because my my publisher, uh Crystal from Byzantium Sky, she had asked me, because we were going to announce, you know, the the cover for the book and everything that we were doing, and she's like, I'm racking my brain trying to come up with like a song to go along with the um to go along with the announcement, you know, make it, you know, fun, make it peppy. She's like, I can't I I can't come up with it. You know, that you've got like hellish demons, you've got all, you know, prom g nonsense, you've got all these things going on. It's like, what, you know, what is it? Do you have like a playlist or something that was going, you know, that and I had. I'd actually I'd made up a playlist of songs that I um that really embodied this book, and I made one for the the next book that I have actually that it uh that I have written. I just you know, and I have kind of one going for the third book after that. But the one song that she picked out, and the one that I think is absolutely perfect, is um Raising Hell by Kesha. So that yeah. That is uh yeah, it it's there's it's it embodies the the fun, the chaos, the drama, the tears, the everything that just is that just embodies monotony and and the the prom itself because you're fighting to be able to be your own person, you're leaving your own things behind, you're kind of sticking to a version of a faith that you were ra you were you might have been raised in a faith, but this is your version of it, no one else can have it. And the, you know, whether it's, you know, um what oh goodness, what's what's the what's the the trending term right now? Conventional Christian Christian or bib um oh god, what is it called now?

Booked All Night 42:36

It's um Oh, I'm the wrong person, I ask.

Henry Corrigan 42:39

I know there's uh a few people online have gotten themselves into trouble in terms of uh, you know, now there's books that they don't read because they're reading uh biblical biblically conventional or conventional bib but conventional biblical or Christian something along those lines because they're they're no longer they don't read certain books anymore because they're going along with conventional Bible terms in st you know, they've g and they've uh gone into uh that uh much more of a conservative version of uh Christianity and all the things that they've lost or all the and people are trying to point out to them all the things that you're losing, how wrong this really is. So, yeah, raising hell would be that middle finger to it is the idea that you lose so much of yourself by trying to um stick to this incredibly rigid, impossible to live with m set of moral set of morals, and you can still find faith, you can still find friendship, you can still find love all within it, and whether people approve of it or not doesn't matter. It's not even the point. It's what you're able to live with and survive with, because none of this is supposed to be as hard as it should be as hard as it is. None of this. Seriously. Yeah. Everything that we're living through is and I I try to post this online and in the look, I've I've I have been very, very lucky in a lot of the things that I've you know, the the life that I have, you know, the the things that I've done, the things that I'm able to do, and like I'm very, very lucky. I'm there's a lot of people who unfortunately are not. And this book, I think, and Becca's perspective and what happened and everything that their friends go through, that is if you've ever wondered why, or you know, if you ever looked around and said, it shouldn't be this hard. This is, you know, this is the theme, this is the book, you know, this is what I'm you know, this is the story.

Booked All Night 44:34

So true facts should not be this hard for anybody.

Henry Corrigan 44:38

No, absolutely not.

Booked All Night 44:40

To get back to the fun times.

Henry Corrigan 44:42

Yes. I'm sorry. I guess I can get yes, my own depression and anxiety, that will get me so many times. I'm sorry. So go for it.

Booked All Night 44:51

It's fine. We absolutely derail the podcast almost every recording. We're like, hey, how's your anxiety doing? That's not great. I doubled down on my meds today. It's wonderful. Yeah. Um totally understand. So would you rather attend a prom with gravity reversed or a prom where everyone's hair grows uncontrollably?

Henry Corrigan 45:13

Uh gravity reversed. That that would be somewhat it would be fun to be just be able to dance on the ceiling, like um, oh god, well, the old videos from the 70s and 80s from like MTV when MTV actually like played videos and then played music back in the day. Lionel Richie, I think that was it, like dancing on the ceiling, if I remember correctly. Yeah. That would be fun, you know. And I've I've always loved, you know, in the um old uh fashion, like haunted houses and movies that you see from going back like decades and years, when you walk into one room and everything in the room is reversed, like the chair and is on the ceiling, the chandelier is coming up from the floor. I've always loved that. It's one of my favorite aesthetics. And yeah, that that so that would absolutely be so much fun for me. The hair growing everywhere uncontrollably, that would just be such a nuisance. We wouldn't be having any fun. We would just literally be standing there with scissors trying to like use.

Booked All Night 46:07

You could like braid people's hair and like do double dutch with some pigtails or something because it's just really long. It'd be really fun.

Henry Corrigan 46:14

I'm I'm glad I'm sure I'm and I'm glad that you would have a great time. I'm sure you would. It sounds like you would have a fabulous time. Me, I just try, like I said, my daughter does dance. Just me trying to like fumble my way into a ponytail for my daughter is it's so hard. Because I it's just because I don't have the experience with it. Yeah. My wife has the long hair. I don't I've never really grown up with it, so it's not anything I have experience with. So it would take I figure I could it would take me a while. I would get there eventually, but it's right now it's just not fun. So I just kind of muddle my way through.

Booked All Night 46:46

So that's fair. Uh final question of this particular section. If the villains suddenly became obsessed with knitting, what would they make first?

Henry Corrigan 46:56

Oh a noose. Yeah.

Booked All Night 47:10

You were just prepared for that one. Like we know exactly what those bit is making.

Henry Corrigan 47:14

That just that just literally came right into my head. I don't know why. I just yeah, they they would absolutely be stringing up every single innocent person in the world. And yeah, if they yeah. And I can see them being kind of like that Instagram influencer kind of thing. It's like, what sit with me as we as Armageddon, as watch me, no, knit Pearl Talk2 and all this whole thing. They would absolutely have they would not only have fun doing it, they would have fun talking about it, sharing the videos and everything online while people are swinging in the breeze. Yeah.

Booked All Night 47:45

Oh my god.

Henry Corrigan 47:46

Yeah.

Booked All Night 47:47

I can see that in my head.

Henry Corrigan 47:49

Yes.

Booked All Night 47:53

And like, maybe like, now you don't want to make it too tight, or they won't like oh, oh god.

Henry Corrigan 48:00

We're not hoping that they we're not hoping for the neck breaks. We want them to sit and strangle for a while.

Booked All Night 48:05

Yes, and it's important, and we can't end it too soon.

Henry Corrigan 48:09

No, it's the aesthetic. The aesthetic has to be magnified has to be perfect. No.

Booked All Night 48:15

It's especially funny because one of the jokes in like the knitting community for when you are knitting is like first you stab it, and then you strangle it, and you scoop at its guts, and you throw it off a cliff. And I'm like, this works. This works amazingly.

Henry Corrigan 48:32

I love it. That's awesome.

Booked All Night 48:33

So before we jump into the next game, do you have a physical copy of your book?

Henry Corrigan 48:38

Not yet, no. Or the my publisher. No, I'm sorry. I have, hang on.

Booked All Night 48:47

The next best thing. I have an actual poster.

Henry Corrigan 48:51

Yes. No, I my publisher literally just sent the proofs, final proofs, to Ingram for publishing, so they should be coming in the next few days. So by uh Monday or Tuesday, I believe we're gonna get the approval for it, and then I'll get a couple of copies as well after that. No, but the I have I have uh arcs that I've been giving around to Instagram and influencers, no, not influencers, but a I a friend of mine or a um a reviewer that I had met on Instagram pointed me towards another um reviewer, another arc reviewer, who had made an actual list of because she got so sick of the number of influencers and Instagram people that were charging people for reading their books and like. And I've been taken in by these people a number of times, okay? So I've spent good money for absolute crap, okay? And so she made a list of like 150 reviewers who don't charge for reviews. They just ask for an arc, maybe a physical copy, that's about it. Because obviously, you're already investing in these people, you're already giving them you know their you know what you've worked so hard to be able to do. So I combed through that list like an obsessive son of a bitch that I am. And uh I found a number of wonderful people that I've been able to send the arcs to. I've sent them, you know, I'm on my the arc is on Book Sirens as well. So you can um if you're on Book Sirens, you can ask to be well part of the team as well. There's um you know, I've sent it around to a number of groups on Facebook and the like. So yeah, there's a lot of uh things that I've been trying to do, but yeah, and I'm really looking forward to having a physical copy that I can put on my bookshelf next to everything else. So Okay.

Booked All Night 50:40

Well that means we don't get to play Bring Your Own Book, which makes me sad. But I have a backup game, which is a spelling bee.

Henry Corrigan 50:46

Okay. Sounds good.

Booked All Night 50:49

So there it's traditional spelling bee rules. I have um phonetics and an example sentence here. Okay. I didn't include uh definitions because none of them are uh homonyms. So I figured they're good enough. Yeah. So the first word is necromancer.

Henry Corrigan 51:09

Ah, okay. N-E-C R-O-M-A-N-C-E-R.

Booked All Night 51:15

Yes. Yay.

Henry Corrigan 51:16

Okay.

Booked All Night 51:17

The second one is infernal.

Henry Corrigan 51:20

Okay. Infernal. Oh, that's um Edward Lee's City Infernal was one of my favorites growing growing up. Uh I-N F-E-R-N-A-L. Yes. Abomination. Ah, abomination. That's oh that's such a fun word. I love I love these words. A B-O-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-M.

Booked All Night 51:42

Yes.

Henry Corrigan 51:43

Yay.

Booked All Night 51:44

Monotony.

Henry Corrigan 51:46

Ah! Very good.

Booked All Night 51:49

I love that. I feel you should be able to spell this one.

Henry Corrigan 51:55

Watch me add like too many O's or too many O's and N's in there. Alright, monotony. M-O-N-O-T-O-N-Y. Yes. Coven. Coven, alright. That's a C-O-V-E-N. Yes. Love a good witch's Coven. Yes. Yes. Pandemonium. Oh, that's a tough one. I like that one. Uh Pandemonium. Uh Pan Cougar and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show from Something Wicked This Way Comes, one of my favorite books of all time. P A N D E M O N I U M. Probably. Oh, really? Okay. Very cool. Alright.

Booked All Night 52:37

Apparition.

Henry Corrigan 52:38

Apparition. Ooh. I want to take a P or two P's. Okay. I'm gonna go with A P P A R I T I O N. Yes. Yay! Okay, cool.

Booked All Night 52:52

Chimeric.

Henry Corrigan 52:54

Oh. Okay. Chimeric. Okay. C H I M A E R I C.

Booked All Night 53:05

No, it is C H I M E R I C. E-R-I-C.

Henry Corrigan 53:11

Okay, alright. Alright.

Booked All Night 53:12

That one's hard because the it's Greek. Yeah. Well.

Henry Corrigan 53:16

No, that's okay.

Booked All Night 53:19

Diabolical.

Henry Corrigan 53:20

Ah. Uh D-I-A B O L diabolical. I C A L. Yes. Yay. Okay. And the last one is Eerie. Eerie. Oh. I'm sorry, uh, weird aside. My brain's going a different direction. Do you remember the show Eerie Indiana?

Booked All Night 53:41

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Henry Corrigan 53:45

Alright. Eerie Indiana. Uh E-E-R-I-E. Yes. Yay. Okay.

Booked All Night 53:54

No one ever gets all ten. You got nine, but very good.

Henry Corrigan 53:58

Thank you. Thank you.

Booked All Night 54:01

And then we have our last section of crazy nonsensical questions.

Henry Corrigan 54:06

I love it.

Booked All Night 54:06

If Monotony hosted a talent show, what would Becca's act be?

Henry Corrigan 54:12

Becca's act would probably be um changing all four tires before it before the car slips off the jack. Because in Monotony, what they would do is like they wouldn't give her like the true mechanics jack like you have, you know, the kind that actually does work and lifts up the car. They would give you the scissor jack, like we grew up with. You know, the thing that it's like the the breeze comes along and just thunk the whole car just suddenly hits the pavement.

Booked All Night 54:43

So I I had one of those in my car. I did too. Yeah. When I first started driving. My first car was a 1987 Mercury Lynx, and its factory date is one month older than me.

Henry Corrigan 54:54

Okay. Yeah.

Booked All Night 54:55

Uh yeah, and this thing was a little death trap, and I had to change a tire one day, and I couldn't get it I couldn't get the car to jack up. And I was literally jumping on the jack to try and get it to go up, and it would not budge. I'm like, I don't know what to do. I w I weigh 140 pounds and I can't get the jack to to go up. I'm screwed. That little thing sucks. Now I have a like a battery-operated one, and you just push a button and it goes up, and I'm like, that's what that's all I need.

Henry Corrigan 55:20

That's fabulous. I didn't know they made those. That's awesome. No, I had a lot of things. Yeah, I had a uh I had a scissor jack. My first car was a ninety-something Ford Tempo. And yeah. Anytime that you get out uh into the the more interesting words, you know, that they use for the cars, that's usually when you get like the more closer to the lemons, you know, of the cars that you got, you know, the the you know. And uh yeah, that one, yeah, that it had a lot of problems with it. I also drove it into the ground. I didn't take care of it very well. I had um my grandmother, my grandmother's eventually I inherited her Mercury Mystique, and that was also another one that I drove into the ground, but that was also that one uh jelly bean blue, and it was yeah, there was um the lug nuts on the car rusted, so I couldn't get the lug nuts off of the car to be able to change the tires. So that's when you have to go to like the mechanic and have them try to like take a blowtorch to be able to crack the rust to be able to get it to like get everything off the car. So yeah, it's yeah, that's rough. Yeah.

Booked All Night 56:37

I will I will say this. My second car was a Chevy Corsica, 92 Chevy Corsica, and that thing was a tank. I'm convinced a tank could crash into that car and the tank would take damage.

Henry Corrigan 56:48

Yes.

Booked All Night 56:49

Like it took me everywhere. It took me up to school in Connecticut, there and back again. It like it I got into one accident with it, and there was like a scrape on that car, and then like a dent on the other car. Like it that was such a reliable car. I kind of miss it because it was like really sturdy and safe.

Henry Corrigan 57:13

Back to questions. Yes, yes, I'm sorry. I can go. I can go for a while. I'm sorry. Go for it.

Booked All Night 57:17

No, we both can't. I'm just gonna keep us on track. Would you rather fight a prom dress or a pair of shoes with a vendetta?

Henry Corrigan 57:26

Oh the prom dress. Because the the shoes, I have a feeling oh, I can just see like these like really petty, absolutely sharp stilettos in my head, and I can just s and I would just end up bleeding the entire time. Like I wouldn't it uh for some reason I can see like the the dress, I can see us being enemies at first, and then we could end up just dancing well together after we come to some kind of understanding. You know, like friends to you know, enemies to lovers kind of thing.

Booked All Night 58:01

But you know it's to lovers with the prom dress.

Henry Corrigan 58:04

Yes, yes, absolutely. See what you know, see what happens, see how I look in it, gotta see what it's like, you know.

Booked All Night 58:09

So it's fair, it's fair. You you always have to try it on. It's true. Absolutely, yes, yes. I I would never choose the prom dress because they are now covered in glitter, and I would never get that off.

Henry Corrigan 58:20

Okay.

Booked All Night 58:20

Uh and the pair of shoes that I picture is actually like a pair of wingtips, and I'm like, I can t I can take a pair of wingtips, right?

Henry Corrigan 58:28

Like, wingtips would be nice, yes. No.

Booked All Night 58:30

But if they were stilettos, if they were stilettos, I'd choose the prom dress. Stilettos stilettos hurt in every fashion, and those are those are weapons.

Henry Corrigan 58:39

Yes, yes, absolutely, yes.

Booked All Night 58:41

If your anxiety manifested as a disco ball, what color would it spin?

Henry Corrigan 58:48

Black. Black. Black. It would just It would be the It would be a thing that you know strobe lighting almost? Yes. You know, it's kind of like that. It wouldn't really you wouldn't be able to see anything by it. It wouldn't make anything better or brighter. It would just leave you more and more anxious with each flicker that goes by. So you're not really like you're losing time almost. And that's what kind of like what strobe lighting feels like. You know, it's just suddenly gone and you feel like you lost two seconds of your life. You know, and those two seconds, the it just your anxiety just goes straight through the roof. You know, when you feel like you have lost a a a time or some a few seconds itself.

Booked All Night 59:32

Do you by chance know how to read music?

Henry Corrigan 59:35

I do not. No. Oh. Okay. No. No. I don't know.

Booked All Night 59:38

There is a really great uh visual joke about anxiety, and it's just a bunch of rests, which is when a musician is supposed to not play, but it slowly makes them like uh faster rests. So nothing's actually being played, but like it's just more rests and like that. That's that's the visual representation of my anxiety. Nothing is happening, but I'm real nervous about it, and it's getting hectic. Like, it's so dumb.

Henry Corrigan 1:00:05

Yeah. No, it's not dumb. It's just the way that you react to it, honestly. I know. I hate it. Yeah. I mean, a lot of things I mean, we we there's the old joke of like, you know, the you you get so anxious about something, then you get through it, and suddenly it's it doesn't feel as bad as it does. But the it's not that doesn't mean that you're an idiot. That doesn't mean it's just simply the fact that there's so much that is built around it, you know, or so much that is that depends on it, you know. If you've been lonely for a while, you know, and meeting that first friend, you know, or trying or just trying to meet that first friend. That's nervous, that's nerve-wracking. If you've been yeah, if you're trying for a uh job, whether you've had jobs before, if whether you're you know, if you're taking on a new lover, you know, if you yeah, you might have been, you might have done you might have had sex before, fine, yes, but that doesn't mean you've never seen this person, has never been with this person before. They've never seen you naked before. So, you know, it doesn't make you an idiot. It's just natural reactions to something that the importance of it. Whether it's easy the finding out afterwards it's okay, but it's still, it's yeah.

Booked All Night 1:01:10

I think for me, one of my one of my worst panic attacks uh was early on, and I so I lived in the dorm, I lived on the sixth floor, and that's very important. I lived on the sixth floor, and I thought somebody was outside my window staring in. And so I stayed up all night because I couldn't get the image out of my head that somebody was watching me through my window. And finally dawn breaks, and I calm down, and I realize this man has to have six stories worth of leg in order to be standing in my window. And so immediately, like, it becomes this very cartoon figure, like how little kids draw their dad, right? Like with like legs that are like 75% of the figure, and then like the last little bit is the torso inhead, and I'm like all night long, I lost a whole night's sleep because my brain, although seeing that no one was outside my window, believed somebody was outside. God damn it.

Henry Corrigan 1:02:07

Like no, I understand, you know, and look, I've never had a panic attack. I mean, I would I was diagnosed with um mild to moderate like anxiety and depression. So I've had I've known people who have severe anxiety, severe depression. I would not survive at those levels. I know that. But the but I've had so many moments where the I've lost sleep because I've worried about outlandish things that happen to my wife, happened to my kid, happened, you know. I replay um conversations and things that I've done, messages that I've sent in my head over and over and over again. So yeah, and I've I've and I've had nightmares for every for as long as I can remember. So you know, yeah. I mean I I still vividly remember the having a dream where I was I don't think I was a teenager yet. I think it was just on the cusp of a of being a teenager and I'd fallen asleep and I remember this dream. It was so vivid, so detailed. I had fallen through the floor and had and there was just a pit beneath me, but something had caught me. Like at that very you know, instead of so I wasn't completely falling, except I don't remember if it was a vine or something like that, but then all of a sudden I'm I'm hanging by one foot and I see this snake come slithering down and it starts digging and eating its way through my foot. So no, I and I said no prope. Yeah, no, absolutely not. And I that was when I woke up in the because the just uh the physical shock, I could feel it at the time. It was so vivid. I could feel the physical shock of it. And that was what woke me up. So no, it's I I totally understand it.

Booked All Night 1:03:53

So it sucks. It does, yes. I just like I do not wish this on my worst enemy. Uh it sucks having these things.

Henry Corrigan 1:04:01

No.

Booked All Night 1:04:01

Uh where did I leave off with actual questions? Um, I got it. Okay. How many demons? Yeah, demons on a school bus. How many demons could fit in a school bus before it became sentient?

Henry Corrigan 1:04:16

Oh let's see. Honestly, I think it would only need one. And it would just need the host. Because the the ho the host in my town in Monotony is the I I don't want to give too much away as to you know how it is that he's connected to everything else and what you know what it will what it will eventually lead to. But he's yeah, it would just need him because he would be the kind of person who would politely bully you for as long as it took until you broke. And I think that would do it would do that to the school bus. Eventually it would just he would just politely, smilingly bully you until you did what he s wanted you to do. And the bus would take on his own personality from there. Okay.

Booked All Night 1:05:07

If your book were a flavor of ice cream, what would it be?

Henry Corrigan 1:05:13

My daughter has been reading uh it's just started a new series of books last night called uh 13-story treehouse. And one of the books and one of the is there's in the section there's it lists like 78 different kinds of ice cream that they list. And it's crazy kinds of uh flavoring like egg and bacon and bacon and eggs and bacon eggs without bacon, bacon without eggs, and like there's like 50 different ones in there, but there's one that was uh let's see. The one that keeps coming to me, and I don't know why it is or what is um invisible ice cream. Is yeah invisible ice cream and the because that's the Flavor, and that's the thing, is that and I don't re I'm not really sure why. Um but maybe it's the fact that it's a kind of thing that you know that it's there, and you know you can taste it, you know that it's there, and you know it's doing something to you, but you can't see it, you can't grasp it, you can't do anything about it. And that yeah, I can see I can see monotony being that kind of invisible ice cream. It's a thing that you know that it's there and you know that it's affecting you, but uh you can't really do anything, but it's a w but you can't really do anything to not to stop it.

Booked All Night 1:06:42

Would you rather attend prom on a floating asteroid or inside a volcano? Everyone say hi to mom. Hi mom!

Henry Corrigan 1:06:58

Let's see. Um I would say I would say inside a volcano. Yeah. Just because that would be inside a volcano.

Booked All Night 1:07:08

Yeah, one side of volcanoes.

Henry Corrigan 1:07:09

Yeah. No, the inside a volcano, I would say that would be my food, but just because of uh my daughter has played a number of games and there's lots of videos where like you know, kids like people are dancing or through like you know, volcanoes and all different kinds of like Danny Go, all these uh different shows and and skits where you're you know the floor is lava and stuff like that. So I don't know, I would probably like be left without feet by the time I was done, but it would but I can see that but I yeah, I would go through the I would go through the volcano. You know, the the asteroid just makes me feel like I would be seasick the entire time.

Booked All Night 1:07:44

Oh god, yeah. Yeah. But would you get seasick? Because like if you're out in the asteroid, gravity doesn't work the same, so like your body wouldn't feel it the same?

Henry Corrigan 1:07:55

No, that's true. But then also like you you um ask like astronauts in order to train for getting into the um for getting into space dealing with anti-gravity, they have to go through the vomit comet. Yep. So, yeah. So, you know, you're going straight up and then straight back down, and yeah, the no, your your throw-up will eventually be there floating along beside you as you're as you're going through as you're trying to get through prom in the middle of a you know empty space. Yeah. What a thought.

Booked All Night 1:08:30

All that glitter, all those streamers, all that vomit up in space. Like, uh, yeah. Final question: if your characters formed a band, what instruments do they each play?

Henry Corrigan 1:08:43

What instruments do they each play? Oh. Toby would be on the keytar. The key tar. Toby would be on the keytar. Yes, yes. Um, yeah, that that oh they he would have an absolute blast with that, and I can see it. Um Kyle would be the drums, because he's the kind of like solid type of guy, kind of like solid foundational type of guy that you can build the rest of the of the rhythm around. Uh Gabby would be bass, and the like the thudding, like electric, kind of heavy beat, almost like as you're just running, as you as you're going through the song. And that would leave Becca. I don't know if I would put her at lead guitar or triangle. I'll be nice and I'll give her. I'll be nice and I I don't want to bully my own character at the moment. I'll be nice and give her lead guitar.

Booked All Night 1:09:47

Just or triangle. How about these things? Just wildly different sides of the spectrum. Just okay then. In that case, can you tell everybody where they can find you?

Henry Corrigan 1:10:09

Absolutely, yes. I'm on Instagram way too much. I'm on so many, I'm on way, I'm on more in uh social media channels than is actually healthy, and more than I remember, honestly. So, but you can mostly find me on Instagram uh at Henry Corrigan08. Um on Facebook uh Henry Corrigan, I'm on Blue Sky at Henry Corrigan.bluesky.social, something like that. Um let me see. Uh, but yeah, mostly on Facebook and Instagram you can find me as well. Um let's see. The the book itself is on pre-order right now with my uh publisher, Byzantium Sky. So it's you can order uh signed personalized copies for um if you like, you can order ebooks as well. They go directly through my publisher, they don't go through Amazon at all. And let me see, there's but there's it's also on Amazon, it's almost it's also on Barnes and Noble. But if we're dealing with um Indie Author Month, you know, go to come to the indie authors, you know, and come to the come to the come to the uh come to the indie publishers as well. You know, I saw a uh number of posts recently, like Barnes Noble is charging like indie authors for you know for books. They're no longer carrying books that are under a certain price tag, you know, for um for independent authors. Draft to digital is yeah, draft to digital, I believe, is now charging authors for um some kind of nominal fee or whatever independent authors for uh using their services, you know, which is hard for independents because anybody I think will tell you that most books that get published, and whether it's traditional or it's independent, most of them sell maybe a hundred copies throughout the the course of a year. So being able to having to free services or being able to avail yourself of free services is absolutely essential. So the please, you know, find me on uh Instagram or social or Facebook, find you know, check out Byzantium Sky, check out my uh previous publisher slash Accara Press, only independent presses, all the independent book stops, you know, bookshops, bookstores that you can find. And just try to help the community as best you can. Try to push for more people as you possibly can, because Lord knows we need that right now.

Booked All Night 1:12:27

Yes. Yes. And as a final outro before I do my whole uh postamble, uh anybody that you would like to give a shout-out to or special thanks to today.

Henry Corrigan 1:12:38

Oh, I would absolutely love to thank Crystal, my publisher at Byzantium Sky. I would love to thank uh David Jack Fletcher, my publisher from uh my last book, which was uh Somewhere Quiet, Full of Light, that made the Brahm Stoker Award reading list. It was named one of the best books of the year. Thank you very much. Thank you. That was crazy. It was named one of the best books of the year by Ginger Nuts of Horror. I'd like to thank Jim McLeod from Ginger Nuts Horror of Horror. He's been a wonderful supporter of my work. Um I'd like to thank uh my friend Chad Boyles, who's been looking, you know, who's been uh one of the people that has looked after, um, been supporting my work as much. I'd like to thank Mia Dahlia, one of my earliest readers and supporters, uh Joan Livingston, and more than anything, I'd like to thank my wife and daughter. Yeah, the my wife has put up with me more than anything else in the world. My daughter is awesome. And but my wife has put up with me and has been supporting me as much as I am, and I really and she's my best friend, and I really can't thank her enough for that. I love that.

Booked All Night 1:13:42

That's so lovely. What a lovely note to end on today. So thank you so much for joining us today, Henry. Thank you so much. Lovely to have you back. You know, you are welcome anytime.

Henry Corrigan 1:13:50

Thank you so very much. I've been having an absolute blast. Thank you guys. If I can add one last codicle, thank you guys for having me. Oh, thank you, Lisa. So thank you so very much. I really appreciate this.

Booked All Night 1:14:02

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