Analog Dreams

In the 1997 box-office bomb, Titanic, a young, upper-class English woman named Rose boards the eponymous luxury liner bound for New York and an arranged marriage with a rich man that promises her comfort and security, but not happiness.    

Sullenly, Rose accepts her fate until a chance encounter with a penniless artist named Jack gives her a second chance at love. The two enjoy a whirlwind romance aboard the ship until their love story turns tragic when Jack murders Rose’s fiancé so they can be together. The film famously ends as the star-crossed lovers are torn asunder by the subsequent courtroom drama.

Wait, what? Is that not how Titanic ends? Wasn’t there something about a shipwreck and a floating piece of wood? And wasn’t it one of the highest-grossing films ever?

Well, not in English lecturer David James Keaton’s latest novel, Head Cleaner. There, a group of video store employees at “The Last Blockbuster” discover a mysterious VCR machine that can change not just the ending of movies, but also people’s memories of those films and even real-life events referenced by those movies. Once the protagonists find themselves accidentally responsible for changing world history, they have to evade deadly agents in black who wish to secure the VCR for their own agenda.

Head Cleaner is a thrilling, genre-bending novel that’s gotten some exciting buzz since its publication. We sat down with Keaton to talk nostalgia in fiction, the inspiring monotony of retail work, and why the 1977 film Black Sunday was so dangerous.    

Head Cleaner really has everything—video store culture, conspiracies, time loops… What influences did you draw on while writing this novel?  

From a structural standpoint, this book was probably most influenced by Karen Russell’s work, especially her short story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised By Wolves.” If you’re not familiar with it, it’s about this nunnery that teaches these wild daughters of werewolves how to assimilate into the human world.

You’ve said that the main characters—Jerry, Randy, and Eva—are meant to be representative of Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z. What interested you in bringing these different generations together?

In some ways, I based these characters on conversations I’ve had with my sister who’s a millennial, and my students who are—I guess “zoomers” is the name they’re going with now.

I think generalizing generations as having certain qualities is a little obnoxious, especially when you’re talking about a different generation than yours. So I tried to make all of these generations sympathetic and in the story, when they take on each other’s identities, they actually get more blended together.

In a time when nostalgia is on the rise, your book is chock-full of vintage pop culture references ranging from Members Only jackets to flip phones. What does nostalgia mean to you as a writer?

When the ’80s first came back, it was pretty fun—plus, you could correct people and say “No, the ’80s is what you think of as the ’70s, and the ’80s that you’re showing is actually the ’90s.” But by the time Stranger Things came around, I started getting real tired of it. It just seemed artificial and like a shortcut to doing anything narratively. That’s part of the reason for Head Cleaner too. It’s an indictment of nostalgia as a dead end, or a literal cul-de-sac of progress or emotional maturity.

So, I guess I’m just resistant to it now. But then, you come across something that does it really well, like for me, it was a movie I saw the other day—The Florida Project.

It’s a contemporary setting, but it had that nostalgic feel—like it takes place in this netherworld of this motel, the childhood felt so real, and the connections were really clear, as opposed to something like the episodes of Stranger Things at the mall where they’re trying to evoke what they thought people were supposed to do in a mall, which felt really effortful. So, I guess something doesn’t have to take place in the actual ’80s or ’90s to have nostalgia that works—good writing is just good writing.

What pieces of culture make you feel the most nostalgic?

I think songs will probably always have the upper hand—it’s not such a commitment to go down memory lane when you can just pull up a song. It’s more immersive too.

Now, if you have a movie or show with a memorable song in it—then you've got the perfect storm, right? Stranger Things just had a big moment by bringing back that Kate Bush song, and The Last of Us just had that Linda Ronstadt song. I think they've figured out that we can’t resist the nostalgia of a song.

In a recent blog post on Largehearted Boy, you made a playlist inspired by Head Cleaner. How did you choose the songs?

Some of those songs were from my video store days. The Geto Boys were popping off then, and I had never heard anything like them. And I remember there was a customer who would be singing one of their songs [“Mind Playing Tricks on Me”]. But I thought that it was just what this guy was saying—I thought he was talking about his mind playing tricks on him as he walked around the video store. So that song takes me back to closing up at the video store.

Other songs were ones that I used when I was DJing at a radio station in Pittsburgh. I was always looking for a good theme song for the show I hosted, so Massive Attack became my spooky theme.

It’s interesting… DJing from midnight to four in the morning, you're forcing a soundtrack onto yourself. You force that moment to be solidified in your brain, even if you did nothing except sit in a room and play the music you had. And even though it was after my retail days, these songs reminded me of being stuck behind a counter or register, just playing music.

So, it’s all kind of swirled up there together. The retail jobs that I had, they were terrible, but there’s this weird nostalgia, because you’re in the trenches with a bunch of like-minded, long-suffering peers. That’s the kind of stuff I wanted in the book. The idea that you're stuck there, but you’re making the most of it. You kind of hate your coworkers, but they are your only contact. It’s us versus this alien force on the other side of the counter.

What was it like writing about video culture in a text medium?

A few years ago, a friend of mine said nobody is inspired by books anymore. And making something like Head Cleaner, which is clearly inspired by a lot of movies, I just feel really guilty.

When I’m reading a lot, the things I write feel a little more noble, you know? But when I’m watching a lot of movies, it’s like I’m possessed by the media. My fingers just start going across the keys, and the writing comes out so fast that it feels like it’s cheating, and it's saturated with movie references and songs.

Sometimes I wonder, why can’t I read some quality literature and emulate that? But I’ve accepted that when you love movies like I do, it just comes out naturally in your writing.

Your book has some really fun scenes where certain movies have their endings dramatically changed by this VCR. Which ending was your favorite to re-write?

Yeah, that Titanic ending was based on a social media post asking how to ruin a movie with one line. So, what does “ruining” really mean? Save all the lives in Titanic, and you’ve ruined the movie.

But my favorite one to write was probably Black Sunday. While I was writing, I found out that when they first released that movie, the audience was frustrated that the bomb didn't kill everybody in the stadium. Instead, the movie ends with the bomb getting dragged out over the ocean where it just kills a bunch of fish.

And then, somebody said that the fish ending was actually added on after audience testing. Initially, the movie ended with the hero saving the day without the bomb even going off. People didn’t like that. They said “We gotta see it explode,” so they had it explode over the ocean, just to see it kill something. So, that was their way of satisfying people, but I remember thinking there is something to that.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the film or read the book, but the bomb in Black Sunday is so ghoulish—like, it has a bunch of darts. And, there’s a moment when they test this device and see what it would do to a person. So, they trick someone into thinking that they’re taking a picture, but they’re just standing next to a small version of this bomb in an aircraft hangar. Later, they’re checking the spread of holes in the hangar wall, and I remember as a kid that it was the freakiest thing I’d ever seen in my life.

So, the idea of rewriting that to give the bloodthirsty audiences the satisfaction of it going off and killing all these people was so visceral. That movie just felt so dangerous, and I really had fun overthinking it.

If a movie with a changed ending is based on real events, it’s revealed that the events become changed in real life, which leads to some terrifying scenes where we see the characters’ memories get rewritten. Was it difficult writing across time loops, different timelines, and alternate realities? What was your approach?

I think the fact that there was a reset button that started the day over and over helped me keep it straight. Repetition helps limit your scope if you’re gonna destroy reality.

Also, I find something deeply sad about voicemails, and I used that in that scene with Ava as she’s listening to voicemails and discovering that she might have somebody else’s phone number or somebody else’s identity. Is she being manipulated? We don't know, but people don’t seem to remember her. I found that tension cathartic to write because it’s just mostly based on coming across old voicemails and finding them kind of haunting.

What draws you toward writing genre-bending stories like this one?

I don’t know if I seek it out as much as it just seems like I have a natural connection with the high-concept plot.

The boundaries, I think, are the frustrating part. I think that’s what sinks a lot of these new genre films—the attempt to adhere to those boundaries in a really redundant, predictable kind of way.

How do you approach giving and receiving feedback as both a writer and teacher?

This was my first book that crept out of the bubble of my friends to a general audience. I’m fascinated by the public reaction because my work seems to exist in that 3-star limbo where people say “What the f— was this?” or “I stumbled across this thing and I’m not sure I get it, but I really like it.” I guess I’m comfortable in that confusion; I don't take it to heart.

But then again, I think one review said that they found something in it “tiresome,” and I was spiraling about that for a couple of days. I just hope that if someone reads this book, they think it’s either interesting or terrible, not tiresome.

As for teaching, it’s like there’s a separation of church and state. I like to keep myself out of my creative writing classes and give space for my students to fill with their own work. In the classroom, I want to be this reading creature, not necessarily a writer. I like to give feedback as a reader, because I’ve had people say “You write great books for other writers,” and that’s a backhanded compliment, isn’t it? It means good luck crossing over to the average reader. So, I don’t think it would do anybody any favors to create a bunch of writers’-writers if they want to reach an audience.

What advice do you give your students about being a working writer?

That’s the question. If writing is an art, can you make a living on art? I wouldn’t even know how to begin to tell someone how to do that, because with fiction writing, it seems impossible to get success unless you strive for the middle. And if you chase trends trying to get there, art seems hopeless, because then you’re just trying to emulate things.

My advice? It doesn’t matter where your writing goes as long as you just keep doing it. If those other things line up, great. If not, don’t stop.