9-7-25 — Special Interview with Peter Caffrey and a review of THE BALLAD OF SEVEN BASTARDS

This is, hands down, the coolest and best written interview I have done yet. Peter Caffrey is a international treasure and must be protected at all costs. Oh, and Mrs. C, because she puts up with him on the daily.

INTERVIEW WITH PETER CAFFREY

CP: Can you talk about your writing journey? When you started writing, etc?

PC: Being a child of the 1960s, I grew up during a wonderful age which had no internet, very little television, and society was thick with the stench of post-war poverty mingling with cold-war austerity. As kids, we had footballs, sticks and stones to break each others’ bones, and books. That, along with our imaginations, was everything we could dream about. As the sole boy in a family of daughters, I became a voracious reader, but quickly ran out of reading material. I scavenged the books my older sisters were forced to read at school, often advising them on homework about the books they couldn’t be bothered to read.

Back then, libraries in the UK were less than enlightened. As a child, I was forbidden to enter the adult library, let alone gaze upon the books or even consider borrowing them. As the son of an Irish Catholic immigrant, I was sent to a Catholic Grammar School, and its library had two sections: very religious texts, and considerably religious texts. In short, I was starved of interesting literature.

Through an unusual incident, I became aware my mother had a stash of what were considered back then as subversive texts. She kept them locked in a cabinet in case my father discovered them. My father wasn’t against reading; it was a fine pastime for girls, he’d state, and the only things boys needed to read were workshop manuals and racing form. However, any book with even a hint of horror, or sexual abandon, was—in his eyes—a sin. Had he discovered the stash, he would have rained down Hell and damnation upon us all.I realized by removing the drawer from the locked cupboard, I could reach in, release the inner bolt, and carefully open the doors. Using this method, I read The Valley of the Dolls, The Godfather, The Exorcist, To the Devil a Daughter, and severalbooks of that ilk. Having exhausted the cupboard of sin, and finding nothing else to read, I hit upon a plan.

I started to write my own stories. I became obsessed with one idea: a boy of my age discovering the perfect way to commit a horrible murder and not get caught. I made copious notes. The story used a widowed neighbor as the victim, and was pretty dark. Unfortunately, my parents found the notes and genuinely thought I was planning on sending threatening and abusive letters to the neighbor. As a result, I was beaten black and blue and sent to see the priest.

From then on, my stories stayed in my head, until I finally left home. I joined a punk band, got drunk, took drugs, enjoyed my freedom, but inside I always had an urge to write. I stumbled on an alternative bookshop in London, and my eyes were opened to the Beat writers (Patchen, Corso, Ginsberg, etc.), along with the likes of Bukowski, Roth, Kesey, and Salinger. I also found myself diving into the depths of Kafka, Pinter, Beckett, Joyce, Hesse, Gogol, and Dostoevsky. It all sounds a bit high-brow, but I was learning literature didn’thave to follow the conventions I’d been taught at school. I learned it could be ‘of a time’.

Against the background of Punk Rock, I started to write, typing out stories on an old typewriter I’d begged off the brother of a friend. I dated a girl who cleaned a solicitor’s office at night, and I’d sneak in with her. While she cleaned, I’d use their equipment, paper and toner to photocopy my work. Then I’d staple together chapbooks and sell them at gigs, in pubs and clubs, at university, anywhere I found people with a like mind to mine.

Shortly afterwards, I began my career in journalism, and I stopped selling chapbooks. While I didn’t stop writing, I didn’t do anything with my work. For the next 35ish years, I’dbuy bundles of notebooks and write fiction and poetry. When a book was full, I’d put it in a drawer and start another. When the drawer was full, I’d empty it into the dustbin and buy more notebooks.

In 2018, I wrote The Devil’s Hairball. The notebook it was scrawled in laid on my desk, and someone I knew picked it up and started to read. They asked to take it home, and a fewdays later told me to publish it. I chucked it onto Amazon and forgot all about it. It sold a few dozen copies, but I never promoted it.

In my real job, I did do some work with a company developing speech recognition technology, and they told me one of the businesses licensing it was using it in sex robots. That started a string of ideas in my head. I wrote a few short stories about sex robots and submitted them to magazines, and they were published. As I result, I released Whores Versus Sex Robots, and again did nothing to promote it! Amazon became my new drawer into which my work was thrown and then ignored.

Things changed when lockdown hit. I wrote a lot more, andtried to promote what I’d previously written. I assumed once lockdown ended, I’d just go back to work, so it was more of a half-assed way of killing time. Then the shit hit the fan. As the second lockdown ended, I was diagnosed with head and neck cancer, and I thought, ‘fuck this for a game of soldiers, I’m just going to write more weird shit.’

Since then, I haven’t gone back to work due to struggles with concentration and focus thanks to my treatment, and so instead I sit around all day and write filth. That, I suppose, is my journey to date!

CP: You are difficult to categorize as an author. Absurdism, grindhouse, drama, extreme horror, western and poetry are just a few of the genres you have written. Which is your favorite? Which is the most difficult? Easiest?

PC: My problem is I’ll pretty much write anything if I think it makes a good story! I’d never sacrifice the story for an adherence to a genre or a trope. I’d rather write something which a smaller number of people really appreciate than play the ‘mass-appeal’ game and keep regurgitating things to a set formula.

In addition, I like to challenge myself, so trying new genres, different structures, and varied approaches just appeals to me. That said, I’m probably most at home in the theatre of absurdism, and by that, I mean old-school absurdism.

Absurdism, and absurdist literature, has a rich tradition of highlighting the futility and pointlessness of the human condition, shattering the illusion that our existence is, in somesmall way, meaningful. Sadly, there is currently a trend to slap the ‘absurdism’ label on Bizarro and nonsensical works, which is frustrating. It’s not that I don’t value Bizarro literature; I’ve dabbled with it myself on many occasions. However, there’s true horror and darkness in absurdism, and misrepresenting it sometimes hides the genre from new readers. Nothing takes you down a more disturbing and uncomfortable path than the work of Kafka, Camus, Pinter, or Beckett. There’s more to horrify the reader in The Stranger than The Exorcist.

I suppose I’m drawn to absurdism because I find something reassuring in the nihilism and the forced acceptance that our humanity is nothing but a veneer of nothingness. It’s why many of my books don’t have ‘happy’ endings. I know it upsets a few readers, and even when there is a happy ending, it’s not happy in all respects, but that’s true of life. When was the last time anyone really had a happy ending? When I was given the all-clear from cancer, I thought it might be a happy ending, but the reality is I’m not the same person I was. I never will be. That previous person has gone, and with them went so much that made me who I was. It might sound bleak, but viewed through an absurdist lens, it’s the only way things could have ended up.

So, I suppose my favorite genre is absurdism, underpinned with humor so dark you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The more extreme stories, the Grindhouse homages and the insane violence, tend to be a bit ‘Tom and Jerry’ in their humor. I write those stories because they make me laugh, andserve as a bit of a palate-cleanser.

The hardest genre to write? The Cunterbury Tales was difficult. Writing an offensive and witty book predominantly in octosyllabic rhyming couplets was a true ordeal! There was the challenge of sticking to the plot while finding clever rhymes, and then presenting the lines with the correct meter, without taking the easy route and regressing to hackneyed options. I persevered with the book because I wanted to raise money for the oncology unit, but it’s a style I wouldn’t writeagain.

CP: What are three or four books that every writer and reader should experience?

PC: That’s a fucking horrible question. It’s like asking someone to pick their favorite grandchild. The only way I can answer is to look at some of the elements I prize in literature, and try to think of the books which deliver those elements perfectly.

The first would have to be A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. In my mind, this book is the perfect representation of dark humor. It is savage, hard-hitting, almost belittling, but in a way, it illuminates the failures and weakness of Ignatius Reilly, and holds the futility of his existence up to ridicule. Its beauty is that the first time you read it, you’ll laugh, but on a second reading, you’ll probably weep. Ironically, in a way, I’d class it as horror, because the sheer desperation of the lead character is something which could afflict any one of us.

The next would be The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. In truth, it’s probably fair to say if a reader picks up any Kafka title, they’re in for a treat, but The Metamorphosis is the pinnacle of his dark and disturbing work. It teaches us more about the vacuousness of modern life than any other book I’veread. While many authors have set out to take society to task, The Metamorphosis does so in a way which is deep and personal, making it not so much about the world as a whole, but about Gregor and, ultimately, about us all. It’s a book I reread fairly often, and it still leaves me with a degree of unease every time I pick it up.

One thing I like to do is play with structure and form, and for me the greatest example of this has to be Riddley Walker by Russel Holborn. It’s billed as a science fiction novel, but I’dargue such a reference will only serve to put many people off what is a truly intriguing novel. It does take a little perseverance at first, but once you get into the flow, you’rerewarded with a tale which is as credible and relatable as it is bleak and upsetting. It has a depth of ritual and superstition which can easily be transferred to a whole shitload of religions and cultures, and it gives true food for thought.

I have to include a novel which is more firmly in the horror camp (although I would argue the three already mentioned have a darkness which is elevated above that of the most traditional horror tropes), and so my final choice is a book I only got around to reading last year. The Collector by John Fowles is a thing of beauty, in that it takes horror and humanizes it to such a degree you find yourself rooting for the transgressor. Everything about the book makes you feel empathy with him. You want to understand him, to sympathize with him, and just when you’re sure he deserves your support, you learn a lesson which is both bleak and stark. It’s a brilliant reminder that the most disturbing stories don’tneed people eating shit, or plucking out eyeballs, or tearing each other apart with industrial gardening tools. While there’snothing wrong with a bit of extreme carnage, the things which haunt our thoughts are sometimes far more subtle.

CP: What are the last 3-five star books you have read?

PC: When I’m deep into a writing project, I tend to shy away from reading for fear it’ll influence me or send my thinking in a different direction. During intense writing spells, I’ll often reread books or read non-fiction about anything and everything. During the editing of The Ballad of Seven Bastards, I read a lot about steam condensing solutions for industry, and bread making (not all in one book)! I tend to get fascinated by the most obscure things, and then need to know everything about the subject. If you need to know about rheology and the science of how materials flow, or an explanation of why reflection and refraction proves there is no such thing as color, I’m your man!

I tend to stock up books and then have a blitz. I only mention this because there are many newly published books I’mwaiting to read, but which haven’t made it to my read-fest yet!

The first is Ass Slasher by RJ Benetti. I’ll make no secret of the fact I like RJ and get on well with him, but that didn’tinfluence my thinking on this book. I started reading it while waiting for Mrs C during her oncology treatment, solely because it was on my Kindle and I couldn’t load the book I was going to read due to a lack of Wi-Fi. Immediately, I noticed he’d done something different, something intriguing, and as a result I couldn’t put it down. Despite the base nature of the story, RJ wrote with a lyrical beauty which, at times, verged on the poetic. I could feel every emotion, smell every odor, and taste the fear and stress which the characters suffered. And the twist at the end: sublime.

The second would be Out by Natsuo Kirino. The funny thing about this book was I didn’t think I would like it. A friend recommended it, and after the first chapter I thought it was a bit pedestrian. However, I’ve only DNFd one book in the past decade or so, so I stuck with it and I’m glad I did. Kirino weaves together what appear to be very disparate subplots to form a cohesive story which is rick in emotion, conflict, and intrigue. Characters you hate become lovable due to their actions, albeit usually for personal gain or self-preservation, but there always remains an underlying sense of doom and regret.

Finally, it was a reread, but for some reason, having been through the past few years of turmoil and pain, it struck a new chord. The Stranger by Albert Camus has always been a favorite, but rereading it recently gave me a new appreciation of what a fantastic story it is. From the hopefulness and desire at the start, to the bleak and miserable conclusion, it serves to highlight the futility of believing life is of some consequence in a chaotic and uncontrollable world.

CP: If you could co-author with any author - living or dead - who would it be?

PC: I’ll start by stating I’ve suggested to RJ Benetti we do something when we both have time. There’s no decision as yet, but I mention it here in the hope it will jog his memory and spur him on!

My immediate thought whenever I’m asked this question is always Franz Kafka, but the reality is I think we’d clash more than meld together in terms of literary structure. I also appreciate his struggles with isolation: a desire to be alone, even when he wanted people around, and his despair as they pushed him into a darkness of his own making. I think two of us with similar thoughts in one place would just end up in anightmare of silent resentment!

That said, I think I would have loved to write a play with Harold Pinter! To me, nothing screams of contentment more than a dark, stormy night, rain lashing at the windows, the fire lit and a pint of stout in hand, watching a Pinter play. I think writing with him would’ve been a dream.

CP: THE BALLAD OF SEVEN BASTARDS is your newest, upcoming release (releasing 9/15/25). In ten words or less, how would you pitch it?

PC: A brutal tale of manipulation, greed, and violent retribution.

CP: There is a lot happening in TBoSB; theft, revenge, sexual assault, supernatural elements, just to name a few. Where did the idea for this novel come from?

PC: I think it was inevitable I’d write a Western one day. As a kid, my father was obsessed with Westerns. The only things he’dwatch on TV were the news, horse racing, and Westerns. As the only boy in a house of females, the cowboys became our escape.

There were a fair few men on his side of the family who’d left Ireland and headed to the US in the late 1800s, some of whom had returned with stories about their adventures. My father would berate Hollywood’s interpretations during the films, pointing out that from what he’d heard, things were very different. I wanted to write a story in the Old West without the glamorous interpretations.

I was chatting to Mrs C one day, and she told me a story from before she met me, when her and some friends went to see a psychic. She never received her reading, as the woman liked her leather dress, which she’d had made. Being polite (certainly much politer than me), rather than telling the woman to get on with things, Mrs C ended up measuring her for a dress. After telling me the story, Mrs C added, ‘She’dlearned to read the tarot cards in prison.’   And that was that: Loretta Carson was born. I went straight to my office and started writing The Ballad of Seven Bastards.

It was a complex story, but before I could finish it, Splatter Westerns started popping up everywhere. As a result, I shelved it. I didn’t want it to be labelled as another Splatter Western offering.

A few years later, I returned to it, and despite a lot of work, something in it just wasn’t resonating with me. I tried changing the voice, the locations, the characters, but something was missing. Then, one day, out of the blue, it dawned on me it was the story structure which was wrong.  I was using a traditional three act structure, but it was crying out for something else. I considered switching to something based on a chiastic structure, and it was like a light bulb moment. Everything fell into place. Once I realized what the story needed, it went off on its own, and I just let it drag me to its conclusion.

CP: What is your favorite work from your extensive back catalogue and why? (Mine will forever be DOG FOOD).

PC: That’s a crueler question than asking me to pick four outstanding books! I could make a case for every one of them, and usually the latest is my favorite, so right now I’d say it’sThe Ballad of Seven Bastards. That said, Fucked-Up Bedtime Stories does hold a special place in my heart.

I came up with the idea of writing a book for my granddaughters when I was first diagnosed with cancer. However, pretty quickly I realized it wasn’t going to be suitable for children, but by then I was wedded to the characters, so I carried on.

I made a slight mistake with the title, because even today people assume it’s a collection of short stories rather than a novel. It’s in the format it is because I released each chapter as a standalone eBook, which meant it had to be episodic. The reason I did that was simply because I didn’t know if I’d live long enough to ever finish it! But, of course, I did.

I wrote it during treatment, in recovery rooms after operations, during chemo sessions, in waiting rooms, and while recovering at home on increasing doses of codeine and morphine. It was a way to laugh at all the horrible things which were happening to me, and as the craziness in the book ramps up, so does the background of dark dread and anxiety. Few people spot it, because what’s going on at the forefront is so insane, but there’s some inner terror peaking out around the edges!

I also have a real fondness for Dog Food. It divides those who read it, which is only to expected, and a lot of the complaints are that it doesn’t have a point. I suppose for some who prefer traditional stories, it leaves the reader unsure of what is happening at the end, but in my mind the point is clear: believing you have control over your own destiny is both futile and unrewarding.

I’ve got a soft spot for Hee Haw too, mostly because writing Alice used to make me smile. Her strange attitude, flip-flopping between subservience and superior mockery, was a joy to write, especially as sometimes I had no idea where she’d take things next. She has similarities with Maria in The God of Wanking and Sister Hildegard in The Devil’s Hairball.

And I can’t not mention Crust Investigates. It was a joy to take on a swindling British Victorian gent. It allowed me to write offensive, colloquial, bawdy tales which cocked a snook at the typical horror tropes.

And now I’ll stop, because you only asked for one, and if I think about it any longer, I’ll persuade myself that each, in turn, is my favorite!

CP: Not only do you write in different genres but also in different styles. Can you speak to that a little?

PC: I try not to think in terms of genre or style when I write. For me, it’s all about giving the story what it needs to breathe! I tend to consider the voice as an integral part of the reading experience, and as such I want to give each book a style and structure which amplifies the story. By way of an example, when I wrote Dog Food, in my mind I saw it more as a play than a novel. It was therefore important to set it predominantly in a single room, with four characters, and for the focus of the story to remain ‘on stage’, leaving the reader unsure of what was going on behind the scenes. It makes it more of a live action story.

Conversely, when I wrote Hee Haw, I recognized that for the story to work, the emphasis had to be on the mental horror rather than anything physical or gory. As a result, the thoughts, the anxieties, even the tone used by the two main characters when talking, took precedence over action. I delved into what was effectively happening on an emotional level, which made it very different to Dog Food.

Whenever I write anything, I tend to draft the first chapter, then rewrite over and over again until I’m happy with the voice. Then I can move forward, knowing the story has the style it needs to come across to the reader in the way I intended.

For me, it’s so much more important that a story blossoms and delivers the mood intended rather than using a Caffrey style. The story is always more important than I am!

CP: Is there anything new on the horizon for your readers and can you give us a tease of what’s to come?

PC: I’m putting together a short series of chapbooks at present. The Mondo Perverso Pulpageddon series is a throwback to my early days of writing. After being fucked around by a fewpeople recently, I felt a need to recapture the anarchic joy of the early days, so decided to produce limited edition chapbooks. Once they’re gone, the stories will also be available as eBooks. They’re in a pulp fiction style, and serve as a palate cleanser between The Ballad of Seven Bastards, and next year’s books.

In January, I’m releasing Flesh for the Majesty, a twisted and surreal tale of a man who loses his manhood to a dark Majesty, and has to retrieve it before he becomes a mumbling meat machine like many of the other men in his village.

During the summer, Jack is Dead will be published. It's probably closer to Dog Food than my other books, and focuses on the protagonist’s struggle to deal with circumstances which are clearly not right, but are totally beyond his control.

I’m also hopeful of releasing Nun Meat Carnival in autumn or early winter. Based around church-linked cartels struggling for control over the great unwashed, the parts I’ve written thus far have a degree of brutality more akin to the Middle Ages than today’s world. I guess it’s a cross between The Ballad of Seven Bastards and The God of Wanking!

Otherwise, there’ll only be anything else I decide to do! The past 12 months were a little slow, as The Cunterbury Talesand The Ballad of Seven Bastards both turned out to be more intense projects than I at first suspected. We also had to deal with Mrs C joining me in the cancer club, so I’m hopeful I can pick up the pace a bit in the next year!

EARLY REVIEW

THE BALLAD OF SEVEN BASTARDS

By: Peter Caffrey

Release: 9/15/25

Page count: 251

KU: TBD     Hoopla: No

Synopsis: Loretta is set free after ten yeas in prison. Just in time to make some quick cash with a little help. The problems start when she starts to believe she can outrun her past and start a new life.

First line: “Loretta hated her cell mate with a loathing so intense, it took everything in her power to refrain from smashing the mad bitch’s head against the stone wall, over and over, until the cunt was dead.”

Favorite line: “You shot my fucking balls off.” “‘Don’t worry’, Elijah said. ‘The Lord will help you grow a new pair.’”

Thoughts: Honestly, the synopsis is like the head of a pin in the grand scheme of the story. Caffrey not only gives us a killer (ha) Splatterwestern but a story of revenge and the moral questioning - “how far can you go without becoming the one you loathe.” The torture scenes were brutal and at certain parts, I wanted to beg Caffrey to just end the suffering. (As a writer he was like, “Fuck you, pussy. Here’s more because you whined.”) THE BALLAF shows Caffrey as a restrained Caffery (if you have read some of his other stories - FUCKED UP BEDTIME STORIES, THE GOD OF WANKING to name a few, you will understand this more). I love this side of Caffrey as a writer and I REALLY hope we see more from this universe.

Rating: 5/5

Other recommendations: DOG FOOD, HEE HAW

Pre-order here: https://a.co/d/8HOGk6u

BIO: Peter Caffrey creates stories stained with the darkest of dark humour, featuring elements of absurdism, splattery filth, horror, and surreal themes. Alongside his many books, he has appeared in many publications and anthologies. He likes apes, dislikes gravity, and is unlikely to change.