Interview: Ronald Malfi discusses his upcoming horror book The Hive
- Jonathan
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
The Boston Underground Film Festival (BUFF) will take place later this month, and the schedule has already been released, which is expected to showcase the brilliance of independent horror from the East Coast.
But this April, readers will be treated to the brilliance of East Coast literary horror with the release of Ronald Malfi's novel The Hive.
The official synopsis from Titan Books reads;
"The residents of Mariner’s Cove are changing…
In the aftermath of a violent storm, a collective obsession is rapidly developing among the people of this quaint suburban neighborhood. Random, everyday items left scattered upon the lawns, the streets, and the shoreline all seem to call out to them. There is an item for almost everyone, and each item has a certain hold over the person who finds it—a hold that soon turns into unwavering infatuation. They hide their items from each other, obsess over them, and they will do anything—anything—to protect them.
The collective hum of bees’ wings…
A young boy finds himself the possessor of a strange and inexplicable power. Is the arrival of this power linked to the increasingly odd and dangerous behavior of the residents of Mariner’s Cove? Has he been granted this power in order to thwart whatever is about to happen in this small, bayside community, or is there a more sinister purpose?
All hail the Dragon…
All eyes are on him now.
The residents of Mariner’s Cove are watching.
They move as one, like a solitary organism, and will do anything to succeed in their single-minded purpose.
They will not be stopped."
Ronald Malfi is the bestselling author of multiple horror and thriller stories. His 2011 novel Floating Staircase won the 2011 Independent Publisher Book Award for best horror and was nominated for the Bram Stoker award for best novel. He is also the lead singer of award-winning hard rock group Veer.
We recently had the opportunity to speak with Ronald Malfi about his upcoming novel.
This interview was edited slightly for clarity.
The Horror Lounge: You’ve said that when you write you find yourself focused on characters and their relationships and the resulting story develops from there. How did the characters help you develop the story in The Hive?
Ronald Malfi: I don’t outline my novels, but instead start with a general idea and usually the inciting incident that gets the story up and running. I have a rough idea of where I’d like things to go, but I find that creating fleshed-out, realistic characters help move the story along, often in ways I don’t expect. There’s a large cast of characters in The Hive, and for a good portion of the novel, they don’t interact with each other. This necessitated that I live in each of their heads at various times during the writing process, which enabled me to authentically develop their worlds. The story takes place in a seemingly average suburban neighborhood and centers around a handful of seemingly average people…so it becomes my job to peel back that veneer and show how, deep down, everyone has a darkness or a depth to them that we typically hide from our neighbors.
The Horror Lounge: I know Stephen King’s work was a big influence on you growing up. “He’s a Righteous Man” was one of my favorite stories in The End of the World as We Know It:
New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand. The summary for The Hive shares some similarities to King’s book Needful Things—namely the obsession with seemingly random materials, and the lengths people go to keep them. Was this intentional?
Ronald Malfi: I think once you read The Hive, you’ll find it has less similarities to Needful Things than it does to those epic, sprawling horror novels popularized in the 1980s—and certainly by King himself—in a more general sense. I write horror, so people are always quick to compare my work to King’s, but the ideas of obsession and paranoia in horror fiction—or any fiction, for that matter—are not unique to him or me. What I do believe I possess that I think I share with King is a touch of sentimentality: we both write stories that, while dark, are not always bleak…although I’ve done my share of those, too. That might be why people find similarities in our characters, and in our work overall.
The Horror Lounge: You’ve been known to listen to music as your write—did you listen to anything noteworthy while writing The Hive? If so, how did it help you shape the story?
Ronald Malfi: I often do listen to music when writing, although this was not the case with The Hive. Or, I should say, it was not the case while rewriting the novel. The first draft was written over a decade ago—it was a rambling mess of a novel that was served well by having been tucked away in a desk drawer for all those years—and I can’t recall if I had listened to any music during the writing of that initial draft. Likely I had, because I was doing that frequently back then. I find that now that I’m older, I need to rein in my focus a bit more. Although I’ll admit to listening to nothing but circus music during the writing of Black Mouth, which served the story but just about drove me—and anyone else who heard it—insane.
The Horror Lounge: Less than a year ago I read (and enjoyed) Small Town Horror, which was set in the fictional Kingsport, Maryland. The Hive is set in a bayside community called Mariner’s Cove. Is there a certain aesthetic or sentimentality associated with Eastern coastal towns that you carry? I know you’ve spent much of your life in Maryland.
Ronald Malfi: I find them haunting and beautiful, but capable of hiding secrets and trauma, too. Yes, I live in Maryland, and I’m very familiar with towns like that—those sleepy bayside communities ravaged by autumn storms, blistering hot in the summer, and where a sudden cold spell can freeze your water pipes. Write what you know, right? I’ve written a handful of books that don’t take place in Maryland—most recently, I ventured out to Los Angeles for my novel Senseless—but it always feels like coming home when I return to Maryland to write something new.
The Horror Lounge: What can we expect next from you? Both as a writer and a musician.
Ronald Malfi: I will be touring extensively to support The Hive once it comes out in April, and even a little beforehand to prime the pump and help build some excitement. There are some projects that are in various stages of hopefully taking my work to the big screen, although there’s not much else I can say about that at this time. As for the band, VEER is about to head into the studio to record our third album, and we’ve got a handful of shows coming up, all of which can been seen at www.veerband.net. Admittedly, the band website is maintained by someone much better at updates than my author website, but for those interested, I’m at www.ronaldmalfi.com.
The Hive will be released by Titan Books on April 14th.