The Debut: Jeff Strand, Bad Day for Voodoo

I seem to have been on a run with YA titles that border on, no, dive deep into the macabre and violence. At the top of the pile, published just last month, is A Bad Day for Voodoo by Jeff Strand, an established adult author who has also dabbled in screenwriting, comedy, and Pizza Hut placemat poetry. School Library Journal‘s reviewer called Strand’s new novel “a delightfully ludicrous read.” I couldn’t agree more. His story of voodoo-doll obsession gone extreme is hilarious and runs at a breakneck pace (inside joke, you’ll have to read it) that will keep readers turning the pages. The three teens at the center, Tyler; his girlfriend, Kelley; and his friend Adam, are ultimately responsible for saving Tyler from certain painful death. Car chases, kidnappings, gangsters, and a zombie teacher all figure in the fun. I talked to Strand about what makes his twisted mind tick.

After writing adult horror fiction for so many years, why’d you decide to do something for young adults? When you published your first teen novel, Elrod McBugle on the Loose, in 2000, the response was underwhelming.

Well, the sales were underwhelming. I think Elrod McBugle on the Loose is rather beloved for a book that almost nobody has ever read. Maybe the quiz at the end of every chapter scared people away. I think that in 20 years, after scandals have destroyed my career, Elrod McBugle will be discovered by a whole new audience who will say, “Ha ha, that part with the bubble gum was pretty funny!” But I wrote A Bad Day For Voodoo because Leah Hultenschmidt at Sourcebooks knew that I wrote dark, wacky comedies, and she was looking for a dark, wacky comedy. After I turned in the book, I was terrified that she was going to call me up and scream “Not that wacky, you fool!”—but fortunately that didn’t happen.

Tyler stumbles into the headquarters of the Red Shredders on the hunt for his stolen car; more importantly, he needs to retrieve his voodoo doll from the trunk so it can be deactivated. The gang members have unusual nicknames—Ribeye, Blood Clot, Shark, Scorp. What inspired these?

Well, everybody knows that T-Bone is a seriously cool nickname, so it makes sense that other steaks, like Ribeye, would make for cool nicknames, too. I could have gone with London Broil or New York Strip, but that would have been silly. Blood Clot was supposed to be a nickname that the bearer would believe was tough but is actually kind of lame, even though blood clots can be deadly and are nothing to take lightly. Shark is just Shark. (Sharks are scary.) Scorp is short for “Scorpion,” the joke being that he has a nickname for his nickname.

Most of the adults in A Bad Day for Voodoo are idiots, Adam is a back-stabber, and Tyler is a bit spineless. Really, Kelly is the only character that makes good decisions, and she gets shot! (She’s fine now.) How fair is that?

It’s 70 percent fair. I mean, c’mon, if you’re the one smart character in a book filled with buffoons, at some point you’re going to get shot. It’s not like Tyler gets out of this unscathed… But, yeah, if you’d said something sooner, I might have decided that it really wasn’t fair and changed it from Kelly getting shot to… I dunno, maybe Kelly finding a golden jewel-encrusted bracelet or something, but if I try to revise the book now the publisher will get mad.

Mr. Click, the first victim of Adam’s voodoo doll, really gets around for a formerly one-legged zombie. What a miracle! Did you study medical texts on limb reattachment to get a good understanding of the science involved?

I barged in on a lot of surgeries. If you’re going to be a professional author, you can’t be afraid of surgeons shouting, “Get out of here! Don’t touch that!” I now know what it’s like to have somebody lunge at you with a bone saw, but I hate books where authors include unnecessary information just to show off how much research they’ve done, so I left that part out.

I just saw a taste test on the popular food website Serious Eats between American and German Haribo gummy bears that I didn’t think I’d ever reference but who knew? Here you are, a gummy bear connoisseur. What are your thoughts on the results of the taste test?

I’m enough of a snob that I only eat Haribo bears, but I’m not enough of a snob to say, “I shall only eat the German variety!” If it’s a non-Haribo brand, I don’t much care for them, especially the nasty Life Savers variety. (I realize that they’re rings and not bears, but it doesn’t matter; they’re gross.) It’s not like red licorice, where Red Vines is clearly the superior choice, but I still enjoy Twizzlers if that’s the only option at the movie theatre. It’s Haribo or nothing. I am, however, enough of a snob to say “It’s gummi, not gummy! Gummi! Gummi! Gummi!”

You must feel pretty righteous about all the attention on Spider-Man. Any of your drawings of the web slinger left from your early days as an illustrator?

My mom might have some of them. You wouldn’t know they were of Spider-Man unless somebody specifically told you, and even then you might think you were being conned. He basically just has a tic-tac-toe board on his chest instead of webs. There’s a reason that A Bad Day For Voodoo isn’t illustrated.

You have 30 possible sequel titles listed in the closing of A Bad Day for Voodoo, including A Bad Day for Slugs and Harry Potter Vs. A Bad Day for Voodoo. Any decision made on that yet?

The sequel will be called A Great Day For School Library Journal Interviewers. It’s basically going to be 275 pages about how great it is to be a School Library Journal interviewer, and also how great the interviewers are and how deserving they are of their job. My publisher is a little concerned that contemporary teenagers won’t relate to the subject matter, but the trade-off is that the book will probably get a good review in School Library Journal.

STRAND, Jeff. Bad Day for Voodoo. Sourcebooks, 2012. ISBN 9781402266805.

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