John Chrostek’s debut novel Feast of the Pale Leviathan is published on the 26th August by Deep Overstock Books. It is a dark fantasy adventure story about Owen, a man who drifts out to sea and finds himself trapped in the belly of a giant Leviathan-esque kaiju. Within the belly of the beast he discovers a community of survivors where every day is a fight for survival. It is a deeply weird and extremely fun book. Think Bosch, Melville, Hobbes and then add in some sinister cults and dangerous magic and you’re somewhere close.
Boxcutters is John’s short story collection which also released this year, featuring stories originally published in X-R-A-Y, Hex Literary, Little Engines, Maudlin House, Twin Pies Literary and elsewhere, accompanied by several original stories.
Alongside writing, John is the co-owner of Evening House, a small independent book shop in Buffalo, New York, and is also the editor of literary magazine COLD SiGNAL.
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, John! I think that Feast has shared DNA with the kind of stories we like here at Seize The Press; lots of atmosphere, surreal monsters, and a strong anti capitalist lean. What were the main inspirations behind this book?
Thanks for hosting me, Rebecca! The earliest seeds of this story come from my longstanding interest in the frontispiece illustration for Hobbes’ Leviathan and how eerie and disgusting of a symbol for power it was. I’ve been drawn to similar stories ever since I first saw it, the power and terror of the mass of men (like Clive Barker’s In the Hills, the Cities, Attack on Titan, KYR’s From the Shores to the Tides, So Blood Calls to Blood). I also love the mythological Leviathan itself, and cosmic horror takes on it like The Fisherman.
I was stumbling upon the idea of doing Hobbes’ Leviathan as a sea Leviathan when I was working at Powell’s City of Books right before the pandemic hit. I even told the Editor-In-Chief of Deep Overstock, the press I’m publishing it with, about the inkling of the idea a few weeks before we were all laid off and sent into lockdown.
Once that summer began to progress the way it did, the story began to grow and absorb more of my feelings and fascinations and furies. Moby Dick became a part of the equation, especially because of its status in the history of Powell’s and my feelings about the lay-offs and the protests and Trump targeting Portland at the time. The furious solidarity of it all. Atlantis creeped in with time as well, because I’ve been trying to write an Atlantis story for most of my life. Finally found a home for it.
Oh and the first chapter is based on an experience I had at a river raft place. Fell asleep on the tube and had to get dragged back to shore by a lifeguard. Always wondered what would’ve happened if they let me drift. That’s in there, too.
Did you always know that Feast would be a novel? Was there something about the concept initially that made you think you needed more space than a short story to explore it?
I didn’t want it to be a novel at all! I was aiming for a novella originally. Then I wrote a short story draft of it and sent it to some friends in the summer of 2020, who all equally said “this is way too short for what you’re trying to do,” which was fair. Tried to return to the novella length and hit 40k with it and it was still ridiculously barebones. Kept finding elements to explore with it that would never make sense anywhere else. I desperately wanted to keep it as short as I could because I’m fatigued by long books unless they’re miraculously good, so the short novel form it landed on is a pretty nice compromise in my books.
One of the things I really enjoyed about this book was the contrast between Owen’s experience of the outside world and then the world inside the kaiju. Survival is difficult in both realms, but in very different ways. The outside world is full of faded dreams and unwelcoming spaces too. Is this a reflection of how you see America today?
Absolutely. The system is growing increasingly inhospitable to life in all regards. With the rise of fascism, the relentless ongoing support of genocide, the erosion of rights and due process and law and environmental protections, it’s just violence and fear and decay polluting our lungs daily. America is a dying empire pretending otherwise. I just care about the people stuck inside it and under its feet. I want to hold out a flicker of hope there’s a transformation waiting at the end of the road. Here’s hoping we get there.
There are several different narrative strands in Feast. I’m intrigued about if you wrote the book linearly, and if not, how did you keep track of the action as you wrote it?
I’d say I mostly wrote it linearly? Wrote the short story version at first, which was fully contained in the body, post-devouring. Then in my next draft I started from scratch, rewrote the opening and mostly progressed linearly from there. By the time I was done the ending was a major evolution from its original form. I spend a lot of time sitting around after big chapters, rereading everything I wrote and figuring out what felt like the right next step. I tried once or twice to jump out of order, but the writing was always garbage when I did that. The whole experience gave me an increased sympathy for GRRM. Multiple POVs is challenging, and it’s so easy to break the spell of the writing jumping about.
Watching Evening House, your bookstore, come together over the past few months has been such a delight. How do you and your partner Amanda go about curating the titles you stock? Is there a balancing act between books you know are more popular and indie titles?
Thanks, Rebecca. It’s been a small miracle seeing how it’s come together. We’re not wealthy people, and we’re doing this all on the fly thanks to a building that offers cheap rent and small retail spaces for start-up businesses. Very much a follow your dreams or die energy to everything we’re doing these days. Our focus with Evening House is on new(er) titles with a particular focus on indie books, books in translation. Bangers, as much as we can identify them. We’re trying to avoid the Big 5 publishers mostly and use our limited space to make it easy to discover something unique and exciting.
The curation process is really involved, but at the end of the day it’s Amanda leading the way. I offer my opinions and help pick out titles, but there’s a lot of factors that go into when we order books, including what is getting shopped, what the costs of the books are for customers and for us), what sections are getting shopped, what feels seasonal and relevant to tastes without just grabbing the bestseller list. There’s a huge list of books I want to buy and not a ton of money to buy them, so it’s all piecemeal, step by step.
Thankfully, people seem to resonate with what we’re doing, who like the focus and the space. While I’d love to get a big loan or have somebody throw fliff at us to fill our shelves up all at once, we’re pretty satisfied that we’re growing slowly but steadily. The focus right now is expanding the horror section in time for autumn, which pleases me greatly.
2025 has been a year of publishing successes for you. Alongside Feast, your short story collection Boxcutters was released with Malarkey Books earlier this year. Can you share anything of what you’re working on at the moment with us?
Right now I’m a little overheated by life, and my focus is more on reading Cold Signal novelette submissions and getting ready to do some graphic design freelancing work to help pay the bills. I have some loose ideas and drafts for stories, but I think I need to get through this summer before I can really recommit myself to writing for myself again. Don’t want to go through the motions and write something that feels hollow.
I do have a horror story about mosquitos that will probably be the first chunky story I finish. I really like what I have there. As a kid I went to a mosquito festival with my best friend and his family. They had a giant mosquito statue and some tents in a big field near the southern coast of New Jersey. It was a humid one and we got bit to shit. This anecdote isn’t in the story, but it’s in my heart.
Can you recommend a book or short story you’ve read recently to our readers?
I’m sure this won’t surprise anyone, but I’m currently reading Thomas Ha’s Uncertain Sons and this thing is just dynamite. One of the best short story collections I’ve read in a long time, and some of my favorite science fiction. I like science fiction generally but prefer it weird and mysterious and fucked up, and Thomas has got a very distinct vision that makes each story feel unique and expertly crafted and gives you a lot to play with.
I also started The Extinction of Irena Ray by Jennifer Croft on a lark at the store and I’m gonna read through that next, I think. Amanda had recommended it to me when it was a hardcover and I read the first thirty pages or so and I adored the opening. A hive mind of supplicant translators visiting the famous, ethereal Polish author in her strange mansion in the woods. Funny, weird, tightly woven. Extremely cool.