The Pixies: City of Oxford

My book, The Pixies, was written during one of the most high-stress and frightening times of my entire life. It was the winter of 2020, and we were facing another lockdown; when I look back, this book and its carnage were very much a response to that. The chaos of being trapped in an old austere place with these manic little pixie punks flying around and causing chaos. That the book takes place in imperial Germany tells you how I felt about Oxford at the time -- this militaristic, uppity, regal society in which chaos and elitism somehow held hands in twisted incest. My feelings on the city have elaborated somewhat: it is possible, walking through Oxford, to pretend The Enlightenment never happened. That is what The Pixies is all about, unholy anarchic chaos reversing not only the nineteenth-century progress but the seventeenth century ideals as well; by summoning the ancient evils, Gunther and his men engage in what would go on to be called fascism.

The Pixies, in a way, cast a dark spell over my life. I was verbally abusive during this period and said things which would haunt me even now, years later, and the anarchic, punk chaos of this book is something that makes me a little cautious of its feral prose as its spine might rattle and pages spit poison.