St. Louis resident Scott Phillips was a talented writer of funny, dark novels. Then, in 2005, John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton starred in the film version of Phillips’ The Ice Harvest, and he became a talented writer of funny, dark novels with a much larger reading public. Phillips’ latest, Rut, offers the same sick humor, but it adds a touch of Vonnegut-style science fiction. It imagines a city 40 years hence with “extreme weather, plenty of toxic waste, old-time religion, brand-new pharmaceuticals, bad food, warm beer, and mutated animals.”
Do people get how funny your books are?
I do get a lot of people who just think I’m a terrible, twisted pervert. They don’t see the intentional humor. I’m not really an awful person.
Where did the idea for Rut come from?
I was feeling very pessimistic about the future of the country and the world, and I started thinking about all the little ways things can go wrong—not one big disaster, but little things. It happens fairly slowly, so people don’t realize how bad it’s getting—like the frog in the saucepan. Before he knows what’s happening, it’s happened.
It sounds prophetic.
I hope not.
Rut is available from Concord Free Press (concordfreepress.com).
