A New Book by Jim Knipfel Explores Monsters, Brooklyn Rags and the Gowanus Canal

To some, a monster is an imaginary animal. To others, like Jim Knipfel, the author of The Blow-Off, a new novel, which hit shelves this week, monsters have a more tangible human form.

The Blow-Off is a novel about monsters imaginary, real, human and beast. Knipfel, who has solidified a cult following through his column “Slackjaw,” which gained notoriety in the New York Press where it ran from 1993-2006, is at it again with a troma-esque tale about a Brooklyn-based reporter who blamed a mugging on Bigfoot (who lives in the Gowanus) in a local rag’s crime blotter. The news spirals out of control and soon Brooklyn’s citizens are hysterical and mad, and take to the streets to chase down this made-up beast of the toxic canal. Before the reporter and main character, Hank Kalabander, can convince the world that it was all just a rumor, Brooklyn is in flames and it is the end of Western Civilization.

We caught up with Knipfel, who used to live in Park Slope and now lives in a basement apartment in Bay Ridge. He remembers looking through his Sixth Avenue and Fifth Street apartment where he could wave to the drug dealer and prostitute on the corner.

Knipfel will engage in conversation with Adam Bulger, a founding editor of Patch, on Thursday, July 14 at 7:30 p.m. at the in Fort Greene.

Q. You lived in Park Slope for 20 years, how do you like Bay Ridge?

A. It’s a lot safer, the sidewalks that it is. Every time I go down there to my favorite bar, it’s like taking my damn life in my hands. [The strollers] aim for you.

In regards to the John Garfield quote in the front of your book: “A man could spend the rest of his life trying to remember what he shouldn’t have said.” What is something you regret saying?

Oh, my God. I can’t go through a day without saying something I regretted saying or would regret saying some years later. When my ex-wife asked me to get married and I said “yes,” that kind of screwed up the next several years. I am prone to saying things I shouldn’t say. 

You obviously write from your life experiences, like in your column “Slackjaw” for instance. How many of the scenes in The Blow-Off are influenced from your own life?

The thing about my novels is that most of the stuff, besides the obviously crazy stuff, but some of the crazy stuff too, are true stories. And I can get away with them since it’s a novel, for otherwise legally I couldn’t have gotten away with them.

What is an example in the The Blow-Off that is an experience that actually happened to you?

A lot of the newspaper stuff is real. The scene where the entertainment editor tries to block a door, that's a true story, and the character himself is a real person. Also the fax that instructs [Hank] Kalabander to write a story on a coat sale in July, that actually happened. That’s all real stuff. 

Is it Gersh Kuntzman?

No, that one is not Gersh. But he might be in there somewhere. I only lasted at The Brooklyn Paper for one and a half articles. 

In your novel the fact that a rumor can turn into news and then turns into mass-hysteria and destruction, is that specific to Brooklyn?

No, absolutely not and not just the U.S. The story that really inspired The Blow-Off originally came out of India. A young woman from a small Indian village went to her local doctor with scratches and bruises and said she was attacked by a “monkey man.” And being a small village, word spread quickly and within a few days every villager had seen the monkey man. By the end of the week people were sleeping on their roofs for fear that the monkey man would attack them in their sleep. Soon mobs hit the streets looking for the beast. People were stoned to death, people fell off their roofs. Finally, things got so bad that the Administer of Health came to conduct an investigation. Afterwards he held a press conference and said it was a case of mass-hysteria. Then, it stopped. But two weeks later it started up again in another village and ran there for two weeks. Then another village for the whole summer. And for three summers in a row people were seeing the monkey man and there was even a reward to capture the beast, dead or alive. But the U.S. has similar cases, like the Staten Island Ninja Burglar that went on for three years and was reported seriously with a straight face. I am a big fan of the small-town hysteria and there is much more like the Winsted Wildman of Connecticut, or the “Mad Gasser of Mattoon” in Indiana of the 1940’s.

Do you identify with Hank Kalabander, your main character? 

I identify with most of my main characters. With Hank I identifiy with him, there is a lot of me in him, except the outwardly racist aspects. I think it is inevitable as anyone who writes fiction part of you or your experiences slips into your characters if you mean to or not. With Frank, I was drawing on a lot of personal experiences from working at various newspapers and from living in Brooklyn for 20 years.

What’s one of the main characteristics in Hank that you most strongly identify with?

Hank is a cranky old man. He is a misanthrope, and a lot of that comes from me. While I was typing I thought, ”Yep, that’s me.” I don’t deal with most people very well. But, I am not a racist like Hank is.

Why did you pick the Gowanus as a theme? 

I have been wanting to use the Gowanus as a central image for a long time. Shortly after moving here I wandered over the canal and I have been fascinated by the area ever since. Seeing vans full of men wearing hazmat suits for no apparent reason, seeing weird lights, encountering packs of Gowanus dogs...

What does the Gowanus represent?

The Canal represents what’s at the heart of modern civilization: deadly filth. It was just declared the filthiest body of water in the United States. I was so happy to hear that, in a sick way it’s one more thing for Brooklyn to be proud of. The Gowanus has such terrifying potential. Even when I walked over it the first time and did not know anything about it I remember looking down going over the bridge thinking, “If I sneezed too loud right now the whole thing would explode.” It’s fascinating and horrifying. It’s man made, but at the same time embodies the state of the planet. I celebrate this thing. I have an apocalyptic mindset and it has this sense of industrial decay, which has always attracted me.

This book is obviously not just about a hairy monster that lives in the Gowanus; it speaks about the circulation of news, mass hysteria and the truth. But what does the novel mean to you? 

You know, I will never discuss what I think any of my books is about. For simple reasons, all the books so far many people have came up to me with their own interpretations, with insane interpretations of what these books were about and I’ve never denied any of them. That’s what the whole process of reading is about: You take away from the book whatever speaks to you.

Do you think the Gowanus can be home to a monster?

Oh, my God yes! I think it is. I think there is a Bigfoot creature living down there and I will show you my evidence [laughs sarcastically]. I read that there is a specific breed of cod that lives in the Hudson River who have developed genetically to be immune to PCB’s. They flourish in the Hudson, as polluted as it is, and they would probably die in fresh water. So, who knows what’s living down there in the Gowanus?Or what can develop in the years to come. Genetics are a crazy business. 

What is your definition of a monster?

The first thing that comes to mind, and I have a lot of references to this in the book, is the lead singer from Pere Ubu, David Thomas and his solo album called “Monster Walks the Winter Lake.” I use a line from that song in the carnival scene in my first chapter on a banner that reads “Monster Magee, King of the Sea.” But as for the definition of a monster, I think a monster can be anything that terrifies us. Anything we don’t understand, like the Gowanus can be in itself a monster. 

Have you ever had any real-life encounters with monsters?

You know, under that definition I step outside and I encounter them all the time. As for as the more traditional monsters, I grew up in Wisconsin and we had a lot of monster stories. Even a recent book has been written and alleges werewolves live in south-central Wisconsin. But, alas, I have never seen the traditional kind, just the human kind.

What draws you to writing about carnie folk in your book?

Carnie folk, in a way, are the ultimate outsiders without breaking the law too much. They are a people who don’t really belong any place. Which is a feeling for so long I have associated with, ever since I was a kid. The sideshow takes this to an extreme, and God bless them, they have created their own community. 

The Brooklyn Rags in your story, going back to the Hornet and the New York Eagle, is that labeled after any papers in particular?

The Hornet is a combination of places I worked briefly or not so briefly. The Eagle is modeled after the New York Post. 

I know you receive a lot of hate mail, especially from your column “Slackjaw.” What is an article from which you received the most hate mail?

I love my hate mail. I collect them all. But the piece that I received the most hate mail had to be the one I wrote about strollers in Park Slope. All I did was, over a period of several weeks, kept a ratio of how many strollers per block I saw while I was running my daily errands. And I have not received hate mail like that for years. These very high-end, genteel, affluent people turned into vicious monsters. All I did was point out some numbers. I didn’t get death threats, but I was told to get out of the neighborhood, and so many names, and vulgar cursing. I would have liked to receive some clever names, but they were rather pedestrian. 

What will the discussion with Adam Bulger be like?

Adam and I are friends, so it will be fun. And it’s on Bastille Day, so it’s inevitable that at some point in the evening it will end with the guillotine.