Book Tour: LOCKJAW review + author interview

Thank you so much to Hear Our Voices Tours for allowing me to take part in this tour for Lockjaw. I'm not always the biggest fan of horror, but I have discovered a love for queer and trans horror! So I was drawn into wanting to read this story and I just knew it was going to be a good ride!! Make sure to check out my full post and read my interview with the author!!!!

 

     

About The Book:

Title: Lockjaw

Author: Matteo L. Cerilli

Pub.Date: June 4, 2024

Find it:

Death is neither the beginning nor the end for the children of Bridlington in this debut trans YA horror book for fans of Rory Power and Danielle Vega.

Chuck Warren died tragically at the old abandoned mill, but Paz Espino knows it was no accident — there's a monster under the town, and she's determined to kill it before anyone else gets hurt. She'll need the help of her crew — inseparable friends, bound by a childhood pact stronger than diamonds, distance or death — to hunt it down. But she's up against a greater force of evil than she ever could have imagined.

With shifting timeframes and multiple perspectives, Lockjaw is a small-town ghost story, where monsters living and dead haunt the streets, the homes and the minds of the inhabitants. For readers of Wilder Girls and The Haunted, this trans YA horror book by an incredible debut author will grab you and never let you go.

 

Review:

Y'all when I first started reading this book it had me in a chokehold!!! I was hooked from the beginning and the book just did not want to let me go!!! I can honestly say that I am struggling to find the words to describe this book.

I loved the characters in this book for the most part. They were messy at times, but they were always intriguing. I wanted them to succeed and be safe. Plus, I adore the friendships in this book. Cerilli did a great job at writing the bonds between the characters.

I'll admit that I wasn't too sure how to feel about the dual timelines at first. I don't love books that have that going on (mentally I'm just really bad with that), but I did enjoy it well enough. Definitely not my favorite part of the book, but I do think that it added a very nice element to the book.

I'm trying to avoid spoilers, but that twist was something else! I am a huge fan of writing like that and it was sooooo good!!!!

Author Interview:

What was your writing process like for this book?

The draft process was a whirlwind, honestly. I mention it in the author's note, but I actually set out to write a rom-com. All the same characters were there, and a lot of the same plot beats. But then there was this moment where my teen runaway, Asher, was walking on this quiet street at night with his dog, Bird, and I was just so painfully bored. So I started thinking about what sort of creature or monster or scary thing could jump out at him. Mostly as a joke at first, but then I got hooked on the idea. Paz existed in that draft too as more of a background character, and somehow she just took over my mind. When I started from the beginning again, she was all I could think of. LOCKJAW doesn't really have a main character, but she's definitely the thematic centre of the story. I just went from there.
LOCKJAW has a lot of moving pieces and plots and timelines, so folks tend to think that I meticulously planned out every step of the process, but honestly I just felt my way through the dark on it without knowing where it was going. It was a mess for a while. I owe a lot to my agent and our in-agency editor who really helped guide me. This book is a community effort.

How did you feel when you learned that this book was going to be published?

Shocked, and humbled in a good way. LOCKJAW is an "ambitious" book, so I'd been told from the start that it might be a hard sell. There's quite a lot of death, and it's a YA with a small cast of middle grade aged characters, and it has a voice that some folks thought was too old for the audience. We were down to some of our last editors when Peter Phillips at Tundra Books stepped forward with so much enthusiasm and love. It was sort of full-circle-my agent had sent him my first project when I was 19 or so and had been hyping him up to me as an awesome person to work with. But then (rightfully so) he turned down that book. The publishing world is pretty small honestly, but it will still such a funny turn of events to have him jump onto LOCKJAW. Catching an editor comes down to a fair bit of luck: they need to have room for your project in their catalogue, so the timing is critical but impossible to guess. Getting my foot in the door was a good feeling, like. "I'm exactly where I need to be right now in this tiny, confusing universe", if that makes any sense at all.

While avoiding spoilers, what was your favorite scene in the book to write?

There are two scenes, and for different reasons. The first because it's just a quintessential horror set-up: Asher, a teen runaway, and his dog named Bird, are walking through a cemetery at night, when they hear something in the shadowy bushes calling for them. It was fun to write something so stereotypically "horror". That scene was actually a later addition to the book, so it was also awesome to dive back into a drafting phase.
There's also a scene where two characters talk about their trans experiences, especially the intricacies of being "out" versus "stealth," jealousy about dysphoria and lack of it, and all the other questions that pop up when you put two isolated trans people in a room with each other. There are some in-jokes or references that cis readers might not wholly understand, but that's okay. That scene was for me to hold both my younger self and my young trans readers. It's a bit painful, but there's something really hopeful about the struggle in the middle of a book full of carnage. I got a chance to read that chapter the other day to a phenomenal group of trans teens: I seriously barely made it through without getting emotional. This scene is the reason I write.

If you can while avoiding spoilers, what was the hardest scene for you to write?

I must have rewritten that first chapter a thousand times. The hard part was making sure we knew enough about Chuck Warren to feel sorry for him, since the book's description already tells us that he's going to die. The story used to start with the flashback that we see about four pages in-there was this fast rundown of "here's what happened at school today. okay here's the actual story!" which is a horrendous way to start an already complicated story. It was my agent and editor actually who said that maybe it would be good to just follow Chuck on a ride through the town, to tell us about everything he's seeing and experiencing. That ended up being the perfect recipe-eerie and foreboding, with just enough room to pepper in the backstory.

If you could say anything to your characters, what would you tell them?

Ooh this is a great question! I think all of them need the same advice, which is that we're only as strong or smart or brave or "good" as our situations allow us to be. This is sort of double-pronged: on one hand, we need to give ourselves more credit when we make mistakes, at least enough to understand why we did that and what we can do to fix it next time. Just saying "I won't do that again" might not cut it-we need to understand the underlying need we were trying to fill. One of my favourite lines in LOCKJAW is that "it's hard to stick to your morals when you've taken a swan-dive off the poverty line". we need to be more realistic about what we're capable of under pressure.
And on the other hand, this can help us understand where the gaps might be when people hurt us in return. Why did they think that was the right call? Have they been lied to, or forced? What might they be lacking? Sometimes what they need is a good hard kick in the shins (or bite in the leg.) to realize the consequences of their actions, but sometimes the answer really is that they just don't realize the harm they're causing, or that they don't have the resources to make a better decision. When we think about people in the context they live in, it's a lot easier to address issues head on, and to have more patience with ourselves too.

Were you involved in the process of deciding on the cover? If so, what was that like?

Yes, I was! So first my editor and art team met to discuss artists, and narrowed down to a top three for me to rank. We were all in agreement that Corey Brickley would be the best option-their work is so vibrant and ominous. Then Corey went and made three drafts, which my publishing team narrowed down. They then sent that draft to me for my thoughts-at that point I chimed in to give some character descriptions just to make sure they were consistent. Corey implemented those and gave us our breath-taking final cover.
The second draft is actually the art for my bookplate! Folks can submit their pre-order receipts to the link in my Instagram bio to have them sent along. And then Corey continued using the third draft for their personal art, which they're selling on Gum Road along with quite a few other un-commissioned art works. They're all beautiful. Seriously, go support Corey's work.

Can you describe the vibes of this book in 5 words?

Professionally, probably "queer small-town suburban gothic horror." Personally, I'd definitely go with "Nothing's scarier than small-town Ontario," but the Ontario vibes are pretty subtle besides a few references.

What are some queer books you've read recently that you've enjoyed?

Every day I will scream about "Pet" by Akwaeke Emezi. Abolitionist future, talks about carceral punishment, a semi-speaking trans girl main character who uses sign language occasionally, with a best friend who has poly parents? Phenomenal. I'm also the biggest hype man for my debut cohort bestie Sami Ellis' "Dead Girls Walking" which gives us the rawest portrayal of a traumatized character that I think I've ever seen - Temple Baker did so much wrong, and I support her in all of it.

 

 

About:

Matteo L. Cerilli (he/him) is a transmasc author specializing in speculative fiction for all ages. His writing aims to erase the barrier between liberation movements and the people they’re for, by opening doorways to Big Ideas like queer justice, neurodivergent liberation, youth equity, and community care. His activism work includes setting up gender care for trans students at York University, helping to found the Students for Queer Liberation—Toronto, and organizing with the No Pride in Policing Coalition. He currently lives in Toronto, within walking distance of so many people and places that he loves.