In this captivating author interview, Connor Gunnin reveals the intriguing backstory and creative process behind his novel “The Exorcism of Adolf Hitler.” Inspired by a classic episode of “The Twilight Zone,” Gunnin marries historical events with supernatural horror to explore the enigmatic figure of Adolf Hitler. Delving into the research that underpins his narrative, he discusses the blend of historical authenticity and creative liberty, offering insights into his approach to writing and character development. Gunnin also teases future projects, showcasing his diverse interests in the horror genre. From his initial inspiration to the meticulous research and character development, this interview sheds light on Gunnin’s unique storytelling and the profound themes that anchor his work.
But First, Who is Connor Gunnin?
Connor Gunnin is an author of horror and science fiction. He was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Southern California, where he now lives in Huntington Beach with his roommate and small, white dog. Connor was inspired to write about the darker side of life by his education and career in the hospitality industry, where he learned many terrifying truths about humanity. The Exorcism of Adolf Hitler is his debut novel.
Connor Gunnin’s Books
- What inspired you to write The Exorcism of Adolf Hitler, and how did you come up with the concept of intertwining historical events with supernatural horror elements?
I wish I could point to some “eureka!” moment where the idea came to me in dramatic fashion, but I really can’t. My most direct inspiration for the book was an episode of the original Rod Serling The Twilight Zone called The Howling Man. In it, a man is traveling on foot through central Europe in the years after World War I. He gets lost in a storm and seeks refuge in a hermitage of monks. While there, the traveller hears what sounds like a wolf howling inside the hermitage, but when he finds the source of the noise, he finds a man claiming to be held prisoner against his will. The monks pull him away and explain that the prisoner is no man, but the devil himself, and warn him to stay away. But the traveler is skeptical of the monks, finding the prisoner’s story more believable, and helps him escape when the monks are asleep. Naturally, the prisoner really is the devil and he is now set loose upon the world just in time to start the Second World War.
So…years go by from when I first saw the episode, and I wondered, “What if the howling man was Adolf Hitler?” I’ve always liked horror and historical fiction, but it’s difficult to tell a story like this using real historical figures because demonic possession is just too much of a strain on believability for most of them. I think Hitler is probably the only one it works with. With him, I could combine perhaps the greatest historical evil with the greatest supernatural evil.
- Could you share a bit about your research process, not just for The Exorcism of Adolf Hitler but for writing in general? How do you blend historical accuracy with creative fiction?
Books and YouTube. Research might be my favorite part of the process. I’ve always read a lot, both fiction and non-fiction, and enjoyed acquiring as much knowledge as I can on subjects that interest me. For this book, I had two main subjects to research: demonic possession and Nazi Germany. The book on the demonic that I found the most helpful was Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist’s Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption by M. Scott Peck. As you would expect given its author, it takes a clinical and intellectual look at possession and delivers a kind of insight usually absent from these books.
Nazi Germany required much more reading because I had to understand Adolf Hitler himself as well as countless other aspects of German society from the 1920s-30s. I barely glanced at Hitler’s Mein Kampf because—believe it or not—Hitler is a pretty-unreliable narrator of his own story. Much more useful was Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer. It has some revisionist problems of its own, but it painted the most detailed and comprehensive first-hand look at Germany starting with the Weimar Republic, then the rise of Nazism and Speer’s entry into it, and finally his admission to Hitler’s inner circle and the fallout from the war culminating in Speer’s participation in the Nuremberg trials. I spent hours taking notes on YouTube videos as well. There are so many great independent history content creators who’ve already done the hard work for you by distilling volumes and volumes of research into great videos of manageable length.
- Apart from The Exorcism of Adolf Hitler, are there any projects or genres you are exploring that might surprise your readers?
My next book is a horror anthology with a collection of short horror stories exploring different dark corners of the genre, so that one might not be too surprising. But the one after that is a mashup of fungal/plant horror and cosmic horror. Think The Last of Us meets H.P. Lovecraft. I also have plans for an entire saga that explores kaiju/giant monsters through religious and geopolitical lenses in a way that has never been done before. I already have pages upon pages of notes on worldbuilding for that one! What I can promise readers is that each of these books will have the same serious, introspective tone I strived for in The Exorcism of Adolf Hitler.
- Who are some authors or works that have influenced your writing style and thematic choices? Are there any in the horror or historical fiction genres you particularly admire?
This is a difficult question for me to answer because prior to this book, my entire writing background had been in screenwriting. That’s actually how The Exorcism of Adolf Hitler got started. I wrote eleven drafts of it as a screenplay before ever considering it as a book. I’ve read far more horror movie scripts than I have novels! So I can’t point to a specific author as a stylistic or thematic inspiration. I definitely draw inspiration from the films of James Wan, Robert Eggers, and Jennifer Kent for how I create suspense and what kind of visuals I want to create for readers.
- How do you tackle the challenges of writing about sensitive historical events while incorporating elements of speculative fiction?
I have a story about this. The second person who ever read the screenplay version (a friend and writer colleague) put the script down halfway through and warned me not to develop it any further. He believed it was impossible to write about a possessed Hitler without suggesting that he didn’t somehow bear personal culpability for the war and the Holocaust. To him, exorcising demons from Hitler meant there was some kind of good in him to be found and that this was way too offensive an idea to write, much less publish. I knew there would be some people who would react this way, but how adamant he was took me by surprise. That wasn’t the message of the story at all, but his feedback forced me to go back and make sure my plot, characters’ thoughts and dialogue, and delivery of my themes were airtight.
The principal theme of the book is and always has been personal responsibility. Hitler could not accept Germany’s responsibility for losing World War I, just like he couldn’t take responsibility for failing as an artist or accept the ultimate personal responsibility for what he did to the Jews and for losing World War 2. Even when he knew it was lost, he ordered his men to go scorched earth on their own cities and shot himself in the head in a bunker. The demons in my book see this quality in Hitler from an early age and use it to forge a partnership. I can confidently say it is indeed possible to write about demons possessing Hitler without absolving him of anything. I think the way it plays out in the book is something readers will find both dramatically interesting and not-at-all compromised ethically.
- In terms of character development, what is your approach to creating complex, believable characters, whether they’re based on real historical figures or entirely fictional?
After pinning down the concept, I develop the characters jointly with the theme. As mentioned before, the overarching theme is personal responsibility. I think it’s universal and equally applicable today as it was in the 1930s. This meant I needed characters who all represented it in different ways. Part of taking responsibility for your own thoughts and actions is not allowing yourself to fall prey to propaganda and indoctrination, best exemplified by the character of Bruna. She grows up in Nazi Germany, so in Chapter 1 when she’s 14, propaganda is almost all she knows. She’s young enough that it’s not her fault, but when she is older in Chapter 2 onward it becomes less of an excuse. Then she gets thrust into a situation where the decisions she makes will affect far more than just her and the only way to prevail is if she can begin to think for herself (instead of letting others do it for her) and take responsibility going forward. Stengel, her father, has gone down this road already and descended so far that he became one of Hitler’s confidants. When Chapter 2 begins, he’s pulled himself out of it and taken the ultimate responsibility by trying to prevent the war he knows is coming. When the exorcism begins, Bruna has to undergo the same process not in years like her father, but in a mere two days.
The other side of that coin is the SS officer Gerhard Gorman—actually one of my favorite characters to write. While still bad because he’s a legit Nazi, he’s not the kind of staunch zealot and true believer many of his contemporaries are. Over the course of the book, he has these moments where there’s a flicker of recognition in him where he’s like, “Hmmm, I wonder if maybe we’re going too far here,” but then he just shuts the voice in his head out and doubles down on what his superiors want. It’s the path of least resistance for him. He never takes personal responsibility for what he’s doing when he knows he should, and it costs him. Character and theme are inseparable to me.
- Could you share insights into your writing routine or practices that help you stay productive and creative?
Well, that’s the trick, isn’t it? I’m still working on this myself, but a big part has been finding a space that’s both creatively stimulating and free of distraction. In my screenwriting days, I always wrote from home, which meant I was constantly around family/roommates and my dogs. It’s not that you can’t do good writing that way, plenty of people do, but my productivity went up when I started going to the library. With this book, I would go to the library on my days off from my day job for 5-8 hours, then try to get a little bit more done before or after work at home on the other days, even if it was only an hour. It made a big difference for me. I’m not big on the kind of brainstorming or creativity exercises you might find in self-help material. Finding a good setting and ways to stay alert was more beneficial to me. Getting at least seven hours sleep and going to the gym in the morning on the days I went to the library was huge. I actually came up with the name of one of my demons, “Blood Artist,” while on the incline bench press. True story.
- Are there any lesser-known historical events or figures you think could make for intriguing speculative or horror fiction in the future?
Joseph Stalin has always been in the back of my mind. I’m of the opinion that the Soviet Union in the 1920s-50s was just as bad as Nazi Germany, so he’s an obvious choice. But the problem with him is that his personality just isn’t that interesting. As a character I think he’d be kind of dull compared to Hitler, so it’s not something I plan to tackle right away. And if I do, it won’t be an exorcism story. I’d find a different sub-genre of horror that mirrors him better. I’ve also had thoughts of writing a book about John F. Kennedy dealing with a kaiju attack in place of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
- How do you balance the need for historical detail with the pacing and narrative drive required in horror fiction?
I try to deliver exposition when the characters are actively doing something whenever possible. I’ll add details about the reason for children filming in gas masks or the purpose behind a feature of a building as characters engage with it. That way I can slip in information without telling the reader, “Now hold up for four pages while I tell you about the design of this X-ray machine….” I don’t always fill in all the details for a given thing at once either. I might explain a few relevant details about it here, then a couple more a few pages or even chapters later. The timing of when and where you give readers’ information can be used to dramatic effect. Delaying certain information can be suspenseful. Events and dialogue can mean one thing when you first encounter them, only to take on an entirely different meaning when another detail is added much later.
- Beyond writing, are there any hobbies or interests that significantly influence your storytelling or thematic interests?
I’m a huge roller coaster enthusiast. I’ve been on 520 different roller coasters at 87 different theme parks as of this writing. I went to Germany with a roller coaster tour group in 2017, but since the trip was solely focused on parks, I didn’t feel like I got to take-in the German culture and scenery like I wanted. Germany has some of the best parks and rides in the world, but there’s so much more to it than that I didn’t get to see. That’s why I’m going back this year in September. And to Belgium and The Netherlands as well. I’m taking a full month to visit not only great theme parks, but cities like Brussels, Amsterdam, Cologne, and Munich. The highlight will be visiting real locations from my book, such as Hitler’s Kehlsteinhaus (aka “The Eagle’s Nest”) in the Bavarian Alps, the Black Forest, and the Zeppelinfeld in Nuremberg. Unfortunately, Falkenhayn Castle is fictional, but there’s a few real castles that together kind of approximate it I’m going to visit!
We extend our deepest gratitude to Connor Gunnin for sharing his insights and experiences with us in this interview. His thoughtful reflections on ‘The Exorcism of Adolf Hitler’ and the creative journey behind it have been truly enlightening. Thank you, Connor, for giving us a glimpse into your world and the meticulous craft behind your storytelling.
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