It occurred to me that there are multiple definitions of “haunted,” as the word can be applied to a home. I point out with the story that only one of the four is desirable, in the sense that having a sorta kinda but not really haunted home might be fun. Two others are the stuff of horror fiction, and the fourth happens on this planet. The story is an attempt to provide one scenario with each definition, and the final house is the one I consider most important.

This story came out of one of those strange confluences of life experience, tangential reading, and a deadline. My dad often talked about Patrick Süskind’s novel Perfume, the plot of which I came to understand vaguely from his descriptions. Then, a few months before I wrote “The Dirty American,” an article about perfume popped up online: a story about how the best perfumes have a note of foulness, and how American scent makers have historically had a really hard time wrapping their puritanical minds around this.

I knew about the Ripper, of course, but wasn’t a fanatic about it. However, in looking into the history, I became fascinated by a little-known suspect sensationally called “the Leather Apron,” a Jewish butcher who would supposedly clean his knives on the so-called apron after his kills. The story was hyped by the Daily Post of its day, the Star, creating so much fear and loathing that it lead to riots in the Jewish quarter. It was ultimately a dead end, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea that a victim’s family might take action against a suspect, despite lack of proof.

As a kid, I loved monster movies and playing with plastic dinosaurs, the scarier the better. I still love monster movies, of course, although I don’t play with dinosaurs as much as I used to, but back then, it all conspired to plant a seed in my mind that sprouted into wanting to tell stories with those same ingredients. In fact, for a time I wanted to grow up to direct Godzilla movies! Not any monster movie, mind you, just Godzilla movies! I was an avid reader, too, so I started writing stories at a pretty young age.

C.J. Cherryh has been a huge influence on me over the years, and William Gibson was pretty formative, too. Kiernan is as much an SFnal influence as anything else, particularly with regards to time. Time travel as a concept is much more fantastic to me than scientific, and certainly holds a great potential for horror. As a reader I never imprinted on time travel stories much (except for Morlocks—I always loved Morlocks). Movies are more responsible for making that a part of my mental landscape.