EFNY Author Mike McQuay On A Guy Named Snake [Pharr Out!/Issue 1/1994/US] By Kim August

McQuay initially sparked my curiosity via his novelization of Escape From New York. Landing the job was easy, seeing it through was something else. "I'd gone to work for Bantam in 1979, on a series of books called Matthew Swaine, they're detective stories set about 50 years from now in a city that is bankrupt. Goods and services are done on a one on one basis. You have to pay the firemen to come put out the fire and the like. It's about a private eye in that time, kind of Chandler-esque, but maybe a more cyberpunky style. I think I invented cyberpunk years before Bill [Gibson] did. I just didn't have the guts to follow it through! In one of the Swaine books, I have him actually going into a living computer and becoming a part of it. The gritty and deteriorating conditions were all a product of this and Escape From New York. So, I was writing these Swaine books and my editor called me and said she had suggested me for this movie project that they thought the Swaine style might translate very nicely to this story. And I got involved at that point I got the script, it was an old script. Interestingly enough, Escape was the first script Carpenter wrote out of film school and he couldn't finance it, but in fact made Assault on Precinct 13. So I looked at a very early script which was quite different from the movie that was actually made. And I said, 'Well, yeah, this could be fun,'" Mike recalls. "So they sent the Swaine books to L.A. for the final decision, and basically they thought the style that my detective fiction was written in was perfect, so I got the job. I just wrote it in a very modified Swaine style. I worked from later scripts! They were still filming while I was writing."

Did any of McQuay's ideas wind up in Escape? He doesn't think so. "I doubt it. There were suggestions back and forth. Carpenter and I never really clicked. I don't know why, I always thought I would like to take shot at the script if they ever did a second one."

Snake's bank job and subsequent arrest was shot, but never used in the final film. It made his book though... "I was really surprised to find the movie starting on chapter five. I liked the opening that was not included because it showed him [Snake] having a little bit of compassion and that's the part they cut out of the movie. There's obviously the difference between books and movies." he says rather bluntly. "It's pretty evident in the novelization that Plissken is a protagonist in every sense of the word. In the movie he's a typical anti-hero that you just can't do in a book because nobody would want to sympathize with that character for very long. And the difference between the book and the movie comes down to the McGuffin. The tape in the movie, he took the tape that could save the world and destroyed it and gave him Bandstand Boogie. And in the book, on planet Earth. That song..." he says with hints of laughter, "First of all I couldn't use Bandstand Boogie. I mean what are you going to put down in the book: ta-da, dada..tadadada-dat.. so I thought of Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones, which is perfect. And they said, 'No way can we get the rights to this! The royalties would be out of hand, write a song!' I wrote this song called Night Music. I sent it in and my editor Fred Klein, he wrote a song called Getting Even. And I liked my song better than his song. He said, 'No I write all the songs for the trade shows, I write all those, I'm great at this.' He said, 'I tell you what I'm going to go to an uninvolved source.' and it was his secretary! So Getting Even appears in there instead of Bandstand Boogie, or my Night Music."

Mike's favorite Escape moment was a lot different than what you may expect. "Well the most fun I had with the book was to start every scene before the movie scenes started. So I got to do all little fun things in there. I got to put the guy hopping around like a rabbit. I had a great time starting scenes early."

Does Mike have any theories on why Plissken and Escape remain popular today? "I discovered something really simple when I was in my ten years as a Science Fiction writer. Science Fiction celebrates the triumph of the individual over his society and mainstream fiction celebrates the fact that we're all the same, we're all alike. If that's the case and my theory correct, then it seems t me that Plissken is ultimate anti-establishment hero. He's the fourteen year old that thumbs his nose at everybody. If you look at a lot of science fiction you'll find that is a basic theme. I think Snake Plissken represent that very well for an audience. Science Fiction readers, at least those I see at conventions, don't see themselves as a part of the mainstream. I see the loners, and I see that a lot of the hardcore fans function well around themselves but not in society as a whole. And I think that's Plissken."

Mike keeps tabs on the Escape fandom, so what's it like to see other people using his interpretation of that Universe. "I've read some other stories and I think it's fine. For me, this is a real joy because I wrote the book more emotionally than they did the movie. Whenever I see other writers interpreting the character, they always interpret him emotionally also. A lot of stories I've seen they write him the way I wrote the character, so that to me is flattering. I think it's fun, it's cool that people are still keeping it going, I get a kick out it."  

Author's Note: Mike McQuay passed away about six months after this interview was conducted.