OSGOOD PERKINS HAD A VISITOR in his head. At first it was a nameless, half-glimpsed figure. Black clothes. Straggly hair. A face pale and powdery with make-up. Its intentions? Malevolent, naturally.
“All writers are the same,” Perkins tells SFX, explaining this presence that lurked rent-free inside him for years. “We all have a bin, a drawer, a pile of things that are free-floating. One thing that kept floating around was this person. My feeling was that he drove up to people’s houses, where their children had birthday parties, and he brought something for them, like a little piano or a stuffed animal. He was an entertainer of some kind.
“It’s up to us as creative people to grab these things. This guy sort of sniffed around the edges of various projects. It’s like having a character in a recurring dream, right? It’s like tuning in to a radio.
