Clive Barker: “The title on the next picture is Infestation. Infestations – parasitic infestations particularly – are at the very root of things that distress me. And there are billions of that thing, that creature which is painted four, five, six times on that sheet. To give you an example: when we go to Kauai, there are not feral dogs but dogs that have lost their homes and they stay on the beach, they live on the beach, yes? And whenever we would go to Kauai they would find us. And always they are tick-infested, their ears are cities of ticks – hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, so we would clean their ears always when we got there and kill the ticks. And I cannot think of a more offensive and disgusting image than that kind of infestation: of things that are very elaborate but are also very numerous.

"So you think of these pale white and blue things, which are probably less than a centimetre in length – I’m talking about the ones in the Infestation painting – less than a centimetre in length, but there are millions of them. And in very extreme cases, in Abarat 4, people become walking infestations of that thing. It’s the worst of bad magic, yes? It’s what Mater Motley does when she’s in a mood!

"Parasitic life is fascinating to me and particularly those particular kinds of parasites (and I’m addressing this in the book) those kind of parasites that eat the interior of their hosts in a certain order, so as to keep the host alive for the longest time. And in a remarkably large number of cases they exit the host – one of two ways – either grossly, because suddenly you have this eruption of larvae, of maggots from a body or else, this happens a lot, they leave the body and leave it intact so the creature then goes on to continue its life – which is rather wonderful in its way! Maggots, too, can be forgiving...” Link to full interview with Clive.

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