I believe that the original inspiration for this story came when I happened across a hunting show on TV in which a couple of guys were hunting hogs with nothing but dogs and knives. I have to say, I was a bit repulsed, but also fascinated. I have nothing against hunters, but when I tried to imagine the type of guy who would enjoy stabbing an animal to death, I came up with Ray, the domineering backwoods sociopath of “Blood and Dirt.” I gave him a nice kid brother, put the two in the steamy pressure cooker of a Florida summer, and this is the story that resulted.