万圣节读什么：两位畅销书作家的恐怖文学私藏书单与恐惧美学

Gilbert Cruz: The story that really hit me in that book was The Boogeyman. And I remember reading it and I was terrified. And when that fear started to wear off, I read it again. It was like, you know, don't touch the hot stove, but you want to touch the hot stove.

I'm Gilbert Cruz, and this is the book review from the New York Times. [music] Everyone, I am so very excited. Halloween is nearly here [music] and everyone that knows me knows I talk way too much about how this is one of my favorite times of year. Scary books, scary movies, horror in general. I [music] love it all. And this week, I've invited two writers on the show to help us all get into the Halloween [music] spirit.

First is Lee Bugo, the best-selling author behind the Greciverse series as well as the 9inth House Trilogy, [music] which just concluded with the release of her latest novel, Deadbeat. Lee and I talk about the books that terrified [music] us both as kids, our shared love of the author Anne Rice, and what makes a really good horror [music] story.

Then I'm joined by Paul Trembley, the author of The Cabin at the End of the World, A Headful of Ghosts, [music] and this year's Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep. Paul talks about the short story that changed his life, why he was such a scaredy-cat growing up, [music] and some of the horror books that he thinks everyone should check out. New to horror, a lifelong horror head? Doesn't matter who you are. This is a recommendationfilled episode, and we have something for everyone. Lee Bugo, welcome back to the book review.

>>: Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here, especially for Halloween.

>>: Good. Good. We last spoke in 2024 upon the release of your book, The Familiar. You're back. You're here with Deadbeat, the final book in your 9inth House trilogy. Has anyone ever dressed as one of your characters from this trilogy or otherwise for Halloween?

>>: Yes. Many people.

>>: Do they send you pictures? Tell me. I want I want to hear about this.

>>: Yes, usually they post them uh online. I'm the only place you can find me on on social media is Instagram, so they will usually post and tag me. And this year, because Deadbeat just came out, we've actually seen some cosplay from that series as well. There's a character named Daw in that series where she's always in a sweatshirt with her headphones around her neck. So, it's a really, really easy costume.

>>: [snorts]

>>: I'm gonna have to break that one out because I haven't put too much work into my costume this year.

>>: Well, you have a kid and I feel like that that means that that's where the focus goes.

>>: A lot of energy goes into that.

>>: Yes.

>>: Let's talk about Halloween. This is this is the month where I thrive. It might be important for you. I want to hear about Young Lee. What was Halloween like for young Lee?

>>: I mean, I it was it was you know what it always is. the the predatory attempt to gain as much candy as possible.

You know, my mom was working more than full-time. So, that was actually kind of a sacred holiday, I think, where the way other families treated like Christmas, you know, and said, "This is the day I have to have off." That was the one day my mom said, "I have to take my daughter trick-or-treating." So, it was a very special night.

>>: Was it I'm a witch. I'm a skeleton. What was your style?

>>: Well, I will tell you I experienced a great deal of disappointment. This is the first moment of me feeling disappointment as a consumer because I remember very specifically buying a Batgirl costume and it was one of those boxed costumes where it's a mask and it's a kind of plastic smok and I thought I was going to look like Batgirl and [clears throat] instead I looked like I was wearing a plastic smok and it was just a huge letd down for me. And then I started as I got older, I started making my own costumes and making group costumes with my friends. And I never was it like I didn't know how to sew, but I knew how to use a glue gun.

And I forever loved Halloween and I was always going all out for it. And what I would usually do is pick something I had already in my wardrobe to work with and I would build around that. I had board shorts. So one year I was a a a drowned surfer with a shark bite on her leg. or if I had a beautiful black gown, then I would go full vampire. So, I didn't ever really have a lot of money to spend on this stuff, but I had a lot of commitment, lot of enthusiasm.

>>: I love Crafty Lee. This is great to hear.

I'd love to hear about some early creepy fiction. Lee, what is, as you recall, to the best of your recollection, what are a couple of the books that you read when you were young that creeped you and delighted you at the same time?

>>: One was The Boogeyman by Stephen King.

Uh the short story. We had um a copy of a short story collection, but at the time it was like the movie tie-in edition with Children of the Corn on the cover.

>>: Mh.

>>: And it was passed around my fifth grade class like Contraband. And I remember this kid Noah being like, "When are you going to give me give me my book back?" And I was like, "You can take it from my cool dead hands." And the story that really hit me in that book was The Boogeyman. And I remember reading it and then really struggling to sleep for the better part of a month.

Like the the closet door figures prominently in this short story and I was terrified. And when that fear started to wear off, I read it again. It was like, you know, don't touch the hot stove, but you want to touch the hot stove.

And I also remember that, you know, when you're young, your brain is so spectacularly pliable. And I retained the entirety of that story and I told it around a campfire to a group of friends later and they were terrified and were like, "Do it again. Do it again tomorrow." And that was sort of the first experience I had of the power of both storytelling and horror and I guess Stephen King too. So that's number one.

Um, Down Hall by Lois Duncan. It's a very gothic read. It's a girl arrives at a boarding school and soon discovers that the head mistress has nefarious intent and I think slots very neatly into the kind of tradition of teenage girls as both predator and prey in horror.

That was a big one for me. Absolutely loved it. Definitely wanted to have psychic abilities. And I also feel like it maybe is in the psyches of a lot of people who are writing dark academia now because it it is very much a dark academia story. And I don't want to give away the twist, but it could not be more like so satisfying, but also absurd in its pretensions.

And the last one is Bicula by James How. [laughter]

>>: Do you know Vanicula?

>>: Yes, I know Vanicula. Is that where he he's It's a vampire bunny, but vampire bunny sucks the orange out of carrots.

>>: He drains vegetables of all varieties. And there's a very smart and suspicious cat who is on to Bicula's game and a not so smart dog named Harold who is his sort of right-hand man. I was obsessed with this book growing up and I wrote to James how and he wrote me back.

>>: What did you write him and what did he say in return?

>>: It was a class assignment to write to your favorite author and everybody wrote I think to like Judy Bloom or Beverly Clearary and I wrote to James how and I think I was one of the only kids who got a letter back and it was written on this thin onion skin paper was typed and I don't remember I still have the letter but it was really just about you know I asked him silly questions why does Harold love chocolate cupcakes and that kind of thing and he so kindly replied and it meant the world to me just like you feel like you've touched by the divine when when you're that age and a writer writes back to you.

>>: So you get to your let's say teenage early adult years and was there a moment when you realized you were making the leap to more adult things?

>>: No. No. Because I think like a lot of kids of that generation, I was just reading whatever was on my parents shelves.

>>: Yes. Yes. Exactly.

>>: I would just pull things off of their shelf, off of my sister's shelf. I'm not particularly interested in what was being handed to me as a kid. I did an event recently where I was talking about the fact that I could see myself in like the the stories of Stephen King made more sense to me than say Sweet Valley High.

The fantasy of that world did not seem like fantasy to me. That seemed like nightmare territory because it's what I was surrounded by. I was surrounded by cute blonde people who played volleyball and who drove cabriolets. Like it was a that was not another world that I wanted to go into because it was too much like our world. But the actual stakes of these other stories I think resonated really deeply with me as a kid and felt like a place I wanted to go. So whether it was Frank Herbert or Isaac Asimov or or Stephen King or Diana Win Jones, like I was those were journeys that were really satisfying to me and I don't think I ever thought, oh, these are books for grown-ups.

>>: Sticking with our October theme here, you know, there are lots of different types of horror. There are lots of different types of speculative fiction. The haunted house, the demon possession, the serial killer book. What scared you then and what scares you now? Has that changed?

>>: Yes and no. Like I reread Salem's Lot recently and it is terrifying. Like it's genuinely frightening.

I think when I was a kid I was probably more easily scared in part because I wasn't a writer. Like I think there's a part of me now that is breaking apart the story even as I'm reading. And I think it's very thrilling to suddenly find yourself wrapped up in the story and that part of your brain switches off. And so [clears throat] the books I've really been drawn into probably are the ones that have actually frightened me. And I'm thinking of Night Jars. It was pitched as Momento meets Dracula.

And that's not a bad description. It has a great setup where basically this guy is handed a horrifying picture of a childhood he doesn't remember. So you have like therapy sessions. You also have a switch in POV midway through the book that I think works really really well. And I also found it super scary and just really loved the characters too. I thought it was a really interesting take on the like oh is he just you know is it real horror or is this mind of like that's such a constant theme in horror like is it all in her head? Is it all in his head? And I thought this was a really interesting take on that.

>>: If somehow you ran into someone and they were like I I've never really read horror. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm ready to fix that now. Lee, what is a great book that I can start with? What's a great introduction to the genre? What would you recommend?

>>: Well, first I would kind of want to know what they were into. I would actually point them to Affinity by Sarah Waters.

It is genuinely frightening in the way of a Victorian ghost story. It's about a woman who is deeply troubled and kind of to do good works and give her life purpose. She ends up visiting this women's prison where this woman who claims to be a medium is incarcerated and their relationship develops in this, you know, very classically Sarah Waters way. It's scary. It's fascinating. It has a great twist. This is actually a great example of a story with a deep sense of place, which is London in the late 1800s. It feels incredibly claustrophobic and you are very much trapped in the way that these women are in the pages of this book. So, I think that's a very good one because it sort of lives on the line between horror, gothic, and literary fiction and historical fiction. I guess that's a lot of lines, but it lives in that blurry space, which I think would appeal to a lot of people who maybe don't think they like horror.

>>: That's great. Especially because Sarah Waters, she does she's exist a little bit some of her books at least on the line of gothic, horror, mystery, thriller, you know, she's sort of like filling up a bunch of spaces there.

>>: I also just started a book of short fiction by Megan Giddings called The Black Arts, and I've only read the first short story in it, and I do not want to give anything away about it, but one, the writing is spectacular, and two, I don't know if you can call it horror. I think you can, but I think it would hook just about anybody. It's really fantastic. It's called The Sixth Door. It's the first story in the book.

>>: I'd love to ask you about this because you write speculative fiction, but you move between sort of genres and and subg genres. And I'm curious if we're talking just about horror. What to you makes a book a horror book?

>>: I just did an event with Tanar Du and we were talking about this. Um,

>>: she's great.

>>: She's fantastic and actually she's another good one for people who don't know if they are ready for horror because I would say that the reformatory is closer to historical fiction but is deeply horrifying and harrowing and also has a tremendous sense of place like you are again sort of locked into where the characters are. and Maisywood, which he just released, is another one that sort of starts in a historical fiction parameter and then like there's a almost magical realism quality to the first part. You're in the head of a young woman who becomes a child actress in 1920s Hollywood and then moves into a kind of survival horror space. So, I think you have the opportunity if you're not sure if you're into horror to kind of like ease in and then Trojan horse it with the real horror elements. But, we were talking about like what makes horror horror and do you have to be scared by it for it to be horror?

I guess for me, I think it doesn't necessarily have to rise to full scale terror or I'm going to turn all the lights on for it to be horror. I think if you are thoroughly unnerved, I think that that is can be horror. I think being disturbed, disgusted, but then I find myself saying, well, what's the difference between that and like a really scary uh thriller or serial killer story? And I think there has to be a sense of porousness between what's real and imagined for it to be considered horror. But don't hold me to it.

>>: I like that definition. Is there a book that just perfectly fits that definition? Like you're reading it and either you or even the characters within the book aren't really sure of what's real and what's not.

>>: I mean so much so much of horror I think occupies I mean the kind of classics of horror already occupy that space like The Haunting of Hill House.

>>: Sure.

>>: I was thinking about this in terms of the haunting of Hill House and then we have always lived in the castle and the haunting of Hill House is considered I think more specifically horror gothic horror and this is again like the crumbling mans seems to play a big role and I am a big fan of sentient houses in general. This is a wildly destructive house, but the thing it is offering our character Eleanor, who is such a modern character, I think, you know, I read I didn't read that until I was older, and I was so shocked by how modern Eleanor's voice was, how quickly I locked into her sense of humor and her sort of overwhelming social anxiety and her desire to live and then to find a place in this very disturbing house.

There's also this kind of puritanical streak, right? Like there's a lot of controlling mothers in horror and there's also this kind of push against the puritanical. But if you look at both that and we've always lived in the castle, you have these heroins who something big happened to them when they were 12. And this again always takes me back to this kind of like puberty is terrifying and young women going through puberty is particularly terrifying. And I think in some ways Carrie is like the direct descendant of these books.

>>: Yeah.

>>: Yeah.

>>: It's so appropriate. Now, of course, to talk about this, there's a new adaptation of Carrie that just came out for Mike Flanigan, who's adapted a bunch of Stephen King, but it's it's a story that's been told many times. It's already been on TV. It's been several film versions, and and there is a way I think it's been tweaked for this series, which I haven't had the chance to watch yet. But if you go back to the original story and the original film adaptation, that Piper Lori, religious mother character, not just an overbearing mother, but an overbearing religious mother is in some ways like the original horrifying character in Stephen King's work. It's not Carrie who's horrifying. It is Car's mother.

>>: Yeah.

>>: As much so. Gothic horror in particular, you talked about the crumbling mans, you know, the the the haunted house, the scary house. doesn't necessarily need to be haunted in all these cases, but um you talked about the haunting of Hill House. What are some other just gothic greats?

>>: I mean, obviously Turn of the Screw.

>>: It's so good. It's a beautiful a beautiful novela, Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

>>: There's a short story by Edith Wharton of all people called Afterward. There's a collection, an Edith Warren collection that I believe New York Review of Books Press put out called Ghosts, and it collects all of her, she wrote many ghost stories, many more than people think. Afterward is terrifying. The moods, the Gothic moods in so many of these stories, the houses, the solitude, the loneliness, they are, if you haven't, Lee, if you haven't read these, [laughter] this is my recommendation to you. Pick up this edition. But tell me about afterward. That's such a good story.

>>: I think Afterward is interesting because I think it actually does a kind of play on the crumbling mans, right? Because here are these Americans who have decided to leave their industrial lives of labor behind and now they're going to go and they finally have the means to acquire this highly aesthetic life, right? And there's a lot of talking about that, about the gray walls and the garden and the fire light and how different this is from the harsh lives they lived in the United States. And I think that that's fascinating because so much of dark academia in particular is about the kind of deliciousness and wish fulfillment of these places with these glorious libraries and with these hallowed halls and the architecture of the place and the comfort of the place and the plenty this sense of plenty and this woman has been brought into this world of plenty but at what cost and that is what gets peeled back in the story and I think it's really wonderfully done and I didn't think Edith Wharton could get me back after the horror of reading Ethan Fro, which I just absolutely loathe. I find it unrelentingly bleak and depressing. And I thought this was such a jewel of a short story

>>: when you are trying to establish a mood when you're writing about the supernatural when you do. What is in your mind in terms of the things that you've read before? Because to me, particularly when it comes to ghost stories, stories of the supernatural, stuff of that sort, it's not necessarily about what you're seeing or what is being described. It is about the feeling that you're getting from the thing. How do you try to do that?

>>: I think there's maybe two buttons that I lean on. And one is this thing may not be inherently frightening, but it is not supposed to be there. It's just not supposed to be there. That door shouldn't be open. Who left it open? It's actually something that Agatha Christie did really well. Filament cottage almost nothing happens in but it is so spooky and I think it's kind of great example of building dread through the ordinary.

I also think you know I learned as many writers did at the knee of of Stephen King and and also Clyde Barker to some extent who I think I discovered through Stephen King and that's that most horror comes from shame. The monster is always a metaphor. And in some cases, like in a lot of cosmic horror, it represents something very different, social or political. But I think in ghost stories in particular, and in Gothic horror, there's usually a shame button that's getting pushed that I there's a thing from my past I don't want to look at, or a thing that I went through I don't want to look at, and this monster is going to make me look at in the face.

>>: I like that. You are going to be in New Orleans for the 50th anniversary celebration of Annne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, a book that has been adapted into a film and recently a TV series. You recently wrote a forward to a new edition of the book. Why has this book lingered with you so much?

>>: You know, I discovered this book when I was probably around 12. My friend Gamyen said, you know, for my birthday, I want these two books. I I don't think Queen of the Damned was out yet, or maybe I didn't know it was out, but I got her Interview and The Vampire Lat. I read the back and I thought, "Oh, I'm going to read this before I give it to her." And then I ended up having to buy her separate copies because I fell into them. I I read the first two and then I reread them immediately.

I think part of it is a sense like Ann Rice did atmosphere like no one else. And talk about houses, homes, places that take on tremendous resonance. Her New Orleans made me want to visit New Orleans. When I went to New Orleans for the first time, I went and sought out the Mayfair Witches House. The way she writes about Paris and Christopher Rice, her son told me she had never been to Paris when she wrote about Paris with so much love and adoration.

>>: Wow.

>>: It it blew my mind because it that city is evoked in such spectacular detail and it becomes haunting. These are vampire stories but in some ways they are about very haunted, very lonely people. And I think that sense of loneliness is something that resonates with a lot of people regardless of where they are in their lives.

I in one of the events we did to talk about this book um one of our co-panelists talked about how he was in his 30s. He was in a job he hated. he felt really depressed. He was living in Orlando, which can be very depressing. And how this book had found him exactly when he needed it. Well, I was, you know, 12 years old, living in Los Angeles, you know, a kind of a loser, like just like like not even like a fun nerd, like a loser nerd. And it found me when I needed it. And I think the thing these books do is that I think they find us at a time in our lives when we need to know that there is something else that there's something more available to us. And that's the promise Lat makes to Louie. And that's the promise of these novels.

>>: It's interesting to hear you talk about the loneliness of those stories because I I too read them when I was around that age, 12, 13, 14, and I'd read some vampire stories before then. But it really, if I'm recalling correctly, it it it made me realize for the first time just how lonely it would be to be an immortal being who had to, you know, had to see all this all these people come in and come out of your lives. And maybe that's why you make a little vampire girl companion. You know, it's just very lonely.

>>: Yes. But didn't you want to be one?

>>: Yeah.

>>: I'm like, "Yeah, of course. I don't mind. I'll eat some tourists. No problem. Will it make me immortal and gorgeous and cool? Yeah, I will do that." Like the moral quandry of that book that Louis agonizes about, agonizes, agonizes. And when I read this book, you know, Gam and I didn't know. So, we called him Louis. We didn't know he was Louis. Like, of course, he's Louis, but we So, and we had a joke growing up where one of us was whining. And we'd be like, "Shut up, Lewis." Because he whines so much and his anx is so profound. And we know that he belongs with Lestad and that Lestad is amazing despite his his evils, even if he doesn't realize it. Like, it takes him so very long to come around to this.

>>: Um, Lee, imagine a scenario in which people are coming to your house, but instead of handing out candy, you're giving them all the same book. You have a pile. It's a very odd scenario, I know, but it's one that I've made up here. What is the book that you were giving out to people on Halloween night?

>>: Oh my gosh, this is Okay. Well, we already handled like the kids stuff. Although, I will say too, if you have a kid who's afraid of horror and you want a Halloween read, um I remember loving The Witch of Blackbird Pond. This was a classic when I was a kid and it's about witch trials and persecution and being a young woman again sort of trapped in this environment. I again I don't know how it holds up because I haven't read it since I was a kid, but I feel like that at least has witch in the title. So, it could be a good child read for kids who don't want to be scared. Okay, this is the wrong You can't give the same book to everyone. This is what's driving me crazy about this question.

>>: Well, you you know these interactions, kids come up to your door, there's 30 seconds. You're not going to ask them about their lives. What What books do you like? What did you last read? You just got to be confident in your recommendation. You say this is the one book.

>>: If it's a kid, I'm giving them Bicula and possibly The Invisible Parade by Lee Bardugo and John Picassio. Lovely picture book. Yes, there you go. Always be closing.

If it's an adult, I'm going to give them The Haunting of Hill House.

But I might if they if they look like an NPR listener, then I might direct them to Our Share of Night by I think it's Mariana. And if they're not ready to commit to a sprawling novel that is a parable for Argentine politics, then I would direct them to her short stories.

>>: Maybe start with the short stories and just get a taste for the type of horror that she writes.

>>: I if I remember right, there's one in her collection called Adella's House that is directly connected to Our Share of Night. So that's a good like dip your toe in, see if you can handle it because the horror in those books is real horror. like it's it's real horror and it's cosmic horror and it's a lot of bad bargains in cosmic horror I realized you know whether you're reading layer to Baron or you know the predecessor HB Lovecraft or you're reading Victor Laval like lot of bad bargains being made by people and other people then being forced to pay for those bad bargains.

>>: Yeah, don't ever make a deal. Don't

>>: no do not do not make a deal with the uncanny. Although I understand it. Did I not just say that if Lat came knocking, I would be like, "Yep,

>>: you're on the record.

>>: No problem. I'm Sign me up." Yeah.

>>: Lee Bugo, wonderful recommendations. Thank you for coming back to the book review. Deadbeat, the final book in your ninth house trilogy is out now. Have fun in New Orleans.

>>: I will do my very best to Quarter Vampire while I'm in New Orleans.

>>: Can't wait to hear about it.

After the [music] break, we're continuing our Halloween celebration with another horror writer, Paul Trimble. He tells [music] me about the story that made him fall in love with horror and shares some of his favorite scary books.

[music]

Gilbert Cruz: We've been talking about some of our favorite scary stories this week. Now I'm joined by Paul Trembley, the author of A Head Full of Ghosts and Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep. Paul, welcome to the book review.

Paul Tremblay: Thank you, Gilbert. I'm excited to be here. I even put on a college shirt and everything.

Gilbert Cruz: I see that you really you're dressed up. We got to jump in and talk about the reason for the season. It's October. It's Halloween time. Before we just have a ton of recommendations of great books to read, I want to ask about your relationship to Halloween, to this season, to this whole idea. I mean, for me, I mean, I'm a lifelong as far back as my memories, childhood memories go, I've always had like this love, terrified relationship with horror. Uh, but I have to admit it, it was initially as a child and even as a teenager, almost exclusively through film and television.

Paul Tremblay: I was a child of uh 1980s cable TV. Uh, and I didn't come to reading much later, maybe embarrassingly so compared to almost all other writers. I will credit one old program I'm aging myself, pre-cable television when I was like seven, eight years old. You only had like UHF channels and a few other ones. There was a program that ran every weekend in the New England area called Creature Double Feature and that was every Saturday. And the first movie would be like a Godzilla movie, and that's what drew me in as someone as a stereotypical kid who likes dinosaurs. But then the second movie was more of a horror movie. Usually like bad exploitation ones like Attack of the Killer Leeches, Attack of the Killer Shrews, usually something with attack in them. I mean, terrible movies, but they just gave me nightmares. I still vividly remember a nightmare I had of uh the movie Attack of the Killer Shrews, which has since made an appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000. [laughter]

Gilbert Cruz: I was going to say a shrew. Is that like a like a VO? What is that?

Paul Tremblay: Yeah, but they they I mean, if you see the movie now, they they essentially took dogs, probably like 30, 40 pound dogs, and put shaggy, scary [laughter] costumes on them and had them chase people.

Gilbert Cruz: Did you dress up as a kid for Halloween?

Paul Tremblay: Yeah, I mean, but nothing like out of the ordinary, you know, every Halloween. And usually it would be like a cheap

Gilbert Cruz: You didn't dress as a killer shrew.

Paul Tremblay: No, I did not. That would have been too scary for me. you know, my my sort of like uh quick answer is like it's always Halloween for me. So, like I don't really necessarily do anything super special. Yeah.

You know, I will say and having sort of the added uh observation I grew up in Beverly, which is right next to Salem. And what what Halloween for Salem has become uh just in the last two decades is really incredible. And Salem's I mean it's a cool interesting place. Uh, I mean there's a lot of historical stuff like the House of Seven Gables and, you know, great museums, but there's also like them leading into, you know, Halloween and like oddly celebrating the state sanctioned death of 19 people. [laughter] Um, yeah. I mean, and so to the point where in October hundreds of thousands of people will go. People

Gilbert Cruz: That's exactly what I was going to say. Just like is it like do not drive into Salem starting September 15th or whatever it is.

Paul Tremblay: Yeah. On the weekends for sure. you know, weekdays you have a better chance of sneaking in. But I mean, there is a very convenient uh train commuter rail stop right in uh downtown Salem. So, like that that would be the way to go in if you're going to go in on the weekend.

Gilbert Cruz: You didn't really start reading of any sort until you were a little bit older. You had talked about a story that I read last night, so I'd love to talk about this that really set you on a path. Tell me about that story.

Paul Tremblay: Yeah. So, like when I was in college, uh, at Providence College, and I I fumbled my way into being a math humanities major. My senior year, the, you know, second semester senior year, I had to take one more humanities class. So, I basically took like a lit 101. So, I was in there with a bunch of freshmen. But, I don't know, I had like the stereotypical like Dead Poet Society experience in that class. Like the professor was really cool, was into punk music, and that really helped me connect. He let me write my papers comparing things to like Jane's Addiction, etc. But anyway, in that class, we read Joyce Carol's Where Have Are You Going? Where Have You Been? Uh, and I'll never forget reading that and thinking, "Oh, I didn't know people wrote things like this."

Um, and shortly after that, after I graduated and went to math grad school, and my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, were doing the long-distance relationship thing, and she had bought me some Stephen King books, and I went away to get my math degree by the skin of my teeth. But I also just fell in love with reading and read like All the King and Straw Stra Barker Jackson while I was away at grad school.

Gilbert Cruz: Let's talk about if if you can the Joyce Carol story. I read it last night for the first time. I think everyone should go out and read it. You can easily find it. We're not going to sort of give away what happens, but you know the basic sketch of the story is there's a a young woman. She's a teenager and she really has problems with her mother. She goes out one night, has a good time, sees someone in a car at a drive-in restaurant and he and he gives her a look. he's in a gold car and she doesn't think too much of it. And then a day or so later, she encounters this person again and has one of the most unsettling encounters with someone where nothing actually happens, but it's just the conversation that happens between the two of them and the way that he is talking and the way that Joyce Carol describes what he looks like that is so unnerving. What What struck you the first time?

Paul Tremblay: Exactly that the conversation that when I finished reading it I was so I was so stressed out. I was like, "Wait, but nothing happens other than this conversation that's just so loaded with possibility, you know, and maybe somewhere subconsciously in my math brain, you know, I felt like there are all these zeros and ones, all these places where based on what Arnold friend is is saying to, you know, the teenager, all these different pathways potentially open up and, you know, she's in danger and she knows yet somehow still, you know, she makes a terrible decision without spoiling, I guess, the story, but hey, it's 50 years old at this point. Uh, it just all feels very smart, you know, just so full of of threat and menace. No, no, no. I just never experienced anything like that either as a story or or as a film.

Gilbert Cruz: Is there anything that you feel even though this was one of the first stories that made this kind of impact with you as you later on became a short story writer and a novelist? What do you think you picked up from this? There is a great ambiguity in this story that might be unsatisfying to many people but I feel like perhaps resonates in a lot of the work that you have done.

Paul Tremblay: I think at the time if someone had described the story to me and tells me that hey you know in terms of like action nothing happens nothing is resolved. I think you know the 21 22 year old who would have heard it being described and been like oh that's that's not what I'm looking for. But I don't know in that moment I mean to me that's sort of like the the magic is that weird you know that that communication that we crave as readers. But I think I was just excited by how it was presented and how it made me feel. It's like oh this person sees this person gets it like this author and it sort of hit me in the time in my life where for the very first time I was more confident in who I was uh and I was becoming passionate about things and you know this might sound trit but you know it took me a long time to learn that it's okay to like things. It's okay to be passionate about things.

And shortly after that, like I I mean, I was messing around with trying to play guitar because I was obsessed with punk music. And after falling in love with reading, like I was like, "Oh, I'm going to try writing stories, too." Like, why not? Like, I like how these things make me feel. Maybe I can somehow replicate it. So, I think all that was tied in at to the age of just basically discovery of myself, but also wider the wider art world.

Gilbert Cruz: You were able to discover this story at a certain age, and it wonderfully unlocked something for you. You also later on in life taught high school.

Paul Tremblay: Yes.

Gilbert Cruz: And I'm curious if there is whether you're looking back and thinking about your younger self or you're thinking about some of the students that you've had. Are there books in this genre, horror books, dark speculative novels that you just think this is one that I would have given my younger self? This is one that I I recommend to to younger people all the time.

Paul Tremblay: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, so the funny part of my high school experience is for the most part, you know, I wasn't I wasn't in a place where I couldn't necessarily recommend books. I was teaching high school math and I taught it for 30 years.

Gilbert Cruz: Sure.

Paul Tremblay: Although, at the very end, I did run like a a very loose like creative writing club. So, I would share like different stories with with folks.

But, you know, specific to younger readers for younger young kids, like I would recommend John Clawson's The Skull, uh, which almost has like zero text.

Gilbert Cruz: Yes.

Paul Tremblay: But it's one to fun.

Gilbert Cruz: Yeah. It's so much fun. I mean, it's for for young young kids. I mean, it's it's creepy in the way that like gets at that unnameable awe of horror, right?

Paul Tremblay: To me, like there's the awe of horror like uh if Godzilla were to exist, which would be terrible, but there would be a moment where I'd be like, "Oh my god, can you believe it? This is real." Like, I mean, there's that weird awe part of it, you know, that still I think appeals to the kid inside of me, you know, and then there's what we'll call like the adult or higherminded stuff.

Gilbert Cruz: So, John Clawson's The Skull. It is primarily illustrated and it's about a little boy who lives in a big stone house in the woods, discovers a skull. That's a great recommendation. I'm so happy you you have that one. Is there another one that you would throw out there?

Paul Tremblay: Yeah. So, for for teen readers, uh there's a wonderful novel uh called uh The Nest by Kenneth Opel. You know, the conceit is that it's from the the point of view of of essentially like a 12-year-old boy and they have a newborn who's, you know, struggling and the parents are sort of struggling with it, too. And then this young child is sort of at during dreams is approached by this weird almost like wasp god saying hey we can we can make things better. Um and it's just really disturbing and it's almost hard to believe that he wrote it before co because it definitely feels coy because it feels so claustrophobic to what's what's happening in the house.

Gilbert Cruz: Oh man I have not heard of that one and I may have to pick it up and read it with my son. It sounds awesome. I think we are both familiar with the phenomenon. You've probably seen it in your own life of there being kids who just are into this from the time they they're quite young and they don't necessarily need to be convinced and they grow up into someone who loves this genre whether it's in books or movies or what have you.

There are lots of people out there, however, who just even though they haven't experienced a ton of horror novels or horror short stories or horror movies, they have an idea of what it is. Often a false idea in my experience, but an idea of what it is and they don't want it. They just do not want to try it. However, I think there are books out there that you can give to someone that's sort of like a just try this. What What is a book that you'd sort of slip to someone and say, "Here's an introduction. It's not it's not going to mess you up. It's not [laughter] too scary. It's not too gory, but it it's going to do the job.

Paul Tremblay: Yeah. So, it's funny like I do want to just mention a word about like, yeah, the people who don't like horror, and I get it in some ways, I do think horror maybe more than any other sort of mode of of writing or as a genre is sort of associated in the general public with maybe its worst representatives. I don't maybe that's not fair to say that or say things that maybe, you know, doesn't fail. It fails as art.

Gilbert Cruz: Mhm.

Paul Tremblay: So, I think most people think, "Oh, horror. Yeah, I don't like Freddy Krueger. I don't like this or that." But I get it. I mean, because horror relies on a transgression and and if that goes poorly or isn't treated well, I mean, it gets really memorable and like people, you know, sort of react or recoil against it. So, anyway, um I'm going to recommend uh The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson one because it I mean it is sort of the ex of the 20th century sort of haunted house story. So, I think at the start of the book, most people won't be frightened. They'll be sort of drawn in by Shirley Jackson's voice, her intelligence, and her wit. It's a really funny book, too. Like, I think people really miss talking about that.

Gilbert Cruz: I've read The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson so many times. Victor Laval came on like four years ago to talk in depth about it. It [snorts] it is sort of like a classic text. It's a great recommendation.

Paul Tremblay: Thank you. Yeah, I probably shouldn't admit this on the podcast, but it's the only book I suppose I could still bring it back to the library, but a library book that I've kept. [laughter]

Gilbert Cruz: I have I have my share of those.

um to for those parents who think I don't know that I want to introduce my kid even to something like that or it's a little too creepy or how do you sort of navigate telling people you know or if you're at events you know kids there's a way to sort of read these stories to kids or or introduce them to these types of topics or moods or feels and it's not a bad thing.

Paul Tremblay: Yeah, I mean that's a great question. In some ways, maybe a hard one to answer. And as someone who spent 30 years in high school, actually a 7th through 12th grade school, so I had a wider range of kids. My first response is like, well, you know your child better than I do.

Gilbert Cruz: Sure.

Paul Tremblay: You know, and I try to lean towards, you know, a self-discovery if possible. Now, that's a little bit more fraught these days given like what self-discovery can sort of dig up on the internet, which is, you know, way too many sort of real life, you know, horrors. But I don't know, like I mean, you may not be surprised. I lean toward, you know, kids are way more resilient than we think they are, especially when it comes to their media, books, movies, etc. I have to admit that I definitely scarred my own son by showing him uh Watership Down, the 1970s animated movie, [music] and yeah, it really bothered him.

Gilbert Cruz: He he didn't like the rabbits in Peril, if I'm recalling.

Paul Tremblay: Yeah. No, I mean, it's it's funny like I I was and still am a card carrying Scaredy Cat and every movie gave me nightmares.

Gilbert Cruz: Mhm.

Paul Tremblay: But except for Water Shipped Out, like when I when I saw it, I felt like for the first time and I was probably eight or nine that someone had let me in on like a truth [music] of the adult world and I was just fascinated by it. Whereas everything else I saw gave me nightmares. I'm not exaggerating and they still do.

Gilbert Cruz: You know what? I think that's an okay thing. It seems like he turned out all right. [laughter] Coming up, [music] Paul Trembley and I talk about why some of us love being scared and why others want absolutely nothing to do with horror. Plus, more [music] recommendations for your Halloween reading list. [music]

Even if you didn't really get into reading or horror until Joyce Carol Oats and Stephen King, was there a book or two that you read yourself when you were a kid that an early taste of what this could be like?

Paul Tremblay: Yeah, for sure. I mean when I say I didn't read like I was a I was a very quiet a good student who read everything that was assigned. So I was reading what was assigned to me in school. So I mean but I guess the first I was definitely drawn towards Edgar Alen Po's work. Uh I have to admit to having written a bunch of paper you know high school papers probably on the same Ed Garland Po story or poem. Uh but also like you know the Hobbit. My father was a huge JR token fan. Like he even had like I think it was in a fan club at one point. remember he had a Froo Libs pin on his robe.

Gilbert Cruz: Yeah. Those were the

Paul Tremblay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When he smoked the pipe, you know, I would only later found out find out what was actually in the pipe. [laughter] Again, the 80s like there are a lot of things happening.

Gilbert Cruz: So Po clearly was there in terms of reading first. Yeah.

Paul Tremblay: Yeah. Pitt and Pendulum. The Telltale Heart.

Gilbert Cruz: The Telltale Heart. Yeah. For sure.

Paul Tremblay: And his poems even though like uh you know Annabelle Lee and and Lenor and stuff like that. Yeah.

Gilbert Cruz: Yeah. No, I think it was the same for me. I still remember, I don't have the edition anymore, but it was a giant I would carry it around with me edition of all of Po, all the stories, all the poems. Yeah. And I grew up in the Bronx in New York. And there's a park near where I grew up called Po Park. And he lived in a cottage in the Bronx for several years when the Bronx was not the Bronx that it is today. It was mostly, you know, farmland and stuff like that. I believe that's where he wrote the Bells and Annabelle Lee. And so there was a there was a sense that Edgar Alen Poe, you would never think of it now because he's associated with Baltimore and Maryland, but that he was an author of the region in his own way. Yeah. So I I went through my own brief obsession phase with him.

All right. We talked about kids. We talked about people that are new to horror. What's a book you recommend that's just like this book is scary. If you haven't read it and you want to be scared, this is the one.

Paul Tremblay: I'm so I'll recommend a short one because I think this is one of the scariest books that I've ever read is a Sarah grand's come closer um which was recently reissued and it is a possession story but so unique in how it's presented you know it doesn't lean on the crutch of you know of patriarchy and religion etc which is some of my favorite kind of possession stories and there's one that just came out yesterday by Stephen Graham Jones off the reservation that similarly he wanted to write a possession story that didn't involve priests etc. [snorts] Uh so Sarah's story is it's very I mean the plot is very simple. It's a young woman who thinks she's hearing you know voices of of a demon essentially. Uh but she does some really smart playful things including including she included like a a quiz from magazines that you used to see in the 80s and 90s like you know the Cosmo quiz. But you know 10 questions take this quiz and it will let you know if you're possessed or not. So I can guarantee you by the end of the book you do not want to take that quiz. [laughter]

Gilbert Cruz: I read this book last night. It's actually it's very it's tight. It's compact. It's short. I don't know if it's a novel or a nolla, but an and another editor at the book review had been talking about this book for years. Yeah. I was finally like, I'm I'm going to get to this. And holy cow, it's great. Yeah, it is real creepy. And I've I've I've seen my share of sort of possession movies and stuff like that, but you're absolutely right. That is a great one. Everyone should read that. Who is someone writing horror fiction right now that you feel more people should know about?

Paul Tremblay: The first I'm going to give you is Nadia Bulan. She is has so far been primarily a short story writer. She has two collections. One called she uh she said Said destroy and she writes just amazingly beautiful, challenging and disturbing. I would call it like sociopolitical horror. She's someone who you know studied politics etc. So I even though Nadia is at least if not more than probably like almost 15 years younger than me, I view her as like my oh I'm going to go to her for political opinions and movie opinions etc.

More recently she had a collection of three short novels or nollas uh called issues with authority. Again just amazing for horror fans I think the last story in that collection will just blow your minds. It's called Red Skies in the Morning and it sort of takes the conceit of the movie The Ring, but treats it as a she calls it a power contagion and the government is sort of involved and almost like either helping it spread or not helping it spread. It's just like it's such a a really smart idea for now. Uh like it should be a movie or a Netflix thing. Not that that's the end all beall of uh of literature, but like yeah, I just want more and more people to to read and experience her work.

Uh the other author is Nathan Balenrude. He has a short story collection called North American Lake Monsters, which is just amazing. It was a briefly run, it became a briefly run show on Hulu, but the the collection is much better. Also, his novella, The Visible Filth, uh, which is now in the collection Wounds, is one of the scarier things that I've read. Um, yeah, and so, you know, Nathan's just a wonderful writer again who I think people in the horror circles, Nadia and Nathan are are giants. Like, they're really well respected. So, but I just wish the wider culture would or more people within the wider culture would discover their work.

Gilbert Cruz: Okay, last question. Sure. Just imagine this world. It's Halloween. People are coming to your door, but instead of giving them candy, you just have a pile of 50 copies of the same book. You're just like, I'm giving everyone this one book. What is the book you're giving people?

Paul Tremblay: Oh, man. Uh, again, I'm going to split it for for two. If I could, I would give them one of Clive Barker's books of blood. It would be the one It would be It would be the one with a short story, but it's whichever one has a story in the hills, the cities. Uh, which when I read as a young man made me sort of like laugh with the the glee of what was happening because I don't want to spoil the the big reveal, but it's essentially these two rural European towns have this ritual of of battle, but in a in a just this crazy imaginary way that only Clive Marker could come up with. Mhm.

And also, I I already mentioned this book, but I want to mention it again because I do have a tattoo of the cover on my arm. Mariana Enriquez is Our Share of Night. Again, it's another book, you know, that employs employs the best of of what literature can to offer, but at the same time, it's so disturbing and it's so of the now because it's a book that takes place mainly during the Jordy War in Argentina. And unfortunately, I feel like it's sort of informing our present political moment in the US, but it's also just undeniably terrifying.

Gilbert Cruz: Can I see the tattoo?

Paul Tremblay: Uh, I don't know if I can pull it up far enough. Let's see.

Gilbert Cruz: Oh, yeah. Oh, that is good.

Paul Tremblay: Yeah, it's a bloody hand there. It's a great cover.

Gilbert Cruz: Yeah, it is a great cover.

Paul Tremblay: It's the only color tattoo I have.

Gilbert Cruz: She is great. So, is there is there something, you know, speaking about Mariana and Nadia, do you think that other horror writers in other nations just do better linking horror to politics? I feel like there's there's I I could just not be reading the right books, but there it feels like there's a a a lack of that maybe or not as much as I would expect to see here in American horror, sort of the explicit like linkages between the two.

Paul Tremblay: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think we're seeing a lot of horrors dealing with the politics of now, but I think, you know, with Mariana and Nadia, and I would also open it up to there's so many Argentinian writers now that grew up at the same time Mariana did, like Agugustina Bzerk, uh, Samantha Schweblin. There's a book coming out, if it's not out now, it's coming out in a few weeks, from Luciano Lombberte called, uh, to to Bewitch a hunter. That's all of these people live through these despotic, autocratic, murderous regimes. Yeah.

Um, and it's especially it's interesting in Argentina because they don't really they didn't really have a horror tradition until now. Like they're they're building it now. So there are so many more people of color and queer writers that are getting to write and tell their horror stories now, which is one of the most exciting parts of what's happening in horror now. But also equally exciting is that we're finally getting so much translated stuff as well. So I don't know if I answered your question.

Gilbert Cruz: No, I mean I I think that's one of the fun things certainly about being a reader of horror fiction right now over the past decade plus, which is you're you're getting to you're getting all these traditions, you know, um translated into into English.

Paul Tremblay: Well, I feel like I would be remiss in mentioning because it's just out now. It's one of my favorite books of this year, but in terms of engaging in the political now, and it's also like a fun example of just the zeitgeist happening. I think there were like four or five TRD wife novels that were published this year. Yep. uh including yesterday year. It doesn't have in the title, but uh and I haven't read all of them. Uh but I've read Sarah Langan's Trife, and I think it's just a work of genius. Um she sort of out Ira Leven's Ira Leven uh in her book of Rosemary's Baby in the Steepford Wives, right? I mean, there's definitely that feel to it, but Sarah doesn't pull punches. She doesn't take cheap punches either, like which I think a Treadwife book could easily fall into. like, oh, we're going to laugh at the person who's who's being the trad wife. Um, it's just a very smart, very engaging, and very scary, and very, you know, political book.

Gilbert Cruz: Both of those sound very cool. I feel like even I have walked away from this conversation with a ton of stuff that I'm going to add to my pile. So, Paul, happy Halloween. Thank you for joining the book review.

Paul Tremblay: Happy Halloween, Gilbert. My pleasure. Thank you.

[music]

Gilbert Cruz: The book review is produced by Sarah Diamond, Amy Pearl, and Patricia Subaran. It's mixed by Pedro Rosado, original [music] music by Dan Powell, and Alicia. Special thanks to Dalia Hadad. We want to hear what you think about the show. [music] Send us an email at the book review atnytimes.com. I'm Gilbert Cruz. Thanks for listening.