Grady Hendrix is a
New York Times best-selling novelist and screenwriter who owns too many paperbacks and not enough shelves. He’s the author of
How to Sell a Haunted House,
The Final Girl Support Group, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, and many more, including
Paperbacks from Hell, a history of the horror paperback boom of the seventies and eighties that won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Nonfiction. (All the paperbacks are for “research” and he needs them.) His books have sold over three million copies and have been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in New York City and will die there, too, probably crushed to death beneath piles of those paperbacks.
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires comes a nostalgic and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of the 1970s and ’80s. Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of two iconic decades . . . if you dare. Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs! Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate!
Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next
Exorcist or
Rosemary’s Baby. Complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles, this unforgettable volume dishes on familiar authors like
V. C. Andrews and
R. L. Stine, plus many more who’ve faded into obscurity.
Also included are recommendations for which of these forgotten treasures are well worth your reading time and which should stay buried.
One of SFFWorld's Best of the Decade“Pure, demented delight.”—
The New York Times Book Review
“Paperbacks from Hell is as funny as it is engaging.”
—The Washington Post
“The book is a true appreciation of the genre.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Just thumbing through these pages will bring back your youth—and terrify you all over again.”
—Newsday
“A loving examination of lurid pulp book covers from the 1970s and ’80s.”—
Atlas Obscura“Paperbacks from Hell is as wild as its source material.”
—The A.V. Club
“[Paperbacks from Hell] will delight anyone with an interest in horror, design illustration, or the macabre.”
—Print Magazine
“A nostalgic treat.”—
Playboy Online
“You may find yourself trying to stock up on old titles so you can get your fill of gloriously trashy scares.”
—Bustle
“[Hendrix's] love of the genre shines through as he pokes gentle fun at some of the era's more entertaining reads, and speaks with genuine appreciation of other titles whose horrors stand the test of time.”—
BookRiot
More praise for Grady Hendrix:“National treasure Grady Hendrix follows his classic account of a haunted IKEA-like furniture showroom,
Horrorstor (2014), with a nostalgia-soaked ghost story,
My Best Friend’s Exorcism.”—
The Wall Street Journal, on
My Best Friend’s Exorcism“
Horrorstör delivers a crisp terror-tale...[and] Hendrix strikes a nice balance between comedy and horror.”—
The Washington Post, on
Horrorstör“Terrific... Sharply written... [
My Best Friend’s Exorcism] makes a convincing case for [Hendrix’s] powers as a sharp observer of human behavior.”—
The A.V. Club, on
My Best Friend’s Exorcism“Hendrix’s darkest novel yet will leave readers begging for an encore.”—
Booklist, starred review, on
We Sold Our Souls“Campy. Heartfelt. Horrifying.”—
Minnesota Public Radio, on
My Best Friend’s Exorcism“An inventive, hilarious haunted house tale.”—
Bustle, on
Horrorstör “Clever, heartfelt, and get-under-your-skin unnerving.”—
Fangoria, on
My Best Friend’s Exorcism“A good, creepy, music-tinged thriller.”—
CNET, on
We Sold Our Souls
Introduction
Years ago at a science-fiction convention, I was flipping through the dollar boxes at a dealer’s table when this Hector Garrido cover for
The Little People brought my eyeballs to a screeching halt. I wasn’t a book collector— I didn’t even know who Hector Garrido was—but I knew what
this was: the Mona Lisa of paperback covers. I bought it so fast my fingers blistered. I never expected to actually read the book . . . but three months later, I fished it out of my “To Be Read” pile and cracked it open.
I knew John Christopher’s name from his Tripods science-fiction series, which had been serialized as a comic strip in the back of
Boys’ Life magazine. But this 1966 Avon novel was stronger stuff. In it, a gorgeous secretary inherits an Irish castle from a distant relative and converts it into a B&B to show her patronizing lawyer/fianc. that she can stand on her own. On opening weekend, the house is full of guests: an Irish dreamboat alcoholic, two bickering Americans with a hot-to-trot teenage daughter, and a married couple who met in a concentration camp, where he was a guard and she was a prisoner.
But some uninvited guests are lurking in the basement: the Gestapochauns.
The Gestapochauns live in the dark, battling their ancient rat enemies with teeny bullwhips. Shortly after we meet them, the author lets us know that these are not just any Nazi leprechauns. These are psychic Nazi leprechauns who enjoy S&M, are covered with scars from pleasure/pain sessions with their creator, were trained as sex slaves for full-sized human men, and are actually stunted fetuses taken from Jewish concentration camp victims. And one of them is named Adolph.
While all this information is being hosed into the reader’s eyes like a geyser of crazy, this book rockets from 0 to 60 on the loony meter and overdelivers on practically every level. From the moment the Gestapochauns play a mean practical joke on the old Irish washerwoman who works in the kitchen to the moment that the lawyer/fianc. realizes exactly what the Nazi leprechaun named Greta is up to in his pants, it’s one fifty-page freakout that’s firing on every cylinder.
Sadly, the Gestapochauns are completely absent from the last thirty pages of the book. The author devoted the remaining pages to a discrete psychic battle that takes place in the dreams of the non-psychic, non-Nazi, non-leprechaun members of the cast. In other words, the Boring People. Yet Christopher and his Gestapochauns fly so high and so far in those middle passages that they practically touch the sun.
No matter what book I read next, the Gestaopchauns clung to my gray folds, whispering to me in my sleep:
What else has been forgotten? After some latenight googling brought me to Will Errickson’s
Too Much Horror Fiction blog, I blacked out. One year later, I woke up squatting in the middle of an aisle at Sullivan’s Trade-a-Book in the heart of South Carolina, surrounded by piles of musty horror paperbacks. Apparently I was buying them. Apparently I was reading them. Apparently I was addicted.
The books I love were published during the horror paperback boom that started in the late ’60s, after
Rosemary’s Baby hit the big time. Their reign of terror ended in the early ’90s, after the success of
Silence of the Lambs convinced marketing departments to scrape the word
horror off spines and glue on the word
thriller instead. Like
The Little People, these books had their flaws, but they offered such wonders. When’s the last time you read about Jewish monster brides, sex witches from the fourth dimension, flesh-eating moths, homicidal mimes, or golems stalking Long Island? Divorced from current trends in publishing, these out-of-print paperbacks feel like a breath of fresh air. Get ready to meet some of my new favorite writers: Elizabeth Engstrom. Joan Samson. Bari Wood. The Lovecraftian apocalypse of Brian McNaughton. The deeply strange alternate universe of William W. Johnstone. Brenda Brown Canary, whose
The Voice of the Clown is one of the few books to actually make my jaw drop. You’ll hear the dark whisperings of Ken Greenhall, the gothic Southern twang of Michael McDowell, the clipped British accent of James Herbert, the visionary chants of Kathe Koja, and the clinical drone of Michael Blumlein.
The book you’re holding is a road map to the horror Narnia I found hidden in the darkest recesses of remote bookstores—a weird, wild, wonderful world that feels totally alien today, and not just because of the trainloads of killer clowns. In these books from the ’70s and ’80s, doctors swap smokes with patients while going over their ultrasounds, housewives are diagnosed as having “too much imagination,” African Americans are sometimes called “negroes,” and parents swoon in terror at the suggestion that they have a “test tube baby.”
These books, written to be sold in drugstores and supermarkets, weren’t worried about causing offense and possess a jocular, straightforward, “let’s get it on” attitude toward sex. Many were published before the AIDS epidemic, at the height of the Swinging ’70s, and they’re unapologetic about the idea that adults don’t need much of an excuse to take off their clothes and hop into bed.
Though they may be consigned to dusty dollar boxes, these stories are timeless in the way that truly matters: they will not bore you. Thrown into the rough-andtumble
marketplace, the writers learned they had to earn every reader’s attention. And so they delivered books that move, hit hard, take risks, go for broke. It’s not just the covers that hook your eyeballs. It’s the writing, which respects no rules except one: always be interesting.
So grab a flashlight and come wander down these dark aisles. The shelves are dusty, the lighting is dim, and there’s no guarantee you’ll come back unchanged or come back at all. All you need is a map and you’re ready to take a tour of the paperbacks from hell.
Celebrating the weird, gory, freaky, amazing horror fiction of the 70s and 80s. With vintage art, hilarious commentary, recommended reading, and poignant creator biographies.
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires comes an affectionate, nostalgic, and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of the 1970s and 80s Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of two iconic decades . . . if you dare. Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs! Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate! Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next
Exorcist or
Rosemary s Baby. Complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles, this unforgettable volume dishes on familiar authors like
V. C. Andrews and
R. L. Stine, plus many more who ve faded into obscurity. Also included are recommendations for which of these forgotten treasures are well worth your reading time and which should stay buried.
Pure, demented delight.
The New York Times Book Review
Paperbacks from Hell is as funny as it is engaging.
The Washington Post
The book is a true appreciation of the genre.
Los Angeles Times
Just thumbing through these pages will bring back your youth and terrify you all over again.
Newsday
A loving examination of lurid pulp book covers from the 1970s and 80s.
Atlas Obscura Paperbacks from Hell is as wild as its source material.
The A.V. Club
[Paperbacks from Hell] will delight anyone with an interest in horror, design illustration, or the macabre.
Print Magazine
A nostalgic treat.
Playboy Online
You may find yourself trying to stock up on old titles so you can get your fill of gloriously trashy scares.
Bustle
[Hendrix's] love of the genre shines through as he pokes gentle fun at some of the era's more entertaining reads, and speaks with genuine appreciation of other titles whose horrors stand the test of time.
BookRiot
More praise for Grady Hendrix: National treasure Grady Hendrix follows his classic account of a haunted IKEA-like furniture showroom,
Horrorstor (2014), with a nostalgia-soaked ghost story,
My Best Friend s Exorcism.
The Wall Street Journal, on
My Best Friend s Exorcism Horrorstör delivers a crisp terror-tale...[and] Hendrix strikes a nice balance between comedy and horror.
The Washington Post, on
Horrorstör Terrific... Sharply written... [
My Best Friend s Exorcism] makes a convincing case for [Hendrix s] powers as a sharp observer of human behavior.
The A.V. Club, on
My Best Friend s Exorcism Hendrix s darkest novel yet will leave readers begging for an encore.
Booklist, starred review, on
We Sold Our Souls Campy. Heartfelt. Horrifying.
Minnesota Public Radio, on
My Best Friend s Exorcism An inventive, hilarious haunted house tale.
Bustle, on
Horrorstör Clever, heartfelt, and get-under-your-skin unnerving.
Fangoria, on
My Best Friend s Exorcism A good, creepy, music-tinged thriller.
CNET, on
We Sold Our Souls
Grady Hendrix is a novelist and screenwriter based in New York City. He is the author of
Horrorstör,
My Best Friend s Exorcism,
Paperbacks from Hell, and
We Sold Our Souls, all of which received critical praise from outlets including NPR, the
Washington Post, the
Wall Street Journal,
Los Angeles Times, the A.V. Club, Paste, Buzzfeed, and more. He has contributed to
Playboy,
The Village Voice, and
Variety.
Introduction
Years ago at a science-fiction convention, I was flipping through the dollar boxes at a dealer s table when this Hector Garrido cover for
The Little People brought my eyeballs to a screeching halt. I wasn t a book collector I didn t even know who Hector Garrido was but I knew what
this was: the Mona Lisa of paperback covers. I bought it so fast my fingers blistered. I never expected to actually read the book . . . but three months later, I fished it out of my To Be Read pile and cracked it open.
I knew John Christopher s name from his Tripods science-fiction series, which had been serialized as a comic strip in the back of
Boys Life magazine. But this 1966 Avon novel was stronger stuff. In it, a gorgeous secretary inherits an Irish castle from a distant relative and converts it into a B&B to show her patronizing lawyer/fianc. that she can stand on her own. On opening weekend, the house is full of guests: an Irish dreamboat alcoholic, two bickering Americans with a hot-to-trot teenage daughter, and a married couple who met in a concentration camp, where he was a guard and she was a prisoner.
But some uninvited guests are lurking in the basement: the Gestapochauns.
The Gestapochauns live in the dark, battling their ancient rat enemies with teeny bullwhips. Shortly after we meet them, the author lets us know that these are not just any Nazi leprechauns. These are psychic Nazi leprechauns who enjoy S&M, are covered with scars from pleasure/pain sessions with their creator, were trained as sex slaves for full-sized human men, and are actually stunted fetuses taken from Jewish concentration camp victims. And one of them is named Adolph.
While all this information is being hosed into the reader s eyes like a geyser of crazy, this book rockets from 0 to 60 on the loony meter and overdelivers on practically every level. From the moment the Gestapochauns play a mean practical joke on the old Irish washerwoman who works in the kitchen to the moment that the lawyer/fianc. realizes exactly what the Nazi leprechaun named Greta is up to in his pants, it s one fifty-page freakout that s firing on every cylinder.
Sadly, the Gestapochauns are completely absent from the last thirty pages of the book. The author devoted the remaining pages to a discrete psychic battle that takes place in the dreams of the non-psychic, non-Nazi, non-leprechaun members of the cast. In other words, the Boring People. Yet Christopher and his Gestapochauns fly so high and so far in those middle passages that they practically touch the sun.
No matter what book I read next, the Gestaopchauns clung to my gray folds, whispering to me in my sleep:
What else has been forgotten? After some latenight googling brought me to Will Errickson s
Too Much Horror Fiction blog, I blacked out. One year later, I woke up squatting in the middle of an aisle at Sullivan s Trade-a-Book in the heart of South Carolina, surrounded by piles of musty horror paperbacks. Apparently I was buying them. Apparently I was reading them. Apparently I was addicted.
The books I love were published during the horror paperback boom that started in the late 60s, after
Rosemary s Baby hit the big time. Their reign of terror ended in the early 90s, after the success of
Silence of the Lambs convinced marketing departments to scrape the word
horror off spines and glue on the word
thriller instead. Like
The Little People, these books had their flaws, but they offered
Über den Autor
Grady Hendrix
Klappentext
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires comes an affectionate, nostalgic, and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of the 1970s and '80s
Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of two iconic decades . . . if you dare. Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs! Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate! Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby. Complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles, this unforgettable volume dishes on familiar authors like V. C. Andrews and R. L. Stine, plus many more who've faded into obscurity. Also included are recommendations for which of these forgotten treasures are well worth your reading time and which should stay buried.
