WILLIAM J. DONAHUE. THE HORROR OF MY LIFE

1/4/2022

THE FIRST HORROR BOOK I REMEMBER READING

When I was probably nine or 10 years old, my parents bought my sister and me a collection of classic novels from Moby Books. They were these tiny paperbacks with illustrations that helped introduce kids to old-school literature. The ones I liked best had some sort of monster--Moby Dick, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, War of the Worlds. At around the same time, I had one friend who was into Dungeons & Dragons. I liked it, too, but I was more interested in leafing through the D&D Monster Manual than I was in actually playing the game. Some of those monsters were so cool; the Hook Horror and Black Pudding come to mind.

THE FIRST HORROR MOVIE I REMEMBER WATCHING

I’m not sure which came first, but the two that really shook me out of my skin were John Carpenter’s The Thing and Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist. I couldn’t have been more than 10 years old when I saw either of them. At the time, I had never seen anything like either of those movies. I think that’s where my interest started. From then on, I started to seek out other horror movies, trying to rediscover the sense of fear and invigoration I felt when I watched The Thing and Poltergeist for the first time.

THE GREATEST HORROR BOOK OF ALL TIME

Wow. That’s a tough one. The ones that spring to mind are William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist and Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby, but I will go with Betty from Tiffany McDaniel. Bookstores probably wouldn’t shelve Betty under “Horror,” but holy hell, the things McDaniel puts her characters through are nothing short of grotesque. I almost did not finish reading the book because some scenes were too intense, and I don’t think that has ever happened to me before. Its brutality aside, Betty is a beautifully written story about a broken family that tries to keep all the pieces together.

THE GREATEST HORROR MOVIE OF ALL TIME

Easy one: Creature from the Black Lagoon. For a movie made in the mid-1950s, this one changed everything. It was probably the first time that filmgoers saw anything quite like it. The Creature spawned a whole generation of monsters that took the baton and ran with it. The movie has adventure, it has a science backdrop, it’s a love story, and it has an amazing soundtrack, with these blaring trumpets that announce the Creature any time even part of him is on screen. Two sequels--Revenge of the Creature and The Creature Walks Among Us—were pretty good as far as sequels go, though I thought The Creature Walks Among Us was awful the first few times I saw it. I have since come to appreciate it for what it did to broaden the Creature’s story. Whether it tried to or not, it became a commentary on humankind’s efforts to tame the untamable and the undying power of instinct.

THE GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME

I’d probably go with John Updike, Michael Chabon, or Elizabeth Strout. Of those three, I’m probably most drawn to Updike. His style is almost poetic. No one would confuse him with a horror writer, though he does a masterful job of writing about the horrors of everyday life, like infidelity and desperation and the pain of disappointment in adulthood. The scope and course of my own writing changed after I started reading him. Many, if not most, of his characters come from a privileged background, and he does not hesitate to put them through the wringer.

THE BEST BOOK COVER OF ALL TIME

A lot of sand has gone through the hourglass since I first saw it, but my initial response to this question is Beast from Peter Benchley. It’s much less famous than Benchley’s most notable work, Jaws, but it’s similar in the “sea creature run amok” subgenre. In this case, a giant squid terrorizes a small Bermuda town. It’s the first book I read for enjoyment. This was in the early 1990s. I remember walking into a bookstore to see a friend of mine who was working there, and I saw Beast facing out on a shelf near the register. The cover has a massive squid tentacle writhing out of the surf, with a claw in the middle of each sucker, and the title--BEAST—in a big, bold font. I know this is going to sound stupid, but it was the first time I realized that novels could be about something other than Cold War espionage or coming-of-age stories set in Victorian England. It opened my eyes to the fact that authors were writing stories I actually wanted to read. The best way to say what I’m trying to say is that the cover of Beast turned me into a faithful reader.

THE BEST FILM POSTER OF ALL TIME

My aunt and uncle ran a movie-rental business near Cowtown, New Jersey, so when my family visited, my aunt would send me home with a few movie posters. Most of them were pretty lame--Cannonball Run II, Breakin’ 2, lots of bad sequels from the 1980s, apparently—but I’d tack them to the walls of my bedroom anyway, probably just to hide the holes I made from throwing stars, blowgun darts, and other contraband. Later on I worked for an advertising agency that did publicity for all the movie studios. I remember the poster for Relic being pretty cool; it was nothing but teeth and title. Of course, the poster for Big Trouble in Little China was awesome, featuring most of the key characters from what was a truly awesome flick—another winner from John Carpenter.

THE BEST BOOK I HAVE WRITTEN

So far, I’d have to say it’s Crawl on Your Belly All the Days of Your Life, my forthcoming novel. It’s shorter than most of the other novels I’ve written, but I love the story and the characters. My last novel, Burn, Beautiful Soul, was about demons in the literal sense, but this one is more about the metaphorical demons that drive many of us to make bad or irresponsible decisions. Crawl on Your Belly All the Days of Your Life has plenty of horror elements, but it also includes elements from other genres, like coming of age, suspense, and, I’m not ashamed to say, romance. Someone in my writers’ group described it as “a dark, disturbing, snake-filled version of When Harry Met Sally, and that seems pretty accurate to me. The novel does a good job of blurring those lines, so I’ve been describing it as dark literary fiction.

THE WORST BOOK I HAVE WRITTEN

I’ve written nine novels, dating back to 2001, but only five or six of them are publishable. The first one, as entertaining as it was to write, was completely derivative of the kinds of thrillers and horror novels I had been reading at the time—books from the likes of Peter Benchley and the tandem of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The writing was pretentious and silly and poorly punctuated, the characters were wooden, and the sex scenes were needlessly graphic. The monster was cool, though.

THE MOST UNDERRATED FILM OF ALL TIME

It's the complete opposite of horror, but I love the Richard Linklater trilogy Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight. They’re perfect examples of how good dialog can carry a story. Two characters spend long stretches of those movies doing nothing but walking and talking. I know that sounds deadly, but I love those sequences. Other favorites I would consider underrated: Big Trouble in Little China, Return of the Living Dead, The Warriors, and Godzilla vs. Hedorah.

THE MOST UNDERRATED BOOK OF ALL TIME

I’m taking “underrated” to mean a book I really loved but probably didn’t get the kind of exposure or marketing support you see from the larger publishing houses. Also, “all time” is a tough one, because I’m sure there are some amazing books I read years ago that I just can’t remember. So, with those guideposts in place, I’ll go with either The Broken Hours by Jacqueline Baker, The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht, or The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin.

THE MOST UNDERRATED AUTHOR OF ALL TIME

I’m not sure if either of them is underrated, but I really like Adam Nevill and Josh Malerman. Both of them really know their way around a sentence, and their stories are nothing short of immersive. I loved Malerman’s Bird Box and Malorie, and even A House at the Bottom of a Lake, which wasn’t quite horror, had me completely engrossed. Same with Nevill’s The Ritual.

THE FILM THAT SACRED ME THE MOST

I’m sure horror films have scared me more since, but nothing compared to the terror 10-year-old me felt watching Poltergeist. Joe Dante’s The Howling is probably a close second. I was a kid when I first saw it, but the film sticks with me to this day because of the viciousness and cruelty of the werewolves; visions of Eddie Quist in wolf form return to me when I’m doing overnight hikes in the mountains. Oddly enough, the thing that made me lose the most sleep was probably Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video. Not so much the dancing zombies, but more so Michael Jackson as the yellow-eyed monster that looks more like a werecat than a werewolf. Don’t ask me to explain why that freaked me out as much as it did.

THE BOOK I AM WORKING ON NEXT

I’m currently pitching an apocalyptic horror/sci-fi novel to publishers, and I’m on the third draft of a paranormal horror novel, which I hope to start pitching by summer. Hopefully, both novels will see the light of day in the next year or so.
MY CURRENT PROJECT

Best described as dark literary fiction, my new novel Crawl on Your Belly All the Days of Your Life crosses multiple genres, from horror and suspense to coming of age and romance. The novel follows Sid Carver, whose reckless decisions have left him without a family, without a career, without an identity. Then he meets Holly Tithe. They’re two very different people who don’t really understand each other, each dealing with the horrors of their past. She also doesn’t understand why he keeps an enormous python and a pair of vicious lizards in his living room. Just as Sid begins to envision a path toward reinvention, new obstacles—and new adversaries—stand in his way. One of them is a Neanderthal-like brute who has won Holly’s affections. As Sid’s darkest impulses take root, he must decide which role he wants to play in the life he has left—predator or prey.

Crawl on Your Belly All the Days of Your Life: A Novel
by William J. Donahue

Once blessed with everything he thought he ever wanted, Sid Carver finds himself on the verge of collapse. A string of reckless decisions has left him without a family, without a career, without an identity.

The dark clouds seem to part the day a woman named Holly Tithe moves into the apartment across the hall. He sees her as a “puzzle with missing pieces.” She sees him as a “broken toy” in need of mending. He cannot grasp her cosmic views on the nature of human existence. She cannot fathom why he keeps an enormous python and a pair of vicious lizards caged in his living room. Despite their differences, their lives quickly intertwine.

Just as Sid finds a possible route toward redemption, new obstacles block his path. One of them is a Neanderthal-like brute who seems to have won Holly's affection. As Sid's darkest impulses take hold, he must decide which role he wants to play in the life he has left—predator or prey.

William J. Donahue

William J. Donahue’s novels include Burn, Beautiful Soul, which won the horror category in the 2021 International Book Awards, and Crawl on Your Belly All the Days of Your Life, which comes out in April 2022. When he’s not writing fiction, he works as a full-time magazine editor and features writer. He oversees a monthly lifestyle publication serving the Philadelphia area, and he is on the editorial staff of a literary journal that celebrates the remarkable people, places, and history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He lives inside a small but well-guarded fortress in the Keystone State, somewhere on the map between Philadelphia and Bethlehem.

WEBSITE LINKS
https://wjdonahue.com
https://www.amazon.com/William-J-Donahue/e/B085RNJF18
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/756993
https://www.facebook.com/wjdonahuefiction