 House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski was scary, in parts, but what I really dug about it was how unsettling it was and how realistic it felt—somehow the idea of a house with an interior that goes on possibly forever strikes a chord inside me. I have a friend who won’t allow the book in her house. THE FIRST HORROR BOOK I REMEMBER READING Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Still creepy all these years later! I loved the gruesome pictures in it even more than the stories. THE FIRST HORROR FILM I REMEMBER WATCHING A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. I watched them all out of order but Freddy scared the hell out of me as a kid. Sleep was supposed to be a refuge—here was a demon man who used it to kill you! It seems cheesy now, like most things I loved in the 80s, but at the time I liked the idea that you could give yourself a super power in a dream to fight evil. THE GREATEST HORROR BOOK OF ALL TIME I was tempted to go with IT or The Dark Tower by Stephen King, but then I remembered that I Am Legend by Richard Matthewson exists (published in 1954) and it really kick started several viral strains of what is now modern horror, including my favorite genre: post-apocalyptic alcoholism. THE GREATEST HORROR FILM OF ALL TIME We have a dead tie: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Thing (1982, John Carpenter version). Patton Oswalt has a great bit on how The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a great title because it paints a picture in your head and your sense of dread grows with each word. The Thing has all the ingredients I love about a good horror movie or story: isolation, distrust, madness, weird shit suddenly happening. THE GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Chapter 11 in Part Four in The Idiot is one of the great horror endings. Crime & Punishment was one of the first and perhaps still is the greatest murder thriller of all time—a book that I’ve read three times and have felt a feverish excitement each time through. Classic Russian lit can definitely be stuffy, dense, and at times boring, but they do reward a patient reading. THE BEST BOOK COVER OF ALL TIME The original first edition cover of The October Country is creepy and unique. Bradbury was lucky to have several great, intriguing covers for his work. THE BEST FILM POSTER OFF ALL TIME It's hard to beat Jaws for its raw, simple power. That swimmer is about to have a really bad day. THE BEST BOOK I HAVE WRITTEN Perhaps it’s And the Hills Opened Up, my only horror-Western. There’s something so strange and primal about that book that I now look back at it and wonder exactly where it came from. “When the Dennison Mining Company tunnels too far, a bloodthirsty creature is set loose upon the isolated mountain town of Red Earth, Wyoming. If a reluctant alliance of outlaws, miners, misfits, and whores cannot stop the Charred Man, everyone in Red Earth will be dead by morning.” My new novel Claw Heart Mountain has the tightest plot and one of the creepiest settings. THE WORST BOOK I HAVE WRITTEN It was a literary novel called The Cobalt Legacy. It was about a young man who inherited a castle in America (turns out there are more than you’d think) and a legacy of family violence. I wrote it right after 9/11 while a senior in college studying abroad at the University of East Anglia. The book just never found its legs and it helped me gradually realize I was never going to be a fancy “literary” author like F. Scott Fitzgerald. I tend to learn more from my lesser, unpublished books than the relative few that see the light of day. THE MOST UNDERRATED FILM OF ALL TIME There’s a movie called Last Night (1998) that Wikipedia calls a “Canadian apocalyptic black comedy-drama film”. I haven’t seen it in a long time, but I remember loving the bittersweet tone and feel the movie captured as the world ended. It got me thinking about non-obvious apocalyptic narratives and perhaps planted the seeds for the suicide plague in my first novel . . . THE MOST UNDERRATED BOOK OF ALL TIME I don’t know what books are rated, much less know the all-time rating stats, but a book I love that could use more attention is Girls by Frederick Busch. It's a literary thriller about a 14-year-old girl who disappears and the brutal experience of a Vietnam vet named Jack who is searching for her in upstate New York. Fred Busch visited when I was in grad school at Hamline University and I was lucky enough to interview him about this book, which had a profound effect on me, and I also had a whiskey with him. He died a few months later, suddenly, at 64. This was back around 2005-2006 and I still think about him. I’d just sold my first novel, The Suicide Collectors, and he told me never to believe the good reviews because then I’d have to believe the bad. This turned out to be great advice. THE MOST UNDERRATED AUTHOR OF ALL TIME I misread this question as “The Most Undeterred Author of All Time,” which would be an even better title to hold. I won’t name any names, but I’d like to give a shout out here to every creative writing student I ever taught who really loved writing and who understood that thoughtful constructive criticism was a truly valuable gift—they didn’t waste time pouting, they got right to work on the next draft. They understood that writing is a grind. THE BOOK THAT SCARED ME THE MOST House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski was scary, in parts, but what I really dug about it was how unsettling it was and how realistic it felt—somehow the idea of a house with an interior that goes on possibly forever strikes a chord inside me. I have a friend who won’t allow the book in her house. THE BOOK I AM WORKING ON NEXT I’m working on a horror-thriller set outside of Decorah, Iowa. The challenge I set myself for this book is a lack of supernatural elements. Human beings can be monsters all on their own. THE BOOK I AM PROMOTING RIGHT NOW My new novel Claw Heart Mountain was just released by CamCat Books. It is a horror-thriller set on an isolated mountain in Wyoming. On their way to a remote mountain cabin, a group of college friends discover fifteen million dollars in an abandoned armored van. They take the money, unaware that a killer is after the cash and a legendary creature called the Wraith haunts the mountain. Soon they must fight for their lives. A fun coda for this book: my previous agent told me he didn’t think he could sell it. We parted ways soon after and I found a new agent who sold it to CamCat Books and now here it is, lumbering into the world against all odds and getting generous reviews. Yar! CLAW HEART MOUNTAIN |
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