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Set in the present day, The Living Dead is an entirely new tale, the story of the zombie plague as George A. Romero wanted to tell it. It begins with one body. It spreads quickly. In a Midwestern trailer park, a Black teenage girl and a Muslim immigrant battle newly-risen friends and family. On a US aircraft carrier, living sailors hide from dead ones while a fanatic makes a new religion. In DC, an autistic federal employee charts the outbreak, preserving data for a future that may never come. We think we know how this story ends. We. Are. Wrong.
Hello Phantoms and Phantasms, I’m Jessica Avery and I’ll be delivering your weekly brief of all that’s ghoulish and grim in the world of Horror. Whether you’re looking for a backlist book that will give you the willies, a terrifying new release, or the latest in horror community news, you’ll find it here in The Fright Stuff.
Horror has a stunning capacity for hope. In the midst of the darkest of fiction genres, which makes its living on terror and dread, I have often found more cause to hope – and more reminders of the power of hope – than in any other genre I have read. Which is probably why I refused to put down Paul Tremblay’s Survivor Song, even though it wrecked me emotionally and petrified me with its eerie prescience about life in pandemic America.
You’ve probably heard of Survivor Song by now. I wasn’t joking about its almost prophetic vision of what we’re all now living through, and that – combined with the fact that Tremblay is an amazing storyteller with a merciless ability to wring every last emotion from his readers – pretty much guaranteed that the book would be a hit. But what I loved most about Survivor Song, and why I insisted on finishing it, was its prevailing sense of hope even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. What we’re living through right now? This sucks. The grief, the fear, and the uncertainty are universal. As with the rabies-like virus ravaging the northeastern US in Survivor Song, COVID-19 feels like an invisible monster that we’re trying to fight with our hands tied behind our backs. Honestly, clowns with red balloons are starting to feel like a cake walk
(Sorry, Pennywise.)
But what are our options, really? Stop fighting? Just sit back and hope the monster doesn’t eat us? Hope the virus doesn’t kill our friends and loved ones but well it’s not like there was anything we could do? Ramola and Natalie in Survivor Song don’t have that choice. Natalie is nine months pregnant, and infected. The clock is ticking, and you can feel its inevitable countdown in the breakneck pace of this book. There is no giving up – there’s only fighting through this thing. Together. With determination, love, and hope. We grieve together, we stick together, and we remember one of the most vital lessons horror has ever taught us: monsters were made to be defeated, and all nightmares end.
We aren’t going to come through this unscathed. We’ve lost so much already and our whole world has been changed. And in the meantime, we all have our ways of getting by. Me, I find that horror helps. It reminds me what we can do, what we’re capable of if we are willing to be brave and try. Horror is a genre about survival. It’s fundamentally hopeful. That’s something Tremblay conveys beautifully in Survivor Song – and something I desperately needed a reminder of at the time. Maybe you need reminding too.
Stay safe, creatures of the night. I love you.
Upcoming Releases
Crossroads by Lauren Hightower
If early reviews are to be believed, Crossroads promises to be an amazing read. Chris’s son died in a tragic car crash, and the loss nearly destroyed her. But when a drop of her blood falls on his roadside memorial and her son’s spirit starts to haunt her, Chris has to decide if it’s really him or something darker. She has to decide if seeing her son alive again is worth the risk of coming face to face with the unknown.
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses
Tender is the Flesh paints a gruesome picture of a world in which all animal meat has been rendered poisonous to humans, and human meat has replaced it on the menu. Marcos works in a meat processing plant after the “Transition”, quantifying his work in numbers and consignments to keep from thinking about the truth. But when he receives a live specimen the lines Marcos has drawn begin to blur as he finds himself treating her more and more like a human being instead of a hunk of meat.
Weird Women: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers: 1852-1923 edited by Leslie S. Klinger and Lisa Morton
In this new anthology, award-winning anthologists Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger have combined the works of those late-19th and early-20th century authors that remain legendary today, like Louisa May Alcott or Charlotte Gilman-Perkins, with those that were the bestsellers of their day but have yet to receive the contemporary recognition they deserve. Included are tales of terror about haunted houses, ghost stories, ancient curses, demonic dimensions, and more!
Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones
Given how much I loved Stephen Graham Jones’s The Last Final Girl, I’ve been so hyped for his forthcoming September release: Night of the Mannequins. A simple revenge prank devolves into a night of mayhem and violence for a group of teens a their fun is interrupted by an evil unknown. Is it a malevolent supernatural force? Or a psychopath on the loose?
Fresh from the Skeleton’s Mouth
This fantastic article from Vanity Fair about Black storytellers in horror includes a sneak peak at the new novel author Tananarive Due is currently working on: The Reformatory.
Blunt magazine has an interview with Claire C. Holland. If you haven’t read the poetry collection they’re discussing in the interview, I Am Not Your Final Girl, definitely consider adding it to your fall TBR. It’s so good. Seriously.
Becky Spratford announced on Twitter that the 2020 Horror Writers Association’s 4th Annual Librarian’s Day is moving all the delicious horror fun online this year! It will be a free event, and there’s an amazing line-up of authors and librarians who’ll be participating. For more information on how to watch and/or participate check out the updated event information over at RA for All.
Over at Books in the Freezer they’ve compiled a list of horror titles for August’s Women in Translation month.
As always, you can catch me on twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening.