For a certain generation of American, a lifelong love of reading began with surreptitiously perusing an older relative's Stephen King paperback as a curious, too-young kid during the '70s. It seemed like there was one in every house, the haunted kid or skull or creepy manse beckoning from the cover on the coffee table or the back of the toilet, too intriguing for an imaginative youngster to resist. And once we were hooked, the next decade and a half offered seemingly endless options while the horror-novel boom kicked off by the likes of Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist and The Other — and sustained by the King of pop lit — ran its course.
In Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction (Sept. 19, Quirk Books), author Grady Hendrix (Horrorstör, My Best Friend's Exorcism) delves lovingly and exhaustingly into this particular past pop-cultural phenomenon with humor, style and an almost unsettling breadth of knowledge. Focusing mostly on the paperback originals industry, Hendrix covers 20 years' worth of lurid covers, plot trends and obscure titles, beginning with the social factors that set the stage for mainstream America's brief but intense obsession with horror fiction and running through the genre's ignoble return to the shadows.
The book is divided into themes most horror-novel fans will find familiar: "Hail Satan," "Creepy Kids," "When Animals Attack," and the like. All of the "big names" in gothic and horror fiction are covered, from John Saul to V.C. Andrews, and the pages are chock-full of those wonderfully creepy covers, with detailed notes on some of the genre's most talented, prolific and noteworthy artists.
Perhaps the best thing about Paperbacks from Hell is the voice of its author. Hendrix is quite obviously a fanboy, and his historical details and cultural references are liberally augmented by jokes and asides — his lengthy bits on ways folks might avoid having a demon baby of their own, and on "Parenting the Homicidal Child" if it's already too late, are alone worth the price of admission. Come for the art, but stay for the text, which is always entertaining and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. This big, thick trade paperback is a must-have for any serious horror-lit fan, and could well be the book that beckons the next generation of hardcore readers from the coffee table.
This article appears in Oct 12-19, 2017.