Author: Mary Kay Brayer

For a while now, one of our pop-culture obsessions has been with animated corpses. Whether it was The Walking Dead (I totally have a framed “Terminus” map behind my desk at my home in Atlanta, no joke), George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (I have always wanted to throw a Molotov cocktail), to the Game of Thrones Whitewalkers (don’t get me started), or even Jordan Peele’s Get Out, zombies are all around us.

Except, of course, those aren’t zombies. Those are ghouls. Even Romero insisted that people pleeeease not call his corpses zombies–that’s something different. Zombies originate in Haitian and voodoo culture, and in an oversimplified definition, they’re not resurrected corpses. Zombies (or zombis or zombiis) are not dead at all. They’re people whose actions are being controlled for them. The soul is IN THERE, but it has no agency.

Right here, right now, our theme is the zombie. By the way, you’re in The Fright Stuff, Book Riot’s weekly newsletter about the latest and greatest in horror. I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and I’ll be your Virgil through this realm of hell, the zombie.

Ear worm: “Black History Month” by Saul Williams. You might know this spoken word artist from the movie Slam, his performances on Def Poetry Jam (“Black Stacy” and “List of Demands), or his books of poetry, Said the Shotgun to the Head and Dead Emcee Scrolls. He’s amazing.

 

Race, Oppression, and the Zombie: Essays on Cross-Cultural Appropriations of the Caribbean Tradition by Christopher M. Moreman

This text is an anthology of essays that critique the presence of zombies in popular culture, and it’s a MUST if you want to learn about both the historical beliefs and practices around the zombie as well as how they have been articulated in the entertainment industry.

Hadriana in All My Dreams by Rene Depestre, Translated by Edwidge Danticat

Okay, first of all, Edwidge Danticat translated this novel into English, so that alone should be a raving endorsement. But, if you want to actually know about the book and not just go into it blind, here’s the deal: Hadriana is a beautiful Haitian girl engaged to a great Haitian boy. On the day of her wedding, she drinks a zombie potion by accident, and her wedding becomes, instead, her funeral. I can’t tell you anymore. I need you to read it and then @ me about it as you have strong reactions.

Tell My Horse by Zora Neale Hurston

Y’all know I won’t ever shut up about Zora Neale Hurston, but if you didn’t know (as I didn’t know until last year) that she was an anthropologist as well as a writer of fiction, well. I’m here to help with that. This book, though slammed in its time for not being wholly autobiographical or ethnographical, is a detailed account of when Hurston went to study Voodoo culture in Haiti and Jamaica, and when she underwent indoctrination as a priestess in the religion. I learned about it from her ethnography of oral tradition, Mules and Men, which I also highly recommend.

The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis

This book is a really interesting scientific perspective on the practice of making zombies. Wade Davis was a researcher charged with the task of isolating, documenting, and explaining the use of the “zombie powder,” or the drug that allegedly (though his sponsors did not quite believe in it) turned people into zombies.

 

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

This work of fiction (the film adaptation of which is pictured above) undertakes a very interesting concept: what if zombies were born, not made? What if there was a triggering event that turned normal children into zombies? It’s a fascinating idea about the apocalypse, and if you haven’t read the book, do that, and also watch the movie, which you can stream for free with Amazon Prime.

 

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

In this literary horror novel, after a viral pandemic has devastated civilization, armed forces and civilian “sweepers” are tasked with sorting the living from the living dead. As you can imagine, as with any apocalyptic scenario, things go horribly wrong.

 

 

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

This young adult novel is an alternate history in which the war between the states is derailed by walking corpses. Its protagonist is a young Black woman born to a white mother who is sent to a boarding and etiquette school to hone her fighting skills, out of legal obligation.

 

 

My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland

A high school dropout who lives with her alcoholic father survives a car crash without so much as a scratch… but that’s not the weird part. Angel craves brains. And she’s been called to a new job–unlike the dead-end ones from which she’s already been fired–at the parish morgue.

 

 

News:

And, do you want to know more about Black Women in Zombie Film & Television History? Check out this piece on Graveyard Shift Sisters (and go ahead on and subscribe to them because everything they publish is gold).

Want to know what the color “haint blue” means to the descendants of enslaved Africans? Read this article.

Check out this article on NPR by Matt Thompson of the CodeSwitch podcast, “Why Black Heroes Make Zombie Stories More Interesting.”

Here’s a fascinating historical look at the history of women’s illness and the power of naming it, “Of Womb-Furie, Hysteria, and Other Misnomers of the Feminine Condition” by Clare Beams

This excerpt from Something That May Shock and Discredit You comes from one of my favorite authors of horror, Daniel Mallory Ortberg. In this selection, he talks about transitioning and the end of The Golden Girls. 

Want to know about how the earliest crime scene investigators identified murder victims? Of course you do. 

And it’s never too late for a Victorian vinegar Valentine… right?

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this realm of hell, the zombie.

Until next week, you can find me on Twitter @mkmcbrayer and Instagram at @marykaymcbrayer, and I’d love to hear of what news I missed OR what topics you want to read about in the upcoming newsletters!

Your Virgil,

 

Mary Kay McBrayer
co-host of Book Riot’s literary fiction podcast, Novel Gazing

I had a friend once defend the guests on the Jerry Springer Show by saying, “Nu uh, that ain’t scripted. People do wild things for the people they love.” She was right, and that’s why love is such a common undercurrent in horror stories. I mean, I know that Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, technically, and not a horror show, but tell me you wouldn’t be horrified if you woke up to find that your daughter stabbed herself because you wouldn’t let her be with the bad boy.

And I’m not saying I’ve done that exact thing, but in defense of Juliet (and hell, even Romeo), who among us hasn’t done something they wish they hadn’t for an insincere jerk or two? As a veteran of jumping in feet first, let me forewarn all you novices: these violent delights have violent ends.

In case you didn’t know yet, or maybe it’s your first rodeo, you’re in The Fright Stuff, Book Riot’s weekly newsletter featuring the latest and greatest in horror. In honor of St. Valentine’s Day, this week’s realm of hell is a cautionary tale about the horrors of love. I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and I’ll be your Virgil through this realm.

Earworm: “Lilac Wine” by Nina Simone: “I made wine from the lilac tree, / put my heart in its recipe. / It makes me see what I want to see, / be what I want to be. / / When I think more than I want to think, / do things I never should do, / I drink much more than I ought to drink / because it brings me back you.” The best, creepiest love incantation I’ve ever heard, hands down. You might recognize it from the interlude during Beyonce’s Homecoming in “Drunk in Love.”

Fresh Hells (FKA new releases):

Verge by Lidia Yuknavitch

Not all the stories in this collection feature lovers, but the author herself has called it her “love letter to misfits, broken down people, broken hearted people, and those who live on the edge.” One story in particular, “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” is named after the Hieronymus Bosch painting for a reason–though the protagonist is obsessed with love and loving the young boy he works with, he continues to experience horrifying flashbacks of growing up with his mother. And of fish. It’s disturbing and delightful all at once.

The Country will Bring Us No Peace by Matthieu Simard, translated by Pablo Strauss

The couple, Simon and Marie, flee the city from grief. They try to re-start their lives, but the semi-ghost town they land in is too weird, too haunted, too clannish to incorporate them. The grief they want to escape instead consumes them. This short novella was recently translated from the French, and it’ll keep you rapt for its entirety.

 

You Have Never Been Here by Mary Rickert

This collection of uncanny stories is not exclusively about love, either, but each protagonist deals with their own fantastical yet distinctly human interactions with love. In “Memoir of a Deer Woman” for example, when the protagonist hits a deer on New Years’ Eve, it is her relationship with her husband that holds the reader’s attention as impossible events and repercussions unfold.

Who Killed Buster Sparkle? by John W. Bateman

This dialogue between a gender-fluid drag queen and a ghost with partial amnesia explores the intricacies of loneliness, love, identity, and time. It’s a compelling interaction of two unlike individuals seeking to understand each other in the setting of the deep south.

 

 

Crypt Keepers (FKA horrors from the backlist): 

Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I really can’t over-sell this book: it’s short, but it’s dense, too. When a thirteen year old girl is bitten by a rabid dog after being raised exclusively by the slaves of her family’s plantation, her father becomes convinced that she has rabies. She has strange ways, he notices, once he’s paying attention, and when none of the alleged cures work to cure her of them, he decides that she is possessed. While in her cell, the priest designated to exorcise the demon from her falls in love with her. You got to get this one. It’s the ultimate in horrific love.

The Cooper’s Wife is Missing: The Trials of Bridget Cleary by Joan Hoff & Marian Yeates

This work of nonfiction is based on the true story of Bridget Cleary in 19th century Ireland. When her husband became convinced that she was a changeling, he spared no expense to rid her body of the faerie, even when it came to torturing Bridget’s body.

 

The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones

In a fun genre crossover of horror movie and novel, this book toys with the tropes of the final girl. Billie Jean, the murderer in the Michael Jackson mask, plays with the meta-film archetypes in a figurative chess match with the homecoming queen, who stacks a team to defend herself against the killer. It’s a competition to see who can fulfill the role of the last final girl, and it’s loaded with pop culture allusions like “just a girl who thinks that I am the one.”

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

This coming-of-age story invokes the Chinese folklore of ghosts and the custom of “spirit marriages.” Li Lan has to choose between marrying a very much alive suitor whom she falls for HARD during the day, or choosing to marry the man that she visits in the Chinese afterlife at night, among ghost cities and vengeful spirits. (For more details on this book and other horror books by authors of color, check out this article.)

 

Now You’re One of Us by Asa Nonamni (Translated by Michael Volek & Mitsuko Volek)

This one is a newlywed horror novel–when our protagonist, Noriko, marries into a family full of idiosyncrasies, things get weird. Especially when a strange encounter with a man who rents from the family dies unexpectedly.

 

 

News:

Want to see Juliet’s tomb? You do.

And I know that I showed you The Edible Museum and Sarah Hardy’s beautifully sculptured chocolate hearts last week, but in case you missed it, you HAVE to go look at these anatomically-correct masterpieces. They are truly amazing. And follow The Edible Museum on Instagram, for posts about these specimens in their new habitats!

You thought “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins was spooky? This library has a book of actually poisoned wallpaper samples from the Victorian era.

On February 7, Shudder debuted their Horror Noire: Uncut podcast series, which features extended interviews from the acclaimed documentary!

Happy belated birthday to George Romero–be sure to enter the giveaway of his book.

For more horror reads, collaborations, or if you just want to ooh and ahh over some of the books listed here, be sure y’all follow me on Twitter @mkmcbrayer or Instagram at @marykaymcbrayer. And happy Valentine’s Day….

Go, girl. Seek happy nights to happy days.

Your Virgil,

 

Mary Kay McBrayer

Co-host of Book Riot’s literary fiction podcast, Novel Gazing

I don’t lend out books or pens because they almost never get returned, and nothing makes me want someone to go ahead and go die worse than not returning a book or a pen. (Another new pet peeve of mine is when I eavesdrop on strangers’ conversations and they are insufferably boring.)

Anyway, it turns out I’m not the only one who is super protective of their books–especially when they have all my notes and work in the margins. In medieval times, they protected their library books the old fashioned way, with curses.

But say you’re not a person who’s super territorial about books. There are other curses for you, from love potions to maybe just immortal life. By the way, you’re in The Fright Stuff, Book Riot’s newsletter on the latest and greatest in horror. I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and I’ll be your Virgil through this realm of hell, the curse. To paraphrase the Stephen Sommers’ iteration of The Mummy, death shall come on swift wings to whomsoever reads from these books.

Earworm: “St. James Infirmary” by Louis Armstrong.

Fresh Hells (FKA new releases):

The Necronomnomnom by Mike Slater and Thomas Roache

This beautiful cookbook features recipes all inspired by the eldritch horrors of H.P. Lovecraft. Even the title is modified from his legendary, cursed book of the dead, The Necronomicon. The foreword to this tome states that “if cooking is science, then eldritch cooking is alchemy, prayer, and sacrifice.” The book itself is gorgeously illustrated with images of the recipes/spells come to fruition, and scribblings of those driven mad by the curses gone awry decorate the margins in a way delightful to anyone familiar with H.P. Lovecraft’s work–this book is PERFECT for you if you’re a big fan of his, and you like to cook.

The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers, edited by John Edgar Browning

Speaking of Lovecraft, The King in Yellow is said to have been a major influence on his work. Essentially, this collection of stories is one of the prototypes for an entire genre of weird fiction, and the “cursed” aspect of it comes mostly from the story entitled “The Yellow Mark.” I’ll let you determine whether seeing it actually marks you forever. Also, this collection has been noted as bridging the transition from Gothic literature into the horror of the twentieth century, which is a pretty epic feat.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

This master of horror is at it again, and what an AWESOME title, right? Like, way to completely set up a horror novel that is also a deep social commentary about the mistreatment of indigenous people. The narrative follows four American Indian men after an ordeal in their childhood places them as a target for a vengeful entity. This novel is available for pre-order–and you know you’re going to buy it anyway, so go ahead on and help this author’s publisher know that WE DEMAND THIS LEVEL OF LITERATURE.

What Should be Wild by Julia Fine

This coming of age fairy tale novel features a girl who can kill or resurrect with a simple touch. When her father goes missing, she has to leave the world that has been constructed for her safety to find him–what she learns in the process features the family curse that gave her this double-edged gift.

 

Cryptkeepers (FKA as horrors from the backlist):

The Book of Speculation by Erica Swyler

This novel follows a family of cursed circus performers–for some reason, all the women in Simon’s life are great at holding their breath (like, circus-mermaid-level great), but generations of women have died by drowning, and always on July 24. Simon worries that his sister, who reads from a deck of never-smudged tarot for a traveling circus, is next in line.

 

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

My tried-and-trusty classic book about a family curse! If you haven’t yet picked up this iconic work, you absolutely have to. The master of magical realism, Gabo, writes about a family who endures a curse as a result of the patriarch’s murder. I’m definitely oversimplifying it, but that’s because you’re going to love it so, so much that I don’t want to spoil it for you. PLUS, there’s talk of Netflix adapting it for the screen soon.

“The Revenge of Hannah Kemhuff” from In Love and Trouble by Alice Walker

This was one of my favorite texts to teach in my ENGL 1102 class because of its ambiguity. After being slighted in a rations line during the Great Depression, Hannah Kemhuff’s life falls apart. She visits a root worker to seek retribution on the woman who denied her, in the form of a curse. Y’all are going to love this one–that is, if you, like me, are a sucker for a vigilante beat-down.

Madeleine is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

In this novel, the lovely Madeleine is horribly punished for a sexual encounter with a man in a French provincial village, and for reasons unknown, she falls into a prolonged sleep. In it, she dreams of the circus fantastical, the magical, and tries to distinguish between her waking and dreaming life.

 

News:

If you really love your S.O., you will buy them one of these edible hearts that are modeled after actual hearts and hand-painted to look STUPID realistic.

The mummified bodies of seven ancient Egyptian women from the time of Ramesses II were found to have tattoos.

Learn about Casa Figueroa, or “the cursed house” in Taxco, Mexico, named for all the horrors that happened in its walls.

Or if you’re headed to Bali, learn about this ghost palace that’s full of ghosts, curses, and corruption.

Shirley, a biopic of the inimitable author, Shirley Jackson starring the also-inimitable actress, Elisabeth Moss debuted at Sundance, and it’s seeking U.S. distribution.

Louis Vuitton’s new look book is based on sci-fi and horror novel covers!

It’s time for me to GTFO, but I sure hope you enjoyed this list of cursed books. If you end up chased by a vengeful entity and you need backup, you can contact me through Twitter or Instagram… but also you can just follow me and we can share great horrors with one another. Until next week…

Your Virgil,

 

Mary Kay

In the long-ago time before social media, my college roommate wrote all her favorite lyrics and quotes on index cards and taped them to her side of the dorm. When her sister visited, she said, “No one is EVER going to read all of that. Unless you die.” My roommate laughed, and I said back, “Or maybe if you killed someone?”

I realized much later, when I was studying nonfiction in my MFA program that it’s really hard to make someone GAF about your true story. Much nonfiction leaves readers wondering, so… what? But there’s something about crime and creeps that makes us need to know more. I personally need to know all that shit so I can avoid it, but I also, like, can’t NOT know. It’s not so much the voyeuristic secondhand adrenaline as the WAIT WHAT WHO NOW impulse that has me read biographies, especially those with the element of horror. By the way, you’re in The Fright Stuff, Book Riot’s weekly newsletter about the latest and greatest in horror. I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and I’ll be your Virgil through this circle of hell, Horrific Biographies.

Earworm: “Bad Girls” by M.I.A.… live fast, die young, bad girls do it well.

Fresh Hells (FKA New Releases):

Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Dery

This biography of the eccentric author and illustrator is not straight-up horror: it more so shows how the author conceptualized the horrors from his pseudo-children’s books like The Gashleycrumb Tinies, The Doubtful Guest, and The Hapless Child. If you love learning about the childhood and inspirations of your horror icons, you’ll really like this book.

Little: A Novel by Edward Carey

Edward Carey calls this book a “fictionalized biography,” but it reads like a novel, and I mean that in a good way. So often, biographies lose the human condition for the sake of facts, but that’s not the case at all with this book. It’s based on Marie Tussand, of the Wax Museums. You, like me, probably associate the wax museum with kitschy tourist traps, but it started out as the exact opposite: the wax museums were a way that art preserved the history of the French Revolution, and Marie, or “Little,” as they call her in the book, because of her jarring appearance, is the one who kept it going. I know you’re thinking, but where is the horror? UM, DID YOU KNOW that she cast the heads of the aristocrats beheaded by the guillotine? And that’s not even the most harrowing of it….

Magnetized: Conversations with a Serial Killer by Carlos Busqued, translated by Samuel Rutter

Though this book is not exactly a biography, it definitely paints a vivid picture of the real-life serial killer in Buenos Aires, Ricardo Melogno. The author visited Melogno in prison and interviewed him, and in this mixed-media book which includes everything from newspaper clippings to Santeria indoctrination, you’ll start to fear the “something dense” that Melogno says inhabits him. Seriously, from the jump, the actual epigraph about magnets and their currents, I was like… yo, I don’t know if I’m gonna make it through this one–y’all know that demons are in my trifecta of shit I can’t handle! (I should mention that this one is only available for pre-order in English, but if you are a Spanish speaker, GET IT NOW.)

Crypt-Keepers (FKA horrors from the backlist): 

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston

Though this biography does not have the goal of scaring its readership, everyone with a conscience will be straight shook. Zora Neale Hurston (whom you may know from Their Eyes Were Watching God or Tell My Horse) authored this book decades ago, but the tale of the last “Black Cargo” was only published in 2018. It’s based on the interviews she conducted in 1928 with Cudjoe Lewis, the last presumed living survivor of the Middle Passage.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

This novel chronicles the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, fictional personage who, though he has no body odor of his own, can smell literally everything. He fixates on an odor that he follows through the smelliest place on earth, the fish market of Paris, where he finds a beautiful woman. Grenouille spends the rest of his life trying to manufacture scents–even objects that have no smell, like glass–in order to recreate the scent of that woman. It’s a story of true obsession, art, and overall horror.

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson

This book is one of Shirley Jackson’s memoirs, but I think it counts here. You probably know her work from We Have Always Lived in the Castle or The Haunting of Hill House, or even “The Lottery,” and she’s certainly well known for her slow-burn terror. This book, though, illustrates motherhood as though it is a horror movie.

 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

When I was studying creative nonfiction, they called this book “science nonfiction,” which is just a way of rebranding… call it what you will, this book is genius. It documents Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman who noticed that something was wrong and went to the doctor, where she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, and a sample of her tumor was taken without her consent. If you have not yet read this book, then you are doing yourself a disservice.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

Caitlin Doughty writes of her own life in this book, from her obsession with death when she saw a child fall through an atrium in a mall as a child, herself, through her training in mortuary science. This book takes it upon itself to destigmatize death through the story of her life, and while it is definitely fascinating, it is also wildly uncanny for anyone unaccustomed to the subject matter.

Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

Oh, my love, Frida. I’ve been obsessed with her and her surrealist art since I was in high school, fell in love with the biopic starring Salma Hayek in college, and have just been poring through this biography since then. The Julie Taymor film was based loosely on this biography, but in case you are unfamiliar with her work, Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter in the 1930s and 1940s, and she painted works inspired by her life. From the trolley accident that rendered her infertile through her miscarriages, marriages, and love affairs, this book shows the horrors that the artist endured.

News:

Preliminary nominees for the Bram Stoker Awards are listed here!

Mardi Gras designer finally credited.

Did you hear that Netflix is dropping a new show called Murder House Flip… which is exactly what it sounds like?

Memorial installed to commemorate victims of the European witch hunt.

This tweet from author and translator of Aladdin, Yasmine Seale shows “the fish glue, leather and other substances that made up Arabic and Ottoman manuscripts appealed to insect appetites.”

Want to know why the devil came to Salmon Street? Check this shit.

Visit Qumran National Park in Israel to see where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered!

Want to hear about the whistleblower of one of the most horrific experiments of all time, the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment? Read this article, which goes in depth about why medical whisteblowers are so rare.

In case you missed the drama about American Dirt, here’s Book Riot’s TLDR version.

That’s it. I hope you’ve enjoyed this tour through the hell of horrific biographies. As always, please follow me or send your recommendations on Twitter or Instagram.

Your Virgil,

 

Mary Kay
TW: @mkmcbrayer
IG: @marykaymcbrayer

This one time I wore a blue cape to teach my English composition class–you read that right–and as my students all fell silent to add the “so what” to their thesis statements as instructed, I heard one woman whisper, “You look like a Black Snow White.” Another whispered back, “No! She looks like A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.” In the sitcom version of this story, I leap onto the podium and announce “I AM DOING EVERYTHING RIGHT.” In real life, however, because I cared a lot about that job, I just grinned wildly because even though there are MANY new stories being greenlit, this generation is one of remakes… and despite my ambivalence, a horror story retold or re-imagined, especially for inclusion, is the bomb.

(I should mention that I am neither Black, nor white, nor Iranian, as my students’ comparisons implied, but as an Arab person in the south, sometimes these ethnically ambiguous representations are as close as we get. Case in point: my unbridled childlike enthusiasm of Tom Cruise’s remake of The Mummy featuring A GIRL MONSTER WHO ONLY WANTED POWER, and then, of course, immediate disappointment that the narrative was literally and inexplicably hijacked by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde… this is why we can’t have nice things: Tom Cruise.)

So with no further preamble, this is The Fright Stuff, Book Riot’s weekly newsletter about the latest and greatest in horror. I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and I’ll be your Virgil through this circle of hell, the remake.

The Thing about Hell is It’s Eternal (FKA, I meshed “new releases” with “backlist classics” because that is the nature of the remake)

The Turning by Henry James

This collection was re-released in tandem with the upcoming fill The Turning, based loosely on “The Turn of the Screw” and ghost stories by Henry James. This Christmas ghost story (never too late, always the season, et cetera) is one narrative that founded the motif of, Is it a ghost, or is it a hallucination? If not being able to trust your own mind wasn’t scary enough, it also has evil kids involved, which, as you might remember, is the worst kind of scary for me personally.

The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman

If you haven’t already picked up this novel, I need you to go ahead and do it. Though this book is not a remake itself, it does focus on remakings as a trope of our generation, and how the subjects of those horror stories do. not. like. that. It makes total sense that a witch and her daughter would haunt the shit out of anyone who misrepresented their story, right? I mean, I would do that, given the chance.

Medusa’s Daughters by Theodora Goss

If you like the Gothic, and I assume you do, because here you find yourself, you’re gonna love these showcase pieces from various female authors during the fin de siècle. Theodora Goss, Victorianist and author of horror and speculative fiction books, edits these long-lost and long-loved stories and poems. You’re gonna love it!

 

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, Edited by Carmen Maria Machado

If you’re making a list about remade horror, you can’t NOT include Carmen Maria Machado’s edit of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic novella–not only is it easier to read than the original translation, but its footnotes and introduction frame it in a way that you’ve never seen before.

 

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

I guess technically most people wouldn’t classify The Odyssey as horror, but hot damn does it have a ton of monsters and murder and war to not be scary af. Not to mention the 12 maids of Penelope that Odysseus and Telemachus hang to death for consorting and conspiring with the suitors… so, maybe Odysseus wouldn’t have considered the mass murder of the suitors horror, but Penelope does, and this re-envisioning of the Classic myth, told in both verse and prose, depicts the perspective of the wise yet vulnerable Penelope. Just wait until she runs up on her maids in the Underworld. Or when she runs into Helen.

The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi

Though the title suggests this novel–Oyeyemi’s first, in fact–would reimagine the story of the boy flying too close to the sun, this book deals more with the hyphenated identity (Nigerian-English) of a little girl, Jess. When she falls into uncontrollable screaming fits, her mother takes her to Nigeria for a visit. The book more-so remakes the idea of the doppelgänger or double, because when Jess meets her new friend Tillytilly, playdates get real scary.

News:

A monument honoring reporter Nellie Bly is coming to New York.

Forget a solid gold toilet–in the 18th century, toilets and entire bathrooms were designed to look like books.

And don’t forget about this forgotten Subway entrance, the historical marker of the Shakespeare Riots, which were a real thing.

In case you want to know about cursed films, a documentary series on many of them (directed by Jay Cheel) will debut at SXSW! And if you’re not going to that festival, it will be on Shudder soon afterward!

Stephen King has clarified his Tweet about diversity and quality, in case you haven’t heard.

Want to know the real killer who inspired the play, Arsenic and Old Lace? Here you go.

The Edgar Allan Poe House is Maryland’s first literary landmark.

The Romantic poets made punny nicknames for each other… and Lord Byron used to call William Wordsworth “Turdsworth.”

Are you, too, tired of coffeehouses that don’t look like Victorian Bordellos? Then you should check out the Raven Cafe in Port Huron, Michigan.

And see about this project, Women in Translation, which is translating horror literature!

If I missed important things, don’t forget to get at me (or follow me) on Twitter @mkmcbrayer or Instagram @marykaymcbrayer. And if you need more literary reads, check out Book Riot’s new podcast that I co-host with LH Johnson, Novel Gazing. Until next week, y’all be careful about whose stories you tell, and how you tell them.

Your Virgil,

 

Mary Kay

A tiny part of me always wonders if the world is going to end at the end of the new year. I’ll never forget celebrating New Year’s Eve 2000 as a middleschooler with my grandmother and first cousins, and as my dad hugged me bye, he saw my anxiety and said, “You know the world’s not going to end, right? At least, not because of Y2K.”

I’d be lying if I gave that one incident credit for my persistent anxiety about facing my own mortality at any random moment without the ceremony of a countdown and champagne toast, but, like, that didn’t help. So, in this edition of Book Riot’s horror newsletter, The Fright Stuff, we’re going to celebrate the New Year with books that feature the apocalypse and post-apocalyptic worlds. I’ve tried to steer away from the obvious, like “Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and I hope to introduce you to some new books and stories you’ll give a shot. I mean, this is the time of year for doing new things… we aren’t promised tomorrow, after all. I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and I’ll be your Virgil through this circle of hell. Here it comes.

From Lars Von Trier’s 2011 film, Melancholia.

Ear worm: “Idioteque” by Radiohead–Who’s in a bunker? Who’s in a bunker? Women and children first.

Fresh Hells: (FKA new releases)

“Fallow” by Sofia Samatar in Tender 

This short story–though not very short–is one of the best, most fascinating things I read in 2019. It’s a part of the collection, Tender, which retells fairy tales and reimagines common tropes in our popular culture. This story focuses on the group of fundamentalist Christians who leaves Earth at its destruction and starts a colony, which it names “Fallow.” I don’t want to tell too much about this one, but trust that it is amazing, and you should buy this whole collection as soon as you get your 2020 money right.

American War by Omar El Akkad

This novel is also one of my favorite recent reads–I got it on audiobook, and because my mind wanders sometimes, when I tell you the voice-acting is IMPECCABLE, Oh my God, believe me. I never got confused, even in long sections of stacked dialogue. This book takes place after America’s second Civil War, and it’s set in the American South. One thing I loved about this book is how political it is without being divisive about contemporary issues, AND that its star and protagonist is a young multiethnic girl who is not particularly beautiful. She’s just straight-up awesome. You’re gonna love this book.

Cryptkeepers: (FKA backlisted favorites)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

No list about the end of the world would be complete without this Pulitzer-prize winning bomb by one of my favorite authors, Cormac McCarthy. When I taught gifted middle schoolers this book–yes, that is a real thing that I had the delight of doing–in a class about the end of the world, not only did they ask to keep reading, but they were fascinated by how much information the narration relays in such minimalist style. The thing I think it captures best, though, is how humanity falters for the sake of our hierarchy of needs, even when the most important thing to its protagonist is another human–honestly, the reason the end of the world is scary is not particularly the world itself, but the end of our human civilization and our relationships. That’s what this book focuses on: not the end of the world itself, but its repercussions.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

This dystopia is set in 2024 in Los Angeles, when global warming has brought drought, rising sea level, and a hard divison between the middle class and those who are homeless. It’s told through the journal entries of a fifteen-year-old girl who lives in one of the gated communities. This one, like pretty much all of Octavia Butler’s writings, is a classic.

 

News:

In the 1890s, these female students of anatomy embroidered their spooky yearbook.

One apocalyptic fresco at the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Montenegro has caused particular controversy.

Here’s a first look at Lovecraft Country, HBO’s supernatural horror series by Jordan Peele.

FANGORIA has a new online horror column called “Joe Bob Goes to the Drive In”–and if you already subscribe, it’s free to read online!

Check out this article about Black horror, and Candyman in particular, on Graveyardshift Sisters.

The Modern Language Association wrote this piece about “scare quotes.” (See what I did there? (It’s a joke all the way down!))

That’s it from me, y’all. The world is laying low right now in the wake of the doom that didn’t happen. If you like what you read here, though, please do give me a follow on Twitter as @mkmcbrayer or Instagram as @marykaymcbrayer and absolutely please let me know of any horror news I missed! Talk to you next week, if next week happens.

Your Virgil,

 

Mary Kay McBrayer
Co-host of the literary fiction podcast, Novel Gazing

Much as I want to identify with the princess or maiden, the time has come to accept that I more so fit the Crone archetype of the fairy tale. It’s mostly because every time I see a little kid, I want to steal it and squeeze it… or because I get mad when someone is prettier than I am. And don’t get me started about owning a gingerbread house to fatten up kids running away from evil stepmothers. That’s just how crones be.

The crone is just ONE of many characters present throughout fairy tales, though… and since we’re in such a mood of retellings right now, this week, we’re going to talk about fairy tale horror! You’re in The Fright Stuff, by the way, Book Riot’s weekly newsletter featuring the latest and greatest in horror, and I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, your Virgil in this ring of hell. Follow my breadcrumb trail, and let’s talk scary fairy tales!

Earworm: “Once Upon a Dream” (originally from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty) covered by Lana Del Rey. I really just feel like this is the way the song was suppose to sound.

Fresh Hells (FKA New Releases):

Disfigured by Amanda Leduc

If you love fairy tales, but you were the type of little girl (like me) who was pissed when the beast turned into a prince at the end, this book is for you. Amanda Leduc talks about the ways in which disability is represented in fairy tales, and how usually the disabled characters are the villains. I loved this book, and I can’t recommend it enough.

 

Tender by Sofia Samatar

This entire collection of short stories retells fairy tales, urban legends, and folklore from new perspectives. I’ve mentioned “Fallow” in previous newsletters, but other stories of hers incorporate the ideas of Selkies, folklore from the Far- and Middle East that escapes the western canon, and even what it’s like to live in the African land of witches. Don’t miss this book.

Timothy Schaffert’s column in Enchanted Living, “The Lesser Periwinkle:The Love Potions of Lady Wilde, Mrs. Whiskeyman, and Other Local Witches”

I am unabashedly obsessed with this author’s writing, but hearing the love potion process from the collective perspective of some Weird Sisters is a huge draw for any horror fan. Especially with lines like, “the more a cure hinted at danger and perversity, the more authentic it seemed. Love is mercurial enough to be best situated in the witch’s dominion.” YIKES. But also, YES.

Cryptkeepers (FKA horrors from the backlist): 

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

If you’re not already familiar with Helen Oyeyemi’s style of writing, you are definitely in for a horrific and delightful treat. This novel retells the story of Snow White–loosely, though. Very loosely. It’s whimsical and gritty in the exactly right formula for a lover of dark fairy tales.

 

The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror by Daniel Mallory Ortberg

Despite its subtitle, the short stories collected in this book are anything but “everyday.” From a re-imagining of the Frog Princess to my personal favorite, “The Rabbit,” these stories proudly make children’s stories horrific. (I really cannot overemphasize how terrifying “The Rabbit” makes its predecessor, The Velveteen Rabbit. That story alone is worth the reading of the whole book. Y’all. I am serious.”

There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

I taught this collection of Soviet-Era banned short stories to my World Literature class, and at large they were both stunned and enthralled. Like many folk- and fairy-tales, they seem like allegories, and one section of the collection is labeled as such… but like horror stories, the analogies do not work on a one-to-one ratio. This collection is a fascinating mixture of magical realism and horror.

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me edited by Kate Bernheimer

This anthology of fairy tale retellings includes everything from “A Day in the Life of Half of Rumplestilskin,” which takes place after he gets so mad at the queen for guessing his name that he tears himself in half, to a retelling of the lesser known “Donkeyskin,” called “The Color Master” by Aimee Bender, in which our protagonist has to make a dress the color of the moon. Each story is magical and disturbing, and if you like this anthology, next you should look at the literary journal that Kate Bernheimer edits, The Fairy Tale Review!

News:

Gretel & Hansel drops at the end of this month! I’m super excited to watch those kids try not to get eaten. What a fun and horrific take on this witchy tale… before this film adaptation, my favorite interpretation of the story focuses on the food, in Helen Oyeyemi’s Gingerbread. 

If you’re wondering why the protagonists of horror films seldom have disabilities, you’re not alone. Katelyn Nelson writes about ableist horror in the movies Hush and The Furies, and you can find her tweeting about more dope analysis here.

What exactly qualifies as “treasure?” And what does that term imply, according to this coroner? 

Check out this Lithuanian water ghost statue entitled ‘Juodasis Vaiduoklis’ (‘The Black Ghost’) based on local lore.

The Indie Next List for January is now available!

Read about 7 of Scotland’s standing stones that may or may not transport you back in time. (My mom is obsessed with the Outlander series, and I sent this post to her immediately.)

And if you want more fairy tales, check out this post that I wrote for Book Riot’s Read Harder challenge, which lists ten fairy tale retellings by authors of color!

As always, I’m definitely in the market for horror recommendations, so if you know of some writings that are based on fairy tales, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me on Twitter at @mkmcbrayer or Instagram at @marykaymcbrayer.

I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and until next week, y’all remember: don’t go into the woods, and don’t take apples from crones.

Your Virgil,

 

Mary Kay

I don’t know if y’all know this or not, but it used to be a tradition in England to tell ghost stories on Christmas Eve. Now, I love America and most of what we stand for, but of all the shitty traditions that we continue to perpetuate… ghost stories on Christmas!? That’s the one that should stick around (pun intended). I guess we can just blame its absence on the Puritans? 

I digress. The only Christmas ghost stories that I could think of were the obvious ones, like A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (which, also, are y’all as excited as I am for that new FX/BBC One miniseries adaptation? LET’S DO IT, JACOB MARLEY. RATTLE THOSE CHAINS, SON!) and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. You may notice that both of these are written by old, dead, white guys. Most of the Christmas ghost stories are written by old, dead, white guys, since the tradition is old, dead, and white.

By the way, I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, your Virgil on this journey, and this is The Fright Stuff, Book Riot’s weekly newsletter about the latest and greatest in horror. This week’s theme is the Christmas Ghost Story!

Earworm: “Arabesque Cookie (Arabian Dance)” by Duke Ellington–this whole album is my favorite spooky, jazzy Christmas album. Like, at any moment, I expect a goblin in a sequin gown to exhale smoke in my face and start trimming the tree.

Fresh Hells: (AKA New releases)

Darkly: Black History and America’s Gothic Soul by Leila Taylor

In this cultural study and history, Leila Taylor, the Creative Director at Brooklyn Public Library details how the Gothic culture, which is largely associated with England (as you’ll see in this list), permeates Black American culture. It’s such an important book, especially because the Christmas ghost story should be for EVERYONE, and historically, not very many of those stories have been published by authors of color. (That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, though, as you’ll see in this gem!)

Hark! The Herald Angels Scream edited by Christopher Golden

This collection of horror stories with a Christmas theme features short works by many contemporary authors. They elaborate on tropes like the untying of Jacob Marley’s head bandage and the concept of Yankee Swap.

 

 

Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror & Speculative Fiction by Lisa Kroger and Melanie R. Anderson

Though this book is more so an anthology of women writers in horror, it’s this book from which I first learned of the Christmas ghost story tradition. (Sometimes it takes someone pointing out a trope for us to notice it, even though it’s been there all along.) They list MANY women authors in this text, and several of them are/were writers of the Christmas ghost story.

Connie Willis’s “Adaptation” from Miracle and Other Christmas Stories

Though these stories are not exactly straight-up horror, they blend science fiction with fantasy in a delightful reading experience. Who doesn’t love it when two of the ghosts from A Christmas Carol meet? And who doesn’t want to know what happens when they find EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT under the Christmas tree? They’re ominous, and they’re delightful.

The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand

This book is a fun YA retelling of A Christmas Carol, but instead of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, the protagonist is a spoiled teenage girl. The ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future try to warn her of what will happen, but she doesn’t listen. And then she dies.

 

Cryptkeepers:

“Christmas in the Beach House” by Eliza Lynn Linton (anthologized in The Valancourt Book of Christmas Ghost Stories)

This is one of the authors whom I learned of through Monster, She Wrote, and am so grateful to have done so! This story in particular has a supernatural bent, and is set on the Cornish coast, but the entire collection (three volumes, now!) anthologizes rare Victorian Christmas ghost stories that were collected from periodicals published at the time.

Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell

Unlike her predecessor and influencer, Ann Radcliffe, who explained away supernatural hauntings in the natural–for example, it’s not a ghost, just a stalker!–Gaskell’s stories feature bona fide ghosts. This collection groups many of them together so that you can choose your favorite to read around the fireplace as you wait for Santa to slip down the chimney and try to avoid those embers.

News:

I won’t lie: I don’t feel great about this list being predominately white folks and men, so basically ALL of the news is going to counterweight that!

Razzouk Ink in Jerusalem has been tattooing religious pilgrims for 700 years. Another amazing tradition!

It’s not just Christians around Christmas who love ghost stories. Everyone loves ghost stories. Here are some traditional ghost stories from Malaysia!

Check out this interview with M. Lamar and Leila Taylor about the long history of Afrogoth. It’s SO cool!

And because I can’t resist… have y’all seen the trailer for Rose Glass’ writer-directorial debut, Saint Maud from A24? It is SO SCARY.

That’s it, everyone. It’s time to go overeat with family and celebrate the birth of the Christ child with some spooky stories! I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and if you want to LiveTweet about that A Christmas Carol miniseries with me, follow me on Twitter and Instagram!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!

Your Virgil,

Mary Kay

Like Danny Castellano said on The Mindy Project, “I fear the ocean out of respect.” But also, I respect the ocean out of fear. Do you know what is under all that water?! NO. YOU DON’T. NO ONE DOES. That’s the whole reason behind that one side of Romanticism, right? (I’m talking Poe, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats… all those.) Nature is incredible! And also, terrifying!

Because it is now The Bleak Midwinter, this week’s newsletter is themed around The Elements. Though I’m focusing largely on winter, I’m including other elements and extreme weather, too… I’ll do my best to forego the obvious like Moby Dick and The Shining because, after all, this is a NEWsletter, and even though The Cold is my ultimate nemesis. (How can anyone conquer the world when she can’t feel her extremities?)

By the way, you’re in The Fright Stuff, Book Riot’s weekly newsletter about the latest and greatest in horror. I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and I’ll be your Virgil through this circle of hell, The Elements.

Ear Worm: “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” by Missy Elliott… I can’t stand the rain.

Fresh Hells (FKA “new releases…”)

The Deep by Alma Katsu

Part history and part fiction, this book tells of the Titanic’s supernatural goings-on, and how a man who could not have survived its sinking appears to a nurse who did survive. What happens on the Britannica, the Titanic’s sister ship, which has been refitted as a hospital ship because of the world’s war, is horrific and foreboding.

 

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

When snowfall cuts off the northern community of Anishinaabe and food supply dwindles, a survivor from the crumbling southern communities arrives and escalates the tension of surviving amid sickness and chaos.

 

 

Wake, Siren: Ovid, Resung by Nina McLaughlin

This novel retells the stories of women in Ovid’s myths from their own voices–stories of seductresses from the deep and women cursed into monsters because of the jealousy of other women. In this book, we hear what it’s like to flee the odysseys of rapists and oppressors through those same famous storms.

Crypt Keepers (FKA horrors from the backlist)

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

In this YA crossover novel, global warming has all but eradicated humanity, and North America’s indigenous peoples are being literally hunted. Their marrow contains something the rest of the world has lost: they still have the ability to dream. It’s a story of survivalism among cascading failures.

 

 

The Revenant by Michael Punke

You might be familiar with the AMAZING film adaptation that is “based in part” on this novel AND a true story. You know it’s well-done when it makes you cold just looking at it, right? But anyway, this novel, subtitled “A Novel of Revenge,” focuses on Hugh Glass, a fur trapper left for dead by his crew after he’s injured in a bear fight. That’s right: a bear fight. He literally crawls to avenge his death. It’s DOPE. And according to Jim Carrey’s Grinch, when Cindy Lou Who asks him, “What’s the true meaning of Christmas?” it’s “VENGEANCE.” Who am I to disagree?

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Faulkner is the king of the southern gothic, which makes him kind of a jerk, but this book, y’all, it’s so fantastic. It’s one of my first loves. The matriarch of a family dies in the heat of the summer while her son builds her coffin. Her husband insists on burying her with her people in Jefferson, and that means the whole family must travel with the corpse through the heat and the washed out bridge. It’s disgusting. You’re gonna love it.

News:

This maritime museum off the coast of North Carolina showcases sperm whale skeletons… and calls itself Bonehenge. I didn’t include Moby Dick in the list, but if you’re into that kind of thing, Bonehenge is definitely your party.

Real-life places living on the edge. As in, impossible-seeming locations for buildings.

Did you know that some ships keep sailing even after they sink? I DIDN’T.

Want to learn about Israel’s Stalagmites, and what they say about climate change? (Plus, these pictures are amaaazing.)

“They” is Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year. Party.

But, look at this weird and problematic explanation/misunderstanding of the source material regarding Dracula‘s new adaptation.

Goodreads Choice Awards Winners have been announced. See how your favorites fared!

Still shopping for the horror fans on you Christmas list? Check out this roundup. Or this one, written by your very own Virgil herself.

All right, they’re giving me the light. Y’all stay warm out there… the Bleak Midwinter is upon us. I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and you can follow me and my horrific bullshit on Twitter and Instagram if you need more of that… and if you know of titles I’ve missed, I’d love to hear them! Until next week…

Your Virgil,

Mary Kay

I don’t know about where y’all are at in the world, but in Atlanta, December marks the beginning of Robbin’ Season. It’s the time of year when all the packages on your front porch go missing, package stores get knocked over, and people raise hell in big box chains on Black Friday. Though the phrase has been around for a long time, the FX TV show Atlanta coined it with its second season, and in particular the truest Southern Gothic horror episode, “Teddy Perkins.”

In honor of Robbin’ Season, this week’s circle of hell centers on noir and crime in horror–by the way, you’re in The Fright Stuff, Book Riot’s weekly newsletter about the latest and greatest in horror. I’m doing my best to skirt around the obvious choices like Silence of the Lambs and The Amityville Horror because if you don’t know about those… well, what have you been doing? Anyway I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and I’ll be your Virgil. Y’all gone need a guide for this one. It’s Robbin’ Season.

Earworm: “The Werewolf” by Paul Simon… “Milwaukee man led a fairly decent life, / Made a fairly decent living, had a fairly decent wife. / She killed him ah, sushi knife / Now they’re shopping for a fairly decent afterlife.”

Fresh Hells: (FKA “new releases”)

Cutting Edge edited by Joyce Carol Oates

Ooh, I have been WAITING to tell y’all about this collection! You know your girl loves some noir and femme fatales, for SURE, but this collection is ALL written by women, and they are a far cry from your typically smart-mouthed well-heeled dame. In this post for Book Riot I piece it apart more, but you should know that it contains stories by Livia Llewellyn and Edwidge Danticat that will leave you both horrified and empowered… what!? He shouldn’ta been talking shit!

The Quelling by Barbara Barrow

I’ve always felt like the line between noir and horror is blurred (like the line between sci-fi and horror), but this novel is firmly situated in BOTH. Like, it LIVES in the Venn diagram’s overlap, y’all. It follows two young girls from the violent crime they commit as children into the residential mental health facility where they undergo a bizarre treatment called “the quelling,” and into their adulthood as beautiful, still violent young women. It’s amazing. You’re going to love it.

Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud

You might know this one from its adaptation by the same name, but this collection of six short stories/novella will have you dreading bar fights not just in themselves (because OMG what an awkward exit, am I right?), but their supernatural repercussions, as well. That’s just ONE example of the crime and horror overlap in this collections. And if you like this book, try his North American Lake Monsters, too… for a more monstrous “reinvigoration” of the horror tradition!

Crypt Keepers: (FKA great reads from the back list)

Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones

So… if y’all have watched Mindhunter (I have. All of it. Twice. And a half.), the Atlanta Monster has been unearthed in your awareness of true crime. This book, though, depicts the tragedies of those serial child killings in a less true crime way. In fact, it depicts the nebulous fear that Black children in Atlanta had at the time, from three perspectives. I mentioned before that I live in Atlanta, on the west side, where a lot of these abductions actually happened, and it was so scary to read off street names that I could literally walk to as the place where a child was last seen. I know I’m scared when involuntary tears spring into my eyes. It’s actually a really frustrating misrepresentation of what I’m feeling… same shit happens when I get really mad. Like, whose call was that when evolving human emotional responses.

Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

Ah, your good-ol’-fashioned B & E! Plus home invasion. Plus some truly Greek decision-making skills. I’m getting ahead of myself: a huge stranger convinces a little girl to let him and a group of others into her family’s vacation home because “your dads won’t want to let us in… but they have to. We need your help to save the world.” From there, tension builds through this tale of “paranoia, sacrifice, apocalypse, and survival.”

Big Machine by Victor Lavalle

Hot damn. The publisher blurb on this novel is spot-on for the theme of this newsletter, but to elucidate: a survivor of a suicide cult who is also addicted to heroin receives a call to adventure. A band of petty criminals and former addicts need him as a paranormal investigator. I love it when these genres overlay so beautifully–y’all got to check this one out right away!

News:

Want to know the linguistics of how New Jersey Italian gangsters turned “capicola” into “gabagool?” Check out this awesome article.

Here’s a true tale of crime and horror: this man killed his wife and wrote a novel about it, and no one knew.

Cover of Paul Tremblay’s new book, Survivor Song just revealed.

What makes the set of The Good Place look like… the Bad Place? Or not? Check out this interview with the set designer while you eat your Fro-Yo.

In other cinematic/adaptation news, a Train to Busan sequel release date has been announced. Go ahead on and pass the tissues, am I right? Aside from Bride of Frankenstein, this is the horror movie that had me crying like a cartoon where the tears just bust straight out from your eyes.

And if you’re still looking for more horror-themed holiday gifts, check out Quirk’s mystery Horror for the Holidays gift box. And a few other titles that we love have gift packages available from them now, too!

National Geographic answers the question Who is Krampus?

These cuneiform artifacts (in case you don’t remember, cuneiform is the first written language) are making their way home to Iraq after a century in the U.S. For reference… Hammurabi’s Code is written in cuneiform. This is a big-ass deal, since lots of historical museums operate under the “finders-keepers-losers-weepers” unwritten rule. I mean, it is, after all, Robbin’ Season.

I hope you enjoyed your travels through this circle of hell. I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and I’ve been your Virgil. For more tours through more hell, come follow me on Instagram and Twitter. Till next week, y’all stay safe out there. It’s Robbin’ Season.

Your Virgil,

 

Mary Kay