The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

I was a huge fan of his Swamp Thing comic books, particularly the American Gothic run, which is where he takes Swamp Thing on this road-trip across the US. But I really enjoy taking something that has become familiar and a little shop-worn, and trying to rediscover what was scary about it in the first place.Ī lot of it goes back to Alan Moore. What I’m intentionally trying to do is pay my mortgage. Are you intentionally trying to work through and rewrite the entire horror canon? But, speaking of your brand, How to Sell a Haunted House is another book in which you tackle an existing horror formula either through parody, deconstruction, or redeployment. It’s on brand.Ĭompared to The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, it slips off the tongue. Grady Hendrix: You mean ridiculously long and no one will remember it? I agree. There is a sense, though, that Hendrix is ready to wear his own heart a little more visibly.ĮSQUIRE: Hi Grady, congratulations on How to Sell a Haunted House. We talk about performances and masks of many kinds. When Hendrix joins me via Zoom from his home in New York City, he’s as ebullient as ever. It features demonic puppets, invisible dogs, and good old skeletons in the closet. What follows is classic Grady Hendrix: an authentically frightening, genuinely funny reconfiguration of what a haunted house can be. When clearing out the house, however, they find that some things do not want to leave. The novel follows Louise and Mark, estranged adult siblings forced to work together to sell their childhood home following their parents’ sudden death. Now, in How to Sell A Haunted House, he’s taking on perhaps the most fundamental horror tradition of all.

Horror can say directly what mainstream culture tries to say obliquely.” “I really like people,” Hendrix says, “and I like horror, because it’s not boring.

Each may sound like satire, but the irreverence-like the white suit and skull combo-is camouflage for a deeper interest in human drama.

In a decade of writing, Hendrix has toyed with haunted homeware stores ( Horrorstör), demonic possession ( My Best Friend’s Exorcism), satanic pacts (We Sold Our Souls), vampires ( The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires) and the slasher movie ( The Final Girl Support Group).

He has a penchant for the quirky title and a creative spin on classic tropes. Cooking My Way Through the Stephen King Cookbook.

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix