“You shouldn’t try to base a pattern or a cycle on just two times. Maybe not even three, or five. Wait until it repeats and repeats some more, right? Then you can say what a cycle even is: it starts here, it ends there.” – Stephen Graham Jones, I Was A Teenage Slasher
July is here, and the “There & Back Again” tour has officially ended. I had such a blast reading at Hop Leaf on Tuesday—many, many thank yous to Erin and Andrew for the invite. The other readers were great, and I met a whole bunch of people I only know from Bluesky. Meeting your internet friends who happen to be your neighbors irl? It rocks. I also walked there, a good 30 minute walk from my house. Maybe a little sweaty when I arrived, but very worth it. Especially walking home at night. This year has been filled with walking through super cool city neighborhoods—Pico Union, Koreatown, Harlem, Bed Stuy, downtown Portland—but nothing beats Andersonville, man.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
A book that I picked up not only because it’s one of my favorite authors, but for research purposes. Brendan and I are writing a slasher for this year’s Lazy & Entitled Fiction Project, and we realized we couldn’t think of many books written from the killer’s perspective. Ours is alternating narrators as the story unfolds, this is a slasher typing a confession recollected in tranquility on a keyboard that barely works. This is a book that twists the slasher formula in a fresh-as-guts-you-just-carved-open way. I’m talking, of course, about I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones.
I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones: why do slashers kill people? The Halloween idea that Michael was simply pure evil is intriguing, but gets a little “what are we doing here” after too many movies1. Friday The 13th leans on revenge, yes, and also goes into supernatural territory, with Jason’s many resurrections from drowning. Ghostface changes every movie, and has a variety of motivations, but revenge is almost always a major factor. Revenge is absolutely a factor here: our teenage slasher, Tolly Driver, is handling the death of his dad by doing a lot of drinking and puking in other people’s pools. In response, the popular kids (marching band kids, twist) strap Tolly to a pool chair and force-feed him a rum and Coke. Bummer for Tolly, the Coke has peanuts in it, and he’s allergic to George Washington Carver’s work. While Tolly is tied to a chair, nearly dying from casual teenage cruelty? Last year’s actually dead victim of casual teenage cruelty, Justin, has risen from the grave and is murdering the perpetrators. As the other kids are fighting off Justin, he gets cut, and some of his blood gets in an open wound of Tolly’s.
That’s the conceit: Tolly becomes a slasher because he got infected by another slasher’s blood. From there, people begin falling into prescribed genre roles, even if it’s against their character. Tolly is a not bad enough guy to really have murder in his heart—no more than the rest of us, anyway—and the times when he gets his killing on are almost described like a werewolf transformation. His victims fall into genre-cliches: a gay guy has sex with a girl minutes before Tolly kills them, two kids go skinnydipping in a stock tank2. This is a welcome fresh take on the slasher/final girl who knows they’re in a slasher novel, especially coming on the heels of three Jade Daniels novels. It’s as if a movie script is infecting a group of kids, which is also fitting for how out-of-control being a teenager feels. It’s not all meta jokes, though—the kills are gross enough to rival In A Violent Nature (which you could totally syllabus this book with).
There’s always a Final Girl twist: which I won’t spoil here. The Final Girl is no Jade Daniels—who possibly could compare?—but she’s cool as hell and a worthy entrant into such a storied role. If you’ve never read SGJ, I recommend starting with The Only Good Indians or The Indian Lake Trilogy. If you’re already an SGJ fan, enjoy the hell outta this one.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? Let’s get all the millennials dancing this Friday, here’s JER covering “Killer Tofu.”
- I’m reading Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy later this year, and really enjoyed Will Jones’ essay on Fangoria about Annihilation and cosmic horror.
- Hey look, it’s my friend: Chloe N. Clark with “The First Chimp in Space Was Only Known as 65 Until He Survived” in Ecotheo Collective.
- It is a little surprising that Allison Williams has gotten to be such a horror star, a little unsurprising that she has trouble watching the genre herself, and very cool how much she still respects the genre. I thought she ruled in Get Out and M3GAN. Interesting interview on the heels of M3GAN 2.0 with Rocco T. Thompson in Fangoria.
- Let’s do a longer story, here’s That Dude Indra Das with “Here Comes Your Man” in Tasavvur.
- A book that looks appealing to all the horror sickos—don’t tell Brendan and Ashley, but this might be a Christmas gift. Amber T in Fangoria with the story about the upcoming MAKING MONSTERS by effects artist Howard Berger (whose credits include Jennifer’s Body, Army Of Darkness, and Drag Me To Hell) and journalist Marshall Julius.
What’re you still doing here? Don’t you know that Micah and Brendan have a show? Plus, this week is a special episode—not only are they kicking off Season Two, but Micah really cooked up something wonderful after listening to Burgers Or Tacos? Maybe the greatest action that my music has ever inspired anyone to. Dude, Micah? They are one of kind. It’s great making new friends.
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Also, consider picking up a Stephen Graham Jones book. That dude knows how to write the working class with heart. He’s always talking about never imagining being anything other than a farmer or warehouse worker or housepainter or whatever, and based on his writing? I believe him. World needs plenty of laborers, people who work with their hands are heroes. I am glad we live in the book where SGJ is writing books. The worker’s revolution needs its poets, and SGJ is one.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris
- cards on the table: I’ve seen Halloween 1 through Paul Rudd, plus the McBride/Gordon Green ones. The sequels start to run together, but the only ones I didn’t really like were 5 & 6. I started the first Rob Zombie one 15 years ago and quit within five minutes, but Brendan says I should try again, so I will eventually ↩︎
- the tank that holds the water that pours into cow’s troughs, remarkably unsanitary to skinnydip in ↩︎