{"id":162657405,"date":"2025-07-04T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=162657405"},"modified":"2025-07-03T19:38:53","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T00:38:53","slug":"friday-links-horror-in-july-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=162657405","title":{"rendered":"Friday Links: Horror In July Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
“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<\/span>, right? Then you can say what a cycle even is: it starts here<\/span>, it ends there<\/span>.” – Stephen Graham Jones, I Was A Teenage Slasher<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

July is here, and the “There & Back Again” tour has officially ended. I had such a blast reading at Hop Leaf on Tuesday\u2014many, 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\u2014Pico Union, Koreatown, Harlem, Bed Stuy, downtown Portland\u2014but nothing beats Andersonville, man. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What I’ve Been Reading This Week: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A book that I picked up not only because it\u2019s one of my favorite authors, but for research purposes. Brendan and I are writing a slasher for this year\u2019s Lazy & Entitled Fiction Project<\/a>, and we realized we couldn\u2019t think of many books written from the killer\u2019s 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\u2019m talking, of course, about I Was A Teenage Slasher<\/em> by Stephen Graham Jones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I Was A Teenage Slasher <\/em>by Stephen Graham Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I Was A Teenage Slasher<\/em> by Stephen Graham Jones:<\/strong> why do slashers kill people? The Halloween<\/em> idea that Michael was simply pure evil is intriguing, but gets a little \u201cwhat are we doing here\u201d after too many movies1<\/a><\/sup>. Friday The 13th<\/em> leans on revenge, yes, and also goes into supernatural territory, with Jason\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s allergic to George Washington Carver\u2019s work. While Tolly is tied to a chair, nearly dying from casual teenage cruelty? Last year\u2019s 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\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the conceit: Tolly becomes a slasher because he got infected by another slasher\u2019s 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\u2014no more than the rest of us, anyway\u2014and 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<\/a><\/sup>. This is a welcome fresh take on the slasher\/final girl who knows they\u2019re 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\u2019s not all meta jokes, though\u2014the kills are gross enough to rival In A Violent Nature<\/em> (which you could totally syllabus this book with).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s always a Final Girl twist: which I won\u2019t spoil here. The Final Girl is no Jade Daniels\u2014who possibly could compare?\u2014but she\u2019s cool as hell and a worthy entrant into such a storied role. If you\u2019ve never read SGJ, I recommend starting with The Only Good Indians<\/em> or The Indian Lake Trilogy. If you\u2019re already an SGJ fan, enjoy the hell outta this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LINKS!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something to listen to while you browse? Let’s get all the millennials dancing this Friday, here’s JER covering “Killer Tofu.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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