Paperbacks from Hell

An affectionate, nostalgic, and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of the 1970s and ’80s Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of two iconic decades . . . if you dare. Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs! Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate! Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby . Complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles, this unforgettable volume dishes on familiar authors like V. C. Andrews and R. L. Stine , plus many more who’ve faded into obscurity. Also included are recommendations for which of these forgotten treasures are well worth your reading time and which should stay buried.

One of SFFWorld's Best of the Decade

“Pure, demented delight.”—*The New York Times Book Review

“Paperbacks from Hell *is as funny as it is engaging.”*—The Washington Post

“The book is a true appreciation of the genre.”—Los Angeles Times

“Just thumbing through these pages will bring back your youth—and terrify you all over again.”—Newsday

• “A loving examination of lurid pulp book covers from the 1970s and ’80s.”—Atlas Obscura

“Paperbacks from Hell *is as wild as its source material.”—The A.V. Club

“[Paperbacks from Hell] will delight anyone with an interest in horror, design illustration, or the macabre.”—Print Magazine 

• “A nostalgic treat.”—Playboy Online
• “You may find yourself trying to stock up on old titles so you can get your fill of gloriously trashy scares.”—Bustle

*“[Hendrix's] love of the genre shines through as he pokes gentle fun at some of the era's more entertaining reads, and speaks with genuine appreciation of other titles whose horrors stand the test of time.”—*BookRiot

*More praise for Grady Hendrix:
“National treasure Grady Hendrix follows his classic account of a haunted IKEA-like furniture showroom, Horrorstor (2014), with a nostalgia-soaked ghost story, My Best Friend’s Exorcism.”—The Wall Street Journal, on My Best Friend’s Exorcism

“Horrorstör delivers a crisp terror-tale...[and] Hendrix strikes a nice balance between comedy and horror.”—The Washington Post, on Horrorstör

“Terrific... Sharply written... [My Best Friend’s Exorcism] makes a convincing case for [Hendrix’s] powers as a sharp observer of human behavior.”—The A.V. Club, on My Best Friend’s Exorcism

“Hendrix’s darkest novel yet will leave readers begging for an encore.”—Booklist, starred review, on We Sold Our Souls

“Campy. Heartfelt. Horrifying.”—Minnesota Public Radio, on My Best Friend’s Exorcism

“An inventive, hilarious haunted house tale.”—Bustle, on Horrorstör
 
“Clever, heartfelt, and get-under-your-skin unnerving.”—Fangoria, on My Best Friend’s Exorcism

“A good, creepy, music-tinged thriller.”—CNET, on We Sold Our Souls

Autorentext

Grady Hendrix

Klappentext

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires comes an affectionate, nostalgic, and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of the 1970s and '80s

Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of two iconic decades . . . if you dare. Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs! Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate! Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby. Complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles, this unforgettable volume dishes on familiar authors like V. C. Andrews and R. L. Stine, plus many more who've faded into obscurity. Also included are recommendations for which of these forgotten treasures are well worth your reading time and which should stay buried.

Zusammenfassung
Celebrating the weird, gory, freaky, amazing horror fiction of the 70s and 80s. With vintage art, hilarious commentary, recommended reading, and poignant creator biographies.

Leseprobe
Introduction

Years ago at a science-fiction convention, I was flipping through the dollar boxes at a dealer’s table when this Hector Garrido cover for The Little People brought my eyeballs to a screeching halt. I wasn’t a book collector— I didn’t even know who Hector Garrido was—but I knew what this was: the Mona Lisa of paperback covers. I bought it so fast my fingers blistered. I never expected to actually read the book . . . but three months later, I fished it out of my “To Be Read” pile and cracked it open.
     I knew John Christopher’s name from his Tripods science-fiction series, which had been serialized as a comic strip in the back of Boys’ Life magazine. But this 1966 Avon novel was stronger stuff. In it, a gorgeous secretary inherits an Irish castle from a distant relative and converts it into a B&B to show her patronizing lawyer/fianc. that she can stand on her own. On opening weekend, the house is full of guests: an Irish dreamboat alcoholic, two bickering Americans with a hot-to-trot teenage daughter, and a married couple who met in a concentration camp, where he was a guard and she was a prisoner.
     But some uninvited guests are lurking in the basement: the Gestapochauns.
     The Gestapochauns live in the dark, battling their ancient rat enemies with teeny bullwhips. Shortly after we meet them, the author lets us know that these are not just any Nazi leprechauns. These are psychic Nazi leprechauns who enjoy S&M, are covered with scars from pleasure/pain sessions with their creator, were trained as sex slaves for full-sized human men, and are actually stunted fetuses taken from Jewish concentration camp victims. And one of them is named Adolph.
     While all this information is being hosed into the reader’s eyes like a geyser of crazy, this book rockets from 0 to 60 on the loony meter and overdelivers on practically every level. From the moment the Gestapochauns play a mean practical joke on the old Irish washerwoman who works in the kitchen to the moment that the lawyer/fianc. realizes exactly what the Nazi leprechaun named Greta is up to in his pants, it’s one fifty-page freakout that’s firing on every cylinder.
     Sadly, the Gestapochauns are completely absent from the last thirty pages of the book. The author devoted the remaining pages to a discrete psychic battle that takes place in the dreams of the non-psychic, non-Nazi, non-leprechaun members of the cast. In other words, the Boring People. Yet Christopher and his Gestapochauns fly so high and so far in those middle passages that they practically touch the sun.
     No matter what book I read next, the Gestaopchauns clung to my gray folds, whisperin…