Persy’s Reviews > Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction > Status Update

“If every haunted house is built on the site of a terrible crime, the crime that The Amityville Horror rests on may be child abuse.”

“Today, we think of ourselves as responsible stewards of this big blue ball called Earth, but literary evidence suggests we’re just suckers. Given the chance, nature will turn on us in a heartbeat. This is one issue on which carnivores and vegetarians must stand united: we must eat nature, or nature will eat us.”

“[James] Herbert had revealed a great truth to aspiring horror novelists that would guide British horror books for the next twenty years: human beings are delicious, and England is full of them.”

“Since time immemorial, humankind’s greatest natural predator has been the clown. Stephen King terrified readers with Pennywise in It (1986), but that was centuries after most mammals had learned to flee in terror at the sound of floppy shoes.”

“If Whitney Houston is right, and the children are indeed our future, then we need to approach our future with maximum caution.”

“The terrifying truth about childbirth is that carrying the fetus to term is merely the first step on the long road to having your house to yourself again. Every fetus eventually turns into a child, and, as so many wise men and women in the horror paperback industry know, terror toddles on two chubby legs.”

“The horror of these books is that Satan always wins. Just look at the world. The evidence is everywhere.”