Review - Paperbacks from Hell

Bullied and feeling like an outcast during all of my high school years in the late '90s, I fell in love with the horror novels. I was already reading R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike, and dozen of other YA thrillers by the time I started reading Stephen King novels in junior high. While I was still reading King during high school, I later fell in love with  Anne Rice's erotic vampire tales, John Saul's creepy paperbacks, and Clive Barker's bloody stories.

The horror novels were popular throughout the '70s and '80s, but the genre became a dead market in the early '90s. The only place to find horror paperbacks were at used bookshops and thrift stores. Over the years, I have collected a small library of horror paperbacks by many great authors, such as Charles L. Grant, T.M. Wright, Jere Cunningham, John Farris, Jack MacLane, and Brian Lumley.

Early last year, I read an article on Bloody Disgusting that Valancourt Books were going to be reprinting long out-of print-horror books from the '80s that appeared in Paperback from Hell by Grady Hendrix (co-authored with Will Errickson). Naturally, I was curious about what this Paperback from Hell (Available on Paperback and Kindle!) was about, so I did a little research. The nonfiction title, published by Quirk Books in 2017, is about the twisted history of the '70s and '80s horror fiction, which features many gorgeous (and creepy) covers. At the time, I was strapped for cash, so I waited until the end of October to order the book. Coincidentally, Kindle placed the eBook on sale on November 1st. Not wanting to pass up a bargain, I ended up getting the eBook.

While I've looked through the book countless times since getting it, I didn't sit down to read it from beginning to end until this past weekend.

It all begins with a short introduction by Grady Hendrix and followed by a prologue, where we get a glimpse of what the horror market was like before the 1970s.

Chapter One: Hail, Satan is all about the devil, demons, and the occult. A few of the titles featured are Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, The Other by Thomas Tryon (read my review here), The Sentinel by Jeffrey Konvitz, and The Night Church by Whitley Strieber.

Chapter Two: Creepy Kids is about the devil & demons possessing children, and little homicidal maniacs, such as The Omen novels by David Seltzer and Gordon McGill, Spawn by Shaun Hutson, and Childgrave by Ken Greenhall.

Chapter Three: When Animals Attack features animals of all kinds that like to feed on humans! A few of the titles featured are Jaws by Peter Benchley, The Rats by James Herbert, Dog Kill by Al Dempsey, and The Folly by David Anne.

Chapter Four: Real Estate Nightmares is all about middle-class families buying big houses for cheap prices, but there's a small catch - these homes are haunted, such as The Amityville Horror sequels by John C. Jones, The Woman Next Door by TM. Wright, the Devil series by William W. Johnstone, and The Searing by John Coyne.

Chapter Five: Weird Science begins with Robin Cook's medical thrillers (Coma, Mortal Fear, etc.) and then ventures into weird territories with Slime by William Essex, Psychic Spawn by Ryder Syvertsen and Adrian Fletcher, and the Earth Has Been Found by D.E. Jones.

Chapter Six: Gothic and Romantic - Gothic horror was resurrected with Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire and V. C. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic in the late '70s. Many other Gothic and vampire tales were published throughout the '70s and '80s, such as Dracula in Love by John Shirley, Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin, The Amulet by Michael McDowell.

Chapter Seven: Inhumanoids takes us into the strange world of skeletons, mummies, and vengeful native spirits. A few of the titles featured are Wait and See by Ruby Jean Jensen, Feast by Graham Masterton, Skeleton Dancer by Alan Erwin, and Berserker by Frank Spiering.

Chapter Eight: Splatterpunks, Serial Killers, and Super Creeps take us into the mid-'80s and into the early '90s, where satanic music invaded horror stories with Strange Fright by Garrett Boatman and The Kill Riff by David J. Schow. Thanks to Clive Barker's Books of Blood short-story collection, extreme gore became a thing in the horror genre, which was dubbed the name "splatterpunk" by David Schow. Serial Killer novels, like Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris became bestsellers, just as the horror market died, the market for teenagers was still a hit throughout the '80s and '90s with Dell's Twilight series, Bantam's Dark Forces, R. L. Stine's Fear Street and Goosebumps series, and Christopher Pike's thrillers.

The book ends with a short epilogue with a never-before-published Les Edwards cover for The City, a selected creator and publisher biographies section, and an afterword "Recommend Reading" by Will Errickson (TooMuchHorrorFiction.blogspot.com).

Final Thoughts

Paperback from Hell is a horror lover's wet dream! Horror authors and artists worked their butts off to give us gory, bizarre, and frightening tales that were mostly ignored by the critics and media upon their releases. There were a few big hits, such as Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, and everything written by Stephen King, but most of the titles featured in this book have been long forgotten in the public eye.

Overall, I had a blast reading Paperback from Hell and admiring all the amazingly freaky covers that are featured it. I, for one, am hoping Grady Hendrix and Will Errickson will put together a second volume, as there are many other horror authors and artists that weren't featured who all deserve recognition.