When I was a kid, The Wonderful World of Disney had this Halloween special in which they showed the scariest parts of Disney movies. Mine was the Disney version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Did you have that experience? What was the first thing that really scared you? I think a lot of authors have these seminal childhood experiences in which we saw something or read something that seared itself into our psyche. It’s too big of a swing and I’ll likely embarrass myself in the process.īut Jaws had a huge impact on me. I’d love to write a Jaws -esque thriller about something big with lots of teeth lurking under the water and munching on swimmers, but I probably never will. I had so much fun coloring outside the boundaries I’d set for myself with my previous books. When writing it, I knew it was going to be polarizing and that I could lose some longtime readers-which, unfortunately, I probably did-but creatively, it was worth the risk. My last book, The House Across the Lake, went full-on supernatural in a way I hadn’t done before. It then becomes a tricky balance of growing and expanding as an author, keeping your publisher happy, and not alienating those wonderful readers who’ve been with you since the very beginning.
You’re allowed to widen that lane every so often, but not too much. But there’s definitely this unspoken rule in the publishing world that once you establish yourself in a particular lane, you should stay there. RS: Well, I would love to read a Grady Hendrix “thriller,” because I know you’d put your own distinct spin on it.
In a world where your books or Silence of the Lambs can be sold as either horror or a thriller, and where Toni Morrison’s Beloved doesn’t get sold as horror at all, I think those genre boundaries are largely in the eye of the beholder.Īnd they cut both ways: I know people who won’t touch something marketed as “horror,” even as they hope someone reboots “Hannibal,” and I know some horror-heads who stay away from thrillers because for a while those were overly identified with Gone Girl. I recently pitched something that got rejected because it was a “thriller” and they wanted to sell my next book as “horror,” so clearly I’m no good at telling the difference. thriller really feels like more a marketing department concern than something I’m too focused on when I’m writing. For example, I know lots of people who claim to not be into horror but read-and love-your books. Since you also blur genres, combining horror with humor and big-hearted emotion, I’m curious if you feel it’s the same with you. Working in an industry that insists on putting genre labels on things, I like not being so easy to classify. Because of that, what I call a thriller could just as easily be labeled horror by someone else. I always set out to write a thriller, but slasher and supernatural elements often end up sneaking in because I love them and enjoy writing them. I think it boils down to intent versus finished product.
In my mind, I write psychological thrillers … that contain elements of horror. Riley Sager: In all seriousness, though, that last question does bring up an interesting point, which is that I don’t think of myself as a horror writer, although I know many people do. Grady Hendrix: Let’s start out with questions neither of us has ever been asked before, where do you get your ideas? Or why do you write horror? The following discussion delves into horror, thrillers, 1980s paperbacks, and so much more.
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Grady Hendrix’s latest novel, How to Sell a Haunted House, was released in January, and Riley Sager’s new novel, The Only One Left, releases today. I’ve been a huge fan of Grady Hendrix and Riley Sager for years, both as great writers and great genre thinkers (they are also in that rarified category of “men who write women well”), and the conversation below proves that these two are some of the best, and funniest, folks around. I’m so, so, excited to present the conversation below to y’all.
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