Grady Hendrix, writer:«My goal is to make the horror as realistic as possible, and that means it sometimes becomes silly»

Pontevedra

López Penide Pontevedra / La Voz

Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for his essay Paperbacks from Hell, Grady Hendrix was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Locus Award for Horrorstör, My Best Friend's Exorcism and We Sold Our Souls, the latter of which has just been published in spanish by the Minotauro publishing house.

-You are considered one of the masters of contemporary horror, does this represent a challenge, a responsibility or a mixture of both?

-A curse! I love my job, but I try to ignore reviews and awards and titles like «Master of Contemporary Horror» because I am in a life or death struggle with myself, trying to make each book better than the book before, to make it more ambitious, to make it kick more ass. Every single time I fail. The book I write is never as good as I think it could be, but at a certain point my editor insists I turn it in, so I hand it over, I drink myself into oblivion, then try harder with the next book.

-In relation to the above, unlike other current authors, you also rely on humor.

-Horror and humor have always been a part of horror movies. I can’t think of a single horror movie that does not contain jokes. Even grim, dark horror films like The Blair Witch Project starts with a parody of documentary filmmakers, and Alien has a buddy comedy act with Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton at its heart. Books are another story. There are lots of horror novels without humor in them. I love some of them, but for me, my goal is to make the horror as realistic as possible, and that means it sometimes becomes silly because in the real world our lives are silly one minute and terrifying the next. We conduct an exorcism, but you need to take a water break. Your house is haunted, so you need a realtor who understands that challenge.

-In Spain you have just published «We Sold Our Souls» a novel where metal, terror and, again, humor go hand in hand. How could I convince fans of horror literature who, like me, have not yet had the opportunity to read it, to do so?

-We Sold Our Souls is my favorite book. Writing it almost ruined my life, and writing it also got me through a really, really dark time in my life. It almost made me go broke and almost ruined my career, but the main character is my favorite character I’ve ever written. And it’s all about the healing power of heavy metal. I was not a metalhead when I wrote this book, but I converted and now worship in the church of metal. You can do this too. Simply by reading this one book.

-I sense, and I warn you that I haven't been able to read the novel yet (that's what it's like to have a 4-year-old daughter), that two of the inspirations for this novel were the legend of Robert Johnson and the movie «Trick or Treat» or am I wrong?

-Robert Johnson is part of a tradition of musicians selling their souls for talent. There is also Paganini, Guiseppe Tartini, and Jimmy Page. So that was definitely an inspiration. And I love Trick or Treat a lot (in fact, to celebrate the publication of my book My Best Friend’s Exorcism I rented a movie theater and hosted a screening of Trick or Treat). But the real reason I wrote this book is because my editor bought the pitch (heavy metal band accidentally sells their soul to Satan) thinking it would be a comedy, and when it got very, very dark he tried to get out of the contract. But as everyone who has ever made a deal with the Devil knows, contracts are forever.

-Lastly,  what can we expect in the short-term future?

-I am in the last month of writing my next book, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, which is a witch novel set in a home for unwed mothers in 1970. It comes out on January 14, 2025. And I am also finally finishing the first season of my podcast, Super Scary Haunted Home School, which is all about vampires. Seven hours of episodes about vampires so far, and two more hours of vampires are coming this Spring. And then I never want to talk about vampires again.