History & Criticism
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Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires comes a 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.
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.
Editorial Reviews
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. Y...
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. Y...
Readers Top Reviews
AfonsoG BenítezJa
The book presents a lot of information about paperbacks, authros and illustrators through thr 21st century. We get to know a lot of weird (yet intriguing) books from the 70's, 80's and 90's with very appealing covers. The print is high quality and the illustrations only make the experience better.
Colin MackieAfons
This was a wonderful history that made me nostalgic for so many of the cheap horror novels I read as a teenager in the 80s. I loved it so much I ordered some of the titles profiled, as well as the horror starter pack, from the publisher, Valancourt Books.
SciFi-Kaiju-Guy @
BOTTOM LINE: If you enjoy reading older, obscure, gory, disturbing and just plain weird horror-themed books from the past then this book will act as a bright candle to help light your way through the dusty stacks of yellowed, well-thumbed softcover spook stories. A fun & funny read, PAPERBACKS FROM HELL is a worthwhile addition to any horror novel lover's collection. THOUGHTS: My reading desire often goes in spurts; I'll read voraciously for a period then tire of it, stop, and then a few months (or years) later, the cycle repeats itself. I love to spend rainy afternoons scouring through used book stores looking for a new-to-me book or discovering an author I hadn't heard of before. I prefer the occasion science fiction book and delight in finding a solid horror novel, especially if it's got weird monsters of some kind rampaging thorough it. I go out of my way to track down these little shops whenever my wife and I go out of town on vacation. You never know what's waiting for you; a new guilty pleasure treasure is almost certain to be lurking somewhere among those musty-smelling shelves. Digging up some long-forgotten, time-rotted terrors from the heyday of the scary read is great fun. Author Grady Hendrix and Will Errickson are clearly genuine enthusiasts as well. Their work here will hopefully put many first timers on the well-worn path to suspense & terror. Hendrix acknowledges that these books are the pulpy paper equivalent of junk food; a guilty pleasure, probably not good for you, doesn't satisfy for long and often just leaves you craving more. Hendrix (with more than a little help from horror trash collector Will Errickson) pulls no punches and unapologetically spills his guts, so to speak, about the rise, rule and abrupt demise of disposable late night scare pulp & paperbacks. Dozens of books and their plots/characters are discussed, and the varying degrees of those books' success or failure are considered, along with brief insights into some of their authors ...and the talented - often unsung - artists who painted all those lurid, alluring covers that drew us to pick them up in the first place. You're practically guaranteed to add several new titles to your 'must read' list after pouring through this fun, informative book. It's a breezy read (I blew through it in one day), but the info is honest, interesting and Hendrix's disarming writing style is affectionately funny. The book is quite sturdy for a softcover; the pages are thick and the print is clean & crisp. The various covers reproduced throughout the book look terrific, although I felt most were disappointingly small. Overall I found this book to be well worth the money and will be using it as a reference for my horror novel hunting trips for some time to come. PAPERBACKS FROM HELL comes recommended by this casual horror fan.
R. JonesSciFi-Kai
Hendrix provides an excellent overview of the horror paperback boom of the 70s and 80s and does so in a witty and entertaining way. I lived through that era and read a few of the books he writes about, but there were dozens discussed here that were new to me. His descriptions of the often ludicrous plots are marvelous and his background information on the writers, publishers and cover artists was an added treat. Highly recommended for anyone interested in horror fiction in general and the tons of stuff published in that era especially.
James P. EbertR.
As I mentioned a few books back, we're now returning to the glory days of pulpy horror paperbacks, most often found littering the shelves of the local grocery store. This time courtesy of Grady Hendrix, who evidently fell into a used books store, wound up with a cart full of late 70s-90 horror, and got inspired to write a history of them in Paperbacks From Hell. While the subject matter might be a bit on the cheesy side, the book is lush in its treatment, with pictures of several of the more lurid covers printed in full color. Indeed, what ended up helping me decide to add this to my collection was the fact that a few titles displayed in the front cover were ones I remember having at a young age. With this being non fiction, it's arranged by subject matter, starting with Satan and ending with Splatterpunk, meaning we go from Blatty's The Exorcist to Bright's Lost Souls, with such luminaries as V. C. Andrews and Graham Masterson in between. For the most part, he avoids going too in depth with the really big names to give the spotlight to much lesser known authors, although he generally does start with the big book(s) that started a trend, and explore what flooded the shelf imitating them, as well as discussing what likely contributed to said explosion in the subject. This helped fill in a few gaps, since some stories I only vaguely remember, or never knew the full story on, like The Amityville Horror, exactly how far the Satanic Panic of the 80's had spread (indeed, more than a few "non fiction" titles discuss the books that presented us with Satanic Cults running day care centers, the backmasking on Beach Boys albums, how Dungeons and Dragons will lead you to try to jump off the world trade center, and how Heavy Metal will make the Dark Lord rise. (That sound is my eyes rolling back in my head.) We get details on the lives of the folks who painted the cover art, we hear about how art directors introduced die cut covers and embossed images to get the books to pop. We learn of the histories of several publishing houses and imprints prior to either going out of business or being absorbed by a larger company. Honestly, while not as blunt or direct, parts of this reminded me quite a bit of that one scene in The Devil Wears Prada, where Miranda explains in graphic detail the business of fashion. (Indeed, a publishing change which allows houses to ship back and shred non selling inventory means books have roughly 6 weeks to catch on, or else. It also means many midlist authors don't get published, since they won't make back their advance.) It was interesting to learn the stories of a few imprints that particularly influenced my reading habits as a kid, namely Zebra and Abyss. The former was the really pulpy stuff, produced on the cheap and usually poorly edited; the latter was post splatterpunk, allowing for similar sens...
Short Excerpt Teaser
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, whispering to me in my sleep: What else has been forgotten? After some latenight googling brought me to Will Errickson's Too Much Horror Fiction blog, I blacked out. One year later, I woke up squatting in the middle of an aisle at Sullivan's Trade-a-Book in the heart of South Carolina, surrounded by piles of musty horror paperbacks. Apparently I was buying them. Apparently I was reading them. Apparently I was addicted.
The books I love were published during the horror paperback boom that started in the late '60s, after Rosemary's Baby hit the big time. Their reign of terror ended in the early '90s, after the success of Silence of the Lambs convinced marketing departments to scrape the word horror off spines and glue on the word thriller instead. Like The Little People, these books had their flaws, but they offered such wonders. When's the last time you read about Jewish monster brides, sex witches from the fourth dimension, flesh-eating moths, homicidal mimes, or golems stalking Long Island? Divorced from current trends in publishing, these out-of-print paperbacks feel like a breath of fresh air. Get ready to meet some of my new favorite writers: Elizabeth Engstrom. Joan Samson. Bari Wood. The Lovecraftian apocalypse of Brian McNaughton. The deeply strange alternate universe of William W. Johnstone. Brend...
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, whispering to me in my sleep: What else has been forgotten? After some latenight googling brought me to Will Errickson's Too Much Horror Fiction blog, I blacked out. One year later, I woke up squatting in the middle of an aisle at Sullivan's Trade-a-Book in the heart of South Carolina, surrounded by piles of musty horror paperbacks. Apparently I was buying them. Apparently I was reading them. Apparently I was addicted.
The books I love were published during the horror paperback boom that started in the late '60s, after Rosemary's Baby hit the big time. Their reign of terror ended in the early '90s, after the success of Silence of the Lambs convinced marketing departments to scrape the word horror off spines and glue on the word thriller instead. Like The Little People, these books had their flaws, but they offered such wonders. When's the last time you read about Jewish monster brides, sex witches from the fourth dimension, flesh-eating moths, homicidal mimes, or golems stalking Long Island? Divorced from current trends in publishing, these out-of-print paperbacks feel like a breath of fresh air. Get ready to meet some of my new favorite writers: Elizabeth Engstrom. Joan Samson. Bari Wood. The Lovecraftian apocalypse of Brian McNaughton. The deeply strange alternate universe of William W. Johnstone. Brend...
