I recently finished a glorious tromp through this treasure trove of delights.
Grady Hendrix provides a guided tour through the screaming halls of 70s and 80s horror fiction that should not be missed. Paperbacks From Hell brought back so many memories. Memories of spinner racks, memories of Coles and W.H. Smith horror sections, of days when new novels seemed to overflow from the shelves every week.
The world was different then, before the advent of the internet, social media and decaying attention spans. Publishers would throw anything at the wall in hopes that it would stick the way King did. So we received stories about demon children, homicidal frogs, evil dolls with knives, and vengeful Indian spirits. Put together in this collection, it all feels like the best guitar solo from the best Alice Cooper inspired rock and roll band that never was.
These days, with the death of the B-list, you'll find the children of these books languishing on Kindle Unlimited, hoping to be noticed, praying to the dark gods to be read. The horror section of my local Chapters is one and a half shelves, with three quarters of it being taken up by King and Koontz. It's clear Hendrix is chronicling an era that will never come again, an era that we were too entranced with Jordache jeans and feathered hair to notice how wonderful it all was.
