my heart is a chainsaw by stephen graham jones

And, really, I think that’s why this is kind of a slasher moment we’re in.

I’m really drawn to their brutally fair world, where every wrong is punished, with interest. And we’ve got just the machete, just the right - ahem - chainsaw.Īs for why I did a slasher, with My Heart is a Chainsaw, the easy answer is that you write what you want to read, right? Slashers are my happy place. We’ve come a long way since Carol Clover’s Men, Women, and Chainsaws, and there’s still a lot more future to carve through, too. And don’t forget comic books: Hack/Slash, Nailbiter. From Grady Hendrix’s The Final Girl Support Group, Gina Wohlsdorf’s Security, and Adam Cesare’s Clown in a Cornfield from the big five to, at the indie end, Ivy Tholen’s Tastes Like Candy and Hailey Piper’s Benny Rose the Cannibal King, there’s so many slashers to page through, many of them taking big, necessary chances - Paul Michael Anderson’s Standalone, say, or Jessica Guess’s Cirque Berserk. And not just at the cineplex, or streaming. Halloween and Candyman are back, Fear Street and Freaky are lighting the world up, we’ve got Chucky coming to television, and Slasher ’s already there. And, right now, 2021, the slasher is showing zero signs of fatigue. Just, like in the late eighties, sometimes it gets kind of tired, has to lie down for a while, let someone like Hannibal Lecter wear the mask for a few years. So, getting back to the very basics, why a slasher story and why in this particular format? My Heart is a Chainsaw has been described by some as “The Horror Novel of the Year” but also a Slasher History 101. With the popularity of the genre on the rise again due to movies such as Fear Street and the new Halloween Kills, and books from powerhouses such as Grady Hendrix, I got to sit down to chat with Stephen about his own latest release, My Heart is a Chainsaw. Separately they are still awesome, but together they are perfection.

Stephen Graham Jones is to slashers what peanut butter is to jelly.

My heart is a chainsaw by stephen graham jones