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Help a Reader Out: Can Christians Write Horror?

 

Well, this is not really a question of identifying a book. But it is interesting, so I’m going to share it anyway.
A mystery keyword searcher asked:

Can Christians write about vampire or werewolf books?

I am not a Christian, so forgive me if I’m misinterpreting things, but the answer seems pretty simple. Of course they can. The traditional vampire, with his allergy to the cross, seems ready-made for the Christian horror writer. And werewolves, who often have a conflict between animal nature and human morality, seem like they’d work out just fine as well. Demons, witches, all kinds of supernatural creatures, and even the end of days appear in the Bible– it seems to me that it is simply the framework the writer uses that makes the difference.

Horror is traditionally conservative– evil is usually defeated, at least temporarily. That’s not to say that all horror has a moral, or that evil is defeated in all of horror fiction, because it’s certainly true that horror, especially today, can deal with impersonal evil, or can even be amoral– a good story, but not necessarily with a definite stance on right or wrong. But horror as a genre does give writers an opportunity to address faith, and questions of faith. I think this very thought-provoking blog post by horror author Maurice Broaddus, is worth reading if you are interested in this topic. There are people who think that it’s not possible (or at least extremely difficult) for Christians to write horror, and there’s an interesting discussion of that here. I’d say that whether what’s marketed as “Christian horror” really falls under the umbrella of the horror genre (which I would argue has some pretty broad boundaries, based on the kinds of books we are solicited to review here) is a different thing, than whether horror can be written by Christians (which is addressed in depth in this blog post over at TheoFantastique). Personally, I don’t care whether a book in any genre is written by a Christian, pagan, atheist, etcetera, so long as it does the job for me without hammering me over the head with a message.

At any rate, the question at hand is whether Christians can write about vampires and werewolves, not whether Christian horror is truly horror. I really think the answer to the original question is “yes.” As Mr. Broaddus says “If God could communicate through a burning bush and a donkey, surely He could communicate through a few scary stories.” Very aptly put.

Editor’s note:  A 2020 update! I’m adding another link here regarding this topic that I just learned of thanks to Mike Duke. 

Posted on December 27, 2012 by , 4 comments

Haunted Houses: The Perils of Home Ownership

Some article in the Guardian that claimed horror was dead suggested that real life is fraught with enough peril–greedy corporations, mortgages, and so on. Well, okay, those things are pretty scary even without demon-worshiping CEO’s, politicians who deal with the devil, and haunted houses. Clearly, real life isn’t scary enough, though, because we keep seeing requests for books about ghosts and haunted houses. It’s actually a good time of year for ghosts. The holidays stir up memories, and with the change of the year the veil thins. So I thought I’d provide some titles for those of you who are seeking a haunting holiday– or, in the case of the readers’ advisory librarian, helping someone else find that great ghostly read. Some of these are more frightening than others, and while we have reviewed some of them here, we certainly haven’t reviewed them all (although this list is far from exhaustive)… so make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into before you crack the covers open!

So now, alphabetical by the author’s last name, just a few books to guarantee that the next time you consider buying a house, you have a really good home inspection:

The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian (reviewed here)
The Jonah Watch by Jack Cady
House on Nazareth Hill by Ramsey Campbell
The Manse by Lisa Cantrell
Nightmare House by Douglas Clegg (reviewed here)
Infinite by Douglas Clegg
Abandoned by Douglas Clegg (reviewed here)
Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie (reviewed here- her answer to Henry James’ Turn of the Screw)
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (reviewed here)
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (not technically a ghost story, but I can’t resist including it)
The Dark Sanctuary by H.B. Gregory
Julian’s House by Judith Hawkes
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
An American Haunting by Scott A. Johnson
Ghost Walk by Brian Keene (reviewed here)
The Shining by Stephen King (reviewed here)
Bag of Bones by Stephen King
Harbor by John Ajdve Lindqvist (reviewed here)
The Resort by Bentley Little
The Elementals by Michael McDowell
Charnel House by Graham Masterson
The House That Jack Built by Graham Masterson
Hell House by Richard Matheson
Here I Stay by Barbara Michaels
Hell Manor by Lisa Morton (reviewed here)
The Castle of Los Angeles by Lisa Morton (reviewed here)
House of Fallen Trees by Gina Ranalli (reviewed here)
December by Phil Rickman (reviewed here)
The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff (reviewed here)
The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff (reviewed here)
The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons
A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons
Julia by Peter Straub
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
Phantom by Thomas Tessier
Cinema of Shadows by Michael West (reviewed here)
The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde (this has been made into a very enjoyable movie with Patrick Stewart as the ghost)
A Manhattan Ghost Story by T.M. Wright
Cold House by T.M. Wright

Posted on December 12, 2012 by , Reply

AAAAAAAHHHH! Horror is Dead!

At least, that’s what The Guardian says. Apparently the cool literary types haven’t reached out to touch the horror genre in a way that matters, which, according to this author, apparently means it needs to be drenched in literary theory and contemporary economic and political issues:

I’m convinced horror can raise its game. Our postmodern, capitalism-in-crisis, media-saturated world is ripe to describe it anew. Our very language seems to demand it. A mortgage, literally, is a death grip. Negative equity means being haunted by your own house. Corporations have legal personhood: they can be held responsible for criminal actions and claim “human” rights, but ironically they have no body. PR and political spin are referred to as “dark arts”.

.

To this, I can only say “Huh?” Look, if you really want to get down to the basics, great horror fiction crawls into your mind and moves in, or produces a physical, visceral response. It can be literary, but if it doesn’t do either of those things, it’s not horror. And you can call it whatever you want, but if a book does those things, you are reading a horror novel. Fear may nest in the great issues of our time, but horror is something experienced as intensely personal.

Marketing has more to do with what people are calling that book than what it actually is. I wrote about this a while back— “literary” books are seldom marketed as horror. Osama by Lavie Tidhar won the World Fantasy Award, but it gave me nightmares, and rightfully so. Chris Bohjalian doesn’t call it a horror novel, but The Night Strangers(reviewed here)still makes me uneasy. And Kelly Link, mentioned in the Guardian’s article as a refreshing literary voice in fantasy fiction, slips between genres, identifying with horror as well as sf and fantasy(read our interview of her here). And books published as horror, such as The Reapers are the Angels, by Alden Bell, can certainly be literary.

So, nope, horror isn’t dead. Can it be pulpy and commercial? Sure thing. Can it be predictable and badly written? Absolutely. Can it be original, unsettling, and downright terrifying? It better be.

Horror doesn’t die, folks. Pitch in Rise of the Guardians(which you should really see) makes that point effectively. You can banish the nightmares, but the bogeyman always rises again.

(Thanks to Rose Fox at Genreville for the link, and her spirited response).

Posted on November 27, 2012 by , Reply
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