Talking Scared

Send us a textIt’s not often you speak to the author of a book that EVERYONE has heard of. This week I got the chance. Max Brooks. Max-freaking-Brooks, author of global bestseller World War Z is here. But rather than the undead, we’re talking hairy things in the woods, technological dependence and woke hipsters being eaten.Max’s latest novel, Devolution, regales us with the lives (and deaths) of an eco-community living deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Stranded by a disaster, they fall prey first to their own inadequacy and then to the very adequate hunger of roaming sasquatch, We’ve talked Bigfoot and cryptozoology a lot on this show in recent weeks. But this is the big bad daddy of them all. A satire, a found-footage document, an adventure story, but also a blood, guts and claw-filled horror novel. It’s much grimmer than you may expect.As well as monsters, Max and I discuss hokey documentaries, primate research, driverless cars, the cursed legacy of Steve Jobs and skewering our own liberal echo chamber. But it all centres on how patently unprepared our society really is for crisis. Enjoy.Devolution is published in paperback on June 10th by Del Rey. Other books and documentaries discussed in this episode include: Bigfoot: The Mysterious Monsters (1976) directed by Robert Guenette Night of the Crabs (1976), by Guy N. Smith World War Z (2006), by Max Brooks The Harlem Hellfighters (2014), by Max Brooks My review of Devolution in the UK Guardian can be found HERE.Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPodCome talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textIf you’re returning to the office any time soon and you’re really bummed about it – this week’s guest will make you feel better …. cos it could be so much worse.Zakiya Dalila Harris is the author of the much-anticipated debut, The Other Black Girl. It’s been touted as Jordan Peele’s Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada and that’s true, there is white conspiracy and awful bosses aplenty, but I’d also suggest more than a little of the paranoid frisson of Rosemary’s Baby and the toe-curling embarrassment of The Office. Basically, it’s a big, fun book all about workplace prejudice, micro-aggressions and the thin veneer of equality – but, this being Talking Scared, rest assured it’s more than the sum of those everyday parts. It also goes into some weird and wicked places. Zakiya and I talk about her own career as the ‘only black girl in a publishing house’, the way well-meaning comments can do the most damage, and I express my anxiety about asking her ALL the questions about Blackness, like the awkward white guy at the party who insists he’d have voted for a third Obama term.Oh, and we get into hair care. Something that’s more than a little important in this book … and y’know, in life I love this book and insist you all read it.Enjoy! The Other Black Girl is published June 1st by Bloomsbury in the UK and Atria in North America.Other books discussed in this episode include:  All Her Little Secrets (2021), by Wanda M. Morris Rosemary’s Baby (1967), by Ira Levin  The Stephen Graham Jones open letter “from the Indians no longer in the background of a John Wayne movie” can be found HERE.  Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPodCome talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textJosh Malerman, bestselling wunderkinder of horror, author of Birdbox, Malorie, Unbury Carol and now Goblin, has graced Talking Scared with his presence. We’re talking about Goblin specifically, his new ‘novel in six novellas’ detailing the lives and losses of people in the weirdest small-town west of Castle Rock. It’s got monstrous owls and more monstrous police, an impossible hedge maze, things in boxes that MUST NOT BE OPENED, and the fear of fear itself. As Josh points out (and I hadn’t noticed) the book is about all the different kinds of obsession that make up a life and a town.And we get into Josh’s own obsession with writing, from his ridiculously prolific output, to writing whilst touring with his band.  We talk about how he got published, an odd route involving a friend from school and a stoned conversation with a lawyer. Plus, he tells me all about the time he saw a ghost or something in his house after listening to his mom’s taped sessions with a psychic (scary story!).  He’s a little bit rock n roll and a little bit culture-geek, and the conversation follows suit – with me essentially trying not to gush “thank you for talking to me” over and over again. I love this interview.Enjoy!Goblin is published May 18th by Del ReyOther books we discussed include: Unbury Carol (2018), by Josh Malerman Birdbox, (2014) by Josh Malerman The Loney (2014), by Andrew Michael Hurley Wanderers (2019), by Chuck Wendig Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textThis week the Queen of black horror is Talking Scared. Tananarive Due is bestowing her patronage on little ol’ me and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.Tananarive ranks amongst the most respected horror writers of the 21st Century, from her breakout effort, The Between, to her British Fantasy Award winning collection, Ghost Summer and her magnum opus (so far at least) The Good House.  She took the time to talk me through her career, from breaking free of the MFA fixation on white guys and their naval-gazing, to the time she used good old rock ‘n’ roll to coerce Stephen King into blurbing her book. We also take in the volcanic impact of Jordan Peele and why black horror lit is ready to follow in film’s footsteps.If you are interested in horror generally then this is not a conversation to miss. Especially when Tananarive gets into her forthcoming novel, The Reformatory – seven years in the making, and inspired by her own ancestry and the bloody history of a brutal prison. Enjoy Books mentions in this conversation include:  The Between (1995), by Tananarive Due The Good House (2003), by Tananarive Due Ghost Summer (2015) by Tananarive Due My Soul to Keep (1997) by Tananarive Due Dark Dreams (2004), edited by Brandon Massey “The Comet” (1920), by W.E. Dubois  Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textDo you ever feel you’re being watched? Ever caught a flicker from the corner of your eye that you can’t explain? Do you run out of milk more than you think you should?Maybe, just maybe, there is someone living in your house.It’s a worldwide phenomenon (just check google) and this week’s guest has turned it into a genre-bending novel that’s tipped as one of THE Gothic reads of 2021. A.J. Gnuse’s debut, Girl in the Walls is a literary chiller about grief, loneliness and what the word HOME really means. He joined me to talk through how the book came to be, why a conclusive ending was needed and how the spectre of Hurricane Katrina haunts his fiction. He also tell an especially creepy anecdote about a hidden door in his own home. Oh, and I tell a story about a woman who lived inside a stranger’s kitchen cupboard for a year. You can see the chilling footage of her reveal HERE.Enjoy! Girl in the Walls is published in the UK Fourth Estate and in North American by Ecco Books Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textJeff VanderMeer is our guest. Need I say more?First things first though, rest easy, the episode title doesn’t refer to either me or Jeff. We both make it out alive.Not everything does though. Listen on for the most on-the-nose display of savage nature, so perfect a backdrop to a conversation about animals, ecological crisis and the horror of extinction. What starts with the brave little hummingbird could end up killing us all.Jeff’s new novel, Hummingbird Salamander is an eco-noir, an accelerating ride to a point “ten seconds in the future” at the end of the world. It’s a deeply challenging book, both in style and message, and in a rare moment of seriousness, it brought our shared ecological plight and our wrongdoing home to me like nothing before. Jeff and I talk about how humanity can live with the peril of ecological disaster hanging over our heads, and how fiction can help bring that reality home. In lighter moments Jeff also tells me about how he thinks up stories involving giant flying bears, gives a lot of info on his upcoming collection of horror novellas, and horrifies me with the reason behind his phobia of cockroaches. Seriously … JESUS CHRIST JEFF!! Oh, and I introduce my new Patreon membership perks. Trust me, you wanna! Enjoy!Hummingbird Salamander was published in the UK by Fourth Estate Books and in North America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on 6th April.Books discussed include: Annihilation (2014), by Jeff VanderMeer Borne (2017), by Jeff VanderMeer The Rain Heron (2020), by Robbie Arnaut  Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textThis week, I bring you MOAR monsters!!! Our guest is Christina Henry, whose new novel, Near the Bone fits so nicely as the unofficial second part to a cryptozoology-inflected series that began with Danielle Trussoni last week. Don’t worry, I’m not talking about the Loch Ness Monster for an hour, but the novel does feature a monster, some cryptid hunters and the very violent evils of both man and beast. Christina does manage to get me off the subject of monsters for a while, to give some insight into her surprisingly relaxed approach to writing, to her love of the outdoors and running (and how that provides a backdrop for her horror stories. And we even dip a toe into the pressing question of the age – CAN HORROR TAKE PLACE IN SPACE??We ask who determines what a horror novel is, and whether YouTube and the discovery channel have changed monsters forever. Oh, and I get the chance to reminisce about the time I nearly got eaten by a bear (sort of. It looked at me at least!) Enjoy!Near the Bone was published by Titan Books on April 13th. Other books discussed in this episode include: Ghost Tree (2020), by Christina Henry The Girl in Red (2019), by Christina Henry Leave the World Behind (2020), by Rumaan Alam Earthlings (2018), by Sayaka Murata The Girl With All the Gifts (2014), by M.R. Carey Christine (1983), by Stephen King Eyes of the Dragon (1984), by Stephen King Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textWhen was the last time a story took you completely by surprise? Danielle Trussoni’s The Ancestor ambushed me into loving it. What seems a standard Gothic fiction turns into something wholly weirder … and wilder … as a young American woman inherits a creaky European castle, and the monstrous baggage that comes with it.Dani came on the show – somehow finding time between writing her new novel and being the New York Times’ horror columnist – to talk about The Ancestor’s paperback release. We tiptoe around the book’s many, many secrets, and somehow find ourselves all the way to a discussion about Bigfoot. It’s that kind of chat.We also discuss how her own roots and heritage inspired the novel, why there are so many double standards about women authors and horror, how she fits existing myth and lore into her stories so well … and I regale her with one of my favourite pieces of British legend. She’s kind enough to pretend that she doesn’t obviously know more about horror than me – and she also exposes me as someone who mentions that I have a degree a little too much.It’s interesting, enlightening, and more than a little bit shocking. Enjoy!The Ancestor is out in paperback from Custom House on April 13th.Other books we discussed include: Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places (2016), by Colin Dickey The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters and our Obsession with the Unexplained (2020), by Colin Dickey Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011), by Yuval Noah Harari Flowers in the Attic (1979), by V.C. Andrews The Historian (2005), by Elizabeth Kostova Support the show by donating: https://ko-fi.com/talkingscaredpod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textWelcome to the Green Mountain State, lovely, liberal . . . haunted!!Our guest is to ghost-stories what Ben and Jerry are to ice cream – Vermont’s resident ghost-writer-in-chief, Jennifer McMahon. Her new novel, The Drowning Kind takes us back to the small towns, local stores and eerie histories typical of her fiction, but with an added turning of the screw – it’s not the house that’s haunted, it’s the pool out back. If that sounds cheesy, it ISN’T. The Drowning Kind is an alternative type of ghost story – how alternative, and whether what lurks in the pool is even a ghost – are both subjects we dive into. Jen tells me about why she finds such darkness in Vermont’s pleasant green hills, and I get very excited to talk to someone about the state’s folklore! Oh, and there are index cards. Many, many index cards. For the technique-geek, or the aspiring novelist, this is some serious insight into the creative process of a master plotter. As promised in the show, here is some further detail on her system. Enjoy!The Drowning Kind is out from Gallery Books on April 6th. Other books we discussed include:  The Invited (2019), by Jennifer McMahon The House Next Door (1978), by Anne River Siddons The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), by Shirley Jackson “The Monkey’s Paw” (1902), by W. W. Jacobs Come Closer (2003), by Sara Gran Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textDoes your child draw pentagrams? Have you noticed the neighbours hanging their robes over the washing line? Worst of all, have they started listening to …. HEAVY METAL??You may be experiencing a satanic panic. Worry not, our guest, Clay McLeod Chapman can diagnose this for you. Clay’s new novel, Whisper Down the Lane is both a homage to the horror of the 80s, and an exploration of how that decade's battle with truth, memory and Satan(!!) lives on today. His story riffs on the very real scandal at the McMartin Preschool, as well as the wider hysteria that led to people being sacked, vilified and even imprisoned based upon absolute bulls*t.As you’ll hear, it’s a darker tale than I had imagined, but it’s also jam-packed with references, easter-eggs and allusions to the horror that made the decade. Along the way Clay talks to me about how the satanic panic never really went away, how it ties into our very modern sense of ‘truth’ and he tells me why he never wants his kids to read his stories. On my part, I tell him the world is ok and other unconscionably optimistic things!Oh, and I’m convinced that Clay orchestrated Lil Nas X’s ’Satan Shoes’ to help him sell more copies. Enjoy!Whisper Down the Lane is published by Quirk Books on April 6th 2021. Other books we discussed this week include: Rosemary’s Baby (1967), by Ira Levin Geek Love (1989), by Katherine Dunn Nothing But Blackened Teeth (2021), by Cassandra Khaw Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices