The Ultimate Summer Horror Read

Every writer of horror has their own way in to the genre and their own particular set of narrative skills. In the case of Stephen Graham Jones, arguably the most important voice in horror fiction at the moment, you could name any number of key qualities that make his work so enticing, but the word I keep coming back to when I think about his books is propulsive. 

I don’t mean in an artificial, cliffhanger-focused way where each twist is telegraphed by a clue and each new development feels part of an overthought framework. I mean that Jones’ work is propulsive in the way a good road trip is propulsive. You might know the direction you’re heading, and what you hope to find when you get there, but what happens in between is all up for grabs, and the best parts of the drive are often the things you never expected to find. Reading Stephen Graham Jones at his propulsive best is a journey of constant, thrilling discovery, and nowhere is that clearer than in his latest books.

Or, if you prefer, his latest two books. As part of a 10-year anniversary celebration for genre publishing powerhouse Saga Press, Jones’ latest release is actually a double feature of two novels in one binding: His haunted house novel The Babysitter Lives (previously released as an audiobook exclusive), and his new travel horror novel Killer on the Road. Taken separately, they’re exciting, surprising, thumping good pieces of horror fiction. Taken together, they’re the ultimate summer reading package for horror fans, showing us the terror of the open road and the closed house with equal fervor.

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The Babysitter Lives—which Dread Central’s Josh Korngut called “a clever horror story that celebrates its influences while expertly subverting them” in his review of the audiobook three years ago—opens with a premise familiar to horror fans everywhere: A babysitter named Charlotte has just nabbed a last-minute babysitting gig in an upscale neighborhood, very close to Halloween night. As she settles in, she’s introduced to strange qualities in the house itself, and soon plunges into a bizarre nightmare in which she confronts everything from her relationship to her mother to the tension that comes from being a young Indigenous woman working for rich white people.

I’m being purposefully vague here because I don’t want to give away the places this book takes you, not because of “spoilers” exactly but because I want to do my best to preserve the craft of Jones’ work here. There’s simply so much to find within the confines of this one impossible house, and he does it all while working through tropes fans of everything from Halloween to House of the Devil already know and love.

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Then there’s Killer on the Road, a novel that delivers exactly what it says on the tin. Harper, a 16-year-old girl in a fight with her mother, decides to flee her home in Wyoming and venture up the highway with her friends in a rundown truck, only to find that a semi-legendary killer known only as “Bucketmouth” is operating on the same route. 

First of all, I cannot wait for everyone to meet Bucketmouth, one of the most frightening and entertaining villains in Jones’ body of work. But beyond that, there’s something hypnotic about Killer on the Road that reminds me of the hum of tires on a lonesome highway. It’s thrilling yes, but it’s also laced with this constant buzz of possibility built right into the story structure.

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The road element of the story, in which Harper and her friends have a destination and certain stop-offs in mind, means that you as a reader are always wondering what lurks at the next mile marker, the next exit, and Jones’ propulsion of the story through familiar, warm prose never disappoints. This is the kind of horror story that practitioners of the craft should study cover to cover, multiple times over, because it’s a roadmap (pun intended) for how to keep escalating a story with violence and terror while never betraying the rules of the road or the spirit of the characters.

Taken together, these two very different novels share certain commonalities. They’re both about young Indigenous women searching for a path through the chaos of their situation, they’re both journeys of unlikely discovery, and they’re both page-turners that waste absolutely no time laying out their concepts and putting the pedal to the floor. They’re also, in their differences, proof of Jones’ versatility, his ability to pick apart subgenres with gleeful curiosity, and his continued ability to chill us even in the heat of summer. When one story’s over, you’ll want to flip the book over and start on the next, then flip it again and start from the beginning. It’s just that fun. 

Killer on the Road/The Babysitter Lives is now available wherever books are sold. 

Tags: Book Review Books Stephen Graham Jones

Categorized:Horror Lit Reviews