Paperbacks from Hell [N.F. - Literature, Art]

But Masterton isn’t out simply to shock. He is obeying his one commandment, stated in “Rules for Writing” on his website: “Be totally original….Invent your own threats.” And so he wrote Feast (1988), about gourmet cannibal cults. The story opens with the immortal line: “‘Well, then,’ said Charlie, his face half hidden in the shadows. ‘How long do you think this baby has been dead?’” Turns out the baby is a schnitzel served at the Iron Kettle, a crummy joint in upstate New York that Charlie is reviewing for a food and lodging guide. His three-week trip is ostensibly designed so that he and his teenage son Martin can spend time together. But Charlie is a lousy dad—selfish, hapless, and loaded to the gills with failure. By chapter 4, Charlie’s obsessed with Le Reposoir, an exclusive French dining club in the middle of nowhere that refuses to book him a table. After picking up a floozy and spending a very dirty night at his hotel, he returns to his room to find Martin is missing. Most books hoard their plot twists, but Masterton has more twists up his sleeve than the average bear. I am spoiling nothing by revealing that Le Reposoir is a front for a cult of devout cannibals named the Celestines and Martin is in their clutches. The first big wrinkle: the Celestines regard being eaten alive as the holiest of acts, and Martin has joined them because he wants to undergo this peak religious experience. Compared to his dad’s grubby, pointless life, participating in a transcendent autocannibalism orgy doesn’t sound so bad, and the Celestines maintain the moral high ground throughout the book.

Wherever you think this book won’t go, Masterton not only goes there, he reports back in lunacy-inducing detail. By the last page we’ve seen amputee dwarf assassins, flaming dogs, one of the most harrowing scenes of self-cannibalism ever committed to paper, one death by explosive vomiting, and an appearance by Jesus Christ himself. Throughout, Masterton enjoys himself immensely. He cares about his characters. His dialogue is funnier than it needs to be, his gore is gorier, and his sex is more explicit. His books may not be the most tasteful, or consistent, but you feel that Masterson will gladly hang up his hat the minute they’re not the most original.

Graham Masterton went where lesser writers feared to tread, chronicling madmen living inside walls (Walkers), an apocalyptic grain blight (Famine), an evil chair (The Heirloom), cannibal cults (Feast), and a mirror that witnessed a child’s murder (Mirror). Credit 145

From A to Zebra

If Zebra Books had a mascot, it would be a slipper-clad skeleton sitting atop a crescent moon against the infinite void of space (hello, Sandman!). Founded in 1974 by Walter Zacharius and Roberta Grossman, two refugees from paperback house Lancer (whose titles include Male Nymphomaniac and The Man from O.R.G.Y.), Zebra was the flagship paperback imprint of Kensington Publishing, the independent press Zacharius launched with $67,000.

Grossman was twenty-nine, then the youngest president of a publishing house, and she and Zacharius had no pretensions. Without deep pockets, they had to be smarter and faster. When other publishers went high, Zebra went low. They paid lower royalties (sometimes a mere 2 percent) and smaller advances (as little as $500), and they paid late. They kept a small staff (twenty-two people), but hired smart. Zebra’s door was open to talent from other publishers who’d been passed over for promotions or forced to retire. Lacking deep ties to the literary community, Grossman and Zacharius plunged into the slush pile and emerged with titles they thought no one would touch: historical romances. By the early ’80s they had built Zebra, and Kensington, into a powerhouse with $10 million in sales annually.

Romance may have built the house of Zebra in the ’70s (continuing even into the ’90s with loud-sounding gothic romances like The Shrieking Shadows of Penporth Island and The Wailing Winds of Juneau Abbey), but in the ’80s horror made Zebra famous. Its first hit horror author was William W. Johnstone, whose preacher-driven novel The Devil’s Kiss put the press on the map in 1980. Rick Hautala became a Zebra mainstay, as did that Arkansas granny Ruby Jean Jensen, who never saw a baby that didn’t scare the pants off her. Zebra was hungry for product and became the publisher of last resort for authors like Bentley Little, Ken Greenhall, and Joe R. Lansdale when they couldn’t sell a book anywhere else.

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