Book Review: Paperbacks From Hell: The Twisted History of 70s and 80s Horror Fiction by Grady Hendrix

Paperbacks From Hell: The Twisted History of 70s and 80s Horror Fiction
by Grady Hendrix with Will Errickson [808.386 Hen]

This large, glossy, thick volume is a marvelous look back at the boom in publishing paperback horror novels in the 1970s and 1980s, when publishers put out literally hundreds of new horror novels every year, frequently follow trends in tastes and popularity. By the end of that time period, changes in how the publishing industry operated led to a massive decrease in horror output — but this book is a celebration of the crazy, macabre world of horror publishing at its height.

Author Hendrix breaks the field of horror publishing into categories — “Hail, Satan”, “Creepy Kids”, “When Animals Attack”, “Real Estate Nightmares”, “Weird Science”, “Gothic and Romantic”, “Inhumanoids” and “Splatterpunks, Serial Killers and Super Creeps”. Full-color reproductions of literally hundreds of lurid and exotic book covers accompany detailed articles about each of these horror sub-genres, with lots of information I’d never been aware of before. Appendixes at the back of the book include short but helpful “Publisher and Creator Biographies”, and a horror Recommended Reading list by Will Errickson.

Recommended for anyone who’s a fan of the horror genre, or who grew up during the ’70s and ’80s, and remembers seeing this plethora of gaudy covers on book spinners at your neighborhood drug store or the B. Dalton’s Booksellers and Waldenbooks in the local shopping malls!

[ official Paperbacks From Hell page on the official Grady Hendrix web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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