Creepy Crawly Books

I got this from A High and Hidden Place.

1. What is your favorite work of horror fiction?

I have to say It although I’ve mentioned before that – putting a “genre” on that amazing book is kind of unfairly limiting. It’s a great novel PERIOD. But it sure as hell works as horror too. SHIVERS. I had to read sections of that book while covering my eyes. It’s not a movie. It’s a book, mkay? But the mind-pictures he paints were so vivid that I had to cover my eyes.

2. What is your favorite work of science fiction/fantasy?

I’m not a big fan of that genre. I love Madeleine L’Engle’s stuff, I suppose that counts. Especially A Wrinkle in Time. Which is just one of my favorite books ever. But the others in her “Time” series are just as good. I am particularly in love with Many Waters. Marvelous book.

3. Who is your favorite monster?

No contest.

4. What horror movie gives you the most chills?

Does Rosemary’s Baby count as horror? I find that movie barely watchable, due to the scariness of it. The atmosphere of dread and terror is suffocating.

And Night of the Hunter one of the most frightening movies I’ve ever seen, although it kind of transcends genre. But you haven’t felt fear until you’ve watched that creepy night-time duet between Lillian Gish and Robert Mitchum. I am all over goosebumps right now just thinking about it. (I wrote about that scene here)

5. Freddy versus Jason?

I never liked Freddy. He was too sexual – in a really really ikky way, too “clever” with the wordplay, too – his dumb puns, his rhyming couplets, whatever, I didn’t like Freddy. Jason was the terrifying one, for me.

6. What is your favorite Halloween treat?

No contest.

7. Ghosts or goblins?

I prefer ghosts.

8. What is your scariest encounter with the paranormal?

I don’t think I’ve had one.

I’ve had crazy ESP moments. I’ve had dreams come true many many times. Psychedelic weird dreams that suddenly came true. There’s a blogger on my blog-roll (whom I have met, so I know what he looks like) – but anyway, I dreamt about him one night. The next day I wrote to him and said, “Hey, I dreamt last night that you were flying the Spruce Goose down the Hudson and crowds of people gathered on the cliffs to watch.” He emailed me back and said, “Uhm, don’t quite know how to say this but I had a dream last night that I was flying the Spruce Goose while crowds of people watched.” This is not a rare occurrence for me – it happens quite a bit.

I YEARNED for an encounter with the paranormal here, but was disappointed.

A couple other things come to mind: I was in high school and I think lightning hit our house – we were all asleep, huge thunderstorm happening – and suddenly you could smell the fizzing horrific smell of burning electricity – I have never felt fear so immediate – so … primal – and then my dad’s voice barking up the stairs: “Girls. Come downstairs right now.” And I swear to God – I swear on all that is holy – I leapt out of bed and literally – LITERALLY – my feet did not touch the floor as I fled my room. I will go to my grave believing that the fear made me literally fly out of my room, so that I could move as quickly as possible. I flew. Don’t argue.

9. Do you believe in ghosts?

I think I do, yeah. I’ve felt presences before.

10. Favorite Halloween costume?

Take your pick. Sadly, there is no record of my Squeaky Fromme costume – when I spent Halloween in San Francisco. It was a good one. My boyfriend was Atlas. Halloween is like a HOLIDAY in San Francisco. But then I left my sign with Charlie Manson’s face on it in the chimney … Scary to think of some unknowing stranger finding it.

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7 Responses to Creepy Crawly Books

  1. Rob says:

    Your Halloween in San Francisco reminds me of James Garner’s line in The Glitter Dome. “Halloween in Hollywood is redundant.”. I admit … I’m a movie geek.

  2. red says:

    Rob – ha!!! It IS kind of redundant!!

    Some of the costumes I saw were literally out of this world. Like – costumes like that would be home on the enormous stage of the Metropolitan Opera. Incredible!!

  3. CW says:

    Red you remind me of something I’ve been meaning to do…
    I have a picture of a ghost. At least it looks like a ghost, and we have established that it isn’t something else. When I have a chance I’m going to scan it and post it on my site and see what other people think.

  4. red says:

    Post your ghost!!!

    I totally want to see it.

  5. Jon says:

    Oh me oh my…
    …where to start?…
    …just the links to previous posts within this one would take an eon to respond to…
    …so I won’t even go there — other than to say that your recounting of your time on the mountain, yearning in a dark barn to hear the (paranormal) sounds of dead children thwopping each other with pillows….
    …IS HEARTRENDING!…
    …SHEILA, YOU ARE THE REAL THING: A REAL WRITER!
    …(and whether the water welling up unwittingly in my eyes as I read that post had to do with it being a literal “objective correlative” or because your rendition of that hilarious family is so spot-on — Horny Ruth, Absent Asshole, Demon Child Damian — I’ll never know, especially since these narrative aspects could hardly be described as mutually exclusive of one another)….
    …and the panoply of costumes!…
    …makes me think that perhaps this year, if you decide to dress up, that you should go for broke and do a flapper version of Edie Sedgwick as imagined by a metaphysical Sharon Tate, the sum get-up as imagined from the point of view of a yellow bunny whore….

  6. red says:

    Jon – it means so much to me to have you read stuff like that and have such a response. Your opinion on writing means a LOT to me.

  7. Jon says:

    Oh Sheilska —

    (by the way, has anyone, i.e. a Jewish person, referred to you as that? i.e. Shiksa + Sheila =…)

    The honor and pleasure’s all mine. And I’m flattered to the depths that you think anything coming out of my often meager-feeling brain is meaningful (and, no, seriously, this is not a ploy for a mutual ego-stroking session…)

    (seriously…)

    But, really, your writing is fantastic, so layered and filled with wild, varied, human feeling. (as opposed to Martian.) And I would love to hear more about what you’re doing with your pieces, where your “aiming” them, and all that kind of stuff — probably best left for a discussion off or beyond this forum (questions about which I have many.)

    Oh, and here’s another great that you, Sheila the Great, put me in mind of: Katherine Anne Porter (esp. the story “Holiday.”) Another must-read, of course (though I’m sure you’ve read, like, everything she’s written…)(as well you should’ve….)

    And: Nina Berberova (“The Tattered Cloak…and other stories.) She’ll put you in an ether coma, she’s so fabulous (and, as with many others, is hardly read or discussed it seems, even among the twit-twit literati…)

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