Do you like scary movies? Of course you do, you’re reading Bloody Disgusting.
Jade Daniels, the teenage protagonist of Stephen Graham Jones’ My Heart is a Chainsaw, likes scary movies, too. Slashers, specifically. She likes them so much that when it appears a real slasher has descended upon her small Idaho town, her reaction isn’t one of horror, but of excitement. As the community’s slasher sage, it’s on her to identify the patterns, the suspects, and, of course, the final girl.
It sounds cute, that premise, but Jones’ excellent book is anything but. Jade’s horror fandom isn’t quirky, it’s all-consuming. Her desire to impose the tenets of slashers on her community’s situation isn’t appealing, it’s alienating. My Heart is a Chainsaw, the first in a trilogy, has plenty of humor and horror, but it’s really a portrait of a girl whose lot in life has driven her away from reality and into the celluloid arms of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. That said, it’s also a riot, its twists and turns punctuated with eccentric and thoughtful analysis of one of horror’s most disreputable genres.
In the latest installment of The Losers’ Club’s On Writers series, co-hosts Randall Colburn and Mel Kassel talk to Jones about the book’s long road to publication, “likable” characters in fiction, and his own evolving relationship to the slashers of yore. This being a Stephen King podcast, Jones discusses his favorite King books and the Skeleton Crew story that helped inspire My Heart is a Chainsaw. He also teases what’s to come in the trilogy’s next two volumes.
Stream the conversation below and return next week when the Losers return to The Shop to review Keith Thomas’ fiery new reimagining of King’s Firestarter starring Zak Efron. For further adventures, join the Losers’ Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.
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The post Stephen Graham Jones on How Stephen King’s ‘Skeleton Crew’ Helped Inspire ‘My Heart is a Chainsaw’ [The Losers’ Club Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.