Transcript of Morbid Book Club: Victorian Psycho By Virginia Feito

Hey weirdos, this episode is brought to you by Ashley. Your home should show off who you are. As the largest furniture store brand in North America, Ashley can help you create a comfortable, functional, and stylish home that you can feel proud of, and in a price range that works for you. With Ashley's lifestyle-driven designs, you don't have to choose between practical and being stylish. Visit your local Ashley store or head to ashley.com to find your style. All right, brothers, we're going to get into the actual intro. But first, Big Red has something to tell you.

I do have something to tell you. Today we have somebody very special on the pod, in the pod lab, the second pod lab.

Ashkel's pod lab.

Ashkel's pod lab.

Welcome to the pod lab. It's still a little bit under construction, but we're working on it. It's pretty pretty. We have— Whoa!

Thanks, Mikey.

That was badass.

We have Paul Tremblay on the pod today. Paul is the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Head Full of Ghosts, The Pallbearers Club, Cabin at the End of the World. And actually, that one has already been adapted to a film. It's Knock at the Cabin, I believe it's called. So go check that out. And Head Full of Ghosts is going to be adapted to a movie.

So cool.

Wait for that. His newest release right here, Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep, which is an amazing title. It's coming out June 30th. That's wherever you can find books. We have actually already recorded with Paul and had a fucking fantastic time. He was so nice. He's phenomenal. His books are phenomenal, and I urge you to go check them out. And we're really excited for you to see our conversation with him.

Woo! Before we get into the episode, we do just have to thank our sponsor one more time. Ashley is such an icon. I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about this gorgeous gorgeous furniture that we are sitting on and our feet are upon and our drank are upon.

We got—

this is the Revion Lake sofa that we're sitting on. It's comfy.

It's really comfy.

It's chic. I love the color, and it's washable, which is nice. I got the, the loveseat over there, and then we have the Malee coffee table, which I'm actually ordering another one to put in my living room downstairs because I love it so much.

I like to say really quick that the Schweppes on there was a mistake.

A mistake. Yeah, Instacart, I'm not talking to you right now. Um, and finally, these are the Corestone tables, the end tables. What I love about these is that I feel like I'm like a QVC girl. Yeah, I love that you can dress them up like the shelves. You can kind of just like put all your accouterments, all your decor, your, your trinkets, your chopsticks, Yohara movies, Yohara movies, your awala, your game that you crafted with your sister in Hunt a Killer. You can just put anything on the end table. So true. Thank you to Ashley for sponsoring today's episode and for sending us this really cool furniture, cuz it's sick. And without further ado, let's get into it. Yeah. Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.

I'm Elena.

And I'm Grady Hendrix. No, wait, I'm Paul.

We said, Paul, you can be whoever you want to be today, and he chose Grady Hendrix.

Oh yes, this is morbid.

This is a very special Morbid. We have an ama— we already introduced him, but I'm going to introduce him again. This is Paul Tremblay. If you don't know him, go figure it out because there's a body of work that you need to get into right now. He's an amazing writer and you're missing out if you haven't read his books.

So get to it.

And also there's several adaptations that have been happening lately.

Yeah, thank you so much.

You're welcome.

The most recent would be A Head Full of Ghosts wrapped filming in the Dublin area, which is where actually Victorian Psycho was filmed in Ireland as well.

Oh, that's cool.

Virginia and I talked a little bit about— but anyway, yeah, wrapped and probably be out in a year from now. Yeah, super excited.

I'm really excited for that. That's actually one of my favorite of your books.

Thank you so much.

So I'm very excited about that.

It's going to be a scary movie. I hope they didn't—

I love that.

They didn't pull any punches. So the director is— it was weird. We were talking, my wife and I, on the way over. The director is our Austrian niece and nephew. Like, just kind of fun thing to mention.

Oh my God. That's so cool.

Oh, that is funny. Like us.

Like us.

Or aunt, I should say aunt and nephew.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There you go.

Right.

Cool. That's so cool. That's rad. I love that. Well, we mentioned Victorian Psycho.

Yes.

That's what we're going to be talking about today. Yes. This was actually your pick. Which we are very excited. And I had heard about this book. It's by Virginia Feyto, excuse me. And I've heard about this book everywhere. Like I'm on TikTok, like BookTok loves it. I've heard about it. So many people have told me you have to read this book and it's been on my TBR forever. So when you mentioned it, I was like, well, perfect time.

Great.

I ate this book up in one day. Like one sitting. Literally just ate it up. It's so easy to read. It is such a good book. I think it's so unique.

I feel like I've never read anything quite like this. Yeah.

Truly.

Yeah.

And we're going to get really into it in a minute. But first, I want to talk to you about you.

Okay.

Because you guys got to know who Paul is.

I'm not Victorian.

You're not Victorian.

Are you a psycho?

Yeah.

Only when I don't drink.

To be determined. Yeah.

We'll figure it out through this. So we were actually just talking about this. Congrats on finally becoming a full-time writer.

Thank you.

That's incredible.

I appreciate that. Yeah, it's a little weird, a little daunting. Yeah, I've been a high school math teacher for 30 years and people usually react more in horror to that than they do the horror writing.

I was going to say, that's horror to me.

Yeah. No, I totally get it. I had a small school local to here and they were always super supportive and let me be the weirdo horror writing agnostic math teacher in a Catholic boys' school.

Oh, hell yeah.

That's badass.

That's awesome.

That's so cool.

That's a story in and of itself that you need to write a thing. That really is.

They were very thankful. They're never, you know, if I missed a day or two to go to like a festival or something, they were great.

Oh, that's so cool.

Nice.

Yeah. That's so rare.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. I can see why you stayed there for so long.

No, it was like, I mean, my artistic writerly safety net.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like, I mean, maybe similar to you, like you were just telling me how you kept your job for a long time. I mean, it was just nice to know, hey, I had this job that sometimes paid our shitty health insurance and then, you know, I could write a book and if it was weird, that's okay.

Yeah.

If I needed to say no, I could because I didn't have to like do what the publisher said or what people expected.

I know. And I think that actually makes it better. I feel like you probably were a little able to be more free and creative with that when you have that safety net. Because when it's all on you, it's like, huh, like this has to work. It has to be what everyone likes.

No, 100%. Yeah. Always admire friends who make a go of it full-time and that's how they've been supporting their family for years. I mean, that's a pressure that I'll have to figure out. Although my kids are older now, so they're on their own.

So whatever. Yeah.

Medium pressure.

Who cares? Yeah. Well, you're definitely the most successful part-time writer writer I have ever seen. Like, that's crazy. When I saw— I think I saw you post about it and I was like, wait a minute, I was like, he's not full-time doing this?

What the hell?

Uh, but you, you seem to have come to the full-time side of writing at the right time because I feel like horror is having kind of like a cultural renaissance right now. Like, we even— like with movies and stuff, like Backrooms, Weapons, Sinners, Frankenstein, Obsession. Why do you think that's happening right now?

Yeah, I mean, that's hard to answer. Uh, um, I'm not sure. I mean, I think some of it was funny. Let me back up. So A Head Full of Ghosts was the book that sort of made me like— that broke out. Um, and we were— when we were trying to sell that in early 2014, a lot of publishers were like, ah, but it's horror. And like, it was— we eventually did get it published, which was amazing. But just, it's not that long ago. Like, now, like 11, 12 years later, it's like— that people are like, "Ooh." Publishers Weekly reports and like, "Oh, the publisher acquisition of horror novels is up 25% from last year, which was up 25% from the year before." And it's just the worst-case scenario person in me that powers my books is like, "Oh no, it's going to be a bubble that pops." Yep.

Right. Yeah, that's going to happen.

That's nerve-wracking.

But no, I mean, I think it's in a healthy place. We're finally getting to see it's not just authors who look, white, straight authors who look like me and Grady. We're getting to see way more own voices. And to me, that's one of the most exciting parts about what we're seeing, both in film and in publishing.

Oh yeah, I agree. I think it's different point of views coming into it. I think finally people are being open to that, which is nice.

And I love it.

I love seeing that. And I love seeing them win awards. I love all of seeing this happen. I'm like, "It's time.

It's our time." No, I mean, the other part of it is I think, well, I mean, I'll talk about Gen X a little bit. I mean, so many of us grew up reading Stephen King and watching the movies. And then the later half of the previous decade, so many of us were now publishing books, the children, if not of Stephen King, but of that time period.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. Like I said, there's still a stigma with horror, which I hope never leaves, frankly. I mean, I always want horror. It's too nice. Horror should be poking and prodding at uncomfortable things and on the boundaries. So I hope it doesn't lose that. Yeah. So I think honestly, Get Out has a lot to do with it. Like when that came out, like that was the first time broader culture, especially academia and mainstream reviewers were like, oh, there were, I remember literal articles in New York Times like, do we need to take horror seriously? Because of that movie.

They were like, wait a minute.

That movie did change the— Landscape a little.

That movie is flawless to me.

I love that movie.

Like, truly flawless. I love that movie.

So good.

Now, do you remember the exact moment that you realized that you wanted to write horror?

Oh, geez, no.

It's a tough one.

No, it's hard to explain how I got there. I mean, I'm a lifelong scaredy cat, for one. So I've always had like a love-terrified relationship with horror.

That's how I feel.

Yeah. Yeah. Still, like, if I'm alone in the house, I'm not above sleeping with like a desk lamp on.

Oh, yeah. Same.

Or, you know, noise machines. I still go up the basement steps too quick. Just because I'm ridiculous. Um, but I mean, I wasn't even like a huge reader as a kid. Like, I was just sort of like a nerdy math person, you know, loved the Celtics, you know, around here. Um, and it wasn't until college where I met my wife Lisa. Uh, she bought me— right after I graduated, two things happened. My last— and I hope this isn't too boring, you can cut it— uh, I had to take an English requirement. I was in a freshman English class second semester senior year. Oh damn, it blew my mind. I had like the stereotype type experience. And the teacher was a big punk music fan and I was too, so we connected. But anyway, one of the stories I read in that class was Joyce Carol Oates' Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? And I remember reading it and I actually said aloud, I was like, "I didn't know people wrote things like this." I love that. And shortly after that, Lisa bought me The Stand after graduation and I hailed that. And I went off to grad school for 2 years and struggled by the skin of my teeth to get a master's degree.

That's when I was reading everything Stephen King wrote and from Dance Macabre, I branched out to Peter Straub and Clive Barker and Shirley Jackson. 2 years after that, I got my first teaching job and I had the weird itch to try writing a story. Inexplicable. Why would I try writing a story? I'm a math teacher.

I love that though.

That's so cool.

That's how I felt too when I first started writing my first book. I was like, I don't know how to write a story. I was like, I can't write a whole book. What am I doing?

I just imagine everybody feels that way when they first write something.

I feel like everyone has to feel that way in the beginning, being like, I'm not going to get to the end of this.

Yeah.

This isn't going to be something someone reads.

Right. Like, I'm terrible at writing advice, so I don't give it. The only thing I tell, especially to younger people, it's like, hey, you know, hopefully you come to this realization a lot earlier than I did, but hopefully, you know, you come to the realization that it's okay to like things. It's getting harder and harder to do that with, you know, obviously with just, you know, social media life and everyone hates everything. You know, it's okay to like things. That means it's okay to be passionate about it and maybe want to try it yourself. And I mean, that's such an important It has to be your first step.

Yes. I'm so glad you said that because I'm constantly trying to tell my kids that. I'm like, I want to tell you now when you're young, you can be passionately excited about things and not feel weird about it. Don't make people feel like, make you feel like you can't be all in on something and want to do it or want to experience it or want to learn everything you can about it. I feel like we have got to a place now where Everybody wants to be the same. And everything's cringe. And it's like, that's so cringy that you're into this. It's like, stop. I hate that.

Unless they like Grady Hendrix books, then we should really stop.

Then that's cringe. I love Grady Hendrix.

Grady's a friend. I just like making fun of him.

We love Grady. We had him on and we had the most fun with him. He's great.

It was a fun episode.

He is so much fun.

He's so funny.

He was really fun with the would you rather. So get ready for that.

Oh, I know.

For sure.

Yup.

And actually, like, this kind of leads into what I wanted to talk about next. Speaking of like a love of writing and getting passionate about things, AI.

Yeah.

I have to rant with you about it because I think we feel the exact same way about it.

Oh yeah.

I, it's upsetting me so much that, cause like books like this, like Victorian Psycho aren't going to happen with AI and it's making me crazy that it's become a thing. And I feel like you need to go through the whole, like being inspired to write something, coming up with the idea, like working through it. At some point, like reading your own writing and being like, oh my God, I'm a genius. And then the next day reading it and being like, I'm a hack and I should never do this. And then fighting through that feeling and coming out on the other side. Like you need to have that full experience. And I feel like all of a sudden we're going to get these books that don't have that behind it. And I feel like you need that injected into the book for it to be what it needs to be.

Yeah, I have no interest in reading it. I mean, the whole idea to me is reading something or watching a movie or any other piece of art. What the connection is. Oh, this person felt like I did.

Yeah.

It feels like I do too.

Right.

And there will never be any of that.

No.

You know, with AI, never mind that they steal our books. Exactly. You know, give, you know, and I was a part of the first lawsuit suing OpenAI on behalf of writers.

I love that.

For 2 years. It's myself, other horror leading the way. Christopher Golden, another horror writer.

Yeah.

And Richard Cadre, and also weirdly, Well, not weirdly, but like not horror writer, but Sarah Silverman. We were the first 4 and spent 2 years as a part of it. Um, they can— there's so many lawsuits, they consolidated it all to one. So then like I didn't continue because they also chose different lawyers. It was weird. But yeah, no, I mean, you know, I'm sorry if it makes people uncomfortable, but like you're not a writer or a visual artist if you're using it. You're a scab to use like— we don't have a union, but I'm going to use union terms. You're a scab.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It's all, it's stolen work. Yeah.

It just, at the end of the day. Makes me crazy. And there's just no humanity behind it. Like AI can't come up. I mean, you see, you can always see it in like metaphors and stuff that you'll see written by AI. You're like, that doesn't even make sense. Like you, cause you don't have the capacity as a computer to compare two things. Like you just don't, like it doesn't make any sense.

It's, I mean, in one way it's like it's helped crystallize like why I'm still passionate about reading and watching movies and viewing art, but it's the connection components. It's like, why do we have to defend this or explain why that this is important?

Exactly. And it makes it— so you have a book coming out on June 30th and it's Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep. I love that title, first of all.

It's such a good title.

Such a good title. And it has some AI components in it, like in the story. It's about that. The plot seems so interesting to me. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Yeah, sure. I'm bad at the quick pitch.

I'm terrible at it, so don't worry.

I think that's like a thing across the board with authors.

Now that we have that out of the way.

Yeah.

So, you know, the main conceit is that there's someone who's like my age and build working for— well, not Google because I didn't want to get sued. I think I called them Decillion, a giant tech company in Silicon Valley.

Okay.

He's working on campus in the mailroom and he doesn't drop dead, but he has a massive stroke where, you know, he can breathe and his heart's beating, but he's not there's no consciousness. He's in a vegetative state, so they say. He signed his body directly over to the company, though, prior to this happening.

As one does.

As one does. They implant AI and nanobots into his brain so someone can remote control him like they're playing a video game.

So sad.

So most of that happens off page. The semi-estranged 24-year-old daughter of the CFO, She was an ex-professional gamer, is hired to basically weekend at Bernie's him across the country.

Oh my God.

So I'm hopeful, I hope that a big chunk of this book, maybe the first two-thirds of her chapters, Julia's chapters, is definitely satire and hopefully very funny. Yeah. Even though it's ultimately a serious thing. So the book is split between her chapters and chapters that are titled "You," which is from the point of view of the man with the tech in his head. So he He is still conscious because of what they've put in his head. He's going through like a phantasmagorical hellscape. Oh, I love that. And then the two narratives sort of link up at the end and everyone's happy and hugs and—

Oh, I love this.

Very cool. I love the dual POV. That's going to be good. I'm really excited.

Yeah, I love a dual POV.

Love it.

That's really cool. And to think about just like being unconscious but conscious at the same time, that's wild.

That's honestly my worst thing.

No, definitely very horrific.

Yeah, it's very Black Mirror.

And the control aspect of it is my— Literal worst nightmare. I am the biggest control freak in the world. The idea of somebody controlling me when I can't. Right. Yeah.

No. One of my fears writing the book was, even though the premise seems absurd, I was like, man, I got to get this done before it can actually happen.

I was going to say, before you just went—

I was going to say, before you just went— There was a story where some company has brains in jars, like some companies do apparently.

I know.

Like Futurama.

Yeah.

Right.

And they were testing either both pain medication or addiction to drugs, testing the brains. And one of the spokespersons said, oh, you know, the wiring is almost taken out of what it would take for them to be conscious. Almost.

Sad.

I hate that. You're like speedwriting. You get it into your editor, you're like, please hurry. Oh my God.

Oh, I hate that.

I want to go back to something that you said earlier because I related to that so much. I'm such a horror fan, but I'm also such a fraidy cat. And you said the same thing. I wonder, do you have any fears that you've never explored in your writing that you would eventually want to someday?

That's a great question. I don't think no one's ever asked it in that way.

Hey, look at that.

I mean, there's some fears that I won't write about just because it's too scary for me. And being just a child, teen of the '80s, like nuclear war stuff, really anything that brushes up against that is too much for me.

That's how I feel too.

I don't write about it. Avoid. So I won't watch Oppenheimer.

Yep.

I'm sure it's a good movie.

End of the world stuff for me is like too real.

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I use so much of my own life, much to the chagrin of my family, in my books. You know, it's hard to say what's coming next. And I wish I was someone who had like a bullpen of ideas. And for novels, I just go from novel and then I'm like, oh no, what am I going to do now?

And then it just comes to you.

And just try to start from scratch and hopefully there's some inspiration.

So.

All right.

That's so interesting.

I don't know.

I can't say like, oh, I definitely want to try this or that. It's like, I don't know.

You're like maybe.

I'm totally focused on the thing I'm working on.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Oh, that's cool though.

You got to see it through. Yeah, I get that.

I have the weirdest notes in my note app of like ideas, but they're like, they're like, sometimes I'll look at them and I'm like, I don't know what I meant with this. Like, I will never go back to that.

You also have the weirdest dreams that I feel like I do. Like nightmares, I should say. I feel like so many of your ideas come from a little blip in your dream.

Yeah. Or my kids, weirdly. You know, the kids are scary. Where like they'll tell me a little bit of a like nightmare or something that they're scared of. And I'm like, can I use that? Like, is that cool if I put that in the book?

Oh, you even asked them permission?

Yeah. I'm like, is it good? I know I should just take. I'm like, I made you.

My poor children. My poor children.

Yeah.

I've done taking things without permission.

Just taking them.

Including a head full of ghosts. I scarred my wife, Lisa, with it because young Mary, the 8-year-old character, was definitely our daughter, Emma, when she was 8 years old. That was like her personality.

Yeah. That's so cool.

I mean, hey, you have to write what you know, right?

You do.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think my youngest had, an imaginary friend. Well, Skeletome was one, but he's not going to be in a book.

The Mister.

But the Mister, and she named him the Mister.

That's trippy. Which she once told us, he'll always find you. Yeah. So she literally— Picture that on a cover.

She said, don't worry, the Mister will always find you. I think it was because they were playing hide and seek, her and my husband, and they were hiding under a blanket and he was like, who are we hiding from? Who's finding us? She was like, the Mister. And he was like, I'm sorry, what? And she was like, don't worry, he'll always find us. And he was like, I hate this book. What does that mean?

That's a great baroque title. The Mister Will Always Find You.

The Mister Will Always Find You.

I like it.

Damn.

Mine. Going back to scary memories or anything like that, do you know, or can you think of the first story that ever scared you so badly that it's still with you to this day? Maybe you read it or you heard it.

Oh yeah. So I mean, for me it was all movies. I mean, I think I'm trying to think age-wise. There was— I mean, in this— when I say this area, I don't want to give away where you guys live, but in the New England area, sure. I was— I'm old enough that there was a program called Creature Double Feature that played— man, this was like late '70s, early '80s. Okay. On Saturday. So they'd show two movies. The first movie was always like Godzilla or Gamera, a kaiju movie, and that's what drew me in.

Yeah.

The second movie was a horror movie, like a Hammer horror movie, or black and white. I love You know, some of the, like, just dumbest horror movies that get— that eventually were on Mystery Science Theater.

Right.

Oh, hell yeah.

Those gave me nightmares. I had an attack of the killer shrew nightmares. Nightmare that I still remember. It's such a bad movie. I had nightmares from the movie Alien before seeing it because I was listening to my parents, my aunt talk about how scary the movie was.

Oh my God.

That used to happen to me when I was little all the time. In fact, I remember you were there at one of my uncle's houses and all of you guys were talking about It. And I just heard the tail end and little bits of your conversation, and I was afraid of whatever it was. I didn't even know what it was, but I was so scared of it for months.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

But by far, Jaws gave me the most nightmares by far.

Jaws is such a foray into horror, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I really started at my high school, which is weird. When I was in 5th grade, they were showing summer movies at the high school because they had an auditorium. Okay. And my dad took me and he pitched the movie to me this way. He's like, "Paul, there's a scene in this movie that captures what it feels like to catch a fish, that moment right when you catch it on the hook." And you're like, "Awesome, I'm in." He's true. I mean, yeah, that scene where Quint hooks him.

It's there.

It's there, but you could have told me some other things about that movie.

You left out some bits.

A little different feeling.

Yeah. So it's one of my favorite movies. I've seen it 50 times since, but I still cover my eyes when Quint gets Sorry for the spoiler, but—

Spoiler alert for Jaws.

When Quinn gets bit, when he gets bit in half, that broke my little 10-year-old brain. I'm not exaggerating. I had 10 years of shark nightmares after that movie.

Oh, I believe that.

So I've seen the movie, I've watched with my kids, and we'll ceremoniously put the pillow over our faces when the scene comes. I love it. I've seen way more gorier stuff. I'm just like—

That one just has something.

Afraid that my brain will return to the 10-year-old brain.

It probably would. It could.

It's a core memory. Your kids want to see Jaws so badly. So now we're going to rethink that one.

My oldest are 10. They're 10-year-old twins, and they want to see it. They see it so badly. So I've been like easing them in by being like, here's a picture of Bruce the shark as a robot. Like, it's not real. I'm trying to be like, here's the behind the scenes of all of it. So hopefully it'll help, but I'm like, I don't know.

You have a pool or friends with a pool and put the TV and then be on floats while you're watching them.

I want to do it so bad.

That would be so good. We have the projector too. We do need to do that.

You know, they're so brave. Like, they're so brave at first about horror things. They're like, I can do this, let's do it.

And then the nighttime—

how to be brave during the day, for sure.

And we regret it immediately.

That's how I am still very brave during the day. Then at night I'm like, this is so scary.

And I don't want to ruin horror for them. So I'm trying to like ease it in. I'm like, I don't want to give you trauma right off the bat. Yeah. Yeah.

Start with Gremlins. Have they seen Gremlins?

They haven't yet.

We were just calling them Gremlins.

I was going to say, I refer to them as Gremlins a lot because at nighttime they always have like an assortment of ailments and nightmares and eating. I'm like, I can't feed you after midnight. Can't get you wet.

Can't get him wet.

Yeah.

Straight up Gremlins.

Very precarious.

I do wonder, going back to your writing process, what's the strangest place that you've gotten inspiration from a book that you can think of?

There was a moment of panic when I was on a train in England. Okay. I was doing an amazing book tour over there for The Cabin at the End of the World.

Okay.

And I knew the next book was due in less than a year at this point. And the novel I was imagining doing was going to be a big one and it was going to take way longer than a year. I'm like, "Oh no, what am I going to do? I got to come up with an idea." And I had this weird what-if for a zombie that I don't want to say necessarily because it spoils the book. Okay. So that was sort of forced. Panic-induced inspiration.

Panic-induced inspiration.

Other ways it's just fun where it comes from and you never know. My book Horror Movie came from friend and amazing writer, sorry to name drop, I've already mentioned Grady, but Stephen Graham Jones, amazing guy.

Right. An amazing, amazing guy.

He's like, "Hey, you should watch this YouTube. My friend Walter Chao is this great critic and he hosts these matinees and then talks about the movie." So basically it was an hour of Walter and writer and musician John Darnielle talking about Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was a movie that I wasn't brave enough to watch until I was in my late 30s.

I love that.

But since I've seen it, I love that movie.

Such a good one.

Their discussion sent me into a rabbit hole that became Horror Movie. So I don't know, it's just you never know where it comes from and just try to be open to it.

Yeah, nice.

I'm actually— I am in the middle of reading Horror Movie right now and I love it. So there's that.

That's on my TBR list. You're coming up close.

Yeah, I'm gonna—

once you read it, I'll just steal it from you.

Yeah, here, I'll hand it over. Um, so, and going with the writing process still, do you have— do you start with an ending in mind, or you do you just kind of like torture it out of your characters and then see what happens?

I like how you put that. I typically have some notion of the ending. Sometimes it's really foggy. Sometimes it can be, this is the last line, I have to earn my way there.

Oh, I like that.

So I'd say most of the time it's, obviously I have a beginning and a vague or sometimes the end in mind. And it's like the hard part is all the stuff in between.

Getting there. I mean, the middle.

Getting there.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And you're kind of, so you're like kind of the king of ambiguous endings. I feel like that's— You have to figure it out. You get to decide, kind of.

Yeah, because I've done that a few times.

Yeah, that's fine. I don't know if you've heard that or not, but do you always know the true ending or are you kind of feeling that way too?

It depends on the— I guess it depends on the story. So A Head Full of Ghosts, in my mind, there's no true ending. I think when I wrote it, I had to purposely divorce myself from thinking there was a true ending because I thought then the true ending would've leaked through, and I didn't want that. I wanted Head Full of Ghosts, if it was scary at all, to be scary precisely because we didn't know and have that. To me, that's just the scary part of life. We have beliefs, but ultimately we just don't know. And I think anytime you use ambiguity, it helps trigger that a little bit, which helps maybe scare people if it works that way. I like that. The Cabin at the End of the World, I way underestimated how many people were going to be upset not knowing if the world was ending or not. Because to me, the story became not about that. It became about the two— the two— the husbands and what they were going to decide. To me, that was the story. But something like the Paul Bearers Club, you know, it plays with ambiguity. But yeah, I'm pretty sure she's a vampire.

Yeah.

If you don't want to believe she is, that's fine too. Yeah. I would not— you know, I would definitely wouldn't want to, like, spoil someone's reading experience.

But, uh, but she's a vampire.

I mean, that's fun. Who wouldn't want that to be the ending?

I think so too. Yeah. I like that. I think it's more fun that way. I think so. Because it lets somebody, it like stays with someone longer when they have to sit there and think about it and wonder who's the different, you know.

I hope it's never, I never want it to be like a cheap like twist. You know, twists are fun, but like I don't want that to be just like a gimmick. Like, yeah, you don't want that to be like, I, you know, even if, you know, anyone out there has read it and doesn't like it, just, I don't know if this assures you or makes you feel better, but like I thought hard about it. It's like, if I'm going to do this, I know I'm asking a lot to read 300 pages and then maybe having open-ended stuff, but I don't know. I try to write books that I want to read and I like having sort of the questions linger afterwards.

Yeah, I like that too.

I do too.

I think it's scarier, like you said. One last question for you about your writing process or just writing in general. If readers can take one thing away from your work beyond the scares, what would you want that to be?

Oh, wow. That's—

I know we're ending on a heavy question.

Yeah, that's hard. Especially with the novels, what I typically lean towards doing is I'm trying to make it feel as realistic as possible. This is what it would feel like if there was a maybe demon possession, or this is what it would look like. Okay. And maybe just hopefully people take away the characters. I can really only think of, prior to the novel that's coming out, one mustache-twisting villain in all my prior books in Daven. There's one character who might be a villain, but everyone else I want people to, again, some of the horror I think is these people are doing terrible things. I write them in such a way hopefully that you still understand why they did it and maybe recognize like, oh, if not but for other circumstances in my own life and the luck that I've had and the privilege, that maybe that would be me. And that's a scary sort of realization. But yeah, I mean, but it depends on the story. I mean, these are just the things that I write. Like in the book that's coming out, the AI in the book is definitely not to be sympathized with.

in any way.

Uh, but yeah.

All right guys, we're taking a quick break so that we can talk about one of our most favorite sponsors, Ashley. I am obsessed with Ashley, and they were nice enough to send us this gorgeous furniture that you see me sitting my little bum on. And we got a coffee table, we got this gorgeous sofa. We got the loveseat over here. We'll show you all these different pieces. It was so important to me when I was updating my studio that I really wanted like a timeless, almost kind of like vintage feel. I love really rich dark woods, which you can see. This is the Corestone end table. One, I love again the rich dark wood, but also the fact that you can kind of dress up the bottom shelves or like the little shelves right there. With your decor style. This is the Revion Lake sofa and the matching loveseat over there. One, I love that it goes really well with what we have already for morbid decor, and two, I just feel like the color fits so well with the paint color and the overall vibe that we have in here. So thank you so much to Ashley.

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Such a good pick.

This book is little, but she is fierce.

She is. To quote—

who is that? Is that Shakespeare?

Sure.

Mighty.

I don't know. She's mighty.

So let's talk about moments that made us cringe throughout the book, because I cringed throughout this entire thing.

It was a lot of cringe. Yeah. I tabbed the hell out of this book. I could not stop.

Also, can I just say, like, I love Winifred. She's awful, but she's— hilarious. And I was like rooting for her in a weird way.

Yeah.

You know? Yeah.

I was like, yeah, kill that family.

No, like I was laughing and gasping.

Yes.

Less cringy. Like I couldn't— yeah. So we're going to get spoilery. This is good.

Yes.

We're going to get spoilery. It'll be in the notes too. So you guys know.

Yeah.

We're going to be talking about the book.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, for sure. I mean, I was sent— I was lucky to be sent like an ARC and I happened to have the time to, you know, to be able to read it. And I was a little nervous going into it only because anytime, and I know this from experience, using a title that references a famous work, I was like, "Ooh." You're like, "Uh-oh." "We'll see." A little nervous. Obviously, you know American Psycho, which I've read and actually, even though it's pretty awful, I really do like that book. So I was like, "All right, we'll see what happens." But man, she had me at the end of the first chapter. Mrs. Abel, I muse, is a woman who has never held a penis. It was just the timing of it.

I kept that one.

She was describing, I'm so bad at remembering the character names, but describing the woman who was in charge of the house and everything. It was just like you were not expecting that line. There were so many lines that you were just not expecting and it was just said so plainly.

That's what I loved.

She was just so funny. And then the little asides that she would make to the reader were so funny. I felt like we were friends throughout the reading process. Yes.

Because she would say something like, "Dear reader," or something. And I was like, "I know, girl." I was like, "We're in this together." Yeah, you're right.

Yeah.

And I love that she had the— it was the little asides that you didn't see coming where she was like, "I teach them history and arithmetic and what corpses smell like and French." And I was like, "Wait, what?

Back up?

That's part of it?" And they're just sprinkled everywhere in this book.

They really are. I loved it.

She surprised me everywhere. She did. Yeah. Also, like with the like cringy moments, I felt like there was so many genuinely hilarious moments that I felt guilty laughing at at times.

Yes.

Like, um, there was a point when she's— this is awful, but with like, uh, original baby, when she's like, original baby and original baby was killing me the entire time. And when she says, I spit out the blood and see, as so often happens when one slits an infant's carotid artery, that the baby is dead. I was like, why is that funny in all awful.

Like, I was so nervous going into it because one of my friends read this before me and she was like, just so you know, there's like, yeah, kid death, and like, she's like, those babies. And I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna like that. And then she's like, you know, as so often happens when you kill a baby. And I was like, you know, why is that hilarious?

No, I don't know how that is.

Yeah, I knew nothing going in. That, that was so shocking. That was like a gasp. Yeah. And again, laugh despite yourself.

Yeah, I was like, I shouldn't be laughing at this, but this is hilarious.

It's one of the magic tricks of, of Winnie's and, you know, Virginia's manipulating the reader.

Yes.

Oh yeah. Like, to, you know, to get you to be somewhat on her side. And I think people, based on what I see online, have like false memories of this book because they want to root for her and they assume, oh no, she's only killing bad people. Like, yeah, she's killing the patriarchy and she's killing like, you know, the rich people. She's kind of killing everybody.

She killed Baby Sloth.

Nobody is spared.

No, no. She's a really cool opportunist killer.

Which I really admired about her approach because it could have been like, I mean, it makes us feel good, but it could have been like, "Ah, superhero, she only kills the bad people." I don't know. I only get so much mileage out of some of those stories because it doesn't feel like real life. When I read happy, not all happy endings, but when I read stuff like that, I actually feel worse because it's like, "Oh, that made me feel good, but that's not what it is." But that's not real. Yeah. And even though as wild and fantastical in some ways that this book is, it just feels like, "Oh." She just went for it. Yeah.

Yeah, she really did.

Yeah, because she says like the dead babies in the boxes that she sent to the nuns with like the "sorry, here's another one" note. I was like, I'm sorry, what?

Sorry, here's one more. And they kind of like touch on that earlier, I think, when she's sitting down with them and she's like about to eat and kind of interview with them. Like, they're like, oh, that's so awful that that's happening. And in the back of your mind, you're like, is that her doing that?

Are you doing that?

And then she's like, can confirm.

Yeah, can confirm. Just with the notes, sorry, here's another one. I was like, what? And to know this.

And just like breaking out of sort of the Victorian speak a little bit too.

Yeah. There was a few times she did that for sure.

And it worked so well. And I think just like at one point she says, "Reader, she doth make a fine point about Drusilla." And I was like, "She does." She really does. I'm with you on this.

I know.

When she found the tooth in her mouth that wasn't hers, and then it just never was explained again.

Whose tooth was that?

Whose molar was in her mouth?

And like, did that hap— There were so many things that happened that I was like, "Did that happen?" Yeah. I think when she's really starting to unravel, she walks by one of the rooms and there's a bunch of, like, plague doctors. And you're like, they're not there. It's Christmas. Like, what?

But they're all just like, shh.

And then they just close her out of there. Or when Original Baby just talks to her out of nowhere.

That's how Original Baby got got. Yeah. Started talking.

I loved that.

Yeah. On my second read, you know, to prepare for this, because I wrote it, I read it like, you know, 2, 2 and a half years ago at this point because I got the early copy. Yeah, I was like, "Oh, maybe this is a little bit more, way more ambiguous than I thought." Even because it's written in present tense and there's sometimes where I forget the end of one chapter was like, it's not like, "Will they survive the night?" And then she says, "They don't." Or something. It breaks from present tense, you're wondering about the state of these people in the house to her saying, "No, they don't." Like, "No." Right.

Yeah.

So I mean, her as a storyteller is, and part of it could just be explained away as it's a choice of how she's telling it because By the end, when she's on the gallows, sort of explaining things. It just made me think, how am I learning the story? How are we hearing this? And she even says, "Sometimes I'm not right in the head." Not in those words exactly, but— Yeah.

She's truthful.

She is.

Which I loved because that was like, oh, this is a book that I could read multiple times and still—

And still wonder.

And still even know I won't have the shock of the baby being killed and replaced with some poor farmer's baby that she just plucks from the ground.

That she just runs down the street, who's going to have a different nose later on. I loved that.

There's still so many other pleasures to get from this when you're reading it. Oh yeah.

Yeah.

And I like that she foreshadows the gallows a couple of times for you where you're like, I'm sorry, what? Like, you're just like, okay, you're going to get caught after this? Like, this isn't the end? I loved that.

That was really cool.

Yeah.

Do you think Winifred, do you think of her as a psychopath, a villain, or the most honest person in the room? Or all of the above?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I got to be all three, I guess. I mean, you can't do that to a baby.

Yeah. I feel, I feel that's, yeah. That's it.

The baby line.

But the rest of the people in the house are—

Awful.

Probably as bad as she, or as bad as she is in different ways.

Yeah, I think so. I think so, for sure.

Yeah, Mrs. Pounds.

I hate Mrs. Pounds.

I was ready.

From the jump too.

Yeah.

And the green dress she gave her that was probably poison.

Yeah, it was a green dress.

I missed that on the first read somehow, I think.

Oh yeah.

On the second read, there was more time spent with that. And that could be messing with her brain and yeah.

Oh yeah, 'cause they used to make those. We looked it up. They used to make those dresses out of arsenic. They would wear them a few times and then start dying.

Yeah. Literally.

Damn.

They put it in wallpaper too. Yeah. Any vibrant green thing back in the day was laced with arsenic. Probably laced with arsenic. Wild. What was the first scene that made you realize this book was going to be feral? Was it the one that you already read?

I think it was probably, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was like the— What about the— I think it was the first chapter at the end when she says, "In 3 months, everyone in this house will be dead." Yep.

I was like, I took notes, a couple of notes, and that was the first thing I wrote down. I was like, oh, okay.

That was the first one I tabbed. I was like, damn. And she's—

I think she starts it off by being like, yeah, it's gonna be like really cold and it's gonna get colder and then everyone's gonna die.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Okay.

Wow. All right, I'm into it. Yeah. And again, I feel like we just were all— I was rooting for her pretty early on, and I— which I was shocked by because at first when I read that, I was like, oh no. Is she going to be irredeemable?

Well, and she's going to kill a whole family.

And she is irredeemable. That's the weird thing is she's completely irredeemable. But why did I like her? I was like, that is so hard to write a character that way and have it work.

Yeah, it's impressive.

Yeah, it's so funny. The voice is just so humorous and inviting. And she's letting you in on it. So obviously, that gets you over to her side.

Yeah.

Because she is, you know, these people are pretty terrible, right?

Don't you think?

Except they're the— Who aren't so terrible, who are also getting it.

It's true. She's equal opportunity.

Now, the scene in the book also, like you were thinking, the feral scene, what comes to mind to me is the decayed crow pudding that she had to eat.

Oh my God. When she was away at school.

All those kids. Oh my God.

Clergy daughter school or whatever.

That actually made my stomach turn when I was reading it.

That was gnarly.

That was gnarly.

She's like covering it up with the maggots and everything. I was like, "Oh my God." That was—

I— yeah, that was a lot. That's— I think when she— one of the first mentions of like, and I will be hung at some point during this, I was like, yeah, probably, girl. I was like, that's not good.

But then I also felt like weirdly bad for her because they were so mean to her, she was saying, and that was the one time that like they needed her. I know, it reminded me— have you seen Yellowjackets?

I haven't.

Oh, okay, that's all right. It kind of reminded me of Misty, one of the characters who She's a psychopath, but she wants to be needed so desperately.

And she's bullied and pushed around a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah. So when she's needed, she makes the situation where she is needed, essentially.

Yeah. It felt very much like that.

And that's what she did. She made a situation where she was needed.

She's like, "It's the only time that they ever were nice to me." I'm like, "Oh." That made me sad.

And I like too that, like we were just saying, we don't know who the worst person in the book is. Technically, Winnie— Winifred is the worst person in the book. Probably. But there's other people that you're like, I was like, "These people are also really terrible." Mr. Pounds is gross.

Mr. Pounds is really gross.

All those people at the dinner party, the Dowager.

I hated the Dowager.

She's such a bitch. I was like—

With her cane just hitting people.

When she finally got got with that cane, I was like, "All right, I'm into that.

I'm for that." That's the perfect way to take her out.

Yeah, it really was. I mean, the thing with Winifred is she exists in this weird space in the book, and I think it makes it the— really interesting because she's a governess, so she's in charge of the kids. And she, she's not, she's not known to be family in the beginning. She's not one of the servants technically. And she's also definitely not an equal.

No, not at all.

But she's like, she has this unique ability to be able to like wander around the house and sit at the table and have more access to places and people without getting the same kind of respect that someone would. And I feel like that helped tell the story really well.

Yeah.

Because she has all this access, but she's treated so poorly.

Right.

And I really liked that. I thought that made it unique for sure.

Absolutely.

And I think there's a lot of— obviously, the Victorian high society is like a character in this book. Yeah.

Yeah, the setting does become a character.

In and of itself. And I think it's kind of flipped on its ear here because a lot of people think of Victorian high society as fancy and gilded and everything was so like, you know, like they're elite, they're this. But she portrays them as disgusting.

Filthy.

Disgusting. Like the Victorian elite are just foul.

Yeah.

And I loved that. It was like little things, like when she's going upstairs and looking in all of their rooms and she mentions the earwax on the pillow at some point. I was like, "Ugh!" Like, what? And just little things, like lard was in one of their hairs to keep their hair back.

The scene where they're all eating.

Oh.

Yeah. That I think Mikey had warned you beforehand because Elena has misophonia. So like hearing things, I swear you could hear it as you were reading.

It was foul.

That scene is gross.

That was like almost like a nice counterbalance to the crow meal. Like that meal was just as disgusting even though these were things that were specially prepared.

Yeah.

Yeah. And how they were eating it.

Oh, I know.

They're just like— Oh, it's horrifying.

Like gouging it into their faces. It's so gross.

And I think it's— I love that they presented it that way that like these people look like may have all this money and they have all the power. They are just as disgusting, if not more, than everybody else. Yeah. Like, I loved that.

I know. It was almost like the servants in the house were like higher society than the high society people.

They had it more together, I feel like.

And the high society parents of other baby never even notice.

Yeah.

That, that blew my mind. They're not even so attuned to their own kid that—

Yeah. Oh, that's— And the fact too that Winifred knew that that wouldn't be an issue. She's like, "Oh, yeah." I feel like she had done that before.

You know? And I was wondering too, when she brought new baby in, I was like, "What's going to happen here?" Because in my head, I'm like, "Of course she's going to know." That seemed like a corner impossible to write out of.

It did. It really did.

Of course, she really was just like, "Eh, you're not going to notice." I love it.

Like, "Oh, yeah." And it was part of the whole, like, "Look how disgusting these people are. She doesn't even know her own child." Right. Like even, and it wasn't like, oh, I picked a baby that's like the same size. Right. It seems, she was like, this doesn't look like this baby at all. And not only that, it's like, it's not as big as this baby. It doesn't look like this baby has a mole that that baby doesn't have.

Oh, and she scrapes it off for the—

She scrapes it off.

I'm also like, is the baby bleeding when you return it? Like what?

And like that outfit it was wearing was like covered in blood. But she's like, ah, I don't know. Like babies, they throw up.

Like that's what happens. Well, she said, she's like, I've learned through experience that like mess looks like blood.

It's fine. Yeah, it's the same. And I was like, and she, and it worked. They just showed up the next, at the next thing being like, here's the baby. Like, what?

And at the next thing with the baby a little older and looking even less like a baby.

Even less like it should have looked. And I loved it because she was like, its nose is going to look different and that's going to be a conversation later. I was like, oh my God.

I thought that was so funny.

But yeah, it was. And what's cool too is she obviously did a lot of research about Victorian times and weird Victorian customs. Because they were nuts. Like that whole mummy unwrapping part. I was like, what is this? And in my head I was reading it and being like, this is crazy. And then I looked it up and I was like, oh, that was a thing. Like they actually, like wealthy Victorian families would go to Egypt. They would buy an entire mummy as a souvenir, bring it home, have a party. And then they would all just unwrap the mummy. And I was like, what?

That's the weirdest.

I'm sorry, what?

We're a strange society.

And like, for what purpose? I don't understand the purpose.

We're idiosyncratic.

Why are we doing this?

Bored rich imperialists.

It's so weird.

Because we can.

Very much that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we were reading more like they were, you know, they were talking like when she's dressing Drusilla and getting her ready and like all these like features that they find to be desirable. Are all features of tuberculosis. And that was considered desirable back then. It was being super pale and super frail and the flush in the cheeks. And—

Like, literally looking sick.

Looking consumptive was the cool thing.

And gorgeous.

And I love that she put it in there too. Yeah. Because it was all very real. Again, the green dress, that's a thing. I think she mentions the belladonna. Eye drops. That was a thing to dilate their pupils. And they would just go blind after a while. But they'd be gorgeous. They'd be gorgeous. Big eyes. Like, what? But one thing I really liked about this was in the end when Drusilla joins in and is doing all the things for days.

The 12 days of Christmas.

The 12 days of Christmas. And when they set them all up at the table and feed them food, they're just having a whole feast with them. I was like, "This is the most fucked up thing I've ever read and I love it." But do you think that Drusilla actually was taking part in that or do you think she was chained up the whole time?

Yeah, it's a great question. I was going to ask what you thought about Drusilla at the end too. To go back to how much more of this is ambiguous than maybe we think. There's a line early on in the book where I think Winnie is confessing stuff. She says, "I fear I am succumbing to elaborate flights of fancy. This shan't be like other times or something." Yeah.

So she's like, "This happened." So yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I think just because it's so weird to say that you enjoy your time with Winnie, that you want to think all of this happened.

Yeah.

Just as she says.

Just as she says, and that you're there with her at the end. And so you actually, we feel Or as the reader, I felt betrayed by Drusilla.

Yes, I did too.

Yeah.

Yeah. Which is so weird.

She's a kid.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm like, why do I feel this way?

Yeah.

When I got to the end, I was like pissed at Drusilla. I'm like, come on, that's your sister. You're supposed to like ride together. Right. Yeah. But then once I finished reading, I was thinking about just her being kind of an unreliable narrator.

Mm-hmm.

And I was like, maybe I don't think Drusilla actually did help with all that.

Yeah.

And then I think when she sees Drusilla in the crowd, at the gallows and she's crying, I don't think Drusilla's crying because they had this killing bond together or anything like that. I think she's crying because of what happened to her family.

Yeah. Like, she massacred her whole family.

I think she was chained up for the whole thing. And I think Winnie just didn't want to be in it alone, maybe.

Yeah. Right. Because that's a hard switch to flip. I mean, I think there were no clues of Drusilla's—

No.

No.

—you know, potential psychotic behavior— Right. Yeah. —anywhere else, you know, prior to this. To the Caligula sort of 12 Days of Christmas that when he says she took a part in.

Yeah. And that's the only thing I could think of with that that I went back to. And I think this was smart of her to plant these little things in there was the painter, the lecherous painter that she was into. And now the mother got mad and then the father made her hold the locket up and shot it out of anger toward them. So it was like you planted that, which Obviously you're not going to be like, "So you should kill your whole family." But you could at least go back to it and be like, "Did that break her a little bit?" That's true. That's a little hardcore to have that shot out of your hand.

Yeah.

Having to hold a locket and have it shot out of your hand.

Well, and I think the painter said something to her. And again, we can't be sure that he did, but she finds a note when she's putting Drusilla to bed and he says something like, "You have weird tendencies. So please stop writing me." That's right.

That's a good point.

So who knows? Was that real?

Could that be just Winifred trying to justify the whole thing?

Exactly.

Or trying to be like, "She's with me.

This did happen." That's why I think the end is so fun because you really can't be sure whether Drusilla was part of it or if she wasn't. Yeah. Right.

It's strange to be made to want to think, "Oh, Drusilla's gonna carry on as the next Victorian psycho to Electric Boogaloo." Hey, it leaves it kind of open.

Maybe Drusilla's story is next. Who knows?

And I don't know, which would you prefer to be? Was she taking part in it or was she— would you rather her have been—

I feel like I prefer her to take part in it in a weird way.

Yeah. There's the fun part of me, which I don't let out very often, that is rooting for that. Right. But I think the more I think about it, I was like, ah, I think it's more— most of the stuff happened, but it's being refracted through Winnie and and go towards what— more realistic interpretation. But yeah, she was probably chained up there.

It makes sense.

It does make sense in the end. I feel like unless she—

and again, unless she's like this like criminal mastermind and she like partied with her for a few days and then realized they were gonna get caught and was like, well, I'll just quickly do this. Well, no, she's gonna believe that her over me.

They are related, so you do have to wonder, is there something— are they both missing the same screw, you know? Then again, are they related?

Because Mr. Pound said, that's not my daughter.

That's true. I think Mr. Pounds, which made me wonder too.

I'm like, is he just saying that to be an asshole? Or I think so. Is that really not her? He talks about being—

she talks at different times about being observed and she's not sure quite by who. And maybe it's Drusilla. And for a while she thought it was Drusilla. Yeah. Um, yeah, I don't know. Interesting.

Yeah, there's a lot that you have to wonder. Yeah, from Winnie's perspective.

And I think that's just fun. You mentioned people that hate before. Like, we haven't— I, I hate— I hated Andrew the most. Oh my God, I hate Andrew so much.

And I was like, why is this 8-year-old child?

Is he only 8?

Yeah, I think he's literally 8 years old.

He comes bigger and older, but yeah, he's only—

yeah, he walked in on the first day and he was like, screw you, this is how it's gonna go. Yeah, my last nanny was better than you. And I was like, you don't run stuff around here, little Andrew.

And I think he was like licking food off of one of the nurses' fingers, and I was No, I'm not.

No. Yeah. Just, you know, Mr. Pound in training. Like, yeah, that's exactly what it felt like.

And that's the thing.

Well, it's funny, you know, thinking of that because Lisa's a huge fan of like Jane Austen and other Victorian novels. I wonder, are you all Victorian readers? Austen, et cetera.

I am a big Victorian reader.

I'm curious if someone who was a big Victorian novel reader, what they would think of the voice, of the style, of the setup.

Yeah. That would be interesting actually.

Yeah. I haven't read a ton of that. So yeah, I thought it was really fun though.

I know. Cause I feel like Victorian novels, usually like the ones I've read from like school and such. Yeah. I feel like they do present the Victorian age as like this very like fancy, whimsical and romantic time, which I'm sure it had elements of, but like this is just like grubby.

This is just like, ugh. Yeah. I mean, I do think there's an element of like the manors, you know, because I know Jane Austen was riffing on like the manors and using that to— For sure. Using that to represent the difference between the classes as opposed to psychos killing babies. Right. Exactly. I like that there is that. There is the manners component to it, like the dinner that we talked about and just how Winnie is treated and how she'll say things that probably in reality would've gotten her fired right away. But for our benefit, that's funny. I don't know.

Yeah. I love the couple times where they'd be like, "Excuse me?" And then she'd say something completely different. That was great.

When she says, "Are we not allowed to eat the children?" As she's licking a calf head on a—

I was like, "What?" I also just love that everything that went ignored that she did, like, uh, yeah, though even I think it was like the first day that she was there, she bites into the calf's head. Yeah, that's the part. Is that what you're talking about?

Yeah. And she's like, somebody finds her and she turns around and she's like, oh, we're not allowed to eat the children. Yeah. I didn't know that. And they were just like, what?

They're like, okay, you're strange. I love her.

I just love how like unhinged she is.

And she was always weirdly ruder to the like her coworkers.

Yeah, it was. Yeah.

Like, you know, she talked at times about like dreaming of being— this is my forever family. Like she says that a couple of times. Yeah. You know, she has nothing but disdain for— she also leaves— but there's still like—

she wants to be part of something.

I don't know if it's sometimes if it's humor or her. I don't know. Like, I'm not 100% sure.

Like, why?

Yeah, that's what I meant. Like earlier, it wasn't just like, you know, she's just, you know, she's just scything her way through the upper class. Right. Like there's no one is spared. Like, no, I think makes her really difficult. Yeah. And even stranger, like how much we enjoy her. Yeah, I know.

Cause she talks about having like lined, like shelves lined with dead babies at home.

Yeah. As a child too.

As a child. And that like she had a full grown woman like outside dead and she was like, she didn't fit on the shelf. And it was like, is that real? Like, did you really do that?

And I think it is.

I think it might be. Yeah.

I think one thing that we didn't touch on that I would love to hear, like how you guys felt, were you absolutely shocked when you found out that Mr. Pounds was her father? And do you believe that he actually was?

I'd say yes and yes. Yes. I think that's very believable. Even if other stuff is of her sort of creation.

I think the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. But I was shocked. But I was, yeah.

Yeah.

I got to that point when it was like, "John Pounds," and my mouth literally dropped. And then you have to wonder, you're like, "Okay, is this the Mr. Pounds?" So then I kept reading and it was then confirmed.

I was like, "Holy shit." Yeah. I didn't see that coming. And she went in there with a mission. So when it was revealed, I was like, "Oh, this makes sense why she went in there with a mission." When she had it arranged that she got that job, too.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was crazy. I know. It was wild.

I thought that was a really good—

just all of a sudden, just like, "Oh, my God." And it was weird, too, going back to Drusilla now that I'm thinking about it. It's weird that Drusilla did survive this whole thing if she wasn't a part of it. It's true. Because I'm like, why did you— save her? Did you see something that you— And you kind of see throughout the book that she does kind of try to guide Drusilla a little bit more than Andrew or anyone else. I'm like, I wonder what that was, what that connection was.

I wonder if it was the unwanted daughter thing because she is the unwanted daughter. And then they're always— Whenever she brings up Drusilla to Mr. Pounds, he's like, "Yeah, whatever, Andrew. He's going to take over the—" the name, the family name.

So maybe it was that. And he gets all the classes and all the people coming to teach him things, and she's just going to learn needlework. And get married. Yeah, to get married. So maybe that is it. Maybe. But I think it kind of lends itself even more to the ambiguity of the whole thing because now I'm like, "Well, I don't know. Maybe she was chained to that whole thing the whole time, or maybe she was part of it. I don't know." But I also love that this has I was reading it out loud, certain parts of it to my husband last night because I was just laughing at certain parts. He's like, "What is this?" So I'd read him a line every once in a while, and he was like, "What is this story? What is going on?" But I think it has such a good mix of pure horror. The end is horrific. The baby being killed, horrific. And even them eating. But so funny, right? But so funny. But there's real comedy in there too. Such a good mix, and I feel like that's really hard to accomplish. Yes. It's a tough balance.

Because you're either— it's going to go too horrific and you're going to be like, the comedy doesn't fit here and it makes it weird and I'm uncomfortable with it, or it's going to go too goofy and then the horror feels goofy too. And neither of these felt goofy. No, no, no. It felt like a perfect mix. And it reminds me of— have you watched Widow's Bay?

Yes. Oh, yes.

I haven't started it yet. I'm trying to recruit people to watch Widow's Bay now. It gave me the— because I think that show, that's how I've been describing it to people. People is the horror in it is genuinely scary at times, but it is so funny. And the funny isn't overly goofy where it waters down the horror of it.

So it gave me that. That's a great point. And I've, in other interviews, I've— I mean, because I love— I like horror comedies, but I think it's really hard to sort of say what you described is not to have the source of the comedy be the horror. That's what most horror comedies are. It's really fine hard to find in my mind, horror comedies that are both scary and funny, especially in terms of film. And I agree, this book does it. Widow's Bay is doing it. Yeah. And I think it's—

and I was— when we first started watching Widow's Bay, I was like, oh my God, they nailed this combo. And again, like you were saying, you just don't really see that work ever. And so I was like, oh, this is a diamond in the rough. Holy shit. And then reading this right after we started watching this, I was like, how have I come across last two pieces of media that have done this so well in the same, like, 2-week span.

It's the horror renaissance. It's the horror renaissance. It is. That's what makes me so excited for this to now be translated into film. I feel like it's gonna be really fun. Yeah, I'm nervous.

I know, I'm nervous. I'm scared.

I'm excited. Optimistic.

Yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic.

But we always, we always have this. Yes. If the film does not work, we have this.

Well, the fact that you said she wrote the screenplay, that gives me a lot of optimism. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Now I think we have to get to what I think you might have come for, which is the rapid fire would you rather. All right. Kind of slasher edition. Yeah. We got a mix. Yeah. We have a whole mix in here.

There's some New England stuff in here.

There's Victorian central. There's some of your work in here. Yeah. Ooh. All right. All right. So number 1, would you rather be trapped in a manor with Winifred for 24 hours or trapped in a group chat with every villain character from your novels?

I think I'll go with the group chat just because I feel like I won't die. I might be really annoyed and disturbed, but I think I wouldn't last very long with Winterford in the house.

Fair enough. And you can always throw on do not disturb. That's valid. Yeah.

I think that's valid.

I think that's what I would do. I'd be afraid she would kill me and replace me with other Paul and people would be like, "Oh yeah, that's Paul." There's original Paul and then there's new Paul.

Yeah. See, I hate— I'm one of those people that people will text me and I'll look at it and be like, oh, I should answer that. And then I just don't for like 5 days. And then I'm like, I'm so sorry. And it's like, I'm just bad at it and I get overwhelmed and executive dysfunction. So I feel like being in a group chat is my nightmare.

Well, and the villains in your book might kill you.

They might. Just, I don't want to listen to them. So I think I don't know. I feel like me and Winifred for 24 hours, we might be okay.

Could be a cool hang.

I feel like we might be okay. You could have a Drusilla and Winifred kind of vibe. Yeah. I just want to believe that.

Would there be other people in the house for her to kill just in case, or is it just you? That's a good question. No, one-on-one.

Just one-on-one. One-on-one.

So you do have to survive that because she is going to have to go 24 hours without killing someone.

It's so hard. She started off pretty chill. She did.

Give her a calf's head. Yeah, there you go. Let her lick you every once in a while.

Yeah, just give her your earlobe. That's all you need. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's fine.

You know what? Yeah. I'm in with Winnie. You're going Winnie?

I'm going Winnie.

I mean, I don't want her to lick me, but. All right. So the next one is, would you rather have a ghost follow you forever, just follow you around, or a book reviewer follow you forever? Dun dun dun.

Oh man. I think I'll have to go with the ghost. I mean, that would be very scary at night though. But I don't know how you do it, but I actively avoid reading any Goodreads or Amazon. There lies madness. So I mean, if you're talking like, oh, I don't know, like a New York Times reviewer is following me around, I feel like they might be a little bit more polite, but I don't know.

Maybe they wouldn't harass you as much. We're making it a random internet reviewer. Yeah.

If it's random internet, then there's no choice. I would do the ghost.

Yes, 100%. I agree with you 100%.

I'd pick a ghost too, just because I think that's fun. Yeah. And I feel like ghosts have followed me in my life. So nothing new here.

And I feel like you could eventually become friends with a ghost. Like you could have a rapport at some point.

You get used to their tendencies.

It's like a roommate. Exactly.

I'm sure I'd annoy them because I'd start calling them Casper or something and they'd get pissed off.

And they'd be like, come on. Maybe that's your bond to them. That's true. That's your thing. All right. Would you rather receive one life-changing, terrifying supernatural visitation, like earth-shattering? Just one. Just one. Or would you rather receive one brutal Goodreads review every morning? Which is kind of fun.

So I have to review it. I have to read it.

Just one every morning, which is probably a tough way to start your day.

But really brutal.

That's a hard start. Yeah. Jeez. Maybe. I mean, So 98% of my day, I'm a card-carrying skeptic atheist, don't believe in anything. But there's the 2% where I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm totally freaked out. The next day I'm like, "Paul, you're such an idiot." So I tell people that I don't believe, but I don't want to be proven wrong. So even though I'm leaning towards the first thing, because in some ways that would actually still also be really cool. Like, yeah, whoa, there's this. There it is. Yeah, there it is. This exists. So yeah, I think I would go with the first. Yeah, that would probably scare the shit out of me and I'd be like, yeah, because it's going to be brutal.

But at least it's just one. It's not a bad review every day for the rest of your life. Right. Yeah. You know, that'll get you down.

That's the thing. I feel like with proper therapy and help, I can get past the brutal supernatural experience that I can't explain. That's true. But having it happen like a brutal Goodreads review every morning for the rest of my life. I feel like that would take years off my life.

That's too close to home. I mean, 'cause I could do that easily.

Yeah, that's the thing.

So like I have access to books.

That's the kind of thing that should really happen to people. I could do that right now and I don't want to. Yeah, don't do that, you too. Yeah, no, no, no. So this one I'm really interested in. Would you rather be able to write a first draft in one week or— Like Stephen Graham Jones. Yeah, just like boom. Exactly, like boom, here we go.

That's how quickly he writes, yeah.

Or would you like to be able to revise a manuscript perfectly on one pass?

I'll do the one pass. One pass?

One pass on the manuscript. I was hoping you would answer that way because I also feel that way. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm fine with the first draft taking forever. Yeah.

I mean, as hard as it can be, I love how life sneaks in. It usually takes me 12 to 15 months to come up with a draft. Oh, it's kind of fun. The book gets better by living with that book for that time. Things happen that I never would've in that week I never would have come up with, like it took that time. So I'm thinking I'm taking this too realistically, but yeah.

No, it's true.

That's a realistic one.

You know, it makes sense because it kind of like dips into, you know, if like something's happening that week, the writing's going to change a little bit and the story might change with it or a character might change with it. So I feel the same way. I think I don't mind like sitting with a draft for a while and like tinkering with it. Once it comes to like the first passes and the edits, that's when I'm like, I'm like, let's get through this. So definitely that one. Me too. Yeah. You know. Yeah. So the next one, this is also a really good one, I feel. Would you rather encounter a ghost from 1692 Salem or the ghost of a really salty sea captain from Cape Cod?

And we're saying salty personality.

Yeah.

And maybe he's salty.

And probably. As well. Physically salty.

He's probably physically salty as well. My knee-jerk is to go with the salty person, but I think I would become really annoying because I know I would just start talking like them. It's so bad. If I talk to British friends for more than 5 minutes, I start. I get my lingo. I'm not doing it on purpose and I feel like such an asshole. It just starts happening. But I think maybe for the comedy of it, the salty sea captain. I think that's a fun one. Because then I would have a new impersonation or speech pattern to do.

There you go. That you could just slip into every once in a while. I would pick that too.

I grew up in Beverly next to Salem. I mean, I love that area, but like, give me the new, give me the new guy.

Yeah. 1692 ghost just sounds really scary. They probably really like faced a lot in their life.

So. And I wouldn't understand what they're saying. Like how they talk. Have you ever seen the movie The Witch? Like, you know, I love that movie, but like, I don't know what they're saying.

You'd have to constantly be like, what?

And then you might start talking like that over yourself.

That's true. That's true.

See, I might, regardless of all of that, I might pick the 1692 ghost.

That just makes sense for you.

Because I just want to know everything. Everything. I think I'd be like, sit down. Tell me it all. What happened here? I need to know. I want to know everything. That's fair. I also want to know, are there still bodies under Gallows Hill? Yes. Burial Point. You're still thinking Widows Bay.

You want to hang out with Hamish O'Warren. Exactly. The Warren guy.

Yes. I want to know. Tell me what it is. We haven't used— they haven't figured out if there's still bodies buried in that area. And I'm like, you got to tell me.

So you'd ask about like Giles Corey.

Oh yeah. I'd be like, what was he like? He seems kind of— he was kind of a dick. Yeah.

Like iconic at the same time. Rockstar. Yeah.

Yeah. I'd want to know all of that.

I get that. I'm going sea captain.

I get it. Yeah. Just fun. Yeah. You know? That's fine. So I'll get the 1692 person.

Yeah. And we'll get the salty sea captain.

And we'll sing sea songs. Yeah.

Cheers. Cheers. I love it.

And then we'll all get together and we can learn things. And pair notes.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. This one's kind of heady. Would you rather have definitive proof that ghosts do exist or definitive proof that they do not?

Which we kind of touched upon, but we did sort of. Hmm.

I think the first one would be more fun. I would say I don't have to prove they don't exist. To me, that's almost like the assumption. You would have to prove the other way, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you'd be the most famous person on Earth. That's true. You could totally cash in on proving I'm just thinking, I want money. I'm a full-time writer now. I need money. I'm desperate. So yeah, let me prove the ghosts and write 4 tell-alls on it.

Oh, interviews, one-on-one experience. I want proof that they exist simply because I don't want to live in a world where they don't exist. That's how I feel. What's the fun in that?

Because I always say the same thing. I'm a very healthy skeptic at times, but I I believe, I wanna believe more that they do exist.

So we've had so many experiences that it's crazy to me that you're still skeptical.

Well, and there's, I try, my first knee-jerk instinct is to try to explain it with some kind of logic. We grew up in the haunted house and I try to explain it and sometimes I can, but sometimes I can't.

So many things in that house we grew up in. Inexplicable. Yeah.

There's definitely been a lot of things and that's why I'm more over on the side of like, okay. Yeah. I think there are something, I don't know what, but yeah.

Yeah. Like, not to— well, when I'm always posed that question, I feel like I disappoint people. I say, yeah, like, you know, because I've never experienced anything. And yeah, and I've always said I feel like if I were to experience, it wouldn't be like Slimer from Ghostbusters. Yeah, it would be really subtle. Yep. And just off. And like, as time passes, I would be— I would want to explain it away. Yeah. And that would just be the way it would go. Yeah. So anyway, I don't know if that adds anything. I was just thinking, I think. Yeah.

Well, and I had like, like one thing that happened in our house growing up that I I to this day cannot explain. And that's the one that really got me like, mm, what was that? We had like, my house used to be like an old farmhouse. So it's got all this crazy history and it's super old.

We found like weird shit buried on the property.

Yeah, there's always weird shit buried there. And the primary bedroom, like they added, my parents added onto the house, but the primary bedroom used to be my bedroom. And it always had weird shit going on in it. But again, I was like, it's fine. Nothing's weird here. And it became my parents' like art studio when I kind of like got older and I moved into another room.

That room is scary as hell.

And it's scary now. And we had like, it was when we had, which like RIP computer rooms where it was like the room where the computer lived. They used to shut the door every time and you had to go past the primary bedroom, the old one to get to the computer room. And one night I was walking past it to go to the computer room. The door was shut, and something from behind the door hit the door from inside so hard that I jumped across the hall, like, into the wall. My dog, like, jumped up and was like, what the hell was that? Whoa. I think my, my dad heard it and was like, what did you just do? Like, what was that? And I was like, I have no idea what that is. It was in there. He opened the door, nothing was against the door. It sounded like somebody took fists and slammed them against the door and it was right when I walked by. That's terrifying. And that's the one that I'm like, I don't know how that happened.

In that same room. That's a good one. Yeah. That same room. I used to spend the night in that room. If like you had people over or something, I would sleep in that room and I was on an air mattress, like watching the Disney Channel probably. I was like 10 years old and there was this like Tupperware, like container thing full of old magazines. And it was probably like 2 o'clock in the morning, and it just slid across the room with like crazy force. I screamed so loud, my grandparents came running, you came running. Yeah. And nobody— there was no way to reenact that or anything. The house tilted all of a sudden. No, because it was so forceful. Yeah, that room has weird energy.

So see, if you tell me that and then say you have to go stay overnight in that room, I would be like, hell no.

Yeah, I never slept in that room again.

Even though I say I don't believe, Go stay in this purportedly haunted house. I am not going to do that. Yeah. No. So I guess on some level I fear I believe.

Yeah. See? You have a healthy fear of them.

I feel most skeptics feel that way. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. Healthy fear is there. Yeah. All right. So bringing it back to Bridgewater Triangle. If you were dropped into the Hockomock Swamp, just right into the middle of it, would you rather find giant cryptid cryptid-type footprints everywhere or perfectly normal human footprints that should not be there?

I would— I was gonna say cryptid, but then my daughter would just make fun of me because she was— when she was a lot younger, she used to love Bigfoot stuff. And I'm like, "Oh, there's no such thing as Bigfoot." And she gets so mad at me. What would I rather? I mean, I guess I would rather see the cryptid. I mean, that would be so cool to be wrong and be like, "Oh, wow, there is this weird giant—" A Bigfoot thing that runs around. And human stuff.

Yeah, who wants to like— scary. I was going to say, who wants to come across a serial killer in the woods?

No one. Yeah. Like, I don't want to come across a random person in the middle of the Hawk Moth Swamp. That's my worst nightmare. I'd much rather run into Bigfoot.

Just be one with Bigfoot at that point. Yeah, truly. Yeah. Like, take on their customs and everything.

I'm ready. Yeah. Let's go. I love it. Start knocking on trees with rocks. Yeah. To communicate with them. Grow our hair really long.

Yeah. Get crazy with it. We could bond.

Yeah. Hell yeah. That's what I'm doing. I like it.

All right, would you rather have Winifred plan your wedding or host your funeral? Oh, oh geez.

Well, it seems like family and loved ones are both in danger, in jeopardy in both scenarios.

That's true. That's very true. Oh, at least she doesn't have to be at your wedding.

I'm gonna be really selfish. I'd say plan my funeral because I'm already dead.

Yeah, there you go.

Like, if it was my wedding, there's a chance that I could be one of— one of the—

yeah, like the Red Wedding.

Yeah. That's true. Right. I don't want my wedding to be a bummer. My funeral is already going to be a bummer. That's true. So she could just make it more of a bummer, I guess.

She might live in a coffin. Exactly. Yeah.

That's true.

And you just don't have to deal with the aftermath. So it's nice to not have to clean up after her. Yeah. You know? I feel that too.

I feel her wedding plans would be a little too macabre for me.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So she can do my funeral.

I agree. So Back to some ghosties. Would you rather be haunted by a Puritan ghost who judges everything you do or a Victorian ghost who constantly corrects your etiquette?

Both horrific. Yeah. I think I might go Victorian because the etiquette stuff doesn't bother me, probably much to the chagrin of some people that know me. It'd be easy to laugh off that ghost, the etiquette ghost. Yeah.

I feel like Ma is kind of an etiquette ghost.

I was going to say, I think I'd grow up around Ma. I was going to say, I think I'd grow up around Ma.

Who is that? So I'll just take that. I'd be used to it.

Same. Because the Puritan ghost would make me crazy. Again, I'll take the 1692 Puritan ghost that hangs for a second and just tells me things. You got to go after that. Yeah.

You can't stick around. I mean, just to take the logic out further, if the Puritan ghost is telling me not to do things, I was like, well, if there's a Puritan ghost, maybe, you know, the God is their God. Like, maybe, shit, I shouldn't be doing this stuff. So there you go. Mess with my head. That's true.

That's true. That's a really good point.

I can ignore the etiquette, but like, if the Puritan's like, you're going to go to hell if you do this, this, and this.

You're like, maybe I am. That just becomes like OCD. Yeah. That becomes too existential for me. And I would start losing my mind, I think, for sure. Yeah.

Victorian etiquette ghost, for sure.

Yeah. And after reading this book, you could just be like, you're gross.

So listen up. You have both. I know about both. Why are you telling me this? Did you unwrap a mummy? Yeah.

I want to unwrap a mummy. All right.

You are dropped into the middle of the Bridgewater Triangle at midnight. You can choose one companion, a ghost hunter, a cryptozoologist, a priest, a witch, or Stephen King.

Who do you choose? Oh. Stephen and I have exchanged a bunch of emails, but I've never met him in person. It'd be kind of fun to be in the woods with Stephen.

Hell yeah. Hope he's okay with that.

I don't know if he would want to be in the woods with me.

Does he want to be in the video?

He gets popped in there no matter what.

Yeah, he's just there. Yeah. Stephen. Yeah, me and Stephen.

Yeah. That'd be—

yeah, that's definitely for sure. Yeah. That's your choice too.

That was my choice. I was like, because I could be my own ghost hunter. Like, I don't need help with that. A cryptozoologist, I feel like, would just be like, oh, look, that's Bigfoot. And I'd be like, no, I know.

Like, I've done my own research.

That's a Pukwudgie. I know. I've researched this.

I'm from here. A priest. No. No.

No, thank you. A witch. A witch. We are. Yeah, I was like, I could be my own witch. So that's fine. And then I was like, Stephen King in the middle of the Bridgewater Triangle or like the Hockomock Swamp.

I was like, just start writing together.

I was going to say, then maybe we could be like, let's come up with a story together.

That would be such an experience.

Yeah, just to have a hang with Stephen King in a weird space. I mean—

Stephen here is just thinking he's going to start writing Misery 2. Yeah. It's like, oh my God.

We're like, we want to be in the middle of the woods with you, Stephen.

God damn it.

It's like, oh, help. I love it. Yeah, that's what— what is yours? Oh, good call. Yeah.

I feel the same as you. I don't— I can be a ghost hunter, like all the same reasoning.

And I've never met Stephen King, so. Yeah, why not? I'd hang with him.

I have a lot of questions. I want to know about Mambo No. 5. Yeah, I really want to know about that.

How he became obsessed with that song.

Yep. What if he like tried to be like a real woodsman and was really bad at it? It's like, hey, we can eat this mushroom. Trust me, Stephen King's eating it.

It's fine. Like, oh my God.

I'm dying. Like, trust me, it's Stephen King. There are some potential trapfalls to it, I suppose.

There are. He'd be silly.

Because I might believe him. If he ends the thing with, "Trust me, I'm Stephen King," I might be like, "Yeah, you are right. So you are Stephen King." Well, then you'd just be tripping in the woods.

That's kind of fun.

With Stephen King. Yeah.

Who can say they did that?

There we go. Definitely would choose him over Grady Hendrix. Grady would be useless.

Every time. Of course. Grady. We're not plopping him in the woods.

He'd just be complaining about bugs. Ask you to hold his blazer. I know.

He's not used to New England.

Oh, his lime-colored blazer might help us see. There you go. And work our way through.

Flair. That could be, that could be advantageous.

That could, you know, he's gonna be, he's gonna listen to this and be like, damn, I thought we had fun on that. I know, I guess I won't be joining them again. Yeah, real nice.

Barring them for my next event.

Well, speaking of Grady.

Yeah. Last question.

Okay. Would you rather fight one Stephen King clown, Pennywise essentially, or one Grady Hendrix possessed IKEA product or horror store product?

I think I'd go with the horror store. I don't know. I think the clown is too morphy. I've read Horror Store. It was a while ago. I don't have as much a memory as what they could do besides suck me into the store into the other dimension. I don't know, but I feel like I could fight a bookcase named, what's it called?

Benny or something like that.

Yeah. It's hard to be scared of Benny. Of Benny. That's true. I have some of those in my house. Yeah. Now I'm going to look at them askance.

Put your dukes up.

Yeah. Square up.

I see that. I thought this was easy and I think it still kind of is. Oh, it's easy for me. Like Pennywise is too much like every fear of yours he can just become. So like, no. And especially like the big spider. No, thank you. But I'm also like, it's also one of my biggest fears to be locked in an IKEA. Like when you get lost in that loop and you can't find the right way. Yeah. That's horror.

See, for me, I'm going to find the meatballs. You are going to find the meatballs. So I'll survive. That's actually smart. Thank you.

They have cinnamon buns too, I think. They do. So that— okay. Yeah, they have good stuff. I'll fight Grady Hendrix's products. That's survival.

Yeah. Yeah.

That is survival. Yeah. It scares—

Pennywise scares the shit out of me.

So I think it's colloquially, I think it is It. Yeah. I think everybody thinks of it as It. I know, it's so true. But yeah. Yeah, that's our would you rathers.

You survived it. You killed it.

Yeah. I think I got too mathy with it, with my logic. No, I like that.

You're a math teacher.

That's smart. You're only recently retired.

It's not completely out of you. I haven't gotten rid of it yet.

It's going to leach out every once in a while. And honestly, Grady got very into it as well.

He thought through them. I know. I heard him. He asked for extras.

Yeah. He was like, let's go.

We had to get them on the fly. I know.

We were like, oh my God. Oh shit, we have more?

All right.

I was like, shit. But I think that went well. I think we all survived that. Thank you. Yeah. No, no, this was, it was a blast. Thank you for being here.

Thanks for joining us.

My absolute pleasure. This was so much fun. We've been so excited for this and—

Oh, same.

Well, thank you. Thank you. And then everybody read Paul's books. Yes, please. Go watch the adaptations. They're amazing. And Stephen King, don't send us a cease and desist. We just want to be friends, Steve. Just in the woods. Yeah, we just want to hang in the woods with you. That's all.

Okay. You can go anytime. Yeah, that's all.

So before we go, Debbit Dreaming of Electric Sheep coming out June 30th, go get it. You heard what it's about. It's going to be awesome. And Paul, if you have anything else to plug or you want to further plug.

I guess I would just, I don't know when this podcast is going to run, but on July 2nd, since we mentioned Grady, he and I will be at the Strand New York City bookstore trying to sell this book. Go there. I've tried to convince him I'll wear the suit and he'll wear a t-shirt with tattoos. That would be amazing.

We should wear the lime green blazer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Look, I love that. I love it. So go check them out, go see where Paul's gonna be, and go get his books, or else—

yeah, we'll fight you. All right, well guys, thank you for listening. We hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that you don't go buy Paul's books. Do it! You better!

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