Ghost Story

"Again, it’s about hidden truths. So there is a group of men who sit around and tell a story every night. They’re called the Chowder Society. They sit around in a darkened room, having their drinks, telling their stories and reliving the past. Who knows what is true and what isn’t? It’s about camaraderie and these guys coming together. There is a guy whose name is Don, and he comes back to this small town in upstate New York after his uncle dies. People going back to a place is another way that horror isolates people, because if you’ve been separated from your hometown, or you’ve left, a lot of times it’s for a reason. He comes back and is introduced to this society. You’re hearing these stories, which are frightening. One of the stories is about an older boy who was molesting the younger ones. That’s particularly uncomfortable. Child abuse is one of those things that you wouldn’t necessarily want to write a book about, even though it is a lived experience for people. In the context of a horror story, you can broach the subject in a way that isn’t so traumatic. Books now have trigger warnings. They’ll say sexual assault, or suicide, which like child abuse can be triggering for people. It’s a really hard subject, but in the context of a ghost story…Why is this place haunted? Well, someone took their life. It’s a really sad thing, but why did they take their life? Why would the spirit of someone who took their life in this particular house in this particular way still be lingering here? In this particular ghost story, it’s someone who’s capable of sexually assaulting other children. What kind of energy would they have? Would that kind of spirit be able to linger? Because it is evil. When you think about evils in the world, that’s probably one of the top ones, harming a child in that way. So again, you have a tough subject that can be broached in a way that isn’t just, ‘Hey, I’m going to tell you about rape or sexual assault.’ As I said, in my book, I talk about postnatal depression, which can be quite insidious, emotionally and mentally, because we’re brought up to think that motherhood should be happy: ‘It’s the best thing that could ever happen to you! There are so many people who want children! You have a baby and you’re ungrateful!’ It can be quite suffocating, but it’s not the kind of thing people are going to talk about. People aren’t always going to talk about suicide or sexual assault either, but in the context of a horror story, we can tease apart those complicated emotions. That’s what I love so much about horror, that it can be healing and unifying. There are a lot of novels people have read that help digest some real-life horrors—whether it’s war or racism. You can see another perspective. All of these weird happenings start occurring in the neighborhood. As with any good ghost story, you wonder, ‘Is it real or is it in the mind? Is it your emotions or is it a physical manifestation of evil?’ That’s the mystery you unravel. There’s the unreliable narrator. This bad kid or someone who’s killed themselves, what is this thing that’s in this house or in this neighborhood? What are we tap dancing around, telling these stories? Is it real? Or is it just a story? You just never know. It’s like sitting around a campfire and people are telling stories. ‘Did you know that in these very woods where we’re standing, a person did…?’ And you might sit around and think, ‘Did it really happen?’ And then you go to bed and you hear crunching of leaves or branches. ‘Is it just a fox, or is there something in these woods, like the story said?’ There’s also a love interest in the book, this beautiful woman. You’re drawn in by these characters and what’s happening in this society. That’s what’s so great about these ghost stories—they have the ability to draw you into the emotions and the thoughts of these individuals, and what’s happening beyond the ghosts or the scares."