Scary Story

Think of one of the first times you encountered the pleasure of a truly spine-tingling story: the kind of book you felt uneasy about reading after dark, but it compelled you to keep turning pages in that way only scary fiction does. Maybe it was Stephen King, or Bram Stoker, or one of the legions of paperback horror-scribes of the 1980s. On this special pre-Halloween episode, we talk with authors about writing — and reading — the books that turn fear and dread into pleasure and (sometimes) enlightenment.  Sarah Schmidt, author of the chilling new novel See What I Have Done, tells Miwa Messer about her stay overnight in the house where Lizzie Borden’s family was murdered. And Benjamin Percy (The Dark Net) and Victor LaValle (The Changeling) talk about writing into darkness — and their early encounters with a certain clown in the sewer.