Links:
https://claymcleodchapman.com/
https://twitter.com/claymcleod
https://www.facebook.com/claymcleodchapman
https://www.instagram.com/claymcleod/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/205631.Clay_McLeod_Chapman
Order Whisper Down The Lane:
https://bookshop.org/a/21194/9781683692157
Pre-Order Ghost Eaters:
https://bookshop.org/a/21194/9781683692171
Or Listen at: Apple * Stitcher * Spotifty
Episode 149 – Novelist Clay McLeod Chapman
Two of my favorite future horror icons, director/writer/podcaster Brea Grant and novelist Shaun Hamill, recommended Clay McLeod Chapman’s 2021 horror novel Whisper Down the Lane, and I put it on my very long list of To Be Read books. When I found it magically at the library a few weeks back, I snatched it up after reading the novel’s first sentence:
“They found Professor Howdy spread across the soccer field. What was left of him, anyway.”
Whisper Down The Lane is a must read for those who grew up in the times of the 1980’s, when Satanic Panic was all the rage on daytime TV.
About the novel: Richard doesn’t have a past. For him, there is only the present: a new marriage, a first chance at fatherhood, and a quiet life as an art teacher in Virginia. Then the body of a ritualistically murdered rabbit appears on his school’s playground, along with a birthday card for him. But Richard hasn’t celebrated his birthday since he was known as Sean . . .
In the 1980s, Sean was five years old when his mother unwittingly led him to tell a lie about his teacher. When school administrators, cops, and therapists questioned him, he told another. And another. And another. Each was more outlandish than the last—and fueled a moral panic that engulfed the nation and destroyed the lives of everyone around him.
Now, thirty years later, someone is here to tell Richard that they know what Sean did. But who would even know that these two are one and the same? Whisper Down the Lane is a tense and compulsively readable exploration of a world primed by paranoia to believe the unbelievable.
I devoured the book in damned near one sitting. It was a delicious meal of a novel that I had to slow myself down and work to savor every morsel of the novel, but I still managed to finish the book in a short three days. It’s high brow, elevated pulp horror and I loved every moment of this thrill ride.
It was a small, tight, very intricate Rube Goldberg’s machine of a story. It was full of twists, turns and pivots. It felt like a roller coaster ride meets a damned, evil puzzle-box. It kept me on the edge of my seat and kept me guessing at the real end game. I was delighted and surprised when I did not guess the ending!
I was blown away by the detail and work involved in making this modern horror masterpiece. I just had to have a coffee date with Chapman, and I proposed it in the guise of a “coherent” podcast interview.
We chatted about everything from the Highlander movies, his three stages of his writing career, what keeps him going, and how he’s entering into his renaissance as a working class author.
And while we didn’t manage to get too into his comics work, Chapman does write for Marvel Comics, having written books in the Captain America and Venom areas of the universe.
That’s not enough. Chapman also manages to write screenplays, with Wendell and Wild coming soon from Netflix & Coraline’s Henry Selick.
Oh and lots of talk of Whisper Down The Lane, out now on paperback. We also chat briefly about his upcoming novel, Ghost Eaters, which will be out in hardcover in September. Both novels from Quirk Books.
We chatted about all of this and oh so much more in today’s coffee date. It’s a must listen for any creatives out there looking for some guidance and insight into the art of writing novels! Did I make a lifelong friend in the process?! I sure hope so! Will you check out his novels after listening to this episode? Undoubtedly.
You must be logged in to post a comment.