My Top 10 Favorite Horror Novels of the 80s
The following column originally appeared in Justin Marriott's PAPERBACK FANATIC #50 (sadly the final edition of this fine publication), which was published in August of 2025. You can buy a copy of it HERE . That article has been slightly expanded upon for this blog. The Horror! The Horror! I grew up in a household with a mother who regularly read true crime murder magazines. She got stacks of them from her own mother and I was absolutely terrified of them as an elementary-age child. Maybe that macabre sense of normalcy in middle American suburban life is what led Mom to be a very early adopter of reading horror novels. That became much easier in the 70s as horror found a willing playground in mainstream publishing that further blossomed in the 80s. As Mom would read what seemed a particularly good scary book, she invariably allowed me to follow suit. In retrospect, I’m not sure that was wise parenting, but I am ...