Did you ever consider yourself to be part of that group? When your first novel Off Season came out in 1980, you were an early harbinger of the coming splatterpunk movement of the ’80s (and in fact you’ve even been referred to as the “godfather of splatterpunk”). This year, McKee and Ketchum co-wrote the novel The Secret Life of Souls, which Kirkus Reviews raved as “an otherworldly, satirically streaked thriller.” Ketchum, who is both a World Horror Convention Grand Master and a recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, lives in New York City. Five feature films have been produced from Ketchum’s novels, starting with the 2006 adaptation The Lost, which was co-produced by Lucky McKee, who would go on to collaborate with Ketchum on the film The Woman (2011) and the Bram Stoker- and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated novella, I’m Not Sam.
With the exception of She Wakes, Ketchum’s novels are non-supernatural and could be called crossover thrillers or suspense novels, but much of his award-winning short fiction does include more fantastic elements. The Girl Next Door, first published by Warner Books in 1989, was based on the real-life story of Sylvia Likens, a sixteen-year-old girl who was kidnapped and tortured to death by neighbors the book, which has been published in both foreign editions and special editions, was also adapted into a 2007 feature film that polarized critics (although King was again in Ketchum’s corner, calling the film “the dark-side-of-the-moon version of Stand By Me”). His first novel, Off Season, was released by Ballantine Books in 1980 in his introduction to a later reprint, Douglas Winter called the tale of a group of cave-dwelling and cannibalistic savages who prey on vacationing New Yorkers “raw and risky,” while the Village Voice criticized Ballantine for publishing violent pornography. Ketchum-who, in person, is amiable and personable enough to have once been a successful literary agent (he managed the career of literary icon Henry Miller, among others)-has always walked a unique line between mass market author and cult object.
There’s a famous quote about Jack Ketchum that goes like this: “Who’s the scariest guy in America? Probably Jack Ketchum.” The author of that quote? Just some guy named Stephen King.
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