Confessions of a Horror Lover Who’s Afraid of Horror
Photo by Okay, I have a confession to make. Maybe it’s a confession and a fact. I’ll start with the fact first: I probably own around a hundred or more books that fall into the category of horror or weird fiction.
That’s mostly because, years ago, a good friend of mine was transitioning from married life to single life and moving to a smaller place. He needed to downsize, and very reluctantly decided to part with some of his books. He sent me a message with a long list of titles and asked if I might be interested in buying a few to help him out.
We agreed to meet at a local Caribou Café. I picked a handful of titles I knew I wanted, and when we met, he explained why he was parting with them — and I knew how much he loved this genre. After talking for a while, he basically convinced me that if I gave him $50, I could take all the boxes of books he had in his trunk.
It turned out there were four boxes, filled to the brim with horror and weird fiction.
I made sure he didn’t feel like I was taking advantage of him, handed him the money, and drove home with four boxes of books. That was the beginning of my collection.
From that day on, I started paying much more attention to horror books — partly because of a short story by Ray Bradbury in which he praises the impact and virtues of horror fiction and the authors who influenced him. I learned about writers I’d never heard of, and curiosity got the best of me. I began tracking down those authors and their stories, and over the years this turned into an… obsession? Or maybe a gravitational pull. Especially when it comes to short story collections — I love sampling new voices and getting just the right amount of “scary” in my day.
Which brings me to the confession:
I’m scared of horror.
As a kid, I felt the same complicated mix of attraction and fear. Yes, I watched tons of horror movies growing up — mostly because when I was around 13 or 14, my dad bought our first VCR. We were probably among the first 10 or 15 families in town to have one. And to take advantage of that privilege, I’d invite friends over. The deal was simple: they rented the movies, and I provided the VCR, the couch, and the popcorn.
We watched a lot of movies. A lot of horror.
But I was always surrounded by people.
If you asked me to watch a horror movie by myself, I’d have a really hard time admitting how uncomfortable that makes me. Even now, I still feel exactly the same way. I’ll read an odd horror story here and there, but there are books in my library that I’m both deeply drawn to and too scared to open.
One of them is The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I know there’s a TV adaptation, but the book feels like the kind of horror that would keep me up all night. Edgar Allan Poe doesn’t hit me the same way — I have several editions of his work, including some great annotated versions — but Shirley Jackson? Different story.
The most terrifying book I’ve ever read is a collection of short stories by Thomas Ligotti — one of the books I got from my friend that day at the café. Those stories left such a strong impression on me that I still measure horror by them.
Another one that surprised me was “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor — not technically horror, but the ending hit me like a punch to the chest. I wasn’t expecting it at all. Ligotti unsettled me slowly and relentlessly; O’Connor shocked me in a single moment. Both experiences stayed with me.
So yes — I still own a ton of horror books, and I have a very hard time resisting a new one when I find it. But I rarely read them. Or I just dip into them, especially around October or at the end of the year, when the season feels right — and when the house is full of people and the lights stay on longer.
Because, if I’m being honest… it’s easier to be brave when you’re not alone.