Author Daniel Kraus Dishes About Our Appetite for Horror
April 25, 2019 — Daniel Kraus is the coauthor, with Guillermo del Toro, of the New York Times best-selling novel, “The Shape of Water,” and the award-winning author of “Rotters,” “The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch,” and “Scowler.”
His book “Rotters” is on the national reading list for Summer Scares, a Library series July 11-August 2, and the name of a first-ever initiative of the Horror Writers Association, Book Riot, Library Journal and United for Libraries. The goal of the program is to encourage a national conversation about the horror genre, across all age levels, to encourage more adults, teens, and children interested in reading.
In this interview with The Library, Kraus gives his perspectives on the horror genre. Catch him in person for The Shape of Terror: A Sit-down with Daniel Kraus, at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 18, in the Library Center auditorium. Kraus is part of the Library's Summer Scares series. See the full schedule of events in the summer Bookends, or online.
- You’ve written numerous books for a Young Adult audience, including your Stoker-nominated novel “Rotters.” What’s the importance of engaging younger readers with horror?
Younger people tend to be sensation junkies – whether it's excitement, lust, fear, whatever. So I think scary things can really sink their hooks into young readers in a way it can't for adults. You remember things from childhood so vividly because everything makes brand-new wounds, in a way. When you read a scary book, it makes a little wound. Maybe you retreat from that wound, but you never forget it, and so maybe you edge back toward it after a while. Horror is a great way of testing your limits, and testing your limits is a great way of broadening your mind – your heart, too.
- Would you tell us a bit about "Rotters" and how you came up with the premise of a boy finding out his father is a grave robber and getting wrapped up in that world himself?
When I was a TV news photographer in North Carolina, I was driving a news van in a hurricane and passed a flooded cemetery, and had this vision of two men wading through the muck to gather some valuable buried thing. It was the right idea for me, because I've always been fascinated with burial rituals – mainly how little sense burial makes! We really turn our eyes away from the reality of rotting flesh in a box, or what morticians do. I'm not sure that's healthy.
- You grew up in Iowa, which is also where "Rotters" is set. What is it about the Midwest that appeals to you as a setting for horror stories?
Yes, I grew up in Iowa, and Iowa scares me. When I whip by on an interstate and see an innocuous little farm house, I always think, "Anything could be going on in there, and we'd have no idea." (That's sort of what my book SCOWLER is about.) In much of the Midwest, people keep to themselves. Insular environments like that, where no one ever questions anyone else's business, can be hotbeds of abuse, bigotry, you name it.
- "The Shape of Water," which you developed with Guillermo del Toro and later novelized, was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture in 2018. Do you think attitudes toward horror are changing in mainstream media and critical circles, and if so, why have those attitudes changed?
Not really, but that's a good thing. I think horror – as well as its genre sister, eroticism – need to stay on the fringe to remain healthy. Right now, institutions happen to be making some money off horror, so they'll ride that train until it sputters. Which it will. We'll have another lousy cycle soon. I think the number of really strong pieces of horror art per year never changes much. It's just a matter of how easy the good art is to find. An acceptable course of action for horror creators is to get a little uncomfortable when the genre gets too popular. Horror, by its definition, should repel a good deal of the populace. Otherwise, it's not horror.
- The estate of George Romero, director of horror classics such as "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead," chose you to finish a novel he left behind when he died in 2017. Would you tell how that opportunity came along, and what it’s been like?
The short version: Romero's manager knew how much I loved Romero. Romero was my favorite artist, in any art form. I'd done a couple collaborations with del Toro by then, so had a good sense of how to mesh two voices together too. George Romero (and Rod Serling) made me who I am today, so it has been an absolute dream project. I immersed myself in Romero's work and the art he loved to better understand him, and worked closely with his widow to gain every insight I can. I could've worked on “The Living Dead” forever, which will be obvious when people see how enormous the book is.