So my original plan for this week was to read What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank’s 2004 book on middle America’s confusion over which political party has their best interests at heart. But then I figured that, as a serious lover of Halloween—costumes and candy; what’s not to love?—I shouldn’t miss an opportunity to read something more seasonally appropriate. I mean, Kansas is scary in its own way (the way everything about politics is scary right now) but not “boo” scary, not ax murderer scary, not hold-your-pee-for-hours-because-you-don’t-want-to-get-out-of-bed-and-get-your-ankles-sliced scary. For that, I turn to Scary Stories 3.
People tend to have one of two reactions when I describe this book—general apathy/lack of recognition, or sheer terror. For those in the latter category, Scary Stories 3 (and in all likelihood its two prequels) is the incarnation of childhood fear, and of the power that stories about ghosts and monsters and spiders that lay eggs in people’s faces (!) had over us. For me personally, Scary Stories 3 is the book that I wouldn’t let my mother keep in my room because I was afraid of its actual physical presence. It’s also the book I convinced myself changed color overnight, and whose illustrations I can still remember today, more than a decade after first being introduced to them. Scary Stories 3 doesn’t remind me of trick-or-treating, or the time the “sunflower” costume my mom made for me was too hot to wear and I basically asked my neighbors for candy wearing a green sweatsuit. Nope, it reminds me of being freaking petrified of things as a child, in a way that’d be hard to replicate today unless I was approached by a demon or knife-wielding homeless man who swore to kill me and/or made that throaty noise from The Ring.
Continue reading “Scary Stories 3: still scary”
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