Episode · The Book Review · 2025-10-24
Joe Hill & Victor LaValle on The Book Review: books mentioned
Joe Hill's Scary Book Recs and Victor LaValle on "The Haunting of Hill House" (Rerun)
Gilbert Cruz discussed 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Joe Hill recommended Lost Man's Lane by Scott Carson, Fever House by Keith Rosson, The Devil By Name by Keith Rosson, The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, and The House with a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs, and discussed NOS4A2 by Joe Hill and Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta. Victor LaValle discussed Danse Macabre by Stephen King, The Shining by Stephen King, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, Lone Women by Victor LaValle, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson and others.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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20th Century Ghosts
20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill is a celebrated collection of dark, imaginative short stories that showcase the author's versatility and mastery of modern horror fiction.
Discussed“The first time I read you before interviewing you, I feel like years ago for Time magazine for Horns, this was a very long time ago, was 20th Century Ghost, which is a short story collection.”
Where to get it
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Lost Man's Lane
Lost Man's Lane by Scott Carson is a mystery suspense novel blending atmospheric dread and supernatural elements.
Recommended“The first one is Lost Man's Lane by Scott Carson. Who is Scott Carson? Not who he appears to be.”
Where to get it
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Those Who Wish Me Dead
Discussed“Scott Carson is a pen name for the thriller writer Michael Karita. Michael's probably best known for a novel under his own name called Those Who Wish Me Dead, which was made into an intense backwoods thriller starring Angelina Jolie”
Where to get it
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Fever House
Fever House by Keith Rosson is a fast-paced, gritty horror novel that follows the supernatural chaos unleashed by an evil severed head moving through the world.
Recommended“The next two books on your list, Fever House and The Devil by Name are by Keith Rosson. And the first one in particular has a classic conceit, which is that there's an evil severed head. We've all been there. Yeah. And the Fever House, and it's just out in hardcover sequel, The Devil by Name, is absolutely bonkers.”
Where to get it
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The Devil By Name
The Devil By Name by Keith Rosson is the dark, apocalyptic sequel to Fever House, presenting readers with a world profoundly transformed by supernatural forces.
Recommended“The next two books on your list, Fever House and The Devil by Name are by Keith Rosson. And the first one in particular has a classic conceit, which is that there's an evil severed head. We've all been there. Yeah. And the Fever House, and it's just out in hardcover sequel, The Devil by Name, is absolutely bonkers.”
Where to get it
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The Reformatory
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due is a harrowing historical fiction novel that blends a deeply atmospheric sense of place with supernatural elements set within a terrifying Jim Crow-era reform school.
Recommended“This is a book called The Reformatory. Yeah, The Reformatory by Tanana Reef Du is just out in paperback. It also just won the World Fantasy Award for best novel.”
Where to get it
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The House with a Clock in Its Walls
The House with a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs is a classic dark fantasy novel that follows a young orphan who goes to live with his uncle, only to discover a world of magic, mystery, and malevolent forces.
Recommended“That said, there is a work of dark fantasy by a writer named John Bolair's called The House with a Clock in Its Walls.”
Where to get it
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The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is a celebrated 1959 gothic horror novel that tells the chilling story of four individuals staying in a notoriously sinister mansion.
Discussed“Victor, I'd love it if you can read the first paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House. I'm happy to.”
Where to get it
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Danse Macabre
Danse Macabre is a non-fiction critical overview of the horror genre by Stephen King that surveys horror across literature, film, and television from the mid-twentieth century through the 1970s.
Discussed“It actually begins before Shirley Jackson. It begins with Stephen King and his book Dance Macabra, which was his 80s summary of the horror field in general.”
Where to get it
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The Shining
The Shining by Stephen King is a classic psychological horror novel about a struggling writer descending into madness while caretaking an isolated winter hotel.
Discussed“And then the other thing that she does that to me is even more rarified within the haunted house field, although certainly anyone who's read The Shining will understand it is that a lot of haunted house stories turn out to be that there's an entity there that is the cause.”
Where to get it
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House of Leaves
House of Leaves is a complex postmodern novel by Mark Z.
Discussed“If you think about books that came decades later, like House of Leaves, which is about a house that keeps mutating, growing bigger on the inside.”
Where to get it
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Lone Women
Lone Women is a historical horror novel by Victor LaValle that follows a woman escaping her past with a heavy trunk in early twentieth-century Montana.
Discussed“Have you ever borrowed anything from this book for your work? A character name, a beat, a motivation, a tone. What have you pulled out of it? Well, actually, I mean, rereading it again just over the weekend, the opening bits, I realized the beginning of Lone Women is Eleanor's escape”
Where to get it
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We Have Always Lived in the Castle
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, featuring narration by Bernadette Dunne, is a celebrated gothic novel and the final work published by the author in 1962.
Discussed“And I also read her the book that came after this. We have always lived in the castle which is as much as I love this book that's her masterpiece I would say.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (15) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“First from 2024, Joe Hill, who has just released his first novel in almost a decade, King Sorrow, came on the Pod.”
“And then after the break, Victor Laval, author of 2023's Lone Women, talks about the book he's read the most in his life, a book I have read many times, The Great Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.”
“And then after the break, Victor Laval, author of 2023's Lone Women, talks about the book he's read the most in his life, a book I have read many times, The Great Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.”
“This one about this year's The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Steven Graham Jones.”
“The first time I read you before interviewing you, I feel like years ago for Time magazine for Horns, this was a very long time ago, was 20th Century Ghost, which is a short story collection.”
“I remember that we spoke in a restaurant in Boston around 2010 for horns and shortly afterwards I had a nervous breakdown and a divorce.”
“I've got a new one that'll be out next year called King Sorrow where I was trying to write it.”
“I think there was one John Belair's book, not illustrated by Edward Gorey, that genuinely gave me bad dreams for years. I think it was from the letter of the witch in the ring.”
“That was my conversation from last October with Joe Hill, who has just released his first novel in almost a decade, King Sorrow.”
“I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review, and I am presenting you now with a conversation that I had with a great writer from two years ago, Victor Laval, who wrote a piece of historical horror fiction called Lone Women. He is talking about Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.”
“I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review, and I am presenting you now with a conversation that I had with a great writer from two years ago, Victor Laval, who wrote a piece of historical horror fiction called Lone Women. He is talking about Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.”
“Alongside Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and Stephen King's The Shining, The Haunting of Hill House, published in 1959, is one of the seminal haunted house stories of the 20th century.”
“Alongside Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and Stephen King's The Shining, The Haunting of Hill House, published in 1959, is one of the seminal haunted house stories of the 20th century.”
“I've been speaking with Victor Laval about Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and about his new novel, Lone Women.”
“I've been speaking with Victor Laval about Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and about his new novel, Lone Women.”