Hooray for the 80s: A Review of My Best Friend's Exorcism

A Guest Review by Stanton McCaffery

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix is a fun and kind of campy ride through 1980s insanity, touching on everything from mullets and hair crimpers to Phil Collins and E.T. to the War on Drugs and religious paranoia. Hendrix pulls us in with nostalgia and girlhood drama to tell us a story about the horrors of growing up and the strength of friendship.  

Like Hendrix’s previous novel, Horrorstör, which was set up to appear like an Ikea catalogue, Exorcism’s cover and design are similarly grabbing—they look like someone’s high school yearbook, filled with cryptic messages, autographs, and inside jokes.

The book tells the story of Abby Rivers and her friendship with Gretchen Lang, the friend referenced in the title that Abby does indeed exorcize. Abby's from a working-class family, but is attending the snooty Albemarle Academy on a scholarship. There’s a class divide throughout the books that makes us empathize with and ultimately root for Abby.

Of one of the many things this book does well, it captures adolescent loneliness perfectly through Abby’s struggles and reminds readers that for a kid nothing feels quite as bad as thinking you don’t have any friends. Similarly, it reminds us of the power of young friendship. The first chapter tells how Abby, an adult looking back on her adolescence, now has people she casually refers to as friends, but that “she remembers when the word ‘friend’ could draw blood.”

In Amazon reviews Hendrix has won many deserving comparisons to Stephen King for his use of the mundane to get at the horrific and paranormal. It’s also worth mentioning how Hendrix, like King, disarms readers and lures us in with likable characters, goofy nostalgia (though in the case of King it’s for the 60s, not the 80s) and tight prose. Though Exorcism never quite goes for the jugular in shattering the world of Albemarle Academy the way King has shattered his worlds in, say, Carrie, we still see lives ruined and costs exacted on the protagonist and her friends.

And there’s nastiness here too. My favorite scene deals with a near-lethal dose of tapeworm eggs.

Exorcism, while certainly enjoyable for older readers, can also serve as an entry point into horror for younger people growing out of the YA genre. The nostalgia and the obscure 80s references are laid on a little thick at times (there’s even mention of a shirtless Patrick Swayze in Skatetown USA early on), and some are surely to go over younger readers' heads, but the true strength of this book is in the characters and the relationships they have with one another. The book’s ending is particularly powerful in that regard.

My conclusion: Pick up this book and read it, whether you remember the 80s or not.

Stanton McCaffery was born and raised in central New Jersey, where he resides with his wife and son. He has degrees in history and political science and manages communications for a United Nations agency. He is currently working on his first novel. Find him on Twitter here.

Dirtbag Stuff With Heart: A Review of Zero Lives Remaining

For those of us who lived through the 1980s, this cover makes a lot of promises. For me, personally, it evokes vivid memories of browsing the local video store with my dad and little sister, passing through the horror section, and marveling at the depraved artwork on the VHS cases. My sister and I regularly begged my dad to rent Ankle Biters, Critters 2, and Monkey Shines. We were completely obsessed with the movie Pigs, based solely on its revolting cover.

We caught Critters 2 on TV some years later. We agreed, it was fairly disappointing.

Unlike Critters 2 though, Zero Lives Remaining is not a disappointment. Scroll up, take a good look at the book’s cover again.

“Here,” the artwork seems to whisper. “Just like good old times at Front Row Video, I promise. Just like Pigs. Just like Critters 2. Only this—this is actually gonna deliver.”

And it does. Exceedingly.

Zero Lives Remaining is the story of Tiffany Park, a teenage video game virtuoso who spends much of her time at Funcave, an arcade-pizzeria, where she dominates games like Ms. Pac-Man and Street Fighter Alpha. Video games, pizza—sounds rad so far, right? Well, meet Chris Murphy, the story's antagonist. He's a dumpy teenage nü-metal fan with a crush on Tiffany. Chris clings to Tiffany like a lost, racist puppy, commenting incessantly on the fact that she is Asian, calling her names like “China Girl” even though he knows she is Korean. Chris Murphy is not rad. He is, in fact, a complete piece of shit. But just wait. Turns out Funcave is haunted by the ghost of Robby Asaro, a guy who accidentally cooked himself in the kitchen's pizza oven back in 1989. In 2014, living as a ghost inside Funcave's arcade games, Robby considers Tiffany as something of a daughter-figure in his life. 

Er, afterlife. 

Anyway, weird shit starts happening at Funcave as Robby’s ghost takes measures to protect Tiffany from an increasingly offensive and stalker-y Chris. Soon, Funcave is thrown into total chaos, and the book’s wider cast of characters—including the porn-addict owner of the arcade-pizzeria—finds itself in the thick of some ghastly mayhem. Expect lots of ghost slime.

Both hilarity and gore ensue.

Zero Lives Remaining is a quick and effortless read. The book’s author, Adam Cesare, writes in a style that is both lean and smooth. Not sure if it’s more an art or science, but Cesare’s got it down. My first exposure to the guy’s writing was the 2012 novel Tribesmen. One of the things I loved most about that book was the way that Cesare managed to subvert stereotypes with his characters and deliver some pretty solid social commentary through what was essentially a gore-filled cannibal-horror romp. And Zero Lives is no different on the subversion-and-commentary front. Cesare’s got a good thing going. His works are certainly classifiable as dirtbag stuff—but dirtbag stuff with intellect, loads of heart, and complexity. How he walks simultaneously among such disparate worlds, I haven’t a clue. But let's hope he keeps it up. 

Definitely check out Zero Lives Remaining. If you’re anything like me, it’ll have you at the cover.