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A Different Kind of Horror Novel: ‘My Best Friend’s Exorcism’
A review
“The exorcist is dead.”
That’s the ominous sentence that Grady Hendrix’s 2016 novel, My Best Friend’s Exorcism, opens with; if that doesn’t grab your attention, I’m not sure anything will. The novel is the follow-up to his hugely successful 2014 debut, Horrorstör, and cemented his place with readers who like their horror mixed with a little humor.
I came late to the sometimes-terrifying joy that is Grady Hendrix’s work, having only heard of him earlier this year. I am not a huge reader of horror myself, having been permanently traumatized by reading Stephen King’s The Shining at 11 years old. Since then I can usually only read horror during the day unless it is something I just cannot put down, like Joe Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box, which I at least read past dusk (I did the same with the excellent Spectre of Springwell Forest by Simon Dillon).
But roaming through the bookstore a while back, I stumbled across My Best Friend’s Exorcism. First the cover art grabbed me, then the back cover blurb hooked me:
The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act…different. She’s moody. She’s irritable…
