For quite a while I’ve been privileged enough to write for two marketplaces–foremost, the mass-market, and then the small-press/hardcore/collector’s market. When it did, (and also my novella Header) my “hardcore” sub-career began and–knock on wood–it’s still going. The project was a lot of fun, but I NEVER thought it would get published. It seemed to spice things up in a way that was, for me at least, fascinating. The Bighead, for example, I wrote as merely a creative exercise I wanted to take a standard horror-formula (The Old Monster in the Woods Theme) throw in some uncharacteristic characters, and see what happens when I put a hardcore microscope on their lives. At any rate, that was my creative reasoning, say, in the early 90’s. It would make for more interesting icing on the cake.

James, for instance, I’ll think, “Wow, wouldn’t it be cool if stories like this were to-the-max hardcore?” Or I’ll read an old Elmore Leonard novel and be struck that edgier details might or would work very effectively–even to a greater effect than the original.

Much of the time, however, the prospect is thrilling. To celebrate this, I talked a little bit with the man to see what makes such a depraved mind tick. Whether writing about backwoods hicks, horny demons, Lovecraftian horrors, or fetishistic creeps, Edward Lee does NOT disappoint.ĭeadite Press (the horror fiction imprint of Eraserhead Press) has just published two collections of out-of-print (and much sought after) fiction from Lee called Bullet Through Your Face and Brain Cheese Buffet. Despite the gruesomeness, Lee brings in humor and depth that you don’t often find in the genre. We’re talking the filthiest, most vile, evil things ever imagined. These are books that would make the Marquis De Sade gag.

You may know him from his brutal revenge tale Header (recently made into a feature film) or his mass market paperback novels such as The Golem and Brides of the Impaler.īut what his true fans treasure most are his small press masterpieces of harder-than-hardcore horror. If you’re a true horror fan, then you know Edward Lee.

Fistful of Feet by Jordan Krall