Death by Pagecount: An Interview with Max Booth
By Robert Dean
If there’s a growling, sneering voice in the world of horror that rings in the ears, it’s Max Booth. His work has been published globally and has earned a few awards, and one of his books, We Need to Do Something, was also made into a feature film. Often described as a combination of Joe Lansdale and Stephen King, Booth is the real deal. Don’t believe me? He’s been published by Cemetery Dance, King’s unofficial imprint that does all his special editions. Booth’s even got his own publishing imprint called Ghoulish Books, which he runs with his wife Lori. It’s a wonder if he ever sleeps.
When Booth and Lori set up a Kickstarter for a large print run of new titles for 2023-2024, it was a gamble. They weren’t sure how people would respond. After all, how many publishers try to offload costs onto fundraising sites? But, in the end, the Kickstarter was a roaring success. They raised over twenty thousand dollars, far surpassing the seven thousand they were aiming for originally. With the money, they kicked off a dream project they had long envisioned for the future: a bookstore.
Sitting down with Booth at Austin’s KillerCon, we talked about the experience and what he wants to do within the horror community. Never short on perspective, Booth is conscientious, like he’s always shocked people respect his work so much. While at KillerCon, Booth had a dialogue workshop and read a story about a man obsessed with eggs, which I implore anyone to hear live (and for him to publish it finally—it puts Chuck Palahniuk’s GUTS to shame. Trust me on this.) The story defies a sense of morality. It kicks the listener straight into the lungs.
When asked about Ghoulish, Booth’s horror bookstore in San Antonio, Texas, he was candid:
“We’re not super busy, but that’s ok. The right audience is finding it. The freaks and deviants are finding this “spooky” bookshop. We get a lot of people coming in with these wish lists, from places like TikTok, of the most extreme and fucked up shit in literature, and we usually carry them. Most bookshops don’t carry those kinds of titles, so it’s helped us serve as a niche at the tip top of San Antonio.”
The right audience is finding it. The freaks and deviants are finding this “spooky” bookshop. We get a lot of people coming in with these wish lists, from places like TikTok, of the most extreme and fucked up shit in literature, and we usually carry them.
And thanks to the success of their crowdfunding endeavor, the store opened while funds were able to be put into future releases.
“The initial goal was seven thousand. We hit that on day one. That was nuts. I didn’t expect to hit it at all! We were afraid we weren’t going to hit it. After all the fees, we walked with twenty-two thousand, which quickly went into the books and paying people. That money didn’t open the bookshop but helped spread the name of Ghoulish. Because we did so well, we were featured in all these magazines and websites. And a lot of book people in San Antonio read interviews in local magazines with us. We had people coming into the Grand Opening. So many people found out about us.”
With the unexpected success of that campaign, the little spooky bookshop that could is now on the ever-growing list of horror-themed places around Texas, which also includes BatCity Scaregrounds, The Gas Station, The House of Stuff, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre house (it’s a little café now, but the bar is themed after the movie with shirts and koozies.)
As conference goers howled over hotel-priced shots and mixed drinks, we chatted about the new movie Talk to Me, which Booth called one of the best in a long time: “Everyone who likes horror should go see that. And they need to read Johnny Compton’s Spite House. He’s a San Antonio author, and he’s fantastic. He was the guest of honor at Ghoulish Book Fest. He’s become a friend.”
With releases under his belt like Touch the Night, Abnormal Statistics, and The Mind is a Razorblade, Booth’s style, firmly rooted in horror, has a darker lilt toward the gutter—the people in his stories don’t have to be the Final Girl. Carnivorous Lunar Activities is a prime example of playing with genre and not giving into slasher or tropes so hard that it’s on the nose. Instead, there’s an adept sadness to some of his characters, which makes them feel all too real. Life is unexpected with those elements of danger, so it only makes sense that Booth is moving some of his chips toward that world: “This is an exclusive, but we’re starting a crime imprint, Arsenic Press. We’re going to announce some titles soon. They’ll be reprints from a favorite writer in English, but the rest were only in French. So, we’re bringing them into print.”
Instead, there’s an adept sadness to some of his characters, which makes them feel all too real. Life is unexpected with those elements of danger, so it only makes sense that Booth is moving some of his chips toward that world: “This is an exclusive, but we’re starting a crime imprint, Arsenic Press […]”
It’s heartening to see Ghoulish Books act almost as a City Lights for Gore—a mecca for those who seek specific kinds of blood-spattered stories told by the best voices in the underground. As more things become gross and corporate, being punk rock and doing what you want without a boss's behest is magical. Art is subjective, as is the violence dripping from the fists of those within the stories some of us consume. One thing is for sure: with Lori and Max Booth at the helm of Ghoulish Books as both an imprint and a bookstore, there is everything to fear.
Robert Dean is a journalist, raconteur, and enlightened dumbass. His work has been featured in places like MIC, Eater, Fatherly, Yahoo, Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle, Consequence of Sound, Ozy, USA Today, to name a few. He’s appeared on CNN and NPR. He also serves as features writer for Culture Clash, The Cosmic Clash, and Pepper Magazine and is editor-in-chief for Big Laugh Comedy, Texas’ premier comedy production company. He lives in Austin and loves ice cream and koalas. His collection of essays, Existential Thirst Trap is out now.