Horror book covers hold the collective fears of each era
In a Halloween selection, Folha shows how writer Grady Hendrix and experts read the genre as a portrait of its time.
Translated from the Portuguese original by the Panorama newsroom. Read in Portuguese
Summary written by the Panorama newsroom from the sources listed below. Facts are attributed to the original publications.
On Halloween, Folha de S.Paulo published a report on what horror book covers reveal about the anxieties of each period in which they were produced. The piece is dated October 30.
The basis is "Paperbacks from Hell," a work by American writer and collector Grady Hendrix, still unpublished in Brazil, which revisits covers published in the United States between the 1960s and 1990s. According to him, the lack of fear of controversy at the time allowed for very direct designs.
Hendrix argues that the charm lies not only in the visuals but also in the writing, which "doesn't respect any rules, except one: always be interesting." He has already published in the country "My Best Friend's Exorcism" and "The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires," whose covers imitate the simple, tongue-in-cheek style he says he admires.
For psychoanalyst and semiotician Adriano Messias, fear changes shape according to social demands: every monster relates to the malaise of its culture.
In the 1950s, for example, fear of communism and nuclear war appeared in films about alien invaders, often coming from Mars, the red planet. Horror, Hendrix sums up, exposes today's fears and anticipates tomorrow's.