8/8/26

If you are a member of the general public, preorders for the signed limited edition hardcover of FALLING ANGELS: THE LABYRINTH Book 4 begin tomorrow, Sunday August 9. The link will be posted here on my site. (Subscribers to my Patreon at levels of $1 a month and higher received a link to preorder it today, ahead of everyone else, because membership there has its privileges).

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This week on episode 51 of KEENEVERSATIONS, I sat down Eating the Fantastic-style for a dinner conversation with the legendary Scott Edelman about autobiographies, legacies, podcasting, and awards. Listen now via Spotify or right here in your browser.

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Women In Horror Year: Day 98

The Auctioneer by Joan Samson

Hardcover - Paperback - eBook - Audiobook

One of the finest and best-selling horror novels of the 1970s returns at last to chill a new generation of readers

In the isolated farming community of Harlowe, New Hampshire, where life has changed little over the past several decades, John Moore and his wife Mim work the land that has been in his family for generations. But from the moment the charismatic Perly Dunsmore arrives in town and starts soliciting donations for his auctions, things begin slowly and insidiously to change in Harlowe. As the auctioneer carries out his terrible, inscrutable plan, the Moores and their neighbors will find themselves gradually but inexorably stripped of their possessions, their freedom, and perhaps even their lives ...

A chilling masterpiece of terror whose sense of creeping menace and dread increases page by page, Joan Samson's The Auctioneer (1975) is a rediscovered classic of 20th-century fiction. With echoes of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and Stephen King's Needful Things, Samson's novel returns to print at last in this long-awaited new edition, which features an introduction by Grady Hendrix (Horrorstör, Paperbacks from Hell) and an afterword by the author's husband.

Joan Samson’s career is perhaps the most heartbreaking story from the original golden age of horror (the 1970s and 1980s). She passed away from brain cacer at the too-young age of thirty-eight, and only wrote two books during her short-lived career. The first, Watching the New Baby, was a slim nonfiction guide published in 1974, which offered advice and support to new mothers regarding the growth and development of their newborns for the first six to eight months.

Her second book, The Auctioneer, was published in mass-market paperback by Simon & Schuster in 1976, and quickly became a sensation, with translations in Spain, Argentina, Italy, the Netherlands, and many more. A masterpiece of quiet horror, with some deep social commentary regarding authoritarianism and “going along with the crowd” that resonate even more strongly now than they did in the 1970s. It has echoes of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, predates Stephen King’s Needful Things (and most likely served as some form of inspiration for that novel), and feels like a long-lost manuscript by T.E.D. Klein. And it has continued to impact and influence. (As a brief example: when Mary and I were plotting out the title story for THINGS LEFT BEHIND, we were very aware that the idea of a single secretly malevolent person utterly devastating a small town had been done to perfection in The Auctioneer, so we decided to make it the same patch of land over centuries, rather than a singular town with a singular cast).

As I understand it, Samson passed away only a few days after The Auctioneer was published. She never got to see its success or know if its influence, and we, as horror fiction fans, were robbed of what would have absolutely been a powerful, genre-defining voice. I’ve often thought about how much different horror fiction in the decades that followed might have looked had Samson lived to write more. Sure, we had women like Ruby Jean Jensen, Anne Rice, and Karen Taylor writing during that time, and a decade later brought us folks like Elizabeth Massie, Yvonne Navarro, Caitlin R. Kiernan, etc. all — but I suspect Samson would have had crossover ability, drawing in readers that were convinced they “didn’t like horror”.

Copies of the paperback went for big bucks on the secondary market, but Valancourt Books and Grady Hendrix have done an admirable job bringing the novel back into print for a new generation, and their edition includes an afterword by Samson’s husband that is worth the price alone. The Auctioneer is available again in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook. An important part of horror fiction’s history, and required reading.