By Gabriel San Román
Revenge, a final girl and a sharp blade hell-bent on spilling blood. Most slashers follow this tried-and-true formula, whether bound in books or projected on screens.
In Stephen Graham Jones’ latest novel “I Was a Teenage Slasher,” published by Saga Press, all the horror subgenre’s hallmarks are present while being turned on their head at the same time.
It’s an approached best defined by an early admission from Tolly Driver, the memoir of mayhem’s narrator.
“I was a teenage slasher, yeah, okay. I said it.”
With that, Jones’ positions his readers in the perspective of the killer, a scrawny West Texas teen from Lamesa. The approach is akin to John Carpenter’s Halloween, where the camera situated audiences in the voyeurism of a masked Michael Myers.
But Myers remained mum between the labored breaths and primeval grunts of his stabbing spree, a silence Dr. Samuel Loomis, his psychiatrist, charted for 15 years before chasing him down that fateful Halloween in Haddonfield. In contrast, Driver fills the pages with his recounting of a deadly summer 17 years ago, a contrite outpouring to his best (and only) friend, Amber Big Plume Dennison.
The pair are outcasts in the small oil town of Lamesa, especially with Amber being the only Native American around, which subjects her to petty racism.
“If you’re from Texas, where the Rangers had chased all the Indians out a century ago,” Jones writes.
And high school is as cruel as it has ever been in the summer of 1989. Driver, with the wounds of losing his father in a horrific accident still fresh, crashes a high school party uninvited and gets hammered into a drunken, retching mess. A true slasher devotee knows that parties are key moments for bloody bedlam to break out. Think “Scream” or “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge.”
But Driver is a victim, at first.
A true slasher devotee knows that parties are key moments for bloody bedlam to break out.
Classmates tie him to a chair with belts. A drink forced down his hatch triggers an allergic reaction, which almost turns deadly. The same can’t be said for the party when an unexpected guest arrives from beyond the grave to avenge a pumpjack prank gone terribly wrong.
In time, Driver is similarly overtaken by revenge, a lust not of his own making. He even readily admits that the pumpjack prank outweighed his inadvertent peanut poisoning. But it takes “Ambs,” as Driver affectionately refers to his friend, to break down the slasher rules that govern his violence when he turns colorblind at night. Through Driver’s recounting of the following four nights of terror and six bodies piled up by the end of it, “I Was a Teenage Slasher” becomes a stirring interrogation of the subgenre. Driver is still mostly trying to pieces it all together—from his sudden knack at summoning a foreboding “Schting!” sound while pulling a blade out of a knife block to a mask he’s not even sure he’s got on at times. Other times, his truths have become self-evident, stitched powerfully through Jones’ prose.
“But my kind don’t exactly go to the funerals, I know. We’re the reason for the funerals.”
And then, of course, there’s the final girl in the way of bringing the whole ordeal to an end—one way or another.
Jones signing San Román's book.
Photo Credit: Irene San Román
In the four years since Jones’ buzzworthy “The Only Good Indians,” the Blackfeet Native author hasn’t slowed down a bit. He released the acclaimed Indian Lake horror trilogy, with “The Angel of Indian Lake” the final installment, publishing a mere months before “I Was a Teenage Slasher” hit book shelves this summer.
All read as fresh, original takes on the subgenre.
“I Was a Teenage Slasher,” is easily more autobiographical in tone than the others. Jones sheepeshly admits that his latest novel, with its title calling back to "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" cult classic 1957 film, reflects his upbringing (save the fictional slayings) more than previous efforts. He did grow up in Lamesa and was 17 in the summer of 1989, after all.
In delivering Driver, Jones gives us a slayer unlike any other. Carpenter’s Myers is evil incarnate. Hubert Selby Jr.’s “The Demon” disturbingly charted the descent of Harry White, a corporate careerist turned violent psychopath. Driver is a sentient slasher, whose murderous mission seems supernaturally imposed on him, as Jones’ poetic knack makes the kills ever more evocative.
“I’m not one to split hairs. Just heads,” Driver assessed.
His affection for Amber rests at the core of the novel and draws out the character development of two kids coming of age in a small town where the social hierarchy is stacked against them. Its heartbreaking crescendo makes clear that “I Was a Teenage Slasher” excels in being faithful to the subgenre without being formulaic.
And if there’s to be a sequel—Driver’s killing spree is admittedly unfinished—rest assured it would knowingly nod at all the prescribed rules, only for Jones to subvert them, and our expectations, once more. Until then, tear through the pages of Jones’ “I Was a Teenage Slasher,” the novel where he came home.
Gabriel San Román founded LibroMobile's Arts & Culture column in May 2020. Then he joined TimesOC, a Times Community News publication, as a feature writer in 2021, and worked from 2022-24 as a Metro reporter covering Orange County for the Los Angeles Times. San Román previously worked at OC Weekly – as a reporter, podcast producer and columnist – until the newspaper’s closing in late 2019. He also may just be the tallest Mexican in O.C.
Starting February 2023, #OffThePage is featuring Melanie Romero as our monthly columnist. Our Arts & Culture column was initially founded by local journalist Gabriel San Román in May 2020. Since then we have collaboratively featured over 25 stories and paid nearly 10 contributors from our community. Pitch Melanie a story or email us for more information!
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