'It took me years to fully realize why my mother loved her spooky books so much,' writes NPR's Nikki Jones. 'Those horror stories gave my mother the courage to leave her abuser.'
It took me years to fully realize why my mother loved those spooky books so much. Those horror stories gave my mother the courage to leave her abuser.
While my mother was putting on a brave face, she was dealing with her very own monster. I believe that her escapism into the horror genre allowed her to face her reality within a controlled environment. She knew that her life wasn't in danger when she read these books. Her empathy toward the characters being chased by monsters and possessed by demons, and the happy ending for these protagonists, is what I believe allowed her to think that she too can escape the monster on his way home from work, and have a happy ending.
My mother found her strength through reading these books. She built courage, faced her fear, and learned to fight. It was a form of catharsis for her. Purge and purification. The purging of her negative emotions like fear, anxiety, and low self-esteem. The purification of her newfound emotions of bravery, needing to annihilate her monster.Novelists like Clive Barker and Stephen King dominated our little bookshelves, but it was a book by Jeffrey Konvitz that tilted me on my axis.
In the days before streaming, you would visit video stores to rent your movies. We had Blockbuster, Erol's Video and a ton of mom and pop shops. Every Friday, my mother and I would hit up these video stores for the best horror VHS tapes. She introduced me to movies like