Overview
This collection of twenty-six dark but often humorous short stories features a pantheon of disturbed and disturbing characters, human and otherwise. Many of the stories are modern takes on classic monsters crafted with twisted plots and Twilight Zone-esque endings. For example, “Wolfman and Janice” is about a werewolf who is doing the best he can under very trying circumstances, especially when confronted with eating his elderly neighbor’s cat. There’s an adolescent vampire-wannabe who is suffering badly: in love for the first time. “Frankenstein and His Mother” is a terrifying story of a grown man who wears a Frankenstein mask and lives with his mother watching TV and eating corn chips all day while being afraid of work. “Dracula’s Daughter” turns a pretentious hippie into an honest ghost. And Bigfoot—lonely, sexually frustrated—tells all. Other stories feature characters who seem perfectly normal until they're alone. Phil, for instance, is never so happy as when he’s with his inflatable girlfriend Vanessa—until she tells him the devastating truth about himself. Elderly Ellen is running out of patience with her dead husband George, who’s turned prankish. “Bob and Todd” tells the story of a hitchhiking ride gone bad that will have readers squirming in their seats. More than just standard monster stories, the tales in But You Scared Me the Most reveal much more about about human nature and will appeal to a wide range of fans of smart, funny short fiction.
Reviews
“[Author John] Manderino infuses each story with wit and well-observed detail.” —Publishers Weekly
“[Author John] Manderino … plumbs the depth of domestic horror in these fleeting but beguiling stories about ghosts, murders, monsters, and madmen.” —Kirkus Review
“Manderino’s work succeeds at being more than slight, sarcastic riffs on classic tales. … There is a grasping at work here: an effort to reach beyond the conventions of both literary short stories and adolescent nostalgic horror, in order to capture how the fears of imagination and the fears of mundanity can converge.” —The Literary Review
“John Manderino has captured the fearful, wonderful, strange, and inscrutable experience of being alive.” —HorrorTalk
“Not only did I find the 26 stories engaging and entertaining, most also were laugh-out-loud funny.” —The Working Waterfront
Author Biography
John Manderino is the author of The H-Bomb and the Jesus Rock, The Man Who Played Catch with Nellie Fox, Sam and His Brother Len, Crying at the Movies, and Reason for Living. He lives in Scarborough, Maine.