My Childhood in Twenty Book Covers (No.1 - The Fog by James Herbert)
Sometime yesterday afternoon I wrote the line ‘The past is a delicate place’ *1. I didn’t dwell on it much at the time (I try not to. I try to write and then worry about things later during the rewrites). I wasn’t until much later, while I was sitting on the sofa with my wife watching TV*2 , that it suddenly came back to me. I’m not exactly sure why it drifted back into my mind right at that moment, neither am I sure why that line suddenly made me think about all the book covers that I grew up loving and adoring as a child.
It was an odd leap for my mind to take*3, although it was probably brought about by a few recent additions I’d made to my book collection. I like to collect books (especially books I love and grew up with) in the old covers from the 1970s and 1980s, particularly the ones I remember owning and reading as a kid. While on holiday in the Lake District, I managed to pick up and old 80s Futura copy of Firestarter by Stephen King. We were riding the L&HR line (Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway), and the train had stopped at the Haverthwaite Station, waiting for the steam engine to change ends for the return bridge taking photos as it passed underneath. Afterwards I took a walk down the platform and found a small second-hand book stall. Among the piles of paperbacks was the 1984 movie tie-in reprint of King’s novel, with the film poster picture on the front – Drew Barrymore as Charlie.
Also, during my travels, I’d managed to pick up a handful of original hardbacks of Tom Clancy’s early novels with the wonderful David Scutt artwork on the covers (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears and Debt of Honor), the 1984 hardback of Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka’s Warday, and a 1979 paperback version of Craig Thomas’s Wolfsbane*4.
But I digress.
The point is, like Ebenezer Scrooge whose thoughts, no matter how hard he tried to resist it, continually returned to the problem of the Ghost of Christmas, my thoughts kept returning to those wonderful book covers I was continually inspired by while I was growing up.
And so, as much to get it out of my system as to create an interesting blog post (or two, or three…) I’d like to walk you through a few of the most important book covers which enchanted, inspired, frightened and delighted me in equal measure growing up in the 1980s. I have whittled them down to 20 for the sake of brevity, interest and both of our sanities.
The first cover is...
1 – THE FOG by James Herbert
It’s difficult to believe nowadays that a cover so gruesome could ever have existed, let alone been allowed to adorn the shelves of our local bookshops. Try to do something like this in the current cultural climate and it’d have all the delicate little flowers falling over themselves to get to their keyboards to get the thing cancelled in a toxic flurry of obnoxious self-righteousness.
But exist it did. And boy did it scare the pants off me when I first clapped eyes on it.
I never actually owned a copy of The Fog with the above cover (we’ll come to which version I had in a minute), but I saw it regularly in bookshops and newsagents in 1984 when it was doing the rounds. I remember clearly the first time I saw this cover, not to mention where I was when I saw it, such was the experience. I came across it quite suddenly while on holiday in Bridlington in 1984. I was only 10 years old, and that morning we’d walked along the clifftop from the campsite at Thornwick Bay to North Landing a little further down the coast. At the very top of the bay, overlooking the slipway that takes you down to the beach, is a long T-shape building, consisting of a pub at one end (The Caravel Bar), a café in the middle, and a shop at the other end. It’s the kind of beach side shop that sold (and still sells) everything for a day at the beach – windbreaks, parasols, inflatables, etc – and, like many shops of this kind back then, had a book spinner outside the door (a practice that has sadly become extinct in this country). As my family were inside the shop looking at the goods, I stood outside and slowly turned the book spinner, excitedly looking at all the paperbacks on offer, wondering what I should buy and read down on the beach.
That’s when I saw it. My hand froze in mid-air, the spinner stopping suddenly.
It was a cover that shocked me, in both its brutality and unflinching violence. It wasn’t so much the blood, or the line of jagged V-shaped flesh that hangs below the stump of the neck that trouble me most. No, it was the almost totally white eyes rolled up in the victim’s head, with just the merest peep of iris at the very tops, that sent a hot flash of terror through my body. Those eyes really bothered me. And the slack expression on the face. It was an image that haunted me for a long time.
I wish I’d have bought a copy of the book back then, but it would be another 4 years before I finally got around to buying a copy of the book, but by this time it had gone through another reprint and had new cover artwork.
Growing up there was a cupboard in the living room of my house known as the Book Cupboard*6 Among the piles of horror and SF novels and novelisations stacked inside, there were a few with covers that were just as terrifying and memorable as The Fog cover, especially to a young, impressionable mind such as mine. Two books by Frank De Felitta used to creep me out as a kid, namely The Entity and Audrey Rose. I would eventually read them both when I got a little older in the late-80s, but in the years before, I found the covers to be compelling and more than a little unnerving. The reason the cover of Audrey Rose was so creepy to a young mind is the pretty self-evident - that haunting face, staring from out of the dark at the reader, lit from below by the fires of Hell (in my young mind, anyway). Couple that with the mention of The Exorcist, which at this time was still refused a certificate in the UK and by now had achieved mythical status as The Most Terrfying Thing in the World EverTM, where people had actually had heart attacks and died during screenings of the film, and ambulances had to be on standby outside the cinemas! That's how scary the film was!!*7 What if the Audrey Rose novel was just as scary? I mean, it must be. It says so right on the front cover!!
1 – I’m currently writing a couple of original novels, a tie-in novel for an indie US horror film, and a 6-part SF audio drama that will be produced later in the year.
2 – Actually classic television on DVD. That’s all we watch now. Television has gotten so bad in the last decade (UK television, at any rate) that we no longer watch it. By 2015 the quality was at such a low point that we were down to watching only 3 broadcast programmes a week. Boxing Day 2019 ended up being the last straw, and we gave up completely. We got rid of our Sky+ box, cancelled our TV licence and we now have no access to broadcast television in the house at all. We now spend our free time watching Classic Television and films on DVD and blu-ray.
3 – Although probably not that odd, given that I think about the past a lot recently. It’s so much better than having to think about the shitty culture we live in right now. The world has become a horrible place to live in, both politically and socially. People are so toxic and obnoxious – especially on Social Media. Our state of mind is that it is always 1982 in our house, because it’s much better than the fucking awful 2020s outside.
4 – To name only a handful. Other titles I’d managed to pick up for my collection are:
‘V’ novelisations East Coast Crisis, The Chicago Conversion and The Florida Project; the 1981 TV series tie-in of Clive King’s Stig of the Dump; the 1971 film tie-in of Straw Dogs (retitle of Gordon M. William’s The Siege of Trencher’s Farm); and a lovely 1978 reprint of John Christopher’s A Wrinkle in the Skin…I could go on (but I won’t, don’t worry).
1 – THE FOG by James Herbert
It’s difficult to believe nowadays that a cover so gruesome could ever have existed, let alone been allowed to adorn the shelves of our local bookshops. Try to do something like this in the current cultural climate and it’d have all the delicate little flowers falling over themselves to get to their keyboards to get the thing cancelled in a toxic flurry of obnoxious self-righteousness.
But exist it did. And boy did it scare the pants off me when I first clapped eyes on it.
I never actually owned a copy of The Fog with the above cover (we’ll come to which version I had in a minute), but I saw it regularly in bookshops and newsagents in 1984 when it was doing the rounds. I remember clearly the first time I saw this cover, not to mention where I was when I saw it, such was the experience. I came across it quite suddenly while on holiday in Bridlington in 1984. I was only 10 years old, and that morning we’d walked along the clifftop from the campsite at Thornwick Bay to North Landing a little further down the coast. At the very top of the bay, overlooking the slipway that takes you down to the beach, is a long T-shape building, consisting of a pub at one end (The Caravel Bar), a café in the middle, and a shop at the other end. It’s the kind of beach side shop that sold (and still sells) everything for a day at the beach – windbreaks, parasols, inflatables, etc – and, like many shops of this kind back then, had a book spinner outside the door (a practice that has sadly become extinct in this country). As my family were inside the shop looking at the goods, I stood outside and slowly turned the book spinner, excitedly looking at all the paperbacks on offer, wondering what I should buy and read down on the beach.
That’s when I saw it. My hand froze in mid-air, the spinner stopping suddenly.
It was a cover that shocked me, in both its brutality and unflinching violence. It wasn’t so much the blood, or the line of jagged V-shaped flesh that hangs below the stump of the neck that trouble me most. No, it was the almost totally white eyes rolled up in the victim’s head, with just the merest peep of iris at the very tops, that sent a hot flash of terror through my body. Those eyes really bothered me. And the slack expression on the face. It was an image that haunted me for a long time.
I wish I’d have bought a copy of the book back then, but it would be another 4 years before I finally got around to buying a copy of the book, but by this time it had gone through another reprint and had new cover artwork.
However, the copy of The
Fog I owned in 1988 also had artwork I adored, but for very different
reasons. The version I had (see above) eschewed horrific brutality in favour of
the dramatic. Whereas the 1984 cover was startling for its rare and terrifying
shock value, the 1987 cover was equally as eye-catching (not to mention equally
as breathtaking) for its sheer dramatic beauty and attention to detail*5. For me,
this cover was just as inspiring as its predecessor, though much less
troubling. As to which of the two I prefer…? If I had a gun to my head I’d
probably say perhaps the dramatic 1987 artwork?
HONOURABLE MENTIONS:
Growing up there was a cupboard in the living room of my house known as the Book Cupboard*6 Among the piles of horror and SF novels and novelisations stacked inside, there were a few with covers that were just as terrifying and memorable as The Fog cover, especially to a young, impressionable mind such as mine. Two books by Frank De Felitta used to creep me out as a kid, namely The Entity and Audrey Rose. I would eventually read them both when I got a little older in the late-80s, but in the years before, I found the covers to be compelling and more than a little unnerving. The reason the cover of Audrey Rose was so creepy to a young mind is the pretty self-evident - that haunting face, staring from out of the dark at the reader, lit from below by the fires of Hell (in my young mind, anyway). Couple that with the mention of The Exorcist, which at this time was still refused a certificate in the UK and by now had achieved mythical status as The Most Terrfying Thing in the World EverTM, where people had actually had heart attacks and died during screenings of the film, and ambulances had to be on standby outside the cinemas! That's how scary the film was!!*7 What if the Audrey Rose novel was just as scary? I mean, it must be. It says so right on the front cover!!
The Entity was freaked me out for a different reason. Two different reasons, to be exact. Number 1 - I'd seen the film adaptation around the same time and the concept of a ghost who sexually assaults a women repeatedly in her own home, was the epitome of terror for a 10 year old. Not least because... Number 2 - It was true!!! So my Mum said, because she's read about it in the newspapers. The front cover was terrifyingly provocative, featuring a picture of the woman actually in the throes of the sexual assault - head thrown back in a silent scream, arm raised in a futile attempt to fend off the invisible attacker. Things like that can give you a few sleepless nights.
The cover to William Peter Blatty's novel The Exorcist, was a different matter entirely. This cover used to make me feel physically sick. It took me a long time to figure out what the hell the picture on the front was supposed to be. For a while I thought it was supposed to be an ultrasound scan of a woman with a demon in her stomach. Then one day it suddenly hit me - Holy shit, it's a girl! I guess it's supposed to be a possessed Regan (or is it supposed to be Captain Howdy, the demon inside her? Does anyone actually know?), but the picture is dark and distorted. It still does make me feel slightly sick to this day, if I'm honest. Sadly I never owned a copy with this cover, one of my friends had it and I saw it whenever I was round his house. My copy is the 1990 reprint, with the plain black cover and the words The Exorcist surrounded by a green glow, with the authors name, along with some blurb about it being terrifying and having sold 12 million copies worldwide, arranged to make title / author's name / blurb in the shape of a cross. Sadly not as exciting, or as vomit induing, as the above cover.
NOTES –
1 – I’m currently writing a couple of original novels, a tie-in novel for an indie US horror film, and a 6-part SF audio drama that will be produced later in the year.
2 – Actually classic television on DVD. That’s all we watch now. Television has gotten so bad in the last decade (UK television, at any rate) that we no longer watch it. By 2015 the quality was at such a low point that we were down to watching only 3 broadcast programmes a week. Boxing Day 2019 ended up being the last straw, and we gave up completely. We got rid of our Sky+ box, cancelled our TV licence and we now have no access to broadcast television in the house at all. We now spend our free time watching Classic Television and films on DVD and blu-ray.
3 – Although probably not that odd, given that I think about the past a lot recently. It’s so much better than having to think about the shitty culture we live in right now. The world has become a horrible place to live in, both politically and socially. People are so toxic and obnoxious – especially on Social Media. Our state of mind is that it is always 1982 in our house, because it’s much better than the fucking awful 2020s outside.
4 – To name only a handful. Other titles I’d managed to pick up for my collection are:
‘V’ novelisations East Coast Crisis, The Chicago Conversion and The Florida Project; the 1981 TV series tie-in of Clive King’s Stig of the Dump; the 1971 film tie-in of Straw Dogs (retitle of Gordon M. William’s The Siege of Trencher’s Farm); and a lovely 1978 reprint of John Christopher’s A Wrinkle in the Skin…I could go on (but I won’t, don’t worry).
5 - For instance, that's a Vauxhall Cavalier falling into the crack in the earth. You can see quite clearly it is.
6 - More about this cupboard in another post...
7 - It must all be true, it was in the newspapers at the time, and we all know everything they report is 100% true and 100% fact-checked and isn't all third-hand hearsay, unconfirmed rumours and baseless scaremongering. No. Not at all.
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