Podium Mall’s usually quiet hallways echoed with screams of tired trick-or-treating children that Saturday (be honest; if we were dolled up as zombies, painted head to toe in corpse-white make-up to boot, and compelled to traipse up and down five floors asking store owners for candy, we’d probably be whining our heads off as well). In stark contrast, a well-lit and quiet oasis on the fifth floor gently beckoned.

It’s hard to resist comfortable seats and shelves upon shelves of books (some for swapping, some part of a permanent collection). Welcome to the Book Nook, the venue for a Halloween themed book talk, HAUNTED READS, organized by Penguin Random House SEA, featuring two of its authors, Douglas Candano (Infinite Lives, Infinite Deaths) and Kenneth Yu (Mouths to Speak, Voices to Sing), moderated by Yvette Tan (herself an award-winning horror writer, her latest being Seek Ye Whore).

In the next hour, the audience (a mix of literature professors, fellow authors, and readers) listened to Candano, Yu, and Tan exchange ideas about the public’s fascination with the macabre, how the authors’ Tsinoy background played a part in their storytelling, and what trends in horror stories tell us about corresponding changes in society, locally and globally. What emerged was less a horror-filled talk, and more of a reflective one.

Kenneth Yu shared about some advice he had been given by “more serious authors,” advice that he didn’t heed (to the relief of his fans). When submitting horror fiction to be workshopped by older, more established writers, Yu was discouraged to do so because it wasn’t worth it, and was even questioned about its contribution to national development.

To which Yvette Tan asked, “Why can’t horror contribute to nation building?” And when authors draw upon real life news for inspiration, we realize that everyday is a Halloween story unto itself. When authors’ written stories are ways of shaping meaning out of this very scary reality we are in, it could be a way of finding the light of understanding through the darkness.

And this led to a broad overview of the authors’ influences (Maximo Ramos, Edgar Allan Poe, and Stephen King, to name a few), how nerd culture has evolved through the generations (they agree that it’s socially acceptable now to be one), and what makes for a good or bad horror story (pretty much the same as with other genres: it shouldn’t seem contrived, and it should have the ability to absorb its reader’s attention, totally).

It came as a surprise to this audience member that the horror triumvirate didn’t purposefully set out to scare people in their tales. They simply wrote stories that synthesized different concepts, ascribing meaning to things they couldn’t fully explain, as a response to a real world that is scary enough in itself. And their stories are a mere reflection of that harsh reality.

“In order to write about it, you have to know fear,” Kenneth Yu said, then illustrated the concerns of each generation and how it influenced the stories being told during those times. In the sixties and seventies, it was the threat of nuclear warfare that led to radiation-filled horror. The nineties gave us a fear of AIDS and communism, leading to the rise of zombies (with body parts decaying, and a mass of people without independent thought nor will).

And because the authors asked us, we in turn had to look deep within ourselves about our own darkest fears (perhaps the scariest task of all). We left the talk with a newfound appreciation for a genre that forces us to face the darkness, combining the quest for elusive self-knowledge with entertainment.

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Read the Ex Libris Philippines review of Douglas Candano’s Infinite Lives, Infinite Deaths here. It is available in both Fully Booked (P897.00) and National Bookstore (P750.00).

Kenneth Yu’s book Mouths to Speak, Voices to Sing is available in both Fully Booked (P1,032.00) and National Bookstore (P845.00). Review forthcoming.

Yvette Tan’s collection of horror stories Seek Ye Whore and Waking the Dead are available for P250.00 each from Lazada and National Bookstore. Our review of Seek Ye Whore is coming soon.

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