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Recently, I went through Estes Park, Colorado with my parents on our way to Rocky Mountain National Park. While taking in the gorgeous scenery I turned to my left and noticed a sprawling white mansion on a pristine hill overlooking the mountains. I gestured to it and said, "Ah, the Overlook," to my dad. While I meant it as a flippant remark, I think my subconscious knew where I actually was: The Stanley Hotel where Stephen King had spent one night in 1974, providing the inspiration for his blockbuster novel, The Shining. It also was the shooting location for the 1997 TV series adaptation that I had watched when I was 16, so I think there was some part of me that did recognize The Stanley as hallowed Stephen King ground. 

My family and I decided on a whim to take a dedicated Stephen King tour of the hotel grounds. Sitting in the hotel's restaurant, my dad and I reminisced on the Stephen King books that had shaped my childhood - The Shining of course, but also King's underappreciated book, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. Then our conversation drifted to the book that my dad had brought to read on this trip: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. I had gifted it to him for his birthday, and he had been spending the evenings on our trip parsing through it.

"You can't skim it," my dad said. "He puts a lot into every. Single. Word," he paused for emphasis. 

In case you're not familiar, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is the latest novel by Blackfeet horror writer, Stephen Graham Jones. A good chunk of the book is a diary from 1912 written by a Lutheran pastor, who meets a mysterious Blackfeet man in long, black robes and with dark sunglasses on named Good Stab. Good Stab's presence at the pastor's church is enough to make the diarist feel unsettled. As Good Stab reels the pastor in and tells him the story of how he got there, Jones weaves a narrative that reimagines a classic horror monster like never before. Seriously, just go read it - it'll blow your mind. 

I had been quietly anxious about how my dad would receive The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. Stephen Graham Jones is my favorite writer, and I think that it's natural to search for approval from your parents, even when your hair is turning grey. When I left home at 18 to go to college and then moved across the country after I graduated, I developed my own set of tastes. Now, the rest of my family has to contend with the fact that my 'default' setting is in Horror Mode. Later on that same trip, I got to pick the movie we all watched for a nice family movie night, and with absolutely zero forethought, I chose Evil Dead Rise. I described it to my mother as "a film about motherhood in Los Angeles," forgetting all of the gore in the movie. I traumatized everyone with that one and I still feel terrible about it. 

Even though I've known my dad my whole life, and can trace parts of myself back to him, I wasn't sure how the sensibilities I've developed on my own would land with him. As we move further away from the people we once were, from the people who made us what we once were, our conceptions start to get blurry. My love of horror goes back to when I was 7, watching Night of the Living Dead and The Shining with my dad, then reading the novel not long after. And it's led me to become an adventurous adult. But as I've continued to come into my own, could the same be said about my dad, who looks older and older every time I see him?

Thankfully, my dad has been digging The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. Huge sigh of relief there. As my dad has aged, he still remains open to everything I throw at him. And that's included an exemplary horror writer named Stephen, whose work is shaping this current generation of genre fiction. I think my childhood would have felt a lot emptier without my dad introducing me to Stephen King, and I think my adulthood would be painfully boring without Stephen Graham Jones. I'm just glad I got the chance to return the favor after all these years. 

Just like yourself, the Popverse staff spends a whole lot of time with our respective noses in respective books. It's why we've come up with stuff like:

• The hottest upcoming fiction
• Queer romance to add to your reading list
• A reading guide to Cassandar Clare's Shadowhunter Chronicles

...and a whole lot more. Join our metaphorical library, won't you? There are no late fees and you can be as loud as you want, so long as the people you live with are OK with it.