Back in August, I interviewed best-selling novelist/Oscar-nominated screenwriter Tom Perrotta about his new book, The Abstinence Teacher. When I was prepping for our chat, I had a look at the biographical timeline posted on his website, and was intrigued by the summary of 1993: "… Tom begins his own novel about a three-way race for high-school president. At the same time, he ghost-writes teen horror novel for best-selling series (don’t ask which one; he’s taken an oath of non-disclosure)…"
The novel about high school politics became, of course, 1999’s Election. (Which Alexander Payne also turned into a great flick starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick that same year.) But what was this teen-horror business? Brazenly ignoring Perrotta’s warning not to bother inquiring about which illustrious series helped him pay the bills in the early Clinton years, I grilled the guy. Cornered him. Made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Okay, not really. I simply guessed that perhaps the "Stephen Kingwith training wheels" collection he described to me was one of R.L.Stine’s creations. And he, being an honest, good-natured fellow,confirmed it. "Yeah," he said. "Not Goosebumps, but Fear Street, which was the bigger one." The particular tome to which Perrotta lent his verbal gifts was The Thrill Club (pictured),and though he describes it as "the stupidest book," he actually looksback on writing it with fondness. "It’s good to take the romance out ofwriting," he said, laughing heartily. "That certainly did it for me!"
Look for the full Q&A with Perrotta on EW.com on Tuesday. Inthe meantime, raise your hand if you were/are a fan of Robert LawrenceStine, whom EW columnist Stephen King recently called "Jo Rowling’s jovial John the Baptist." And if you actually read The Thrill Club,do offer us a review. I haven’t read it, but promised Perrotta I would,if only to hunt for traces of his style within all that talk of mangledcorpses with purple tongues.
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I was a huge fan of the Fear Street books back in the day! True, they were quite cheesy, but they were good fun and easy reading. I read a bunch of the books, but I don’t recall reading this one.
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I read Goosebumps like no other. ‘The Haunted Mask,’ ‘Night of the Living Dummy,’ and ‘Stay Out of the Basement’ were a few of my favorites.
Great scoop! I love Tom Perrotta. I read R.L. Stine’s stand-alone novels when I was younger, but never the Goosebumps or Fear Street series.
Stephen King’s tying J.K. Rowling and R.L. Stine together was complete nonsense. What, they’re the only two YA series he’s heard of, so they must go together? Please. Sure, they’ve both got a supernatural element, but so does probably 50% of all YA fiction today.
I knew those books came out just a little fast for one person to be writing them. I knew it. Now if someone could find out the dish on Christoper Pike.
Let me add that I still own a lot of those ‘teen suspense’ books. It’s hard to let go.
I don’t know about Fear Street but I was obsessed with Goosebumps. I am pretty sure I still have the 3 volume combo of all the Goosebumps featuring the evil ventriloquist dummy. When you press the cover the dummy’s eyes light up. sweetness.
I never read “Thrill Club” but I was a die-hard fan of the Fear Street series…the three books that started it all–about an ‘evil’ on fear st. that possesses cheerleaders–scared the crap out me through sixth grade. anyone also read Christopher Pike, R.L.’s main competition?
We here in OH are pretty proud of our Columbus native, Mr. Stine. I work for an organization that promotes Ohio authors/artists/musicians/etc. Mr. Stine has been wonderful about supporting our organization (we gave him a career award a couple of years ago) and is a great supporter of children’s literacy. He’s a very nice man.
It was preposterous to tie Stine and Rowling together. Their only similarity is their popularity, so if that was King’s point, then it makes sense. I have utmost respect for Stephen King but I thought he was kind of off on that one. Especially since that “Stephen King with training wheels” is kind of an apt description–I’m sure tons of those kids who grew up reading Stine’s books eventually graduated to King’s. I know I did.
I was obsessed with Fear Street in elementary school and junior high. I must have a collection of over 40 books. Couldn’t get enough of them! The cheerleaders trilogy was creepy, along with the haunted house and the secret bedroom. Too many to count. I’m pretty sure I own Thrill Club.
I read tons of Fear Street in grade school. But, I never found them quite scary enough. I really preferred that Christopher Pike vampire series that really didn’t seem like it was appropriate for children at all.
I read a few “Fear Street” books, but I was huge into Goosebumps. Especially the “Choose Your Own Ending” ones. I have most of them still, including the beautiful “Trapped in Batwing Hall.”
But back in those days it was all about K. A. Applegate’s Animorphs for me. I got’em all, and still occasionally break them out. Man were those good.
I was a huuuuuuuge fan of Goosebumps when I was a kid. In fact, I still have the whole set of books stashed away somewhere in my closet. I never got a chance to read all of them, though.
They’re rerunning the Goosebumps TV series for all of October on Cartoon Network. Wow. That is hilariously horrible. I love it.
Christopher Pike was the bomb!Especially Remember Me…
I own the Thrill Club along with most of the other Fear Street books and The Thrill Club is not bad. I mean I haven’t read it in about 10 years, but from what i remember it was one of the better ones that was not a Super Chiller.
I read R.L. Stine books religiously in elementry and junior high. My favorite was the Cheerleaders series in Fear Street. But they couldn’t replace my total love of Sweet Valley High books, until they started the Senior Year series, I didn’t like those.
Hell yeah, I read Fear Street! I think I had grown out of it by 1993 however. I don’t doubt for one second they had ghost writers. They churned out one every two months or so – I didn’t beleive it possible even at that age, so they’re not fooling anybody.
To nunnya – that was my favorite of all those as well. Christopher Pike’s Remember Me. The sequals sucked, but maybe I was just too old by then.
I was the biggest Fear Street fan back in the day (1995-97ish). I would sometimes read 3 in a day. I probably read The Thrill Club, but don’t recall what it was about. I have to say my favorites were the Christmas ones, like Silent Night and its sequels.
I totally agree on the Remember Me love. That book was hardcore awesome. I can’t even remember how many times I checked it out from the library between fifth and seventh grades!
I never read any R.L. Stine books (my mom wouldn’t let me), but my 2 older cousins did, and I sooo wanted to read them to. I did however, read plenty of Sweet Valley books. So, I’m totally with Sarah on the Sweet Valley love (although I did enjoy the senior year series).
I love-love-loved the Silent Night series. I read Goosebumps for awhile (92-94 maybe) then Fear Street (94 – 96) and then I graduated to Dean Koontz and eventually worked my way into Stephen King.
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I’ve seen your posts before. I know Friday nights can get crazy and the booze will flow, but don’t drink and popwatch.
I never read the Fear Street series, but I absolutely ADORED the Goosebumps books. I think they must have been my gateway drug to my horror obsession. I would wait for the new one to come out each month, and buy it as soon as it did. I wonder if those had ghostwriters too, considering they churned a lot of them out as well.
Speaking of the Stine series, that graphic makes me wonder what’s become of the book’s cover models. Straight from the 90s and lovin’ it!
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