Imagine a house that eats everything inside it — furniture, possessions, even dead bodies. Then imagine everyone outside the house forgetting those things ever existed.
That’s the premise of “The House That Eats the Dead,” a new horror novel by Ashland author Max Doty. Known to online readers as “Scary Max” for his work on Reddit’s NoSleep forum, Doty is making his traditional publishing debut with the novel. He’ll discuss the book Aug. 18 at Bloomsbury Books in Ashland.
Unlike haunted-house stories that slowly build toward a supernatural reveal, Doty’s novel introduces its central threat early and keeps moving.
"We're going real fast into the excitement of it," Doty said. "It kind of starts fast and stays fast all the way until the end."
But the house’s ability to erase what it consumes creates a more complicated problem for Tom and Claire. They alone remember what has disappeared, and Doty uses that isolation to explore the couple’s relationship with the house.
“We've added this other piece, which is that when it eats something, it erases it from existence,” Doty said.
In some cases, those disappearances can even work to the couple’s advantage, blurring the line between whether the house is a threat or something they can use.
Doty said the idea grew partly out of his experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, when home became more than a place to return to at the end of the day. For many people, it became a place they rarely left.
“We all relate to our homes in different ways, and I kind of wanted to take that and magnify it to the nth degree,” Doty said.
Doty wrote the 336-page novel while raising four young children, often working late at night. His first draft was relatively spare — about 45,000 words — and he expanded it during revisions.
“I'm actually a different breed," Doty said. "I underwrite, and then I add."
The finished manuscript eventually grew to roughly twice the length of the original.
Doty will appear at Bloomsbury Books in Ashland from 7 to 8 p.m. Aug. 18, the day “The House That Eats the Dead” is released nationwide.
He is already working on another stand-alone horror novel expected next year.
Event
- Max Doty will discuss his new horror novel, “The House That Eats the Dead,” at Bloomsbury Books in Ashland from 7 to 8 p.m. Aug. 18. The event coincides with the book’s nationwide release.
Guest
- Max Doty, author, "The House That Eats the Dead"
