Throwback Thursday: Off Season

In which I share vague recollections of books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

Last night a teenage girl came into the library looking for books with lots of graphic violence in them, specifically with psycho killers if possible. This request made me think about some of the books I read when I was in high school and primarily read horror.

One that has never quite left me is Off Season by Jack Ketchum, a book I'm pretty sure I read more than once. First published in 1980, it's about a family of cannibals in Maine who feed on tourists. Of course. I only remember that it was incredibly graphic on the killing and eating details, which was quite thrilling to me at the time.

Apparently it was quite controversial and shocking at the time, although the publisher made Ketchum remove some parts, but it was re-released in the late 1990s in an unedited version. So I guess the edition I read in the 80s was the edited version, though I recall it being quite graphic. I suppose I could hunt down the more recent version to read, but...I'll probably pass. I still like horror, but my days of enjoying gratuitous violence just for the shock value are over.