The Library of the Dead
Page 30
Jesus was the author of almost twenty novels and a number of collections and chapbooks. He got his start learning from several prominent Splatterpunk authors during the genre movement’s initial rise, authors like David J. Schow, John Skipp, and Craig Spector. He also copy-edited a novel of Richard Laymon’s before moving on to becoming a writer and editor himself. Probably his most well-known works are his novel, Survivor, which has been optioned by Chesapeake Films, and the Clickers series, optioned by Cooked Goose Productions, that he co-wrote with Mark Williams and Brian Keene, respectively. He’s worked with many of the genre’s top horror and suspense publishers, such as Leisure Books, Kensington Books, HarperCollins, Cemetery Dance Publications, Delirium Books, Bloodletting Press, Thunderstorm Books, and others. In addition to novels, Jesus has written over eighty short stories. He has also written dozens of articles, starting back in the late ‘90s with his long-running nonfiction column, “Diary of a Madman,” which ran in Afraid and then in various other venues after the newsletter folded. His most recent series of nonfiction articles on the history of the genre has been published by LampLight magazine. His articles on horror writing and publishing contained a wealth of knowledge that spanned three decades, and ought to be, in my opinion, required reading for any practicing horror writer.
Jesus was also an editor for a time. He co-founded Iniquities Publications in 1990, serving as co-editor and publisher of Iniquities Magazine and Phantasm Magazine until 1997. He also edited an anthology, Tooth and Claw, which was published in 2002. As both writer and editor, Jesus was in the business a long time, and he had seen the genre through ups, downs, quirks, and changes of all kinds. He was well-read and well-informed and discussed the genre academically, citing works and events in horror publishing to forward an idea or prove a point. Jesus understood the importance of diversifying as a working writer and also of giving back to the writing community: in addition to full-length and short fiction, he also did work for hire, screenplays, technical writing, interviews, memorials, forewords, afterwords, and everything in between.
He used to joke about quitting the horror business and becoming a forest ranger or a tugboat captain, but Jesus’s heart was in the genre. He was a fan before he was a professional, and that enthusiastic love of horror literature never failed him. It was what made his work, both fiction and nonfiction, so compelling.
Jesus was no stranger to loss of friends and family, but he knew a fundamental truth about stories—that the ones we love live on in the stories we tell, and a part of us lives on with them. And when we write them down, those stories keep on even after we do.
I meant what I said at the beginning of this afterword, that a library of the dead can be a comfort. And what is horror fiction if not, in a way, a library of the dead? What are these stories if not justice by way of illuminating real horrors left unavenged in the dark? Aren’t they tributes to the little deaths and losses? This anthology examines the sinister and often terrifying aspects of death and loss and the innate horror of tragedy. With these stories, the reader gives the writer permission to prevent detachment and to mark the soul indelibly with a memory, a piece of soul. This is, at the heart of it, what horror fiction does. It provides a means of vicarious experience, sometimes thrilling, sometimes cathartic. It provides a way of processing the little and the monumental horrors of our own lives, the tragedies, the losses. This anthology is a mausoleum of shelves upon which the human condition has been examined and recorded in little volumes. It is a place of solitude to visit, remember, relive, and remind ourselves that someone like J.F. Gonzalez hasn’t left us; he is still with us in the pages onto which so much of his soul was poured.
So read on—read his books, his articles, his stories. His piece of soul.
His work influenced and inspired generations of writers. His story—the life he lived—touched the lives of many of us. He was loved, and his story cherished. Take his book and read on …
Library Archives, New Jersey
2014
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