Drug Lets You Speak to the Dead in Gothic Portrayal of Addiction

Ghost Eaters by Clay McLeod Chapman

When Erin’s former lover Silas dies, she would do anything for the chance to get closure. A drug, called Ghost, that lets you commune with the dead seems like the perfect solution. But it might come with a cost. Clay McLeod Chapman has written a thought-provoking and disturbing horror story with Ghost Eaters (Quirk Books).

A DRUG TO SPEAK WITH THE DEAD

For years, Silas had turned to drugs in a struggle to quell the demons of his past, and Erin has had enough of putting her boyfriend back together time and time again. When Silas goes to rehab again, she hits a breaking point and breaks things off for good. Soon after, a drug overdose ends Silas’ life, and Erin is wracked with guilt.

But Silas didn’t just leave behind the shadow of his memory, he also left a connection to Ghost, the pill that Erin hopes will resolve her grief. By holding a seance and taking the drug, Erin and her friends chase a high that will give them the chance to speak with Silas in the afterlife. The novel parallels Silas and Erin, showing how addiction consumes every aspect of their lives. 

In the midst of her search for Silas’ ghost, blurred by grief, Erin opens the door between the living and the dead. Before she knows it, Silas isn’t the only ghost haunting her, and centuries-worth of ghosts are pulled from history, clawing their way back to the living world. Erin’s life spirals out of control the more she turns to Ghost as a remedy, and this tragic ghost story rewrites itself as a supernatural thriller.

ON LOSS, GRIEF AND BEING HAUNTED

Addiction serves a greater metaphor in the story, beyond the tragedy of overdose and the dangers of drug addiction. Erin is consumed by her grief, leading her to Ghost as a means of getting closure. What she finds instead is escapism in the form of a pill, and it doesn’t come without a cost. Chapman shows that grief can only be temporarily numbed and is something we must experience, rather than push away.

Q&A WITH CLAY MCLEOD CHAPMAN

In an interview with Quirk Books, Clay McLeod Chapman spoke on the purpose of placing grief, memory and addiction at the center of a horror novel.

“There was a fundamental question I asked myself over and over again when I was writing this: What is it like to be haunted? In ghost stories, we speak of haunted houses— a physical location that has been imbued with the trauma of loss, the death of someone, whose spirit now inhabits this home.

We always talk of receptacles when it comes to hauntings. Even beyond houses, there are haunted dolls, haunted boats, haunted mirrors, you name it. But what about people? What if we’re haunted by the ghosts of those we’ve lost? To me, the nature of grief is in and of itself a haunting. Sometimes we can’t let go. 

Horror is a perfect platform to explore deeper themes like addiction and grief. The metaphor of monsters is something like a Halloween mask. We layer our emotions beneath the veneer of something supernatural. But for me, it goes a little farther than that … Horror pushes boundaries. Horror is operatic. It allows me to write BIG EMOTIONS and offers me — and hopefully the reader — catharsis in releasing these feelings.”

ADDICTION AS A LINGERING GHOST

Conflating addiction, grief and horror, Chapman has a firm grasp on what it means to be haunted. He writes from experience as someone who has lost loved ones to addiction, placing some of himself in Erin’s character while relating a feeling everyone can connect to, despite their own experiences.

He told Quirk Books, “The opioid crisis loomed large over the writing of this book … So did my own family’s personal struggles with addiction. Everyone is affected by this in some way, whether it’s alcohol or drugs or both. That addiction is in and of itself a ghost that always follows. It never goes away. You have to learn how to live with your addiction. Live with your demons. People struggling with addiction speak of the monkey on their back, but I can’t help but think of the Thai film Shutter, where it’s truly a ghost on our shoulders.”

Clay McLeod Chapman balances complex emotional depth with awareness of tragedies in American history. He doesn’t shy away from body horror, hair-raising suspense and the terrors of losing control. Ghost Eaters is the supernatural Southern Gothic horror story you didn’t know you were craving, and it’s certainly one you will never forget.

 

About Clay McLeod Chapman:

Clay McLeod Chapman writes novels, comic books and children’s books, as well as for film and TV. He is the author of the horror novels The Remaking and Whisper Down the Lane.