By MICHAEL GINGOLD
The horror novel about a horrific film is coming back this summer, and we’ve got the first listen of its musical accompaniment.
Encyclopocalypse Publications is issuing a “restored and remastered” edition of Preston Fassel’s 2023 novel BEASTS ON 42ND STREET July 14—the anniversary of the 1977 New York blackout, during which its climax is set. Originally published by Cemetery Dance, it’s described as “UNCUT GEMS meets HELLRAISER.” The synopsis: “BEASTS follows dissolute grindhouse theater projectionist Andy Lew, whose ownership of a cursed film reel places him on the radar of a cadre of corrupt cops, Satanic cultists, and underworld figures eager to possess it for themselves. As Andy searches for the identity of the mysterious actress who stars in the movie, he learns that his long-lost brother has turned up dead, unraveling a cold case with unexpected ties to the film’s evil origins.”
The new version of the novel restores material that was previously deleted or altered, which “fundamentally changes the tone and ethos of the story.” Says Fassel, “Andy Lew is something of my shadow self. My Jewish identity is very important to me, but at the time I was getting ready to publish, I wasn’t sure the world needed a Jewish villain protagonist like Andy Lew. So, of my own volition, I changed a lot of stuff. Then, three months after it was published, October 7 happened. And the fallout from that, particularly within the horror community, galvanized me to want to tell more Jewish stories and I immediately regretted my decision. Andy’s loathsomeness and amorality suddenly felt like assets. Jews need our own Walter Whites and Tony Sopranos, too.”
The book, he says, deals with “the callous desire of ostensibly empathetic people to watch real human beings suffer as a warped exercise in moral superiority. It’s also become very much an exploration of what it means to be a Jew in the horror space in the 2020s, and how what was meant to be a safe space for everyone has become a very unsafe space for Jews, which is a conversation I hope this book allows us to have.” Nonetheless, he adds that BEASTS “is broadly accessible to horror fans of every background.”
The music track below, “Protect Me from What I Want (Love Theme from BEASTS OF 42ND STREET),” was created by Tulsa-based folk-rock band Cecada to help promote the book. You can find out more about the group here; the new edition of the novel can be pre-ordered at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and soon at the Encyclopocalypse website.
