Genre-bending horror writer Grady Hendrix comes to UB for Exhibit X series

Grady Hendrix, the modern master of literary horror and a writer whom the Wall Street Journal has called “a national treasure,” will discuss his groundbreaking work at the next installment of the Exhibit X Fiction Series, an annual event hosted by the Department of English that for nearly 20 years has been showcasing the work of innovative writers through public readings and conversation about contemporary fiction.

Hendrix is a global sensation whose novel “Horrorstör” has been translated into 14 languages and is the basis of a forthcoming motion picture from the producers of “1917” and “Black Swan.” His New York Times bestseller, “The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires,” has also leaped from the printed page and is being developed by Amazon as a television series.

In addition to his fiction credits, Hendrix is the winner of the Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction.   

His free presentation will take place at 7 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Cinema at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, 341 Delaware Ave., Buffalo. It is free and open to the public.

“Grady Hendrix’s novels are replete with the revolting creatures that are the mainstay of the horror genre — vampires, demons and serial killers — but those terrifying figures, like the heroes they’re up against, aren’t fantastical in his fiction,” says Christina Milletti, associate professor of English and one of the series’ coordinators.

Instead, they’re familiar characters from all of our lives.

The bad guys?

“They present themselves initially as mansplainers, neighborhood gentrifiers and corporate shills before baring their teeth,” she says

And the heroes?

“They’re teenage girls, middle-aged mothers, overlooked Black women and survivors of all stripes. The result is a manifesto from the horror genre about defeating patriarchy — in whatever form it takes.”

As Hendrix reflects at the beginning of “The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires,” his early inspiration for the novel was to see how Dracula would fair against moms and homemakers.

“No spoilers, but many of us know how that would go without even reading a line,” says Milletti.

Hendrix’s Exhibit X visit arrives at just the right time of year, when spookiness is already in the air. His novels are a fun fit for the season, but Milletti says it’s Hendrix’s innovative writing, formally, within the horror genre that’s the real cause for celebration.

“His use of narratorial gamesmanship often keeps the reader uncertain about his characters — who might be deceptive or, in fact, trustworthy,” says Milletti. “His playful twists on form metafictionally recall not only other horror novels and films, but the gruesome literary novels they (and perhaps he) are also very much indebted to.”

The Exhibit X Fiction Series is a campus and community partnership that allows students to encounter creative new works by groundbreaking authors, while introducing them to downtown Buffalo’s flourishing arts and cultural scene at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, which hosts events in the Gallery and Cinema spaces. Talking Leaves will provide books for sale as well.

Instructors in the English department’s fiction and literature courses teach each author’s work ahead of that writer’s event.

Exhibit X has shown itself to be a prescient talent gauge, with many previous guests becoming household names and winning major awards, including Percival Everett, who in 2023 won both Yale’s Windham-Campbell Literature Prize and a PEN/Jean Stein Book Award; Brian Evenson, who won a 2023 Berlin Prize; Can Xue, who has twice been longlisted for the International Booker Prize and was favored to win this year’s Nobel Prize in literature; and Victor LaValle, whose Shirley Jackson award-winning novel “The Changeling” has now been adapted for Apple TV.

“We had a great time last week for Jenny Offill’s visit to Exhibit X and now we’re equally thrilled to welcome Grady Hendrix, an ideal guest for the ‘Day of the Dead,’” says Milletti.