No, not vampires; the late William Gay unfortunately didn't anticipate the world takeover of Bella and Edward when he named his backwoods Tennessee gothic novel, but it is no less a stunning web of Cormac McCarthy-esque necrophilia, murder, spot-on rural dialogue, and haunting renditions of nature. He is my new favorite writer.

Suspecting that something is amiss with their fathers burial, teenager Kenneth Tyler and his sister Corrie venture to his gravesite and make a horrific discovery: their father, a whiskey bootlegger, was not actually buried in the casket they bought for him. Worse, they learn that the undertaker, Fenton Breece, has been grotesquely manipulating the dead. Armed with incriminating photographs, Tyler becomes obsessed with bringing the perverse undertaker to justice. But first, he must outrun Granville Sutter, a local strongman and convicted murderer hired by Fenton to destroy the evidence. With his poetic, haunting prose, William Gay rewrites the rules of the gothic fairytale while exploring the classic Southern themes of good and evil. From the Trade Paperback edition.

It's like Easy Rider/Raging Bull meets Being There. Hollywood in the ’70s and ’80s is explored through the eyes of a strange idiot savant named Vikar, a man who loves movies so much he has Elizabeth Taylor and Monty Clift tattooed on the back of his head. This is a journey into the movies as religious quest.

In an alternate Los Angeles, a young man uncovers a life-changing cinematic secret Hailed as one of Ericksons finest and most daring novels, Zeroville is a unique love letter to film. It centers on the story of Vikar, a young architecture student so enthralled with the movies that his friends call him cineautistic. With an intensely religious childhood behind him, and tattoos of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift on his head, he arrives in Hollywood where hes mistaken for a member of the Charles Manson family and eventually scores a job as a film editor. Vikar discovers the frames of a secret film within the reels of every movie ever made, and sets about splicing them togetheran undertaking that takes on frightening theological dimensions. Electrifying and darkly comic, Zeroville dives into the renegade American cinema of the 70s and 80s and emerges into an era for which we have no name.

The Room has been called the worst movie ever made, but it is also a cult favorite and has become the new Rocky Horror Picture Show in the midnight movie circuit. Sestero, one of the actors in the film, relates the twisted story of the making of The Room, and beautifully captures the admirable will, and the insane solipsism that is Tommy Wiseau, the mad and ultimately sympathetic man behind getting such a movie made.

Presents a humorous ode to cinematic hubris, discussing the story of the mysteriously wealthy misfit, Tommy Wiseau, the producer, director, and star of the "The Room," which later became an international cult film despite making no money at the box office.