How to Sell a Haunted House

Chapter 1

Louise thought it might not go well, so she told her parents she was pregnant over the phone, from three thousand miles away, in San Francisco. It wasn't that she had a single doubt about her decision. When those two parallel pink lines had ghosted into view, all her panic dissolved and she heard a clear, certain voice inside her head say:

I'm a mother now.

But even in the twenty-first century it was hard to predict how a pair of Southern parents would react to the news that their thirty-four-year-old unmarried daughter was pregnant. Louise spent all day rehearsing different scripts that would ease them into it, but the minute her mom answered and her dad picked up the kitchen extension, her mind went blank and she blurted out:

"I'm pregnant."

She braced herself for the barrage of questions.

Are you sure? Does Ian know? Are you going to keep it? Have you thought about moving back to Charleston? Are you certain this is the best thing? Do you have any idea how hard this will be alone? How are you going to manage?

In the long silence, she prepared her answers: Yes, not yet, of course, God no, no but I'm doing it anyway, yes, I'll manage.

Over the phone she heard someone inhale through what sounded like a mouthful of water and realized her mom was crying.

"Oh, Louise," her mother said in a thick voice, and Louise prepared herself for the worst. "I'm so happy. You're going to be the mother I wasn't."

Her dad only had one question: her exact street address.

"I don't want any confusion with the cab driver when we land."

"Dad," Louise said, "you don't have to come right now."

"Of course we do," he said. "You're our Louise."

She waited for them on the sidewalk, her heart pounding every time a car turned the corner, until finally a dark blue Nissan slowed to a stop in front of her building and her dad helped her mom out of the back seat and she couldn't wait-she threw herself into her mom's arms like she was a little kid

Grady Hendrix is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter living in New York City. He is the author of Horrorstör, My Best Friend’s Exorcism (which is being adapted into a feature film by Amazon Studios), We Sold Our Souls, and the New York Times bestseller The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires (currently being adapted into a TV series). Grady also authored the Bram Stoker Award–winning nonfiction book Paperbacks from Hell, a history of the horror paperback boom of the seventies and eighties, and his latest non-fiction book is These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World.

Grady Hendrix s horror novels are a gateway drug to the genre...By weaving violence, family trauma and humor, Hendrix creates a texture that engages the reader emotionally and viscerally [a] gripping, wildly entertaining exploration of childhood horrors.
The New York Times

"A delight...Hendrix, with relentless efficiency and a bit of humor forces us to confront our fears."
The Washington Post

"A madcap funhouse of a novel. Zigzags from hilarious to horrifying to heartbreaking and back again in the blink of an eye. I loved it!"
Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of The House Across the Lake

"Classic Grady Hendrix: an authentically frightening, genuinely funny reconfiguration of what a haunted house can be." 
Esquire

"[A] campy, cinematic ride." 
People

"Hendrix is a contemporary horror master, and the combination of profound storytelling and unapologetic, campy gore he delivers here will surely have horror fans reading with a gleeful smile on their faces." 
NPR

This book is a missile designed to obliterate you emotionally and absolutely annihilate you with terror. And let me tell you, Grady Hendrix does not miss.
Mallory O Meara, National bestselling author of The Lady from the Black Lagoon

It's tempting to point out the balance of horror and humor here, and the commingling of the two really is something else, but the true power behind How to Sell a Haunted House is in its emotionality, the sister-brother dynamic, the family matters. It's life and death in the childhood home, and Hendrix has masterfully rendered the journey from one end to the other.
Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box and Daphne

May be Grady Hendrix s best novel yet, and that s saying a lot! Highly recommended.
Mick Garris, writer and director (The Stand, The Shining miniseries)

"A searing