Canada’s tricephalic literary force, Michael Slade, unleashes all-out horror with Ghoul

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN FANGORIA MAGAZINE, SEPT. 1988

By Steve Newton

The U.S. has Stephen King, Britain’s got Clive Barker. What does Canada have–snow? Acid rain? Wayne Gretzky?

Sure, but lately the Great White North has also acquired its very own best-selling horror writer. The name is Michael Slade, but it’s actually three people: Vancouver criminal lawyers John Banks and Jay Clarke, and Clarke’s wife Lee. Together, they’ve just released Slade’s second novel, Ghoul, a horrific tale of murder and heavy metal that is, according to terror master Robert Bloch, a “total wipeout”.

To put it bluntly, Ghoul is not a book for wimps.

“What we’ve seen recently, with Clive Barker and with Slade and with several other writers, ” says Jay Clarke, “is a stronger movement into the taboo area, simply because there is a contract with the reader which says, ‘Fine, you’re buying this as a horror book, you buy it in good faith. Don’t expect me to give it to you watered down, with a guarantee that it won’t scare you too much. You want to be horrified? I’ll horrify ya. And any time you want to get off the train, just close the book.'”

Over half a million readers took a scary ride on the first Slade novel, 1986’s Headhunter, a detective/thriller/horror book that became one of the best-selling novels ever written in Vancouver, second only to James Clavell’s Tai-Pan. Headhunter was co-written by Banks, Jay Clarke, and yet another Vancouver lawyer, Richard Covell, but Covell dropped out of the Slade configuration before the Ghoul project was started and Lee Clarke stepped in.

She says that being a member of the fairer sex doesn’t make her any less able to scare people than the other Slade-ists.

“People ask me, ‘What’s a woman doing writing a book as horrific as Ghoul?’ she laughs. “For me, that’s a sexist question. It seems to imply that a woman should write about ‘Is the house haunted? or ‘Where are the children?’ A woman can write about all-out horror every bit as well as a man.”

Slade’s three-way writing process works something like this: Jay Clarke and Banks spend a lot of time sharing story ideas, Clarke usually coming up with the main one. Banks then goes away and charts the character and the scenes. After some more talk Clarke bashes out a few pages which all three confer over. When a certain section has been set out to everyone’s satisfaction, Lee Clarke adds the finishing touches.

The trio’s motto is “Slade Never Sleeps”, because while one of them might be out buying groceries, another will be jotting down ideas for an important scene.

A diehard fan of hard rock, Jay Clarke made heavy metal one of the themes of Ghoul, naming various chapters after such bands as Twisted Sister, Iron Maiden, and Grim Reaper. The look of the murderous title character in the book is fashioned after that of the king of nasty rock himself, Alice Cooper.

Currently, there are plans to film Headhunter in Vancouver this fall, from a screenplay by John (The Grey Fox) Hunter. The film rights to Ghoul have recently been purchased as well.

“Headhunter will be filmed by British and Canadian producers,” explains Banks, “whereas Ghoul has been acquired by Americans based in Hollywood. I’ll be fascinated to see who understands Slade the most, and who makes the better movie.”

And what about Michael Slade as Canada’s answer to Stephen King?

“That’s not the question,” says Jay Clarke. “Stephen King captures the essence of American horror, just as Clive Barker hits the centre of British fright dead-on. Does Michael Slade capture the heart of Canadian terror? That’s the question. And I’d like to think so.”