Unstable Table Talks ™️ Episode 3 with George Dunn
Join us as we discuss the extreme horror genre and … the book Cows
Good day my unstable pretties ™️ I am back this week with a very special episode. My guest is the certified rapid fire recommendation king, George Dunn. The tiny mic menace. The horror aficionado hailing from the UK. The British are coming!! (okay let’s get on with it).
I don’t want to limit myself in this venture by analyzing and discussing only a few aspects of the book world and genres. This episode is going to explore extreme horror and also, briefly, the book Cows. This was arguably one of the most depraved stories I have ever laid eyes on. Naturally, let’s talk about it …
Abby Wolf: Tell me a bit about what you want people to see or experience when they visit your social media and read your reviews over at FanFi Addict.
George Dunn: I love this question! When people look at my Instagram or read my reviews, the main thing that I hope they'll see is a passion for what I'm doing. I'm not a professional, my feed is not as beautiful or curated or polished as others. If you look hard enough in my reviews, I'm sure you'll find countless spelling and grammar mistakes - and I'm kind of okay with that. I have a great love for horror and horror literature that runs deep and wide and weird - and that's something I just love to share. It really is my hope that people see that in my content. If they happen to come away with some recommendations, that's a bonus.
(We absolutely do love your content and your recommendations are always to note.)
A.W.: What was the original motivation for wanting to create this "booksta" space and share your opinions?
G.D.: I first posted about a horror book on Instagram probably in June of 2023. It's now archived, but not deleted- it's like a little time capsule. It was The Troop by Nick Cutter and it positively scrambled my brain in the best, most disgusting way. I had no strategy or aesthetic (or idea to be honest) just this compulsion to shout something into the void. What I didn't know was that I'd stumbled across this well-established thing. I got comments welcoming me to "bookstagram," and follows and messages, and realized that I wasn't shouting into a void but having conversations. It went pretty quickly from a casual "here's a book I read and enjoyed," once a month kind of thing to weekly, and then... almost daily, and it eventually evolved into what it is today. I know that's a ramble so I suppose to go back to your question, my original motivation was again, a passion for what I'm reading, but fueled by community and conversation.
(You say ramble, I say displaying the love you have for books.)
A.W.: For this conversation, I want to gear us toward extreme horror. I know you read a bit of it and I dabble. I feel the genre itself is very diverse, in and of itself. But it's also very polarizing among readers. Why do you think some of us gravitate toward these types of books, which can sometimes be described as simply "depraved"?
G.D.: There are a whole bunch of reasons I indulge in the extreme every now and then, and I'm sure plenty more that apply to me less. First of all, when you drive past a car wreck what do you do? I bet some of us can't help but slow down and have a good look. And there's true crime. Documentaries and podcasts and books. We, I mean humans, not just horror readers, are attracted to grotesquery. I guess people who don't favour an anecdote might call it morbid curiosity. I think there's some part of, certainly my psyche anyway that finds catharsis in confronting what is taboo and wrong. Maybe it's simply the case that we're a little bit twisted. Another one for me, is simply pushing my own limits. I have no specific triggers, but I'm also not made out of stone, so how much can I stomach, and is it more or less than how far the author is willing to push it? This applies to horror more generally too, but literature is of course a safe place in which to explore that, a controlled environment where readers can experience fear and grief and shock and disgust and catharsis. I also think that perhaps it's simply... honest. The world is a taboo, disturbing place, people really suck, and extreme horror is probably the most unflinching and unafraid in confronting that. It doesn't avert its gaze, and might allow us to begin to make sense of the parts of the world that are already horrifying. I recognize that it is a niche and acquired taste, for sure, but there's so many valid reasons as to why people may have it.
(I completely agree with everything said here. I believe that if we, as individuals, decide we are curious to see how much we can handle, this is the most empowering way because we can put the book down and say “this is not for me.” And, consequently, others may not ever want to test their limits.)
A.W.: What is the most disgusting book you have ever laid eyes on?
G.D.: Ooooofff that's a tough one because there are so many! I'll drop two for different reasons. The first is going to have to be The Bighead by Edward Lee. If you look on the back of the book as I'm doing now, it has proudly emblazoned across it "RAPE. MURDER. BRAIN-EATING..." so hopefully that encapsulates the vibe of that. It is extreme horror in the traditional sense - intensely so. The second though, is not. It's Father of Lies by Brian Evenson, and that one follows Provost Fochs. It addresses hypocrisy within the church and I'm not sure I've ever come away from a book feeling angrier. It's not a blood-bath in the same way The Bighead is, but depicts depravity in a way that is plausible and institutionally complicit and is full of psychological torment for the reader. Definitely extreme in my books.
A.W.: Tell me about a scene that is absolutely burned into your brain.
G.D.: This may be because it's one I stumbled across very recently, but I can't seem to exorcise it from my poor brain. It happens to involve a creepy little doll and some cherry syrup and the human digestive system. It's gross but undeniably very creative, and if you know you know. There's a second and a third book in the series, which are equally... delightful.
(I donkey laughed at this one. Now I need to know what book it is.)
A.W.: I once read an extreme horror that made me so sick, physically, that I had to put it away for two day before I could come back to finish it. Has a book ever made you feel that way?
G.D.: Yes, but not for the reason you'd think. I referenced Father of Lies by Brian Evenson earlier, and that was certainly the case there. Same with Paradais by Fernanda Melchor and The Girl Next Door by Ketchum. There are some graphic passages in those books that made me grimace, but it was actually the principle and plausibility of them that made me question whether I could carry on. There are extreme books packed full of body horror: Transmuted by Eve Harms, The Bug Collector by Wrath James White, hey, Cows by Matthew Stokoe, that made me feel a little queasy … but in comparison, I find that real-world, tangible horror, infinitely more challenging.
A.W.: Okay, LOL so … Cows by Matthew Stokoe. First, thank you for being my emotional support when reading this story because OMG!! So much to unpack there. Do you think there has ever been a more dysfunctional mother/son relationship in anything in existence?
G.D.: What are friends for hey?! Honestly, now you've done Cows, you can do almost anything. Well, it's a dynamic that crops up in horror again and again and for good reason - it works. It's uncomfortable but recognizable for a lot of us, and that makes it effective horror. Think Psycho. Think The Babadook. Think Mother's Day. The list goes on but to answer your question, no, not one that I know of anyway - Cows is probably the most extreme example I've happened across (a mercy perhaps) and the first one that springs to mind.
(If you decide to pick this up, make sure you are aware of your own sensitivities and consume wisely <3)
A.W.: How badly did you want justice for the pet in the story?
G.D.: Oh I wanted justice then and I still want it now. I'm sure readers have gathered that it's not a pleasant read, and there's a whole lot of animal abuse (not just toward cows too) but I did want to take a minute just to explicitly slap a big fat trigger warning on it. It is a psychologically, viscerally upsetting read that you will not be able to flush out of your brain with a million fluffy romances. Take care.
(I will triple endorse this! Please be aware of what you read if you have certain “hard no’s”.)
A.W.: We read as our protagonist evolves, mentally and emotionally, into something he is very much not at the beginning of the book. Spoiler-free, how much or little do you think the environment around us can influence and change us, despite the fact we may know something is not right?
G.D.: I think it's far more than we'd like to believe, and that that's something horror loves to play with sometimes. So much of horror is about transformation, whether that be through grief or trauma or rage - take any revenge story ever - or hubris or survival or whatever. A human trait that we all have is that we adapt, even if that happens to be to something vile. I am not the same person I was 5 years ago. If I were to have a more casual conversation about Cows it would be different to this - probably a lot more punctuated with swear words and gagging noises. We are influenced and changed by our surroundings, including by darkness. Especially by darkness even. That said, in Cows, Steven's arc slopes into the absolutely morally reprehensible hard and fast. I think his character is an incredibly extreme (and I'd like to clarify, unrelatable) example of a human reaction to an inhumane world. I'm no therapist, I probably need one after that book, but I would say we are very much influenced by our environment, and horror is great at reflecting that.
A.W.: How many times did you utter "WTF" while reading this book?
G.D.: At approximately every other word. There are various scenes that I don't have the stomach to reminisce on too hard that I still remember vividly 2 and a half years down the line. I can't escape this book.
(There is something to be said that these memories do not fade LOL. *gags*)
A.W.: If someone was looking to dip their toe in extreme horror, which books would you recommend?
G.D.: Okay. First I'd like to point out that where I draw the line between extreme and contemporary horror may differ to where you, or other readers would. There is a gray area and I think one of the authors who writes in it is Nick Cutter. I would not define any of his books as extreme horror, but some passages in them, the turtle in " Troop, the guinea pig in The Deep, the ants in The Queen, tread that line. He did actually used to write extreme under the pseudonym Patrick Lestewka, and there are some scenes in his Cutter novels, where you can kind of tell - so I'd very much recommend him as a sort of transition author.
My first actual recommendation (I'm sorry I'm taking liberties) would be Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca. It follows the online relationship between Agnes and Zoe. LaRocca's writing is consistently gorgeous, and I don't know whether that dichotomy makes it better or worse honestly, but it's extreme horror that never compromises its quality for shock factor. It does both. After that do At Dark I Become Loathsome which is a little more intense. Their upcoming one (the first in what is to be a truly abhorrent trilogy) We Are Always Tender With Our Dead is probably the roughest time I've had with one of their books thus far, and once you've done that, you're ready for most things frankly.
Gone To See The River Man by Kristopher Triana is again, absolutely extreme, but beautifully, compellingly written. It follows Lori and her obsession with Edmund who is, for good reason, behind bars. He sends her off on a quest, which she embarks upon with her sister Abby, and things get grisly. I think people new to extreme horror (who should check trigger warnings before setting off) will squirm and grimace and have a terrible time, but probably find themselves too invested to put it down.
To finish, it has to be David Sodegren's Death Spell. It's a gross coming-of-rage revenge story that's just impossible to look away from. It's also really quite funny, and the horrible things that happen in it, generally happen to people who have it coming to them - which offers a little reprieve. It follows Ron Jarvis, the second richest man in America, whose daughter Vivienne is madly in love with her ex boyfriend, a movie star who doesn't quite feel the same way. He strikes a deal with forces beyond his imagination - things don't work out.
(Nick Cutter is a great example of intense horror and absolutely uncomfortable moments.)
A.W.: What do you put on your hot dogs?
G.D.: Crispy onions, mustard, ketchup (and the blood of my enemies)
The last thing I want to mention echoes what George already said. If you have interest in extreme horror, or horror in general, please proceed and choose with mindfulness. No one can judge what is gonna be okay for you except you.
Thank you George for being my guest. In the near future we will absolutely have another sit down to discuss another aspect of horror. Your articles and recommendations are so great and thoughtful. You are one of my most trusted sources. Y’all must follow George on social media (IG: georgesreads and Bluesky: georgesreads.bsky.social). He also has his own Substack
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