Laura van den Berg

From NPR's Scott Simon's Q&A with Laura van den Berg about her latest novel, The Third Hotel:

SIMON: What is it about you and horror?

VAN DEN BERG: Well, I think my favorite horror films are really grounded in human psychology, which is to say I think through sort of extreme dislocations of reality. Whether it's via the monstrous or the paranormal, horror actually can really get at some of the most fundamental human questions.

If I may, there's a really fantastic horror movie called "The Babadook." And it centers around a mother-son relationship. And this mother is raising her son as a widow, and so they're on their own. And the son is having trouble. And they both become very isolated. And then, they begin to be menaced by this creature, this outside force.

And that's a movie that really beautifully navigates the ambiguity of - is there a monster in the house in the literal sense, or is this sort of feeling of the monstrous being generated by the psychic state of the characters? And I think that's the sort of aspect of horror, the strand of horror that interests me most powerfully in terms of...[read on]

Visit Laura van den Berg's website.

Writers Read: Laura van den Berg (January 2010).

--Marshal Zeringue