Allston author Kayla Cottingham wants readers to have a ‘hot ghoul summer’ in ‘This Delicious Death’
In her sapphic horror debut, “My Dearest Darkest,” Kayla Cottingham sent readers to the spooky, elite, fictional Ulalume Academy in Maine. In her latest, “This Delicious Death,” released April 25, she takes them to an indie music festival with four teenage best friends who must eat human flesh to survive. (They are deemed “ghouls,” and not in a nice way.) It’s all fun, boy bands, and coolers full of SynFlesh (an artificial organ meat substitute) until a mysterious, new illness threatens to expose the ghouls’ identities and put everyone in danger.
Cottingham, who is from Utah and now lives in Allston, said the concept of a society in flux following a widespread, life-altering virus was influenced by the pandemic.
“It was [written] in the phase when we were starting to relax a little more with in-person events and travel. There was a glimmer of hope we hadn’t had in a while,” the Simmons University alumna said in an interview. “Vaccines were coming out and I was inspired by that desperation for everyone to get back to life as we knew it. I wanted to write something celebratory, but at the same time exploring collective trauma, as much as we wanted to shove it into the back of our minds.”
The book, which is told through flashbacks and a present timeline, centers on themes of queer and trans visibility, chosen family, and why music festivals can feel like a nightmare waiting to happen. Cottingham will discuss horror in YA at Copper Dog Books in Beverly on Thursday, and before then, she spoke with the Globe about her new, very bloody book.
Q. First things first, these characters are ghouls. Not zombies. How come?
A. I saw someone tweet the phrase “hot ghoul summer,” and I started thinking about it from the perspective [of ]:
What can I say if I am writing as a bunch of girls who eat human flesh? Like, what’s the onus of that?
I wanted [the book] to reflect the experience queer people have [of ] being viewed as monsters in the current social-political climate. I wanted to make them literal monsters, but be intentional about humanizing them to the point that it’s obvious that they’re dealing with dark and difficult stuff. They are still just regular teenage girls.
Q. What’s your elevator pitch for what a “ghoul” is within this world?
A. A ghoul is a person infected by a fic tional disease called the Hollowing that changes their physiology so they can only survive by eating human flesh. Eating regular food makes them sick and they will eventually starve. But they are living, breathing people, not undead the way a zombie would be.
Q. I laughed because the book’s release felt like perfect timing with Coachella. What made you pick a music festival for a setting?
A. It’s a bottle episode in some way. Everyone is stuck in this valley with one road in and out. It becomes easy to trap without them realizing they’re trapped. The desert is a good setting for that because it’s so desolate. It brings the fear of, if one thing fails, we’re screwed here. Like, if we run out of water, the vast majority of people will die.
In terms of music festivals, there’s a hard-partying element that’s interesting to play with. There’s one character who is on the phone [reporting the outbreak], like, “I saw something outside of the tent!” And they’re like, “No, you’re just on a lot of drugs.”
Q. Much of the book’s plot is built on the intimacy and loyalty of the friendships between your four characters. Was this important to you? A. I wanted to play on found family trope that you get in queer narratives; regardless of family situations, [it’s the people] who are ride-or-die for you, even when we come from different and shifting, challenging situations. If nothing is consistent, we will be consistent with each other.
Q. What is the real-life fear you’re leaning into with this book?
A. It’s a fear of not being accepted by your friends and family and by society. It’s about the feeling of alienation that teenagers have a lot. And that’s not just [felt by] queer teenagers; it’s teens of color and other marginalized communities. It’s all teens [when they] stop being viewed as a child and feel like an adult more, and [they] don’t know how to grapple with that yet.
Q. What’s your method for writing gore? Without giving away too much, several sections made me really squeamish. A. There’s something fun about writing gore; it’s so uncomfortable for people to have a natural reaction. You see blood and know it’s not supposed to be there. It gives a physical view you don’t get with jump scares or tension. [When I write about] having someone taking a bite out of someone, I want readers to feel the teeth in their neck. It puts them in a scenario that’s so viscerally uncomfortable, and it humanizes the horror by being blood and guts. Also, it’s just hard to [write], so I find it rewarding.
Kayla Cottingham and “Jennifer Strange” author Cat Scully, Thursday at 6 p.m., Copper Dog Books, 272 Cabot St., Beverly. copperdogbooks.com