Nat Cassidy is a USA Today bestselling horror author. He’s received wide acclaim for his work, including his supernatural, perimenopausal horror novel, Mary: An Awakening of Terror, and his Bram Stoker-nominated contemporary horror novella, Rest Stop, that explores historical trauma and reads like a bloody slasher leaping from the page.
He was named one of the “writers shaping horror’s next golden age” by Esquire and his recent release, When The Wolf Comes Home, has been praised by THE KING of horror, Stephen King, who said:“It’s terrific…a classic.”
Cassidy is infamous for bringing the angst and dread, but especially the feels, and his fairytale-inspired horror novel, When The Wolf Comes Home promises all of that and more.
You can find the author on Instagram and TikTok – @catnassidy and on his website.
(Interview conducted by Haley Newlin)
CEMETERY DANCE: When The Wolf Comes Homes borrows symbols and tropes from old fairytales. What are some of these tropes and what inspired you to use them?
NAT CASSIDY: Some happened organically and I didn’t realize it until after the fact. I knew the inciting incident was a boy finding a book of fairytales. All fairytales are archetypal and they’re foundational to the stories we continue to tell. And they’re not just cute little stories, they’re actually so dark. So terrifying. When I was a kid, I was like these are so f*cking scary.
Can you speak to the importance of the werewolf figure in When The Wolf Comes Home?
The werewolf is about a chase, someone running, like Jess and the boy. Maybe the werewolf trying to run from itself. Fear is a shapeshifter like the werewolf. I wanted it to speak to an awakening of certain impulses, the invader archetype that isn’t faceless. There’s the otherness quality. The monster quality. This book is about mutating, transforming. And there’s something so rich about the emotions fairytales like The Little Red Riding Hood evoke.
The original version of When The Wolf Comes Home was just a bad, violent dad.
Last time we spoke, we talked about finding the emotional connection between characters. Can you share how you built the connection between Jess and the 5-year-old boy she finds hiding outside her apartment?
I wanted to remember what it was like to be a kid. Through Jess and the kid, we have an adult’s and child’s perspective on fear and that’s the power of the story. We tend to focus on the external threats as kids but once we get older we have that there’s nothing under my bed…there’s not a monster in the shadows rationality and reasoning.
As we get older, that fear has to go somewhere. So instead, it’s did I say the wrong thing at that party? Will I ever get ahead at work?
It’s still the innate fight or flight response. You can run away from the werewolf, but the fear itself is still there.
It becomes a question of what does the external tell us about the internal and vice versa.
You say When The Wolf Comes Home is an homage to ’80s action horror. Why do you think that particular era had such a great influence on this story?
It was post Watergate, the tail end of the Cold War, and there was this feeling of now what? People thought there was no great conflict anymore. There was an increasing feeling of global stasis. And the age crisis incited a new generation of body horror. The special effects in horror movies got gorier, goopier, and more experimental.
I especially loved Dean Koontz’s horror novels of the time like Watchers, and later, Intensity. His writing has that great chase element and Watchers is just an excellent pulpy paperback.
How do you hope readers feel when they finish When The Wolf Comes Home?
I hope I make them sad. That speaks to the magic of fiction. It’s such an obvious thing to point out but every now and then, it does strike you. How wild is it to make up these characters, these black squiggles on a page that somehow connects to someone so they can feel things like sadness.
Sadness and those bluer-tinged emotions come out of scary situations. Fear is rooted in loss. Losing someone you love. Or a limb. Sadness feels like a key emotion to find empathy or growth.
Truthfully, I am always looking to inspire any reaction. If I can get them all, laughter, sadness, empathy, all the better.
What is some of the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
I took an informative writing class about debut novels that served really practical advice as how to survive the ups and downs of traditional publishing. One tip was to start a list and put down every goal you have, start with some small things and then you can go bigger. Make sure it’s all in a doc and revisit it. Add a check for each goal complete. Creatives tend to focus on the next thing we want and forget to look back at how far we’ve come.
A blurb from Joe Hill was on my list. Along with Josh Malerman and Tananarive Due. And now, F*cking Tananarive Due read this book and said something nice about it. Joe Hill and Stephen King read When The Wolf Comes Home. As did Josh Malerman, Rachel Harrison, Grady Hendrix, and Alma Katsu. Just these incredible authors whose work means so much to me.
What werewolf books would you recommend to Cemetery Dance readers?
The Bloody Chamber: The Werewolf by Angela Carter, Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison, and The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice.
Nat Cassidy is featured in the original short story anthology called The End of The World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand. Cassidy is in great company with stories from fellow masterminds of horror including; Tananarive Due, Gabino Iglesias, Catriona Ward, Josh Malerman, Jonathan Janz, Richard Chizmar, Hailey Piper, Alma Katsu, and Paul Tremblay, among others. The anthology includes an introduction by Stephen King, a foreword by Christopher Golden, and an afterword by Brian Keene. You can order The End of The World As We Know It here.
