Pay the Piper Paperback by George A. Romero and  Daniel Kraus

Pay the Piper  by George A. Romero and  Daniel Kraus

Pay the Piper  by George A. Romero and  Daniel Kraus

This is Southern Gothic at its best. And like any good Southern Gothic tale, it has its share of eccentric, deeply flawed characters, hoodoo, evil, poverty and decay.

Review by Debra K. Every

While going through University of Pittsburgh’s library, Daniel Kraus came across a surprising find. A half-finished novel by George A. Romero called Pay the Piper. This wasn’t the first time an unfinished novel by Romero had found its way into Kraus’ hands. After George Romero’s death in 2017, the Romero family turned to Daniel Kraus to finish The Living Dead. Kraus completed the task using one of Romero’s old short stories as well as the notes he had left behind. Three years later The Living Dead was released to great reviews. 

Daniel Kraus then turned to the George A. Romero Archival Collection at the University of Pittsburgh. What he found was an unfinished novel few had known existed. Even more interesting, it had nothing to do with zombies, a subject on which Romero had focused much of his writing. Kraus believed that Pay the Piper included some of the finest writing of Romero’s career. He felt that it gave Romero a blank canvas on which he could paint a character-focused, atmosphere-drenched tale of terror. 

Kraus is no stranger to collaborations. Before the Romero books he worked on two projects with Guillermo del Toro—Trollhunters in 2015 and the novelization of The Shape of Water. Daniel Kraus works in a wide range of styles in both YA and adult horror making him a great choice for this project.

Pay the Piper will be released on September 3rd.

It is a supernatural tale set deep in the Louisiana Bayou—Alligator Point, population 141—the perfect place for a story dripping with ancient evil, danger and horrific death. The boogeyman here is an entity called The Piper. Itprowls the bayou and, just like the novel’s namesake, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, targets children in ever more gruesome ways. The Piper lures them into the swamp dangling what they want most as bait. When he’s got them alone and unprotected, he strikes. The only way to stop the deaths is for the townspeople to acknowledge the sins of their ancestors—the pirate Lafitte, slave traders and the townspeople themselves. We don’t know what’s happening but anticipation keeps us turning the page. 

And what is with those Octopus carvings?

This is Southern Gothic at its best. And like any good Southern Gothic tale, it has its share of eccentric, deeply flawed characters, hoodoo, evil, poverty and decay. There’s Pontiac, a two-fisted, fearless, cursing 9-year-old girl, brought up on stories about The Piper that had been handed down from father to son. How great that when we meet her she has a volume of H.P. Lovecraft tucked under her arm. 

Her father, Gerard, is a good man failing as a father because of his battle with alcohol addiction…until he drinks a bottle of who-knows-what giving him the strength to pull himself out.

Then there’s Sheriff Pete Roosevelt and his deputy Spuds Ulene. Sheriff Pete lives with a constant scroll of John-Wayne-isms running through his mind; his yardstick—or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, template—for how to handle the day-to-day situations that any sheriff comes across. Spuds is, of course, the dull one, taken on by Roosevelt out of good-heartedness, until we realize that he is more than we had assumed.

And the names here are fun. Pork-Fat. Blind-Bull-Belly. Pink Zoot. Mère. Plum Peppers. You don’t need to know much else to understand who they are. When you add to that the patois, the language, of the place, Kraus has built a complete world. It is evocative, placing us deep into the Louisianan culture. Kraus is masterful at giving us a range of linguistic twang depending on each person’s background. Not an easy thing to pull off. 

And speaking of language, there are some gorgeous moments. 

“Fibs are truths stretched taffy-thin”

“Not from the kind of cancer that did in Mama, but the kind he nurtured like a pet” 

“[his sentences] had rippling scales, dripping fangs”

I do have one criticism, however. Kraus has quite a few shifting POVs. I happen to like the change that multiple POVs gives but I stopped counting at nine. And yes, the gallop to the end, as I like to call it, was exciting, but the POV back-and-forth added confusion to the mix.

All that being said, Pay the Piper is a gripping, atmospheric story steeped in Louisianan lore. Daniel Kraus has used his creative toolbox to slip into the skin of Romero’s writing, balancing reverence with invention. Without his craftsmanship we would not be treated to the full spectrum of George Romero’s creativity.

Pay the Piper by George A. Romero and  Daniel Kraus

Pay the Piper Paperback by George A. Romero and  Daniel Kraus horror book review
Pay the Piper  by George A. Romero and  Daniel Kraus

A terrifying tale of supernatural horror set in a cursed Louisiana bayou, from the minds of legendary director George Romero and bestselling author Daniel Kraus.

In 2020, while sifting through University of Pittsburgh Library’s System’s George A. Romero Archival Collection, novelist Daniel Kraus turned up a surprise: a half-finished novel called Pay the Piper, a project few had ever heard of. In the years since, Kraus has worked with Romero’s estate to bring this unfinished masterwork to light.

Alligator Point, Louisiana, population 141: Young Renée Pontiac has heard stories of “the Piper”―a murderous swamp entity haunting the bayou―her entire life. But now the legend feels horrifically real: children are being taken and gruesomely slain. To resist, Pontiac and the town’s desperate denizens will need to acknowledge the sins of their ancestors―the infamous slave traders, the Pirates Lafitte. If they don’t . . . it’s time to pay the piper.

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Author

  • Debra K. Every

    Debra K. Every is a self-described adrenalin-fueled writer focused on horror, thrillers, and stories that make the heart beat fast. Her debut novel, Deena Undone, won gold in the 2023 Pitch Week XXIX competition and has been shortlisted for the 2024 Hawthorne Prize. It will be published by Woodhall Press with a release date of October 2024. Her short stories have appeared in various literary magazines, as well as in soon-to-be published anthologies by Fairfield Scribes, Penumbra, and Hippocampus.

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