Splat Goes the Hero: Visceral Horror

ESSAY BY JACK KETCHUM VIA LITREACTOR

I wrote a book a while back calledThe Girl Next Doorwhich opened with the line, “You think you know about pain?”Personally I’m no expert so far–knock on wood–though as a kid I had my share of broken bones and various other less than delightful body-surprises over the years: a cortisone shot into an inflamed tendon, my upper jaw peeled and scraped — did you know that pain can be a sound? — and a fall, stark naked, through the branches of a tree that left me...