Ketchum worked many different jobs before completing his first novel (1980's controversial Off Season), including acting as agent for novelist Henry Miller at Scott Meredith Literary Agency. Later, in his teen years, Ketchum was befriended by Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, who became his mentor. He began making up stories at a young age and explained that he spent much time in his room, or in the woods near his house, down by the brook: 'y interests books, comics, movies, rock 'n roll, show tunes, TV, dinosaurs pretty much any activity that didn't demand too much socializing, or where I could easily walk away from socializing.' He would make up stories using his plastic soldiers, knights, and dinosaurs as the characters. In 2011, Ketchum received the World Horror Convention Grand Master Award for outstanding contribution to the horror genre.Ī onetime actor, teacher, literary agent, lumber salesman, and soda jerk, Ketchum credited his childhood love of Elvis Presley, dinosaurs, and horror for getting him through his formative years. His novels included Off Season, Offspring, and Red, which were adapted to film.

He was the recipient of four Bram Stoker Awards and three further nominations. Nearby, a savage human family with a taste for flesh lurks in the darkening woods, watching, waiting for the moon to rise and night to fall…And before too many hours pass, five civilized, sophisticated people and one tired old country sheriff will learn just how primitive we all are beneath the surface…and that there are no limits at all to the will to survive.Dallas William Mayr, better known by his pen name Jack Ketchum, was an American horror fiction author. A beautiful New York editor retreats to a lonely cabin on a hill in the quiet Maine beach town of Dead River-off season-awaiting her sister and friends. The author's original vision can now be read. The Overlook Connection Press has released the novel in its original unexpurgated state for the first time anywhere. The whole effect of the book was deemed too intense, particularly the ending. However, the original edition was edited and content was removed from the story at the publisher's request. When Off Season, a novel about horror and cannibalism in modern-day Maine, was first released in 1980, it took readers by storm and sold over 250,000 copies.

Jack ketchum dead river series