Viking Books for Young Readers, 368 pp.
Published August 28, 2018
A horror story about friendship, growing up, and finding a place in the world: Gremlins meets The Breakfast Club by way of Stephen King and Stranger Things.
1982, the summer before seventh grade. Five kids with nothing in common--Sep, Arkle, Hadley, Lamb, and Mack--become instant friends. On the last day of summer, they find a stone box buried in the forest, and each places an object inside to seal their friendship. And they make rules:
Never come to the box alone.
Never open it after dark.
Never take back your sacrifice.
1986, the summer before eleventh grade. The five haven't spoken since that day in 1982. Sep has gone through the past four years alone and plans to escape to boarding school. But strange things are happening--mirrors are breaking unexpectedly, electricity is flickering in and out, and people are coming down with inexplicable physical ailments.
Someone has broken the rules. And it seems the five committed more than objects to the box's ancient stone--they gave it their deepest secrets and darkest fears, and now these are being returned in a flood of shambling corpses, murderous toys, and undead pets. The gang must reunite in an attempt to discover the secrets of the sacrifice box--and Sep might be the only one who can stem its tide of evil before it's too late.
Welcome to Day 9 of The Sacrifice Box blog tour! Be sure to stop by all the other lovely bloggers participating in the tour, who are linked in the full schedule below. For today's stop, author Martin Stewart was kind enough to answer some of my serious, and not-so-serious, questions about his new novel, the resurgence of the 1980's in pop culture, and what he would put into the Sacrifice Box!
August 21 – Fear Your Ex – Review + Creative Instagram Picture
The 1980's have experienced a bit of a renaissance in pop culture recently, in everything from music, to movies and TV shows, to books like The Sacrifice Box. Was there a particular reason or inspiration for setting your story in that decade?
Yes, definitely ― this was pre-Stranger Things, which I loved, so the very earliest seed of the story came from the idea of a box, discovered by accident, that took everything you gave it and kept wanting more. This seemed like a great way to write about the challenges of growing up and maintaining friendships as the world changes around you. The problem was, this a MG story ― fifteen/sixteen-year-olds aren’t likely to make sacrifices like this. But they might have done at ten or eleven…
So, that got me thinking. If this was something the group had done in the past, then I could draw on that Gothic idea of our previous actions coming back to haunt us. And, more than that, it meant that the story began to feel like The Breakfast Club reuniting to fight the Gremlins.
Lightbulb!
It was a co-incidence that these are both classic 80s movies, but the story taking shape had the bones of that kind of narrative: a misfit gang in a small town, battling terrifying adversaries while the adults have no idea.
I got to weave in loads of little references and Easter Eggs (see if you can spot The Terminator, Aliens and Die Hard in there) and wallow happily in nostalgia, which is my favourite thing.
There are five friends at the center of this story: Sep, Arkle, Hadley, Lamb, and Mack. Do any of them remind you of yourself at that age?
I think there are bits of me across all the characters, and I hope readers will be able to find themselves reflected in the five in different ways.
I was a big reader and very into music, like Sep; I tried to be funny at school, and was a bit of a clown, like Arkle; I was on the athletics team and big into sports, like Lamb and Mack, and I was pretty artistic, like Hadley. We all have shades of personality, and we can change depending on context, too ― the difference in Mack when he’s with the football team and the sacrifice gang was at the heart of what I wanted to say about friendship.
I think the element of the characters I probably don’t have is Lamb’s badassness. She is so brave and capable, and I’m not sure I’d manage it in these circumstances!
What would you put into the sacrifice box if you came across it with a group of friends? (Or would you be the person telling everyone: "It really is time to go home now"?)
You know, I’ve thought about this a lot. I think I’d have picked different things at different times ― our teenage years are fickle, changeable things, and only when we look back do we think they passed quickly. I’m now thirty-five, my mother died suddenly last year, and I have an eighteen-month-old daughter. The characters in the novel have life thrown at them like this (I wrote about Lamb’s mother dying before my mum had even become ill, and it was very difficult to go back through those portions of the book afterwards) and I sometimes think I’d put in something of my mum’s to help remember her; or something of my daughter’s to try and keep her safe.
But when I think of myself in the world of The Sacrifice Box, it’s my fifteen-year-old self I see (back in the summer of 1998!) not me now. The most important thing to me then was music, so I’ll show my age and say not a mixtape, but a mix minidisc! I loved my minidisc player (if you were born after 1990 you might have to google this), and I had several painstakingly curated discs, cleverly named ‘Disc 1’, ‘Disc 2’… I’d put those in, because the music beats through all the memories of my friends and the things we did together, as it does for all of us; which was why I was so keen to make a playlist for the music that features in the book (scan the code below with your Spotify search camera to jump straight to it!)
When and how did your love for the horror genre begin? Did you read a lot of scary books growing up?
It may come as a surprise, but I’m not big into horror ― especially horror films! They scare me to my very bones ― I saw the new IT, against my will, and it absolutely haunted me. Creating scary things is much more my thing, and I’ve been delighted to see some readers saying that this is the scariest book they’ve ever read.
But to me, balance is essential, and laughs are so important ― a scare and a laugh both provide a similar release of tension― and I always wanted to write something that would have a real intensity of both. I was hugely influenced as a young man by The League of Gentlemen, which is a very odd, slightly scary British TV show. I don’t consider it horror so much as macabre or Gothic, but it’s definitely dark and shocking. The laughs are right alongside the darkness, which is very satisfying, and I always wanted to write something that would get big laughs from horrible things!
For The Sacrifice Box, I wanted a balance of absolute fun and proper scariness. That was one reason to make the principal threat a teddy bear ― I was hoping that (as well as being a good creative challenge, to make a teddy frightening) it would mean there was always a sense of humour on the edge of the horror: scary fun, rather than scary ‘oh my god the pits of hell are coming to murder me’.
Lastly, a bit of fun! Imagine you meet someone who knows nothing whatsoever about the years 1980-1989. What are some of the movies, television shows, or songs you would share to give them an idea of what that particular decade was like?
I love this! God, there’s too much…
I think the sounds are so important in terms of experiencing the decade, so I’d watch some films with proper, synth-heavy 80s soundtracks, like Beverley Hills Cop and Rocky IV. Friendship films like Stand by Me and The Breakfast Club are quintessentially 80s, and the A-Team and Knight Rider would be next up, alongside cartoons like Transformers, Thundercats and M.A.S.K. In terms of the songs, check out my playlist on Spotify to see what the characters are listening to ― then add some Michael Jackson.
A big thank you to Martin for so kindly answering my questions! It's been a delight hosting you and The Sacrifice Box on This Dark Material!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Martin Stewart has previously worked as an English teacher, university lecturer, barman, recycling technician, and golf caddy. A native of Glasgow, he now lives on Scotland's west coast with his wife, baby daughter, and a very big dog. He enjoys cooking with eggs, running on the beach, re-watching his favourite films, and buying books to feed his to-be-read pile. Follow him on Twitter @martinjstewart and Instagram @martin_j_stewart.
TOUR SCHEDULE
WEEK ONE
August 20 – live.laugh.love.library – Listicle
August 22 – Nerd Girl Official – Review + Playlist
August 23 – Spinatale Reviews – Q&A
August 24 – By Hook Or By Book – Review
WEEK TWO
August 27 – Curly Book Owl – Review
August 28 – Bookcrushin – 80s Pop Culture That We Would Sacrifice
August 29 – A Gingerly Review – Review
August 30 – This Dark Material – Q&A
August 31 – thenightowlbookblog – Review
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