John Bellairs wrote dozens of fantasy, gothic horror, and sci-fi novels for younger readers over the 1970s and 1980s. His Lewis Barnavelt series, along with his 1968 adult novel The Face in the Frost, are among his most celebrated works.
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Young Adult Mag: What scares you the most?
John Bellairs: Probably the unknown. I was always fascinated by what lies just beyond the surface of things, just around the corner, just beyond what we can see with our eyes.
YA: Tell us about The House With a Clock in Its Walls.
JB: A young boy, Lewis Barnavelt, is orphaned and must move into his uncle’s gothic mansion, only to discover that the former tenants were evil sorcerers bent on destroying the world. Their legacy is a clock, ticking away in the walls of the house, that when properly aligned, will carry out their evil plan.
YA: Who were your major influences?
JB: For my young adult horror novels, I wanted to impart the creepiness of Edgar Allen Poe without necessarily duplicating his nihilism. I wanted to create stories with a similar tone, but with more hopeful endings and consequences.
YA: Your novel The Face in the Frost was intended for adult readers, correct?
JB: Correct. That one was more heavily influenced by Tolkien than anything else.
YA: You left quite an impressive legacy. Your characters lived on much longer than you yourself did.
JB: After I passed on, my characters Lewis Barnavelt and Johnny Dixon both continued to have adventures penned by Brad Strickland.
YA: The illustrations on most of your works are particularly terrifying.
JB: I had the incomparable Edward Gorey illustrate the jackets to many of my books. His interpretation of horror has been lauded by critics ever since the middle of the last century.