The 80s Horror Writer Who Came Back from the Dead (Metaphorically Speaking)
Hey there. I’m Chet Day, and if you’ve never heard of me, that’s perfectly reasonable. Back in the 1980s–during what horror folks now call the “golden age of paperback horror”–I wrote a couple of novels that promptly vanished into the great publishing void like most paperbacks of that era.
But here’s where it gets interesting.
The Resurrection Story
In 2017, horror authority Grady Hendrix featured my 1987 novel Halo in his acclaimed book Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction. Suddenly, readers who’d never heard of Chet Day were hunting down 30 year old copies of a book I figured had been permanently forgotten.
Turns out Halo–the story of Billy Halo, an All-State linebacker who’s also a stone-cold psychopath–had been quietly building an underground reputation. Horror readers started calling it “a stunning novel of institutional evil” and “one of the better paperback originals during the 80s horror boom.”
Oh, and… “Featured in Grady Hendrix’s ‘Paperbacks from Hell’ as an overlooked horror classic worth rediscovering.”
Who knew?
Last Call Before 80: The Mission
So here I am at 77, a widower living in rural North Carolina, and I’ve decided this is the perfect time to chase the dream I never quite caught: bestseller status before my 80th birthday.
Call it my “80-before-80” mission.
Some folks my age take up golf. I decided to resurrect a writing career.
Three Acts of This Unlikely Comeback:
- Act I: The Horror Classics – Halo and its newly completed prequel Counselor are now available for the Kindle. I created CasaDay Press to capitalize on that “overlooked gem” status that Grady Hendrix helped establish.
- Act II: The Human Story – My memoir Ellen chronicles 47 years of marriage and the grief that follows. Because horror writers aren’t just monsters–we’re human beings who’ve loved and lost like everyone else. It took me five years to write this memoir, the hardest and yet most satisfying book I’ve ever worked on.
- Act III: The Wild Card – Through my CasaDay Press imprint, I’m pioneering human-AI literary collaboration with books like my free October Testimonies and my new Lost Pages series of documentary fiction. Call it literary innovation from someone old enough to know better.
Why This Matters (Beyond My Personal Quest)
If you’re a horror reader, you know the drill: hundreds of great books from the 80s boom got buried under time and publishing churn. Paperbacks from Hell has been like archaeology for the genre, helping readers rediscover forgotten gems.
I happened to write one of those gems.
Now I get to do something most writers never get: a second chance to reach the readers who might actually appreciate what I was trying to do back when Halo first appeared on drugstore spinner racks.
The difference between now and 1987? This time I know who I’m writing for–people who love reading and who value discovery over marketing budgets, who understand that sometimes the best stories are the ones that almost got away.
The Bottom Line
I’m not trying to recapture my youth or relive past glories. I’m simply a 77-year-old writer and widower who stumbled into a second act thanks to a horror scholar’s keen eye and readers who still value authentic storytelling.
Whether you’re here because of the Hendrix connection, because you love rediscovering literary gems, or because you’re curious about an old guy’s quixotic quest for bestseller status, welcome.
Halo waited 30 years to find its real audience. Maybe it was worth the wait.
We’ll see, that’s for sure!
Oh, Three More Things…
- Start with the classics: Halo and Counselor are available now on my Books page.
- Dig deeper: Learn about my grief memoir or explore the AI collaboration experiments.
- Stay connected: Surf over to my contact page to sign up for email notifications I update my blog, shooting for two or three times a week but mainly when the spirit moves me. In those blog posts, I’m gonna babble on and on about writing, AI collaboration, ebook marketing, and all the other stuff that keeps my old brain humming!