Author Lamar Giles (Photo by Adrienne Giles)
When a high school football prodigy stumbles into a pawn shop with a curmudgeonly shopkeeper, he discovers a Patriots Super Bowl ring that is just too good a deal to pass up. After making the purchase, though, everything in his life takes a turn for the strange.
That is the premise for Hopewell native Lamar Giles’ latest young adult novel, “Ruin Road,” a coming-of-age supernatural thriller in the same vein as Stephen King’s work — and that’s no coincidence.
“I grew up a Stephen King fan,” Giles says. “I read the book ‘It,’ with the famous killer clown Pennywise, and it felt like I was watching someone do a magic trick. I was like, ‘I just want to figure out how this guy can arrange words on a page and make me feel scared like there’s a monster in the room.’”
An author since childhood, Giles says “Ruin Road” is his 14th novel. In it he references classic horror tropes like the mysterious pawn shop and making a deal with the devil, adding his own spin and a splash of social commentary.
Image courtesy Scholastic Press
“‘Ruin Road’ is almost a sequel to a short story I wrote 20 years ago called ‘Wilson’s Pawn and Loan,’ and that was part of an anthology called ‘Dark Dreams,’” Giles says, noting that the latter was the first horror anthology to feature only Black writers.
“That particular story was me toying with an old horror trope where people make a deal with the devil,” Giles says, adding that the idea dates to “Faust,” the bargain-making title character in the 15th-century play.
In the book, protagonist Cade Webster is a strong, 6-foot-2-inch Black teenager living in the impoverished Jacobs Court who travels across town to attend the prestigious Neeson Preparatory Academy on a football scholarship. He faces daily prejudices based on his perceived social status, intimidating stature and race. After ducking into a pawn shop to evade two police officers who believe he is casing a prominent white neighborhood, Webster finds and purchases the Super Bowl ring, despite the clerk’s poor attitude. Frustrated, he thrusts the ring toward the shopkeeper, who flinches. Exasperated from his day and this latest encounter, Webster mutters aloud, “I wish everyone would stop acting so scared around me.” The utterance leads to some disastrous consequences, causing Webster and the reader to discover that sometimes experiencing fear has benefits, including avoiding danger.
Giles often sets his stories in Virginia, so while Webster’s home in Jacobs Court is fictitious, many Richmonders will spot familiar locales, including Glen Allen, Broad Street and the James River, in “Ruin Road.” Another of Giles’ Virginia-based titles, the acclaimed 2022 dystopian YA novel “The Getaway,” is currently being adapted for television by actor Don Cheadle’s production company, The Radicle Act.
Although he’s dabbled in other genres, including a graphic novel for DC Comics, Giles says his body of work is mainly composed of YA books in the mystery, thriller, fantasy and horror genres. He says readers of his latest story will experience a rollercoaster of emotion. “Ultimately, you’re going to be biting your nails hoping, praying this works out because it really seems like it might not,” he says.
