My Ex, the Antichrist: A Guest Post by Craig DiLouie

A horror steeped in music. When the world is set to fall to pieces, the 90’s punk band with a “devilishly” charismatic front man attempts to save it. Playfully dark, thrilling and reflective — this book is a riot. Read on for an exclusive essay from author Craig DiLouie on writing My Ex, the Antichrist.

Horror has come a long way since the splatterpunk days of the Eighties. Artists like Jordan Peele and Mike Flanagan brought it to the mainstream with big ideas, powerful themes, and of course plenty of chills. For me, it’s always been a fascinating genre to explore the human condition through a dark lens and see what ordinary people are made of when they find themselves in extraordinary situations. When I write horror, so much more than scares is on the menu.

This was the mindset I took with My Ex, The Antichrist. The title is a surefire conversation starter, but this simple phrase is also the crux of the story—a young musician struggling to discover her own voice finds herself contending with an ex who learns he is the Biblical Antichrist. Written as an oral history reminiscent of MTV’s Behind the Music, the novel is her and the other members of the Shivers finally telling all about how their pop punk band might have saved the world.

The creepy chills are all there, but that’s not what the novel is about. It’s about loving people who aren’t good for us, gaining faith in ourselves, predestination, the apocalypse, and of course music. With music being so transformational, using a rock band as a lens for a young woman finding her voice was an ideal setup. Music has the power to inspire passion, change the world, and stay in your head, just like love does. Even in middle age, I remember the music of my teens and how it changed me, how there was always a song that articulated what I was feeling during every up and down, especially the beautiful romances and terrible breakups. A good song always seems to enter your head when it’s needed, and it already knows you.

Now that I had the format and some of the big themes, I had to set the story in time. The last year before the turn of the century proved perfect for an apocalypse. Nostradamus warned us a “King of Terror” would appear in 1999, and of course there were fears of the Y2K bug. As Prince sang, “2000-00, party over, oops, out of time.” Setting it in the past also worked as music has an uncanny ability to transport us back in time to past places and feelings. This was the pop-punk era, with bands like Green Day, Blink-182, The Offspring, and many others defining the period for millions of young people. The songs short and punchy, a rocking pace, a bright sound bursting with energy, and lyrics that spoke directly to youth—the ideal kind of music one would play to challenge the Antichrist in a regional battle of the bands for the ultimate stakes.

Again, horror can be so much more than scares or gore. Besides giving you all the chills, my hope is that My Ex, The Antichrist will make you recall that bygone era, how music seems to define the times we live in, and all the loves—including those lost—that helped you discover yourself and your own voice.