As a child, Del Howison loved to watch westerns on TV. One feature of a show like Gunsmoke that particularly appealed to him was the general store—the one place in a little western town where everyone gathered, whether to buy dry goods, play checkers, hear the local gossip or swap stories.
Now middle-aged with a wife and two grown stepsons, Howison is the proprietor of the bookstore Dark Delicacies, which he likes to call Southern California's horror general store. Located in Burbank just north of Hollywood, it's the place where anyone with an interest in horror, whether in books or film, comes to hang out. "At one of our signings, you might see a director like John Carpenter talking shop with a horror writer like Richard Matheson," says Howison, who has had small roles in horror movies like 1995's Blood Slaves of the Vampire Wolf.
Howison is monogamous in his passion for the genre. "I don't know science fiction," he says. The same goes for fantasy. If an author who writes in one of those genres wants to do a signing, Howison will stock their books for the occasion. Otherwise, there is only horror. This exclusive focus on horror may make the bookstore unique in the U.S., maybe even the world.
Pressed to explain his interest in horror, Howison says, "Unlike in real life, you have a degree of control. You can vicariously experience the horror then close the book." Born in 1953, he came of age at a time when horror was coming into its own as a genre, with writers like Stephen King, Anne Rice and Clive Barker.
Howison and his wife Sue started Dark Delicacies in December 1994. When their lease expired five years later. they moved five blocks to their current location on West Burbank Blvd., which contains about 2,000 square feet. Howison can get by on selling horror exclusively by devoting only about half of the store to books. The rest is taken up by movie DVDs and gift items as Charles Addams greeting cards, Mummy cookie jars, and spider and bat jewelry in large display cases. Movie posters decorate the walls not covered by books. The back of the store has ample room for a table where authors sit for signings. The bathroom walls are adorned by signed artwork from the likes of Gahan Wilson. Chuck Palahniuk, author of the novel Haunted, has written on a bare spot: "To Del & Sue, Sorry I have no nice art but thanx for a great afternoon."
While Howison has resisted opening another branch of the store, he is looking to expand the brand name. In September, Carroll & Graf published Dark Delicacies, an anthology of all-original horror stories edited by Howison and Jeff Gelb, the co-editor of the Hot Blood erotic horror series. Most of the contributors are eminent names in the field— Ray Bradbury, Clive Barker, Whitley Streiber and the late Richard Laymon. PW said in its review, "If, as Howison writes in his afterword, 'Horror has always been the blues of literature,' then this anthology of 20 new tales of the macabre is an all-star concert whose performers work haunting riffs on gutbucket themes." A sequel is in the works.
The anthology's success has led Howison to speak with the Horror Channel's Nick Psaltos, among others, about possibilities of developing a program for television, but these things take time in Hollywood. In the meantime, Howison is proud of the Dark Delicacies name and the increasing recognition it's receiving. "Sue and I thought long and hard before deciding on the name. The first part conveys our theme, the second part the artistic nature of our goods. Only later did we realize that with my name being Del it was perfect."
And this week, while others are paying their annual homage to the dark and scary, Howison is having none of it. He doesn't do Halloween. He spends every October 31 with his wife, celebrating their wedding anniversary. Dark Delicacies is normally closed on Mondays, and this Halloween is no exception.
A final note: the store's last scheduled signing for the year is for a non-horror title especially dear to Howison's heart: Bob Costello's Gunsmoke: An American Institution.
