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P.D. Cacek is rather like the Spanish Inquisition according to Monty Python's Flying Circus: No one really ever expects her. She's a friendly face with a sweet smile, and she always has a kind word. In point of fact, I've never heard her say a nasty word about anyone and I've never met anyone who didn't like her. She's just got that sort of personality. You'd never expect a person like her to be as truly sick and twisted as she is. Trish looks like she'd never hurt a fly. She looks like she probably cooks a mean dinner and cleans house like a pro. All of that may be true about her, too, but I wouldn't know about that.
The P.D. Cacek I know writes horror. Hmmm…Let me clarify that. Trish Cacek writes horror that is brutal, erotic and funny, and she does it all with that same slightly twisted grin on her face. Doubtless the exact same grin she'd have there if she was lacing her homemade cookies with just enough strychnine to make you twitch and write across the ground for hours.
I have no doubt in my mind that Trish would have made a wonderful serial killer. She could probably come up with the most amazing ways to make a person suffer and die by inches over the span of months. You doubt me? Try reading some of her work sometime. Try Canyons, her second novel as a good starting point. Canyons is a novel about werewolves, but not quite like anything you've run across before. There are some very interesting twists along the way. I won't tell you what they are, that would be ruining the surprise.
Thankfully, Trish chose to use her mind for the betterment of horror literature, rather than to simply waste that sort of talent on a few select victims. She's got the awards to prove it, too. Her little tale "Metalica" won her the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement back in 1996. Just to prove it wasn't a fluke, she won the World Fantasy Convention Award for Best Short Fiction in 1997, for her short story "Babydolls." That makes at least two more awards than I've managed to date. But I'm not bitter…no , really, I'm not. She earned them. She's one of the few, the rare, who has managed to make me shiver when reading something.
She also gives out free nightmares. I've seen her do it. She'll ask a person if they want a free nightmare and then describe something to that person that leaves them worried for the rest of the day. I've never taken her up on that particular offer. I don't really know if I want to risk it.
Once upon a time, just to see what would happen, I sent Trish a Christmas card with the most obnoxiously cute picture I could find: two kittens wrapped in the Christmas bows they'd been playing with, the sort of thing that positively DRIPS honey and saccharine. I had a message inside that basically told her I defied her to make something scary out of THAT.
Her response was a two-paragraph tale from the perspective of the cute little kittens in which they prepared to skin and eat the humans in their home, now that they had lulled them into a false sense of security. Brett Savory, God love him, refers to Trish as "My American Mom." I can't help wondering if he'd do that so casually if he had received cards like that one from her. Innocent little kittens turned into monsters…is there nothing sacred to the woman? Heh heh heh…Of course not. She writes horror.
If you see Trish at a convention (and she's hard to miss, believe me) make sure you ask for a nightmare or two. Until then, grab her books and short stories wherever you can find them. Rest assured, they are worth the invested money and time.
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