The debut novel of Forest Hills resident Michael Gold, Horror House Detective, features many places in Queens, a borough that Gold’s family has called home for about 80 years.
Born in Kew Gardens, Gold grew up in Nassau County and has now lived in Queens for five years. His grandfather had moved to Woodhaven as a young man and his father grew up in Ozone Park.
“I had all that history of Queens,” Gold said. “I had a lot of that in my head as I was writing [the book].”
While writing Horror House Detective, Gold said that he thought a lot about his father, who is a retired homebuilder, and specifically his sense of justice. He also drew inspiration from his youth, including the “ridiculous situations” that he and his three brothers got into.
Gold’s experiences in Queens also were a source of inspiration.
“I was trying to capture my experience of Queens and what it can be like,” Gold said.
The book got its start about two and a half years ago when Gold wrote a short story of same name for a web site that publishes science fiction. Following that story, he did a couple more.
A publisher, Silverthought Press, liked the three stories Gold had already written and said that they wanted to develop it into a book.
Before publishing the book, Gold spent many years as a business and marketing writer. He said that after doing business writing for so long he wanted to do something different.
“I thought about writing a book for a long time and never really did anything with it,” said Gold, who is also a second grade teacher.
Horror House Detective is about “a dysfunctional family in Queens dealing with various dysfunctional supernatural beings trying to destroy the family and various other Queens people,” according to Gold. Just some of the Queens locations that can be found in the book are Queens Boulevard, Woodhaven Lanes and the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center.
Gold said that some of his favorite places in Queens are Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Forest Hills Gardens, the Kew Gardens Cinema and the UA Midway Stadium Theatre.
The novel is science fiction, which is a genre Gold said he usually sticks to because it gives him room to have “crazy ideas” and work them out.
“Science fiction gives you a lot of room for creativity,” he said.
Gold said that it felt great to see Horror House Detective, which was officially launched last October, published.
“I’m proud of it,” he said.
Gold said he has another manuscript that is being considered by Silverthought Press for publication.
“I have some other ideas in the hopper that generally involve Queens and living in the city, and I think they’ll probably be science fiction,” Gold said of other books he might write.
For more information on Horror House Detective, visit www.silverthought.com.
