Bram Stoker Award Best Novel Winner

A Head Full of Ghosts

by Paul Tremblay

Summary

Fourteen year old Marjorie Barrett begins showing signs of either schizophrenia or demonic possession, and her struggling family agrees to let a reality television crew film an exorcism that becomes a national sensation. Years later her younger sister Merry, now an adult, recounts the events to a writer while a horror blogger dissects the old episodes, leaving the truth deliberately unresolved. Tremblay turns the possession story into a sharp commentary on faith, mental illness, family debt, and the way media reshapes private suffering into spectacle.

Historical Context & Significance

The novel won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel and shared the Massachusetts Book Award, helping establish Paul Tremblay as a leading voice in literary horror.