41

Arkansas, 1979, an 18-year-old young woman from the Bronx gives birth to her second son and is promptly run out of town by her in-laws. Thus began aa halting and jerking life for author J.D. Buffington. A constant shift of living arrangements and parade of strangers creating uncertainty, anxiety, and fear against a backdrop of horror books, movies, and television. Here are the world events and seminal popular culture, alongside evolving view and understanding of mental health and personal autonomy, that shaped an author’s worldview. But as the world changed with 9/11, for J.D. it was the end of one world and the beginning of another: one with his mother in it, and one where the nature of her death is a longstanding mystery. Eventually struggling with similar issues of mental health, a milestone approached: turning 41, a year older than his mother ever lived. J.DS. Buffington’s 41: An Autobiography tells the story of growing up at the end of the 20th century in the United States and becoming an adult in the 21st. Here are his thoughts on life, his mother’s, how those shaped him into an author of horror and science fiction, and how it led him to his family, all amidst a firestorm of politics and pandemics.