Oct 31, 2019
Happy Halloween! On today's episode of the B&N Podcast we're joined by the novelist and filmmaker Stephen Chbosky, for a conversation about his spine-tingling new novel Imaginary Friend. Many readers and moviegoers alike know Chbosky as the author of the acclaimed coming-of-age story The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a novel whose early devoted audience grew substantially following Chbosky's deft and memorable 2012 film adaptation of his own work starring Emma Watson and Ezra Miller. His long-awaited second work of fiction is now finally here: Imaginary Friend is the story of a seven year old boy named Christopher and his mother Kate, their arrival in a small town with a strange past, and what happens when Christopher disappears into the woods for nearly a week — only to return terribly changed, and obsessed with the knowledge that the fate of the world is in his hands. The chilling tale that follows takes in the secret lives and hidden shames of a community, a cosmic clash between mysterious forces, and the deep love between parent and child. We spoke to Stephen Chbosky in our podcast studio about his excursion into nightmare, and what drove him there.