We didn’t have many books in my house when I was growing up, so I memorized every one of them. My favorite was the small, hardcover text my mother kept wedged between her bible and the Farmer’s Almanacon her nightstand. I was merely nine the first time I gawked at this oddity. With my mouth agape, I stared hypnotically into the eyes of the bearded lady adorning the cover, but my mother quickly snatched it out of my hands and told me that I didn’t need to read a “weird” book like that.

Well, telling me not to do something has always been a surefire way to get me to do something, and it became my secret mission to sneak into my mother’s room and ogle over the grotesque images found between the pages of that mysterious book whenever I could.