Adam Cesare

Clown in a Cornfield (2020) took the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel. It was Adam Cesare's first book for teenage readers after seven years of adult horror, including Video Night and The Summer Job, and it sets a newcomer down in a shrinking Missouri town where the old factory mascot, Frendo the clown, becomes the mask worn in a campaign against the town's young people. Cesare, born in 1988, studied English and film at Boston University. Two sequels followed, Frendo Lives (2022) and The Church of Frendo (2024), and Eli Craig filmed it in 2025 from a screenplay by Carter Blanchard and Craig, with Cesare credited for the novel.