This author found an incomplete George Romero novel in Pitt’s archive. Here’s how he finished it.

In 2019, while sifting through the University Library System's (ULS) George A. Romero Archival Collection, Daniel Kraus found something unexpected: a half-finished novel. In the years since, the New York Times bestselling author has worked with Romero's estate to bring this unfinished work to light - culminating in the publication of "Pay the Piper" on Sept. 3.

The discovery came just as he was finishing work to complete "The Living Dead," a novel Romero was working on just before his death in 2017. Romero's estate invited Kraus, an already acclaimed novelist and lifelong fan, to complete the author's work using his notes and an old short story.

"The archives were very new, and so I was going through them just for my own edification," said Kraus. "I certainly wasn't looking for a new project to do by any means. But on my last day, I found these two manilla envelopes that said 'Pay the Piper' on them, and I was astounded to find a book."

Kraus and other experts - including Romero's widow, Sue - had no idea the project existed. The supernatural horror tells the story of the Piper, a murderous swamp entity haunting a cursed Louisiana bayou.

"I was extremely excited and also daunted because I knew how much work 'The Living Dead' was," said Kraus. "But it was hard to resist getting the band back together to finish it."

According to Kraus, Romero left behind no notes on where he was heading, so the author had to interrogate Romero's pages for clues to what he was up to. Kraus described the existing pages as "wonderfully wild," presenting a challenge to both maintain that shagginess and shape the work into something that tied together plot threads and paid off in a satisfying way.

"You never know what you're going to find when you're going through an artist's archive," Kraus said. "You often find the drafts, treatments of projects, but there's always ephemera hidden throughout: personal notes, random ideas, odd things that were written on the backs of manuscripts. And sometimes those can be the things that really stick with you and inspire new things."

"'Pay the Piper' underlines why engagement with primary sources and the archive is so important," said Benjamin Rubin, ULS' horror studies collection coordinator. "The project brings to light a work that would have otherwise been lost or unknown and represents the type of opportunity for creative endeavors that can arrive from working with these resources."

Hear Kraus discuss the new novel and the Romero collection at a free Sept. 12 event. Registration is open.

Photography by Chris Roe