There is a tendency---especially in horror---of characters doing really stupid things. There's always someone dumb enough to open that closet door or There is a tendency---especially in horror---of characters doing really stupid things. There's always someone dumb enough to open that closet door or walking down into that dark cellar or opening the lid of that old dusty trunk. One could say that they are asking for it, but, if we are honest with ourselves, isn't it pretty believable? Humans are naturally curious creatures, sometimes to our detriment. If there is a door to be opened somewhere, isn't our initial impulse to open it and peek inside?
There is another kind of stupidity in horror that happens quite a lot, and it may also seem believable given the fact that humans don't always think through their actions, especially in high-stress situations. I call it "calamity-dumb", and it usually involves a small group of 3-5 people who are suddenly caught up in some kind of tragic situation. Whether it's a group of frat-boys who have accidentally killed a young woman in a gang-rape or a group of high-schoolers who have just committed a hit and run on a desolate country road, they invariably make horrible decisions.
So, instead of doing the right thing---calling the police and telling the truth, for instance---they decide to hide the truth and make a pact to never talk about it. Of course, doing the former would make for very short novels and, frankly, uninteresting ones. At least by doing the wrong thing, the characters ensure that Peter Straub's "Ghost Story" and Lois Duncan's "I Know What You Did Last Summer" would keep the reader riveted throughout.
Ronald Malfi's "Small Town Horror" is classic calamity-dumb horror.
It involves five high school kids who, 20 years ago, did something horrible on July 4th that resulted in someone's death. It was a terrible accident, but, instead of going to the police, they decided to not report it and never talk about it.
Guilt, however, has a powerful pull sometimes. Never mind any actual vengeful spirits that may be choreographing an elaborate scheme to make sure the guilty parties get their just deserts.
Malfi's story is compelling and suspenseful. It's also---as most calamity-dumb stories are---somewhat depressing. The characters in "Small Town Horror" aren't evil people. They aren't even very bad. They just did something really bad many years ago, and they are now paying the price for it. As they knew they would eventually....more
Two weeks ago, we had to put down our dog. His name was Fritzie, and he was a piebald dapple long-haired dachshund. He was 11, which is slightly olderTwo weeks ago, we had to put down our dog. His name was Fritzie, and he was a piebald dapple long-haired dachshund. He was 11, which is slightly older than middle-age for dachshunds (many can live up to 18 years), but he had a rare kidney disease that the breed is prone to, and it created a slew of health problems, including high blood pressure and gastro-intestinal problems. When it became clear that he was in pain, we made the decision.
My daughter, 10, was devastated. Fritzie was still a puppy when we brought Olivia home from the hospital. We were somewhat nervous because we knew that, as a breed, dachshunds aren’t always good with kids. Some dachshunds can be nippy and mean around children.
Not Fritzie. He fell in love with his human little sister immediately. He loved to lick her bald baby head, and he always sat right next to her, acting like her little sentry.
When my father died last February, my wife found a book called “The Invisible String” by Patrice Karst, an adorable picture book that my daughter wanted read to her very night for nearly a month after her grandpa’s passing. The book was about how everybody was attached to everybody by a series of strings connecting our hearts, including strings that go to the place where our loved ones who have passed now reside. In this sense, we are always connected.
“The Invisible Leash”, also by Karst, similarly deals with the invisible leashes that connect our hearts with our beloved pets that have passed on. No matter where you go, the invisible leash is always connecting you with them.
I’m tearing up as I write this. Fritzie was absolutely the best little friend and family member one could ask for, and I hope he is somewhere chasing infinite squirrels and rabbits and where the warm sun is always shining down on him....more
It would probably be fair to say that any follow-up to a phenomenal horror trilogy like The Indian Lake Trilogy would naturally be somewhat disappointIt would probably be fair to say that any follow-up to a phenomenal horror trilogy like The Indian Lake Trilogy would naturally be somewhat disappointing. It may be fair to say, but it would also be inaccurate.
Stephen Graham Jones’s latest “deconstructed slasher/teen horror opera” is as intense, horrific, funny, emotionally draining, and poignant as his last three novels, and then some.
“I Was a Teenage Slasher” is the story of Tolly Driver, a skinny, awkward teenager with a peanut allergy and one friend—-the town’s only Indian, a girl named Amber. Tolly is also a slasher.
He doesn’t want to be. And, frankly, he doesn’t even know all the “rules” of being a real-life slasher, which is where Amber comes in handy. She loves slasher films. She knows all about the slasher’s motivations (almost always revenge), the fact that a slasher needs a “brand” (in Tolly’s case, he kills with a never-ending supply of leather belts), and who the final girl is. This may be a problem, because there are multiple candidates in town.
The novel is set over a few days in the summer of 1989 in a small Texas town of Lamesa, where Tolly’s wave of mutilation starts with a very weird pool party.
Jones has done something utterly crazy and unheard of: he’s written a slasher novel from the viewpoint of the slasher, and—-on top of that—-made him absolutely lovable.
Sure, he kills a bunch of teenagers, but they all (kind of) deserve it. Or do they? Therein lies the crux of Tolly’s moral dilemma. He’s compelled to kill these kids for (in a cosmic sense anyway) valid reasons, but, deep down, he knows that they are just kids like him: dumb and prone to making bad decisions that they will regret later in life.
This novel reminds me a lot of a 1988 horror/comedy called “Heathers”, starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. Jones doesn’t mention it as an inspiration, but I’m fairly certain that he had to have seen it. Regardless, both have a whimsical, tongue-in-cheek approach to teen murders that could only have been set in the pre-Columbine pre-“Woke” 1980s. Jones is certainly tapping into that vibe, while simultaneously properly excoriating it....more
I think there is something wrong with Paul Tremblay. Mentally, psychologically, perhaps even spiritually. There is some evidence, based on his writingI think there is something wrong with Paul Tremblay. Mentally, psychologically, perhaps even spiritually. There is some evidence, based on his writing, that Tremblay may not be technically human. There is something alien or demonic lurking beneath and between the words he puts on the page.
That said, Tremblay is one of the coolest fucking horror writers writing in the field currently. Nobody else is doing anything like what he is doing. And I say that with a love and respect for a lot of great contemporary horror writers: Stephen Graham Jones, T. Kingfisher, Grady Hendrix, Cassandra Khaw, Joe Hill, Sarah Gailey. Just to name a few.
Tremblay’s latest novel, “Horror Movie” is, like most of his books and short stories, a veritable mind-fuck. It works on so many levels, and can be enjoyed on so many levels, but it digs deep under the skin and gestates for a long time, often giving birth to really uncomfortable and horrible little thoughts that eat tunnels of madness in your brain.
He’s also fun. Brain-devouringly fun.
There is no way that I can describe or summarize this novel without giving spoilers, so I won’t even try.
Instead, I’ll just say that it is the following: a thoughtful examination of the horror genre, a deconstruction of teen slasher films, an homage/critique of horror film fan(atic)s, a moving account of teen angst and suicidal ideation, a castigation of youth, extremely gory and fucked up.
Tremblay, you are one brilliant, insane son of a bitch....more
I have found, as I get older, that what I found scary in my childhood is not what I find scary in my 50s. I realize that this is simply a part of matuI have found, as I get older, that what I found scary in my childhood is not what I find scary in my 50s. I realize that this is simply a part of maturity and aging. This is not to say that childhood fears ever go away. They simply change.
Stephen King’s latest book of short stories, “You Like It Darker”, illustrates this point wonderfully.
King’s early books of stories (“Night Shift”, “Skeleton Crew”, “Nightmares and Dreamscapes”) were exciting exercises in horror: things that lurk under beds, shapes in the shadows, haunted objects, creatures that have no right to exist in real life. Most of the stories were the literary equivalent of cinematic jump scares. It’s the cat leaping out of a closet. It’s the figure rising from behind the couch as the babysitter blithely watches TV. It’s the (insert here: rabid dog/possessed car/killer washing machine) that the hero must confront in the end.
And, as anybody who loves horror movies knows, jump scares are great. But they aren’t very fulfilling. They get the blood flowing, sure, but they don’t linger in the subconscious the way true horror does. True horror is often subtle. It’s often more nuanced. It sneaks up on you, like old age.
The stories in “You Like it Darker” are like that.
Take, for example, “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream”, the book’s longest (let’s be honest: this is definitely more of a novella than a short, but whatevs) and perhaps best story. In this story, Danny, an ordinary man, has an extraordinary psychic flash—-his first and only. He has a vision of a dead body and where it is buried. He decides to do the right thing and takes the info to the police. It turns out to be completely accurate. Unfortunately, the police now consider him the prime suspect. One of the detectives becomes obsessive in his quest to find evidence to convict Danny, beyond all reason. Now, Danny’s good samaritan deed is biting him in the ass as the psychotic detective slowly but surely destroys his life.
I’ll be honest: if I had read this story thirty years ago, I probably wouldn’t have liked it. There is nothing really supernatural or scary about the story, other than the psychic flash, and that happens in the very beginning. It’s basically a noir thriller about an innocent guy being pursued by a psycho, who happens to be a cop.
But I wasn’t really smart thirty years ago. Or, rather, my 20-something-year-old mind hadn’t fully developed. I was interested in self-gratification and the NOW. You don’t fully develop a sense of empathy and a worry for the future until you’re about my age. Hell, some people never develop it.
Danny’s story is terrifying—-moreso at age 50 than 20-something—-because it works on the adult fears of aging: what have I done with my life? What kind of legacy am I leaving my kids? How do I know that what I’m doing is the right thing? You know: stuff a 20-something-year-old doesn’t give two shits about.
And King tackles these themes in several stories throughout the collection.
Standouts: “Laurie”: in which a widower who has given up on life finds hope in a new puppy.
“On Slide Inn Road”: in which a disastrous family road trip is saved by the quick thinking of the only member of the family that nobody would have ever expected to be heroic—-grandpa.
“Rattlesnakes”: a sequel to “Cujo”, in which the father who lost his son so many years ago to a rabid dog, is forced to deal with the ghosts of two other dead children who have latched on to his loneliness.
Don’t get me wrong: I loved the other stories in this collection, too. And King still does a great job with those jump scares. But it’s clear that King’s fears have turned away from the childish fears of youth to the more nuanced and dread-filled horrors of those of us who worry less and less about the minor scares in life and more about the kind of world we’re leaving for our children....more
I hate Jimmy Juliano. I’ve never met the guy, nor do I know anything about him other than the fact that he is a high school teacher. Still, I hate himI hate Jimmy Juliano. I’ve never met the guy, nor do I know anything about him other than the fact that he is a high school teacher. Still, I hate him because I envy him. Because his debut horror novel “Dead Eleven” is really really good, and I don’t think it’s cosmically fair that a guy can write a great book right out of the gate like that. The jerk.
Okay, so I don’t actually hate him. But I do envy him. The guy clearly has talent, and his first book is a damn near perfect little horror novel that had me hooked from page one until the very end. What more can you ask from a book?
I don’t intend to give any spoilers, and believe me, this book is the type that is just begging readers to spoil it for other readers. You just want to talk about it endlessly at the water-cooler at work, kind of like the first two seasons of “Lost”.
Weird that I bring “Lost” up, because “Dead Eleven” is also set on an island, one that very few people know about, and one on which very strange inexplicable things happen.
The setting is Clifford Island, one of several small islands off the coast of Wisconsin in the Great Lakes region. It boasts a small population, one that remains pretty insular. It has a small downtown with a general store, post office, a school (last year’s graduating class was five kids), and a church. Deep in the woods of Clifford Island is a dilapidated old Victorian home that’s stood for several centuries.
Okay. Nothing too weird, right? To visitors from the mainland, however, the inhabitants of Clifford Island aren’t what you call normal. They don’t allow on the island the Internet, cellphones, or any modern conveniences invented after circa 1994. Oh, and they dress like they are still living in the ‘90s. Oh, and every night, they gather around to watch the O.J. Simpson Ford Bronco chase.
That’s all I’m going to say about it. Seriously, I don’t want to spoil any of the surprises.
Apparently, A+E Studios has already picked this up to be a TV show. It has the potential to be either the next “Lost” or it could suck. My recommendation? Read the book....more
Sergeant Mack Bolan, a sniper with 95 confirmed kills, returns home from his stint in Vietnam to find that his entire family is dead. The local mafiosSergeant Mack Bolan, a sniper with 95 confirmed kills, returns home from his stint in Vietnam to find that his entire family is dead. The local mafiosi is to blame. Upon further research, Bolan discovers that the mafia has ruined a lot of local families, destroyed a lot of lives, is responsible for many unnecessary deaths. Bolan thought the war—-for him—-was over. He now knows that it’s just getting started.
Don Pendleton wrote “War Against the Mafia” in 1969. It was the first of nearly forty books in his series featuring Mack “The Executioner” Bolan. In all of them, Bolan wages a one-man war against all domestic enemies: mafia, drug dealers, pimps, crooked cops, deranged hippies, militant feminists, overzealous environmentalists. (Okay, I just made those last three up, but Pendleton’s political vibes seem to lean to the Right, so I’m guessing that those could be viable enemies.)
If this sounds familiar, especially to comic book fans, it’s because Frank Castle, a.k.a. The Punisher, was a blatant rip-off of Pendleton’s long-running paperback hero. (The Punisher’s first appearance in “The Amazing Spider-Man” #129 was 1974.) The creators really didn’t hide the fact that it was a blatant rip-off, either. One of the co-creators, Gerry Conway, has admitted to the fact numerous times in interviews. Pendleton himself was even interviewed in an issue of the comic book series, clearly indicating that he seemed to be okay with it.
“The Executioner” series ran for almost fifty years, ending in 2020. After Pendleton wrote the first 39 books, a team of writers took over the series. Bolan himself changed from a vigilante outlaw to being recruited by the government to fight the Russkies and Muslim terrorists. Apparently, it pays to be a vengeful psychopath.
Despite its questionable morality, Pendleton’s series is actually pretty damn entertaining, which could explain its fifty-year popularity. Strangely enough, a Mack Bolan movie has never been made, despite several attempts over the past half-century. Actors like Steve McQueen, Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, Vin Diesel, and Bradley Cooper have all come close to making a Hollywood adaptation but nothing ever got green-lighted.
As men’s action-adventure, this is pretty boilerplate. Bolan himself is somewhat lacking in personality. He’s humorless and, other than a few rolls in the hay, doesn’t seem to have normal masculine needs. He’s obsessed with guns.
I’ll probably read more of these, but I much prefer the other long-running men’s action-adventure series, “Longarm”, a western series featuring a much more likable U.S. Marshall who spends more time bedding the ladies than shooting bad guys. I’ll take the happy horn-dog over the clinically-depressed gun nut any day....more
Celebrity memoirs are iffy. With some exceptions, many of them tend to be self-serving or narcissistic: Hey! Look at me! I’m rich and beautiful and faCelebrity memoirs are iffy. With some exceptions, many of them tend to be self-serving or narcissistic: Hey! Look at me! I’m rich and beautiful and famous, but I can totally relate to normal non-famous people. I shopped at Wal-Mart once and I make an effort to eat at a fast food restaurant once a year to, you know, see how the other half live. I also give 4 percent of my income to charities, like free mental health care for pets or free pedicures for homeless people. They mean well, I suppose.
Once in a while, though, a celebrity memoir slips by that is actually thoughtful, relatable, and about something, not just the arrogant ramblings of someone who is trying to sell a book.
Jennette McCurdy’s memoir “I’m Glad My Mom Died” sounds like it could be callous and mean-spirited, but it’s far from it. It’s as moving and humane as the title is heartless and awful. And let’s be honest: the title is awful. It’s also ironic and pretty damn funny, which is probably why it works.
I never watched the long-running Nickelodeon show “iCarly” that McCurdy co-starred in and made her a famous sitcom child actor. I have never seen an episode of “Sam & Cat”, the spin-off series. I may have seen her in the few “Law & Order” or “CSI” episodes where she played: a) a tween-age victim of rape, b) a tween-age witness of the murder of her parent, or c) a tween-age psycho-killer, but if I have, I don’t remember them.
It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to know her acting work to appreciate the book. Partly because she never really wanted to be an actress. In fact, fame and celebrityhood and the Hollywood lifestyle was something that she never wanted at all, but it’s something she did to please one person in her life: her mom.
Debra McCurdy had issues. That’s putting it nicely. She was abusive, mentally and physically. She was narcissistic and cruel to everyone around her, but she managed to get away with it because she made everyone feel like she was working so hard for them. She forced Jennette into a career that the 8-year-old didn’t want, but Jennette went along with it because it made her mom happy. She took acting classes and worked long, grueling hours because it made her mom happy. She became anorexic and, later, bulimic because it made her mom happy. Notice a trend?
Debra died in 2013, after a long bout with cancer. Jennette was devastated. She loved her mom, but with her death came a sense of freedom—-a terrifying, untethered-from-reality, disastrous freedom. Jennette turned to alcoholism and doubled down on her bulimia. She was beyond depressed.
The fact that she found hope and began the slow process of healing is part of what makes this a great book. The other part is that she was able to find the humor in all of it. And it must be said: this is a funny memoir. Not in a goofy, stand-up comedian kind of way. She’s not telling jokes. Nor is she making light of her situation. She’s merely looking back at a pretty fucked-up childhood and seeing the absurdity and the inherent comedy within tragedy.
“I’m Glad My Mom Died” is, hands-down, one of the best memoirs I have read in a long time.
This was an audiobook, read wonderfully by the author....more
On January 6, 2021, the United States of America almost witnessed the death of what little democracy was left in the country. The U.S. Capitol buildinOn January 6, 2021, the United States of America almost witnessed the death of what little democracy was left in the country. The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. was filled with Congress-members who were there for an important reason: certification of election results—-an act that symbolized the peaceful transfer of power between presidents. It was a routine session, something that happens every four years after an election. It was also something that stood as a source of pride for over 200 years: our country had never endured a hostile takeover of government. We have never had to face a violent coup d’etat.
Unfortunately, we had just suffered four years under a wanna-be dictator, one that refused to concede that he had lost the election two months prior in November. Not only did he refuse to concede, he was—-like a toddler whose parents had just taken his toys away—-pitching a tantrum and grumpily claiming that the election was rigged, that the votes were fraudulent, that he had, in fact, won the election. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he would not shut up about it. And a large number of idiot supporters who believed his nonsense were also there that day, on January 6, to do something about it. Something crazy and violent and unprecedented.
There was, unfortunately, nothing that would be routine that day in Washington, D.C.
For Congressman Jamie Raskin, coming into work that day was tough for several reasons. Traffic was horrible, and reports were coming in of angry protestors and rioters that had been invited by the president-who-lost to come to the Capitol to “fight” for what they wanted. He had promised a “wild” time. He also promised that he would be standing proudly with them all. Like the claim of massive voter fraud, this was also a lie. He sat in a room with the TV on, watching the debacle unfold in real-time.
Besides the palpable sense that something bad was going to happen, Raskin had another reason to not want to be there. He had just buried his 25-year-old son the day before.
“Unthinkable” is Rankin’s heart-felt memoir about that infamous day and the subsequent weeks and months that followed in the aftermath.
It is also the moving story of a father lost in grief at the death of his son by suicide brought on by depression.
One might think that the two traumatic events would break any normal person, that the pain of seeing both his son die and watching his government almost be destroyed by thugs and cretins incited by a vile human being would be too much for Raskin.
Instead, Raskin utilized the legacy of his son’s kindness, compassion, and ability to find the good in everything in order to do what needed to be done: bring accountability back to an administration that had long since forgotten the definition.
Raskin was the leader of the nine-person House Impeachment team tasked with the important job of proving that Donald Trump not only fueled the conflagration that has become known as the January 6 Insurrection but—-over four years of blatant lies, pandering and cajoling white-supremacist and neo-Nazi hate groups, and encouraging street violence and illegality in his followers—-caused the incidents of that day; an inevitable endgame of awfulness that could only have resulted in needless bloodshed.
This book is one of the best books I have read thus far on the true criminality of Trump. It is the most cogently-argued cases for why Trump not only deserved to be impeached (twice) but deserves to be in prison and to never have the opportunity of serving in any capacity in our government....more
My daughter thinks that she likes horror (she’s 8), but she still gets pretty creeped out from Disney TV shows like “Gravity Falls” or “Owl House”. MyMy daughter thinks that she likes horror (she’s 8), but she still gets pretty creeped out from Disney TV shows like “Gravity Falls” or “Owl House”. My wife gets mad at me for encouraging her, but I’m smart enough not to let her watch stuff like “The Walking Dead” or the movie “It”. I’d love to watch scary stuff with her, but I certainly don’t want to traumatize her.
At the library, she picks out graphic novels that she thinks I’d like, and we will read a few chapters together at bedtime. In the past, her picks have been “My Little Pony” or “The Baby-sitters Club” but lately she’s been bravely picking out middle-reader horror stuff, of which there is surprisingly a lot.
Michael Regina’s “The Sleepover” is a story about a group of four middle-school age boys on a sleepover. It’s the ‘90s. After watching the latest episode of “The X-Files”, they watch VHS tapes of “Friday the 13th” and “Aliens”. One of the boys, Matthew, isn’t really feeling it. He’s still grieving the loss of his beloved baby-sitter, a nice old lady named Miss Ruby that recently passed away.
He’s not getting good vibes from the new nanny, Miss Swan. In fact, he is beginning to suspect that there is something supernaturally evil about her. He thinks she may be the legendary Witch that lives in the nearby woods, the one that steals the occasional child from town, never to be seen again.
He is, of course, right. Now, if he could only convince his mom and his best friends…
Regina’s horror story is a cleverly-disguised story about grieving the loss of loved ones and the dangers of holding on to feelings of hate and and anger. The fact that it is also a creepy little horror story about a group of young boys trying to defeat a monster is testament to Regina’s writing talent.
Imagine James Tynion’s “Something is Killing the Children” mixed with “Stranger Things” only a lot less bloody and with more humor. Throw in a few tear-jerker moments and a good message about the importance of looking out for friends and family during rough emotional times.
While my daughter didn’t like the monster (truth be told, it is pretty damned creepy), she understood the moral at the heart of the story, and she liked it. I liked it, too....more
“Every Cloak Rolled in Blood” is not my first James Lee Burke novel, but it may as well be. I feel like Burke has opened up an entirely new realm of p“Every Cloak Rolled in Blood” is not my first James Lee Burke novel, but it may as well be. I feel like Burke has opened up an entirely new realm of possibility within his writing, and it is incredible.
It almost feels like a new genre, or something that feels new created from several familiar genres. It’s a contemporary western but so much more. It’s a post-modern horror novel but so much more. It’s a heart-felt examination of grief and loss and finding solace in an unforgiving universe but, again, it’s so much more. It’s so much damned more than any category or label.
Aaron Broussard, the author of several best-selling novels, is still grieving the loss of his daughter, Fannie Mae, and he’s not doing a good job of it. He’s trying to do right in the community by helping two boys stay out of trouble by paying them for work on his property, but these boys have links to serious criminal elements that could come back to hurt Holland.
Holland has become smitten with a law enforcement officer named Ruby Spotted Horse. They have a strange electric attraction, but there is a huge age difference, and she also may have a gateway to Hell in her cellar. Literally.
When the ghost of Fannie Mae arrives one day with dire warnings of an impending apocalypse, Holland isn’t sure if he is going insane or if he may be one of the only sane people left in an insane world.
This is truly one of the best books I have read in a long, long time. It’s also one of Burke’s best novels in a career of many great novels. His prose has never been more beautiful, and his heart-ache has never been more real. Indeed, the novel feels autobiographical because it is: he and his wife suffered one of the worst things any parent can suffer in July 2020—-the loss of their 55-year-old daughter Pamala.
The sadness, anger, and confusion surrounding the aftermath—-coupled with the horribleness of Covid-19 and the stupidity of Trump’s final year in office—-all comes to a boil in this novel. It is Burke’s primal scream to the heavens. If only all primal screams could be so eloquent.
A note on the book medium: This is the first audiobook I have ever “read” (and, to clarify, by "audiobook" I mean book on CD, six of them to be exact, because I am old school and don't own anything that starts with an "i" or has to be downloaded). (And, yes, they still make CDs.) I listened to a bit every day for the 15-20 minutes to and from work. Narrated by the actor Will Patton (you’ve seen him in stuff, trust me), this book was wonderful to listen to as an audiobook, if only because of Patton’s soft Southern drawl that pairs perfectly with Burke’s writing. If Patton has narrated more of Burke’s novels, I may have to listen to all of them. ...more
To reveal the horrors at the heart of Grady Hendrix’s novel “How to Sell a Haunted House” would be an unforgivable spoiler, so I will only talk about To reveal the horrors at the heart of Grady Hendrix’s novel “How to Sell a Haunted House” would be an unforgivable spoiler, so I will only talk about my own very personal take-aways.
First off, let me say that Hendrix has succeeded in creating his own genre, what I call “Southern suburban horror tear-jerkers”. He can tell a damn good creepy horror story, but his real gift is finding the humanity and the heart that’s buried (not too) deeply within the horror.
Many people can probably relate well to the family dynamics in “HTSAHH”. The family is, not to put too fine a point on it, dysfunctional as fuck, and it’s apparent that the dysfunction has only gotten worse over the years, as nobody in the family wants to deal with it.
The novel begins with Louise, who lives in San Francisco with her four-year-old daughter, receiving the call that every person dreads: the death of a parent. In her case, though, it is both parents, in a car accident. She immediately flies out to her hometown of Charleston, South Carolina for the funeral arrangements and settling affairs.
Immediately, she starts butting heads with her incorrigible brother, Mark. They are as different as night and day: Louise has a job and responsibilities, Mark is chronically unemployed and pathologically lazy; Louise thinks about the future, Mark only seems to care about the here and now; Louise is raising a child, Mark is a child.
To make things worse, there is the confusion of the Will. The house, and everything in it, is bequeathed to only one of the siblings. Thus begins a fight for the estate, until it is discovered that the house is haunted. Truly, literally haunted. And it all seems to stem from an incident in their childhood that nobody in the family wants to talk about.
This is where Hendrix resonated the most with me. Indeed, there were several things that Hendrix captured really well about family dynamics, but the most significant point is the idea of keeping secrets.
There are some families where the parents are honest and open with their kids. There are some families in which children aren’t afraid to talk about stuff with their parents, stuff like God and religion and death and sex. There are some families that would never think of holding anything back or keeping secrets from each other.
This was not my family.
While I’m sure they did it out of love, my parents kept many things from my sister and me. They spent their whole lives doing it. My father, who died in early February this year, died, I’m sure, leaving many things unspoken. I know that my mom keeps many secrets from us, and I’m afraid that she will go to her grave with those secrets. Because of this, my sister and I have always felt that some things are better left unspoken. Some things should be kept a secret.
Thanks to my wife, a teacher who has training as a trauma counselor and who comes from a family where nothing is a secret, I have learned how unhealthy this mentality is. It also doesn’t make logical sense: you can’t help someone with a problem if you don’t know that they have a problem.
Allow me to vent: My father, whom I loved greatly, had a life-long inability to ask for help. This became increasingly more problematic in the last couple years, where his health began to deteriorate. In 2020, the year Covid struck, my dad nearly died in the hospital due to a gall bladder that went septic. He had been in major pain, probably for months, but never went to a doctor. It was only until the pain became totally unbearable that I took him to the hospital. I remember sitting at the bedside in the ER as doctors rushed in and out of the room. One has not known fear until one has watched sheer terror in the face of an ER doctor who is treating a loved one.
He miraculously pulled through, but it would not be the last time he’d be sent to the hospital. Every time he went it was because he waited too long to see a doctor. I would go with him to the doctor, and he would lie to the doctor about feeling pain. On more than one occasion, I had to tell the doctor what my dad had confided in me, as if he was ashamed to tell the doctor himself. I never understood this.
In January, when he went to the hospital with what started as a chest cold (or so we thought), I had to force him to go to the hospital. He was actually angry at me for making him. Unfortunately, three weeks later, he died of pneumonia. I now live with this constant notion that my dad died somewhat angry at me for forcing him to go to that hospital, that if he had somehow kept quiet about his chest pains, he would still be alive. I know that’s not true, but it’s dysfunctional thinking that comes from years of being part of a dysfunctional family.
Secrets are what helped to kill my dad, and I don’t want to do that to my wife and daughter.
As Hendrix so aptly illustrates in this novel, every family’s house is haunted in some way. It’s only in bringing things out in the open and talking about stuff that we can fully exorcise the demons and ghosts that haunt our lives. ...more
Spoiler alert: In which I try not to give too much away but inadvertently reveal a lot more, probably, than I should have, for which I am very sorry. Spoiler alert: In which I try not to give too much away but inadvertently reveal a lot more, probably, than I should have, for which I am very sorry. But you’ve been warned…
Gus Moreno’s debut novel “This Thing Between Us” has my vote for Best Horror Novel of 2021, in a year that has, apparently, produced a lot of excellent horror novels.
Moreno is part of this New Weird Horror trend that seems to have taken off in the last few years, spearheaded by authors like Stephen Graham Jones, Catriona Ward, Paul Tremblay, Cassandra Khaw, Grady Hendrix, Tiffany D. Jackson, just to name a few that have received positive buzz.
I can’t say that I have read even a few of the horror novels in the past year. Hell, I recently discovered Stephen Graham Jones and Grady Hendrix, so I’ve got a lot of catching up to do…
That said, It’s been hard not to notice a renaissance of extremely exciting new horror voices out there, all of them bringing their own unique twists and brand of horror.
Moreno’s novel does many things well, not the least of which is overturning the reader’s expectations at every page.
Here I was, going into the book thinking it was going to be a darkly humorous examination about our exhausting fascination with technology. The protagonist, who is dealing with the recent death of his wife, blames the death on the purchase of a smart speaker called an Itza (a thinly-veiled Alexa) that essentially takes on a life of its own, playing loud music at odd hours of the night, ordering ridiculous packages like a dozen pink dildos, and re-setting alarms so that you’re late for work. It’s “Christine” for the millennial set.
Then, not even half-way through, the book becomes something else, something darker. It starts going all “Hereditary”, replete with pentagrams and animal sacrifice and ancient Mexican demons called the Cucuy, which is commonly called the “Mexican boogeyman”.
Then there’s this (not-so-funny) nod to Stephen King’s “Cujo” which erupts into so much amazing blood and guts: again, not what I was expecting.
Then it becomes this Lovecraftian cosmic horror straight out of a Laird Barron story.
Then it becomes a tearjerker about the protagonist’s inability to deal with grief and depression about losing his wife, and how it affects his other relationships, and how emotionally fragile we are as humans.
It’s also a love story.
It manages, somehow, to be each one of these things all in one, but it never feels disjointed or awkward. On the contrary, it flows beautifully, like a boat cruise through the nine levels of Hell.
This is true horror, in every sense of the word, which is why it gets my vote for Best Horror Novel of the year....more
My vote for best comic book series of 2021 goes to Guillem March’s “Karmen”. There are no superheroes, monsters, serial killers, or strong political oMy vote for best comic book series of 2021 goes to Guillem March’s “Karmen”. There are no superheroes, monsters, serial killers, or strong political overtones. It is actually a thoughtful, mature, intelligent examination of some heavy issues: death, grief, suicidal depression, judgmentalism, second chances.
Issue #5 brings the series to a wonderful—-and redemptive—-close, which is good, considering the last issue was super-depressing.
In this issue, we finally discover what Karmen’s job in the afterlife is and why she is causing so much trouble with her superiors. It’s also a race against time as Catalina’s spirit begins to gain some distance from her body, while events on Earth seem to be transpiring in a way that is advantageous for Catalina’s resurrection. She literally has seconds…
This is a beautifully-drawn, beautifully-written comic book series that demonstrates how powerful an artistic medium the genre can be....more
Okay, so Guillem March’s beautiful graphic novel Karmen is breath-taking to look at but is depressing as hell, as it is about death and, specifically,Okay, so Guillem March’s beautiful graphic novel Karmen is breath-taking to look at but is depressing as hell, as it is about death and, specifically, suicide, for which March’s very adamant stance is: don’t do it. I stand behind that 100%, but this story is so sad it will make one want to slit his or her wrists. Ironic, huh?
Anyway, in issue #4 (out of five; thankfully not the final one, so March still has time to redeem himself): Catalina finds out that the guy she’s had a crush on her entire life and the reason she killed herself has a huge secret that may have been helpful to know in preventing her suicide; Karmen is in trouble with her boss, a middle-manager civil servant in the afterlife who doesn’t like what Karmen is doing, which seems to be allowing the newly-dead some extra time to tie up loose ends or at least find some semblance of closure.
The spirit of Catalina, a young woman who committed suicide, is being led through the city, and her own life, by the mysterious freckle-faced angel ofThe spirit of Catalina, a young woman who committed suicide, is being led through the city, and her own life, by the mysterious freckle-faced angel of death Karmen.
Cryptic, strange, and quite beautiful, issue # 3 of Guillem March’s existential comic book “Karmen” sees Catalina coming to the realization that she is, indeed, dead and that she wasted her life.
We also learn a little bit about Karmen, who, unlike her other angels of death, has a personal agenda of her own for her clients, whom she refuses to treat as a mere job, rushing them through the bureaucratic process of shuffling off their mortal coil.
What that agenda is, however, remains to be seen…...more
I honestly didn’t expect to shed a tear over Hunter Biden’s memoir “Beautiful Things”, but holy shit if I didn’t cry like a little baby by the end of I honestly didn’t expect to shed a tear over Hunter Biden’s memoir “Beautiful Things”, but holy shit if I didn’t cry like a little baby by the end of the first chapter. He really got me in the feels.
I honestly didn’t know what to expect going into Biden’s memoir. I was vaguely aware that his name got dragged into the news by Trump and his lackeys over something to do with a missing laptop and several billion dollars allegedly paid to him by Ukrainian officials for something evil and nefarious. I didn’t pay much attention to the news because I generally didn’t pay much attention to anything Trump and his lackeys said during the last four years, mainly because everything they said was bullshit.
In any case, the whole Hunter-Ukraine thing sounded exactly like what it was: a last-ditch effort by Trump to pull a manufactured scandal out of his ass to make Joe Biden look bad by attacking his kid. Funny how Trump-humpers had no problem with that, but rewind four years ago when somebody made a disparaging remark about Barron Trump, Trump’s youngest son, and one would have thought the world was ending. How dare the Democrats and Hillary attack Trump’s son! It’s a travesty! Never mind that the comment never came from Hillary but someone on Twitter (of course) who was immediately reprimanded and censured by most, if not all, Democrats, including Hillary. But whatever. As with all the hypocritical bullshit that Trump and his lackeys liked to spew and regurgitate, the bottom-line was this: they could dish it out, but they couldn’t take it.
That’s neither here nor there and completely beside the point, as Biden’s memoir devotes only a single brief chapter to that whole malarkey. He doesn’t give a shit. For two reasons: 1) It was all a lie, and 2) He was so fucked up on crack cocaine at the time, none of the bullshit fazed him anyway.
Biden’s memoir is a shitstorm of sadness, awfulness, and utter depravity, which, in my opinion, makes it probably one of the best memoirs I have read in a long time. It also goes without saying that it’s written by the son of a currently sitting President, which makes it, strangely, a weirdly brave and important memoir.
Seriously, if something like this had been published in years past, the very existence of it would be a scandal—-and probably a politically suicidal one. The fact that President Joe allowed it says a lot about him.
But this is Hunter’s memoir, not Joe’s. This is about a kid who survived a car accident as a child that instantly killed his mother and infant sister and nearly killed his older brother, Beau. This is about a kid who couldn’t go to bed every night after the accident unless he knew that his brother was right there with him. This is about a man who sat by his older brother’s bedside as his older brother died of a horribly vicious brain cancer. This is about a man who, already dealing with a serious drinking problem, escalates to crack cocaine addiction as a way of dealing (or not dealing) with grief. This is about a guy who, when his family intervenes to get him into a rehab center, goes into the front door of the rehab center, waits for his family to leave, immediately checks out, and heads to a nearby hotel to go on a three-day crack binge. This is about a dude who brags that, in any of the fifty states at anytime of day, he could find a crack dealer within 30 minutes. This is about an asshole who knew he was an asshole but didn’t care because he didn’t have any reason that he could think of to continue living.
Strangely enough, this is also about a miraculous redemption, one that seems so utterly unbelievable that, at times, I thought I was reading a novel. A really bad one, since a redemption ending like this would be laughable in a Hallmark movie of the week. Hell, it’s unbelievable even for a British Royal Family scandal.
But Real Life is like that sometimes.
Seriously, this book is a roller-coaster of emotions, but that’s par for the course for a memoir about addiction and grief and the power of love. As cliche as it is, it will still get you in the feels....more
I wrote this in October 2020. Clearly, I was angry and frustrated and scared when I wrote it. Strangely enough, I still am, only because this was writI wrote this in October 2020. Clearly, I was angry and frustrated and scared when I wrote it. Strangely enough, I still am, only because this was written before January 6, 2021, which, in my opinion, kind of changed everything. Still, re-reading this now, I can honestly say that my feelings haven't changed much, if at all. I personally think Biden has done as good a job as could be expected after the fucking mess Trump left him. It scares me that people still think Trump is a viable candidate, but there is, sadly, no vaccination or cure for stupidity.
Roughly 227,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 as of October 25. That’s 227,000 people who would still be alive if our pumpkin-faced scarecrow-brained 900-plus-month abortion of a president had actually read his morning intelligence reports back in January and hadn’t downplayed the virus that he is on record as calling a “hoax” and one that would simply “disappear” by Easter.
My stress levels can’t take another four months of this asshole, let alone another four years, but more importantly, our country can’t take it. People are dying, and I hold Trump responsible. How can you not? Even if you are a sycophantic Trump-humping Republican, you have to at least acknowledge that this shit went down under his watch. He’s the one in charge of this country, supposedly, which means that he has the authority to do something about it. So, what is he doing? Whining about a laptop that supposedly has evidence that Joe Biden received millions of dollars from the Russians; something that is easily verifiable and that nearly every intelligence organization has called out as “fake news”.
But, of course, this is neither here nor there for Trump supporters. They don’t care if it’s bullshit or not. False or not, it makes Biden look bad. It makes him look like a crooked politician, and they desperately need him to look bad, because it takes the heat off the fact that their own leaky ballsack of a president looks far worse.
Sorry. I’m in a pissy mood today. The county I live in is on the cusp of going purple, which is basically the health code equivalent of jumping out a window screaming or wearing a cardboard sign saying “The End is Nigh!” (The health expert on the news didn’t use those words, but I could read between the lines.) Also, my state’s governor, a Republican, who did a great job back in March to shut schools and businesses down to mitigate spread has, unfortunately, caved to pressure from his idiotic party by refusing to shut down anything despite a spike in numbers of confirmed cases that are worse than the highest point this summer. That, and I deal with fucking moronic people who refuse to wear masks and think that this whole thing is a “plandemic” that was unleashed by Barack Obama and Bill and Melinda Gates in order to make Trump look bad. (I’m not making this shit up; I had somebody actually tell me this…)
I’m voting for Biden with the knowledge that whatever actually happens on November 3 won’t be the end of it. If anything, it will just be the beginning of a bigger shitshow than anything we’ve seen so far. I have had a fucking headache, on-and-off diarrhea, and a pain that feels like a horse kicked me repeatedly in my chest for over five months now. I’m fairly certain, at this point, it’s not the virus. I’m just terrified beyond the point of rational thought.
Thank God I still have my library. For now.
I read Biden’s depressing memoir about the loss of his son Beau to brain cancer, “Promise Me, Dad”, and I swear to fucking God that if humanity can just survive the next two months, I will stop swearing, drinking, eating fast food, and sneaking the occasional peek at websites involving big-breasted women doing untoward things to zucchini. (I’m from Ohio, what can I say?)
Seriously, don’t read this book without a box of tissues handy.
Say what you will about Biden’s bone-head gaffes, alleged sexual abuse allegations, and the paper-thin almost-non-extant evidence of his millions in Russian payments, the guy has been through some rough shit in his life. You don’t lose a spouse and an infant daughter in a car accident and, later, have to watch your son wither away and die from glioblastoma and NOT walk away unscathed.
To Trump, Biden is a loser. It’s true. Biden has lost. A lot in his life. It’s loss and grief and failure and sadness that have shaped Biden’s character more than anything, which makes him all the more human in my opinion.
What has Trump lost? I’d say human decency and any shred of dignity and integrity, but you can’t lose what you never really had in the first place....more
Brutal. That’s the one-word review I’d give Lionel Shriver’s 2003 novel, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”. Unabashedly violent and cruel while uncomfortaBrutal. That’s the one-word review I’d give Lionel Shriver’s 2003 novel, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”. Unabashedly violent and cruel while uncomfortably honest. That would be a seven-word review.
Unfortunately, “WNTTAK” can not be summed up in a few words, a few paragraphs, or even in one review. Everyone who has read this book seems to have a passionate reaction, positive or negative, to something in the novel. Critics either love it or hate it, and they give many reasons why. This is as it should be, because the topics in the novel are topics that should be discussed, argued about, dragged kicking and screaming into the light and pummeled to death.
According to 2018 statistics, roughly 193 schools in the U.S. have suffered a school shooting in the years after the Colombine massacre in 1999. On average, roughly 10 school shootings occur per year. Roughly 375 students, teachers, and staff have lost their lives from school shootings. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphi...)
If there is any silver lining in any of this, it is that oft-cited statistic that violent crime has actually declined significantly in the United States since 1999, providing many people with a weird cognitive dissonance when they realize that school shootings are actually quite rare. (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...)
How can this be? one thinks, when every night on the news we seem to hear about another shooting? The truth is, we simply don’t hear about another shooting every night. It perhaps just seems that way because the media likes to freak us out. (As a former journalist, I can attest that one of the main tenets of the editorial staff is the old adage, “If it bleeds, it leads”.)
The truth is, the common misperception among the general public that violent crime is on the rise when, in actuality, it is dropping and has been dropping for twenty years, can probably be attributed to the fact that people are ruled by emotion rather than logic. Even people who claim to “look at things logically” or “think rationally” or “take an objective approach” are, in actuality, full of shit and in complete denial.
Now, this does not mean that we should not be looking at the problems of school shootings, workplace violence, gun control, or mental health issues. On the contrary, those are still serious issues, also inextricably interrelated, that need to be addressed and are, sadly, still being seriously under-addressed by the media.
It does, however, mean that we need to take a level-headed, honest, and apolitical approach to the topics if we ever want to see things improve. And that’s pretty hard to do because, as stated previously, people are ruled by emotion not logic.
In some ways, I think this is what Shriver is attempting to do in her novel. Whether one feels that she succeeds or not is based on your own take-away, but Shriver is raising a lot of interesting and tough questions in her novel, and while she doesn’t deign to prescribe solutions, she does offer some suggestions.
One suggestion is to stop blaming the parents. This is, of course, incredibly difficult to do considering the (admittedly completely judgmental) fact that there are a lot of shitty parents out there.
Eva Katchadourian, the mother of Kevin, spends a majority of the book berating herself for being a bad mother. She also spends some time blaming her husband, Franklin, for being clueless and in denial about their son. The sad truth is that, despite the fact that they may have been shitty parents, they were also parents. By that, I mean, they chose to stick around and actually raise kids, unlike an entirely too-large demographic of dead-beat moms and dads who choose the single life or prison just to get out of parenting.
Franklin is, in my opinion, the most reviled and pathetic character in the novel, completely undeservedly. Yes, he’s clueless and in denial, but I think it’s because he wants so badly to be a good dad. One can’t fault his motivation. It’s his execution. He bends over backwards for his kid, but he does it at the expense of subverting the parental will of his own wife. Parents need to be on the same page when it comes to parenting. There shouldn’t be a “good parent, bad parent” dynamic happening. You need to work together, and if you aren’t, something is seriously wrong with the dynamic.
There is also the fact that Kevin exhibits every indicator of being a homicidal psychopath, even from a very young age. And no amount of parenting, good or bad, is going to alter this in any way. Kevin is just a bad seed, and you can’t blame mom or dad for that.
Shriver also, cleverly, suggests that maybe we should stop misleading the argument away from issues like gun control (which is not to say it’s not an important issue) and more towards issues of mental health, especially in detecting early red flags of tendencies toward sociopathy or psychopathy.
Shriver also, rightly or wrongly, examines and criticizes American society, our rampant consumerism and materialism, our blatant racism, our militarism, our obsession with religion, our xenophobia, and our collective cluelessness and outright ignorance of our own history.
What some critics don’t like about the book is that it is graphic. Indeed, the novel starts out as a serious literary attempt to talk about school shootings but gradually builds up into Stephen King/ “Carrie” horror territory. It becomes a slasher flick by the end of the book.
I’m okay with that, because I understand that Shriver is simply trying to say that nothing should be taboo when it comes to talking about these subjects, and, in talking about it, we are going to have to talk about some pretty brutal, horrible things....more
“South of Broad” is the late Pat Conroy’s seventh novel, published seven years before his death in 2016. Beloved popular novelist, Conroy was best kno“South of Broad” is the late Pat Conroy’s seventh novel, published seven years before his death in 2016. Beloved popular novelist, Conroy was best known for his stories set in and around his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. While he is considered a “Southern” writer, his many best-selling books have gained a following by fans in all corners of the country and beyond. Conroy may have been a regional author, but his stories touched upon universal themes that struck a chord in everyone.
I read “The Great Santini” years ago. The novel was a fictionalized account of his father, a Marine fighter pilot, who ran his household with an iron fist and, according to Conroy, psychologically abused him and his siblings. I remember cringing at the scenes of verbal and mental abuse at the hands of Bull Meecham, but I also recall the love and respect that Conroy had for his father, despite all the awful things he did to him and his family.
It is perhaps this duality, this human contradiction, that gives Conroy’s stories such an impact and believability. He writes about real people, in real situations, doing things that one could easily categorize as “good” or “evil” until one examines the motivations to reveal the muddled humanity beneath, ultimately acknowledging that the human condition is not black or white but one whole grey area.
Such it is with “South of Broad”, which is, in all fairness, a big hot mess of a novel. Not having read too many other Conroy novels, I’m not sure how this rates among his fans, although I would hazard a guess that it is probably not one of the favorites.
Its lack of focus, shifts in tone, and inconsistent narrative make it an extremely flawed novel, but I was nevertheless drawn in by the beauty of Conroy’s prose. Sections of the book (especially those parts describing Charleston) are incredibly gorgeous and exhibit a writing so powerful as to be almost divine. And while flawed, “South of Broad” is still a joy to read.
The title refers to the section of Charleston that is literally south of Broad Street, at the southern end of the city. It is bordered on two sides by the rivers Cooper and Ashley, and it is a primarily residential area known for its palatial estates and old money.
Figuratively, “South of Broad” refers to the sharp class distinctions of Old Charleston. It is the demarcation of the plebeian lower classes north of Broad Street from the wealthy and elitist members of the high-class society and legacy families that has survived for generations in the city, dating back prior to the Civil War.
In Conroy’s mind, it represents the still-oppressive racist and classist snobbishness that infects the beautiful city that he loves. It is the part of the city that he detests, but he has grown to accept and live with it, as have all Charlestonians. Things may be changing for the better, according to Conroy, but it has been a glacially slow change.
The novel follows a disparate group of friends, centered around the reluctant leader of the group, Leopold Bloom King (named after a character in James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses”), who is as lovable as he is infuriatingly decent and psychologically screwed-up.
His screwed-up psychology may have something to do with the fact that, when he was extremely young, he witnessed his older brother commit suicide by slitting his wrists in the bathtub. Traumatized, Leo spent a few years in a mental hospital, and the stigma of that incident haunts him for the rest of his life.
There is also the fact that he discovers that his mother was a former nun, which explains the rigid Roman Catholicism that he simultaneously finds comfort in but also secretly abhors for its strict legalism and unhealthy judgmentalism. Perhaps because of this, Leo wages a life-long campaign against hypocrisy and hatred in all its forms.
There is a lot to unpack in this novel. At one point, the novel shifts from a pleasant and funny bildungsroman that follows Leo’s spiritual and sexual escapades through high school to a dark mystery-thriller involving the search for an old friend. It is an odd shift in tone. Add to that: an emotionally moving section of the novel set during the early AIDS epidemic in San Francisco; a suspenseful edge-of-the seat section devoted to several characters trying to survive Hurricane Hugo; and a section of the novel in which a psychotic serial killer is hunting down Leo and friends in Charleston.
The novel is a roller coaster of emotions and themes and even genres, and I’m not sure if it works wonderfully all of the time. It may be unfocused, but it is never boring.
The novel’s two saving graces are Conroy’s beautiful writing and the lovableness of his characters. Like Stephen King, Conroy has a penchant for creating well-developed characters in which one can’t help but become emotionally invested. I was rooting for Leo throughout the entire novel, even when his annoyingly strict Catholicism kept him from doing things that would save him pain and anguish. Even the minor characters in the novel are so fleshed-out that there are no minor characters.
“South of Broad” may not be Conroy’s best novel, but if this is Conroy at his less-than-stellar level, it would be a goddamned shame not to read his others....more
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