Category: Literature

As I mentioned in my previous post, I worked my high school (and a few college) summers in the bright sun and the heady atmosphere of an amusement park.

I remember it all… The roar of the carousel’s organ in the air, the metallic grind from the sea of gears hurtling laughing park-goers to and fro, the bark and sigh of the games on the midway, the smoky spice of Italian sausage on searing grills, the cloying sweetness of magenta clouds of cotton candy, the smoke of graphite powder covering my shoes and socks after a night running rides like “The Teacups,” the sunny smiles of beautiful girls in shorts and t-shirts with their sleeves rolled up in some attempt to brown their bare, white shoulders in the precious few months of sunshine that upstate New York has to offer.

Situated at the spot where Irondequoit Bay opens into Lake Ontario, Seabreeze Amusement Park is a true American icon amongst amusement parks. The park opened in 1879, making it the 12th-oldest operating amusement park in the world and it’s still going strong. Despite a ton of updates over the years, the “Jack Rabbit” roller coaster is still the crown jewel of the park’s offerings. “The Rabbit,” as all of my former co-workers in Rides called it, opened in 1920 and it’s the 4th-largest coaster still operating world wide. In all, it’s a park steeped in a rich history and I’m thrilled to have Polaroid memories of those “Seabreeze Summers.”

That’s undoubtedly one reason why I just loved Stephen King’s “Joyland,” a DIRECT connection to the book through my own life experience. But it’s certainly not the only reason. There’s a ton to love about this college-kid-coming-of-age-story set amongst the summer carny life of a reportedly haunted amusement park.

Here’s what the publisher’s description has to say about the story ::

“Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever.”

This hints at the key aspects of the story like any good tease should, but only barely hints at the resonance here and I think that emotional resonance is the core strength of this book.

King has styled this as a “hard case paperback,” hearkening to the back-pocket love of those great grab-and-go stories of childhood. He succeeds in creating something that turns pages like those old school paperbacks did. It’s fun and titillating in all of the right ways with just the right touch of a ghost story. The novel goes by like a summer afternoon and it seems ringed in a golden haze when you think of it afterwards.

But that doesn’t get to the emotional core of the book any more than the publisher’s description does.

Then there is the rich, storied language that King uses throughout the book, a hard-boiled patois of carny life, part real, part invented. Even to a former real-life-college-kid-turned-summer-carny… An insider… It feels tactile and real and adds a strong sense of place and tradition to the story. Big kudos to King for this aspect of the book. We feel immersed and are the better for it. I could almost hear echoes of the circus folk of Tod Browning’s 1932 classic film, “Freaks”… “We accept her, one of us! ONE OF US!”

BUT… That still doesn’t speak to the emotional appeal of “Joyland.”

That emotional appeal lies in the wonderful sense of longing that King brings to his main character, Devon Jones. We see a “good kid” at that deliciously heart-wrenching crossroads between adolescence and adulthood in Devon. He is, in turns, naive and wise, angst-ridden and jubilant… Mature enough to be focused and sometimes even emotionally self-possessed but boyish enough to be hopelessly heartbroken in love and still unable to even control his erections. King gives us tableaus throughout the book that show us this without telling us. I have been in the places this book takes us to before, both in my heart and in my experience, and it was wonderful to visit them again.

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In all, Joyland gives us a beautifully textured portrait for a “pulpy paperback” and Devon’s experience, his physical and emotional journey, is a true wistful joy. For anyone that has felt that longing, the pull of standing at that crossroads of youth and adulthood, it’s a story that totally disarms and delights with bittersweet touch. Oh, and don’t forget that there’s a ghost story here, too.

SO… Here’s to your “Seabreeze Summer” wherever it may take you!

RATING ………………. 4.5 STARS

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A truly different book merits a very different kind of review.

I will give you my take on Cormac McCarthy’s blood-soaked epic “Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West,” BUT, to be honest, everything I say will pale in significance to the sheer muscularity, the crimson sinew of this masterpiece. It comes to life like a dreamlike Gehenna that is equal parts Updike, Jodorowsky, Faulkner, Pynchon and Peckinpah with a soft kiss of Hesse. It’s rather like a crazed dark composition akin to something like Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor composed by a demonic and unhinged anti-Copland. It is a true treasure of the American literary cannon and among the absolute best books of our time. In fact, Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005 list.

But… Why here? Why review this book on a blog dedicated to the horrific? Because it is just that, majestically horrific, brutally violent and bluntly chilling to the marrow.

But again, anything I write here will pale when set alongside the strength of “Blood Meridian.” I feel it best to share four haunting passages from the book to allow you to experience in small part its dark grandeur for yourselves and say nothing further.

Check these quotes out… Truly… Stunning…

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“A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses’ ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse’s whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen’s faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.”

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“They rode on and the sun in the east flushed pale streaks of light and then a deeper run of color like blood seeping up in sudden reaches flaring planewise and where the earth drained up into the sky at the edge of creation the top of the sun rose out of nothing like the head of a great red phallus until it cleared the unseen rim and sat squat and pulsing and malevolent behind them. The shadows of the smallest stones lay like pencil lines across the sand and the shapes of the men and their mounts advanced elongate before them like strands of the night from which they’d ridden, like tentacles to the darkness yet to come.”

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“Spectre horsemen, pale with dust, anonymous in the crenellated heat. Above all else they appeared wholly at venture, primal, provisional, devoid of order. Like beings provoked out of the absolute rock and set nameless and at no remove from their own loomings to wander ravenous and doomed and mute as gorgons shambling the brutal wastes of Gondwanaland in a time before nomenclature was and each was all.”

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“All night sheetlightning quaked sourceless to the west beyond the midnight thunderheads, making a bluish day of the distant desert, the mountains on the sudden skyline stark and black and livid like a land of some other order out there whose true geology was not stone but fear.”

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In all, an enduring, violent vision of the American West, charred, blood-stained, caked with mud and choked with dust… All staggeringly, beautifully realized.

RATING ………………. 5 STARS

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Gerald Manley Hopkins late 1880’s poem, “Carrion Comfort,” begins this way ::

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man

This definitive call of hope and perseverance forms the basis for Dan Simmons’ epic horror saga of the same name.

When I say epic, I mean it. On a host of levels. Yes, the book is long, clocking in at nearly 650 pages in my version (with some printings topping 800 pages), but it is the concepts behind the book and reach of the story that truly makes it epic.

The publisher’s book description sums it up this way ::

THE PAST…  Caught behind the lines of Hitler’s Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp.  Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazi’s themselves…

THE PRESENT…  Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world’s most horrible and violent events.  Killing from a distance, and by darkly manipulative proxy, they are people with the psychic ability to ‘use’ humans: read their minds, subjugate them to their wills, experience through their senses, feed off their emotions, force them to acts of unspeakable aggression.  Each year, three of the most powerful of this hidden order meet to discuss their ongoing campaign of induced bloodshed and deliberate destruction.  But this reunion, something will go terribly wrong. Saul’s quest is about to reach its elusive object, drawing hunter and hunted alike into a struggle that will plumb the depths of mankind’s attraction to violence, and determine the future of the world itself…

Ummmm yeah… It’s a large, far-reaching concept that manifests itself in a great big, sprawling horror masterwork that spans time, distance and humanity.

True, “Carrion Comfort” is big and there’s no question that some will find it a challenge, but it also crafts what only a select few genre books manage to: a compelling statement about not only man’s inhumanity to man, but also the humanity that bonds us all together across all barriers and labels. That’s an extremely tough thing to do, but “Carrion Comfort” delivers with grace.

In the book, Simmons reinvents the vampire concept, breathing new life and vigor into it and consequently building new chills in the process. This is NOT your typical vampire fare and PRAISE STOKER that it isn’t. The book explores a powerful psychic vampirism rather than the standard blood-on-the-neck variety and the psychological bent that this reinvention brings to the book is a revelation. The vampires of “Carrion Comfort” still view humanity as mere “tools” for their use, but the concept of mind rape and control moves this use beyond a physical need, easily held at bay with garlic and the cross into something far more sinister than mere hunger and more terrifying than animal instinct. Humans are still disposable, but it comes to life in a far more callous and degrading way here to great effect.

With “Carrion Comfort,” to get into the specifics of plot in a review like this beyond the tease I have included above is fruitless; a bit like attempting to stuff a full loaf of bread into a shot glass. BUT, rest assured, it’s a broad and varied journey that the book takes readers on, replete with interesting tableaus and terrifyingly imaginative setups and situations. Some of these are truly indelible images, unforgettably innovative and disturbing set-pieces of modern horror that left me shaking my head, grinning ear-to-ear.

“Carrion Comfort” is also a masterwork of style. As I mentioned in my review of another Simmons’ classic, “Summer of Night,” the author has an incredible way with tactile detail. We feel the bone-crunching, neck-snapping, warm blood of violence, the desert breezes, cold winter bluster and sweaty torrents of myriad locations, and a range of emotions from the gentle touches of budding love to the horrible invasion of the mind rape and loss of will inherent in the vampires’ attack — all with a brutal sense of immediacy. Simmons has a touch both nuanced and sinewy that is very satisfying for this aging English major.

If ANY criticism could be leveled at the work, it is that some feel it could use a good edit. Fair enough… Perhaps. I certainly wouldn’t want to lose what works so well about the book.

I’ll wrap this review with some comments from luminaries infinitely more talented than I ::

“’Carrion Comfort’ is one of the three greatest horror novels of the 20th century. Simple as that.” — Stephen King

“Epic in scale and scope but intimately disturbing, ‘Carrion Comfort’ spans the ages to rewrite history and tug at the very fabric of reality. A nightmarish chronicle of predator and prey that will shatter your world view forever. A true classic.” — Guillermo del Toro

“‘Carrion Comfort’ is one of the scariest books ever written. Whenever I get the question asked Who’s your favorite author? my answer is always Dan Simmons.” — James Rollins

Annnd… The awards ::

Bram Stoker Award, The Locus Poll Award for Best Horror Novel, The World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and The August Derleth Award for Best Novel

“Carrion Comfort” is NOT to be missed if you are looking for a weighty read with some true chills, a real journey.

RATING ………………. 4.5 STARS

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From Tim Cahill’s “Buried Dreams” ::

“I ain’t into that,” the man says in the boy’s whining voice, “I ain’t good at that…”

“You do it right, maybe I’ll take the cuffs off.”

At Menard, John Wayne Gacy fumbles with the catch of his pants, then lets them drop around his ankles. On the outside, he wore sheer briefs, almost panties, in various colors. Now he is wearing prison-issue shorts, and under them is the hint of an erection. He glances down at himself.

This, he seems to be saying, is the proof. Here, between my legs, is the truth. I am Jack; I am the one who lives in John’s mind. I am out now and I make no apologies. I have no regrets, I feel no remorse. All those things goody-goody John consistently denied — all the atrocities, the very worst of them — really happened. I am Jack and Jack did it all. See my proud proof. Yes, I played the cop; yes, I hurt the boys; yes, I forced them to perform sex acts; and then, yes, I hurt them again and again and again. The proof that this, finally, is the way it all happened, the hard evidence of my sincerity is here. See, here!

“Buried Dreams” is harrowing. Plain and simple.

The original publisher’s book description from 1986 sums it up this way ::

This account examines the case of John Wayne Gacy, a successful and respected member of the community who cheered up sick children in hospital dressed as a clown, but who was also one of the most prolific serial killers in criminal history. Inside his scrupulously tidy suburban home, in 1978 police found the remains of 29 teenaged boys, all brutally tortured, violated and strangled. The author explores the complex personality, compulsions, inadequacies and torments of a profoundly disturbed human being.

In my review of “The Killer Inside Me,” I mentioned that it’s fascinating for me to see what makes a killer tick; to explore how their sociopathy or psychopathy manifests itself. It’s directly connected to my love of horror and with true crime books like this, the reality of the story makes it all the more horrifying. Cahill gives us that glimpse in a truly unique way.

The book explores Gacy’s experiences largely from Gacy’s own viewpoint. The detail and immediacy of this approach gives the book its strength, but it was no easy task for the author to complete this piece. Cahill said this of the experience of writing the book, “My first book was called ‘Buried Dreams,’ about a serial-killer, which was probably about ten years ahead of the serial-killer curve. It was a national bestseller, but it was three years of living in the sewer of this guy’s mind.”

As difficult as that three year slog through Gacy’s mind must have been for Cahill, it pays off in spades for the reader as we take that trip with the author in “Buried Dreams,” experiencing first-hand the truly chilling center of Gacy’s dysfunctional mind.

Some have leveled criticism that this “from the horse’s mouth” approach engenders affinity or gives too much of a soapbox to the killer himself. I fundamentally disagree with this. At no point in the read did I ever feel a sense of sympathy for Gacy, nor did I feel that Cahill was asking for it for his subject. Often times, the most damming way to present a subject like a serial killer is from his or her own perspective, knowing that we, the readers, understand the deeply disturbed mind at work in someone like Gacy. Cahill keeps handing Gacy more rope throughout the book, aware that he will hang himself. He does and it’s captivating to watch through these pages.

“Buried Dreams” is filled with grim scenes demonstrating Gacy’s bizarre pathology. They are deftly delineated with penetrating detail, transporting the reader. To that end, it is especially worth noting the chapters centered around Gacy’s prison re-enactment of a crime with a young teen. The above quote kicking this review off is from that section of the book. It is a truly unforgettable scene and, for me, forms one of the most wrenching and frighteningly fascinating passages in any book I have experienced.

NOT for the feint-of-heart, “Buried Dreams” really does take us into the twisted mind of John Wayne Gacy in a very primary way — a must-read for those that are ready for that dark journey.

RATING ………………. 4.5 STARS

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