It’s not uncommon among horror fans to reminisce about the days of old when they could happily begin reading a horror novel with the joyous anticipation of having the crap scared out of them.

Yet, many now report the opposite.

“I haven’t read a decent scary novel in a long time. What about you? Do you have any recommendations for a truly frightening read?”

I can empathize to some degree. After all, how many horror novels have actually scared me? I can name some titles - in fact I already have in an earlier blog where I recounted some favorite reads. But, what I consider scary reads, someone else may not. Horror, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Some people really get off on gore, but for me that is quite boring. Zombies have been beaten to death, it seems to me, yet others can’t get enough of them.

I prefer my horror with ghosts and supernatural twists, with maybe a little subtle demonic entities on the side. For my money, horror is built into a story not through the gore, but through the characters and their honest expression of complex feelings – usually dread, anxiety, and, well, fear – in the face of something unfathomable. Sometimes the unfathomable is jolting while at other times it is like a hint of a draft brushing the nape of your neck. Neither of these requires the gore and flinging body parts (although they can be present). In fact, quiet horror (see Paula Cappa’s blog for further discussion) has a greater impact on me because it is so accessible and often inescapable.

Sorry, I’m rambling here. I honestly think that there are multiple versions of horror, and one person’s scares are another person’s boredom. The novel that creeped me out may bore the hell out of someone else. If I feel the hairs on my neck rise just a tad during a passage along with a few accompanying goose bumps, then that novel is a truly scary read. The chill got to me, and got under my skin. I may recommend that novel to someone, who may agree, or may not and they wander on looking for that elusive scary read. We may never satisfy each other’s need for scares.
 
Horror is a solitary experience sometime.

While I anxiously await reviews of Birth Offering to see what readers think about my novel, I still reflect on my choice of and portrayal of characters. Having a 14 year old male as a major character was not that risky. The big issues I had to keep in mind were developmental level and thought processes of a person that age. Even though I am 59, I think I can remember back then, especially the feelings of awkwardness. In addition, as a psychologist whose primary specialization is working with that age group, I thought I had a handle on Ryan Perry, my character. It turns out Ryan wasn’t all that simple. Writing from his point of view was actually pretty foreign – it has been 45 years after all.  Some of the painful moments came back easily enough – the sheer terror when it came to girls, seemingly constant arguments with my mother. But, the subtleties of daily living in the skin of that kid were hard to portray. I’ve written before about how I turned to novels that successfully developed a character or characters of similar age: When Skippy Dies, The Last Child, The Highest Tide, and Black Swan Green. Each of them was helpful in educating me about dialogue, inner strengths, fears, and the ever-present self-centeredness that exemplifies the age group. They are all incredibly well written, but also sound at times like an adult trying to sound like a teen. I don’t know how you can escape that… I know I worked hard on this facet of the story – making Ryan sound like he was 14, but probably failed miserably. After all, if extremely talented authors stumbled every now and again in this effort, how could I pull it off? I did have the benefit of a 19 year old daughter home from college at one point who willing read a draft to give me feedback. She was quick to point that a kid wouldn’t act or think in a particular way – or wouldn’t wear a particular piece of clothing. So, some authenticity is present at least from my daughter’s point of view.

The remaining major characters in Birth Offering (with the exception of an FBI agent and the bad guys) were going to be women. I have been fortunate to have a wide range of strong and influential women around me all my life. My mother always worked outside the home and was a Personnel Manager for Empire Brushes in Port Chester, NY. My wife was a rock star in her field as a professor of early childhood special education before she retired early because of a serious illness. Many of my colleagues are women who are national and international leaders in the field of counseling psychology. As a result of these experiences, it was a foregone conclusion that other main characters would be women who held professional positions or display critical characteristics. This wasn’t “planned”, it just happened in the flow of the writing. The pronouns she and her just appeared. Two physicians and a chief of police… all women. Ryan’s mom is an illustrator, and while she is a mom first, she tackles a nearly impossible task of raising a boy on her own after the death of her spouse – and brings the process under her control in a manner that is consistent with which who she is. Finally, my favorite character is Ryan’s grandmother. She is a very proper and sophisticated southern woman, but she is an anomaly in many ways. First, she is a liberal, a woman committed to social justice. Second, she is unflappable, and can face horrifying situations with a steel backbone more resilient than any male. I loved her presence, and was genuinely sad that I could not include more of her.

The other path I found myself moving down was related to race. Some of the women characters are African American between the ages of 14 and 85. Each of them is a courageous character with insights and experiences that would blow away the average person. Not being a person of privilege in this country is something that many of us (e.g., white males) could never understand. So, how could I portray them honestly especially in light of the intense roles they had to play? I kept in the forefront of my mind that as if they were “real” people. Their roles deserved respect… their histories were invaluable to Ryan’s story… and they took life’s responsibilities seriously. That is how they were written.

Take a look at Birth Offering and tell me what you think…

The Shiftling by Steven Savile alternates between two time periods. The first is during the youth of the main character, Drew, and his friends and the second is present day when the main character is middle aged and returns to his home town after being away for decades. Similar to novels like It by Stephen King which championed this type of plotline, something terrifying happened to the kids in 1985 which has haunted them ever since. In The Shiftling, Drew is returning home to visit his childhood friend Scotty who has been hospitalized in a psychiatric facility because of a mental health crisis. Of course, Drew – and the reader – knows that his illness is related somehow to the events that occurred in a fateful summer when they were 15 years-old. The story explores this series of supernatural events which forever altered the lives of the kids.

The novel is an engaging read. When we are in 1985, the perspective from a teenager is spot-on. The dialogue is believable; the brush strokes that created the characters are specific enough for the kids to have an identity of their own. Some of the action takes place at a traveling carnival at night, and those settings are naturally freakish. The atmosphere helps propel the story. As an aside, there are a number of references to British pop singers and groups which the author uses to anchor his story in 1985. None of them were familiar to me, so I could have lived without these references. There are a number of unsettling set pieces – something odd is happening in the house of an unsavory character, something horrible lives in the tunnels below the town, and there is the carnival itself. There is a scene involving a Ferris wheel which is quite imaginative which Mr. Savile uses to good effect.

Where the novel falters, I think, is in the present day narrative. I found this section more distracting and less absorbing.  Minor characters play larger roles, and their presence doesn’t add much except distract the reader. There are a series of sections that involve a police interrogation. These aren’t convincing and the police officer’s demeanor changes unpredictably. By far, the passages involving the kids were considerably more interesting and gripping than the adult sections. The loss of focus on the teen experiences came with a cost to the narrative. I think the author should have maintained the storyline entirely in 1985 – even concluding the story within that time period. For me, that would have held the work together.

Altogether, I found The Shiftling to be a good read (about a 3.5) but not among the best from DarkFuse. 

A few other memorable horror novels that I overlooked in my earlier post about good scary reads:

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Creepy, atmospheric, unsettling fun… What more can you say?

The Ghost Writer by John Harwood. Many people disliked this novel. I was captivated by it, however. A young man finds a series of ghost stories written by his great-grandmother. The stories serve as stories within a story. The ghostly narratives are interwoven with his family history, and the main character sets out to solve the riddle of his past. Similar in many ways to Henry James, this is a classy, gothic read.

Speaking of Henry James, I can’t believe I forgot Turn of the Screw. I first read this in high school for my 10th grade English class. I still get a chill from the finale.

Another favorite of mine is Skull Session by Daniel Hecht. This was advertised as a neurological thriller when it came out, and that is a fit description. Mysterious events, family secrets, and psychological horror. Full disclosure: The main character has Tourette Syndrome – I was drawn to this since I also have TS. The author did a great job portraying the condition.

Clearly some additional works will be occurring to me as time goes on. 

The atmosphere of Messages from the Dead by Sandy DeLuca is what makes this novella a riveting read. First and foremost is the community college and former pediatric hospital for kids with tuberculosis.  The corridors lead Donna and the reader into realms of terror. Corners made up entirely of shadows and wisps of smoke, staircases that lead to impossible heights and depths, basements that contain unimaginable instruments of misery. The descriptions are marvelous, and reminded me in many ways of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. It’s not often where a haunted location comes to life, and Ms. DeLuca pulls it off. There are numerous hauntings (I’ll come back to this later) involving children, troubling adults and missing young women. Many are chilling and quite creative. The present day interactions between Donna and her grandmother, a practitioner of the dark arts, are well presented – as are past reminiscences of Donna’s childhood living with her grandmother.

A note about the passages describing the hauntings. I think there are too many of them. While some are nicely done and are illustrative of how ghost stories can be well written, some are also repetitive and lackluster.  I felt that some could be left out, with the result being a couple of strong jolts which stand alone instead of being watered down by additional accounts which were vaguely familiar to previous incidents. An unintended consequence of repeated ghostly visits is that the reader is well ahead of Donna in realizing that certain folks are ghosts (more than a few times, I felt like yelling, “Come on, Donna, get with the program! That’s a ghost! How can you be so dense?”) The author also introduces a minor character towards the end that results in an unnecessary subplot (a sexual relationship), the outcome of which doesn’t do much for the story. As result, when the shocking conclusion arrives, it feels rather abrupt relative to the frequent and repeated hauntings that came previously.

Despite these minor flaws, Messages from the Dead is a blast – a real nifty ghost story.

Too bad I never really kept track of all of the novels I’ve read over the years. Any effort to write a review for my blog or for Goodreads often results in me scratching my head while trying to recall portions of the plot. Imagine me trying to recall the plot details of books read 10-40 years ago.

With this in mind, I thought I’d offer a few short comments about books read in the past and why they stick in my mind. For this discussion, I’ll stick to horror – my favorite genre. Below are novels that I’ve read since I was a kid – you’ll notice they span quite a few decades.

The Other – Thomas Tryon. Some incredibly creepy moments that made my blood run cold… including a shocking development about two-thirds of the way through. It just about blew me away. I was 18 when I read it, and I gobbled up horror fiction ever since.

The Exorcist – William Peter Blatty. This came out the same time as The Other, and if you check the New York Times Best List from that time, you’ll see at some point these two books were numbers 1 (The Exorcist) and 2 (The Other). The Exorcist had brain jarring moments that broke all taboos. I remember sitting on our terrace out back and lightening hit next door, so the thunder was loud and instantaneous. I almost died of a heart attack.

Rosemary’s Baby – Iran Levin. One of the creepiest endings ever.

Burnt Offerings – Robert Marasco. A very original haunted house story, with a decent movie adaptation.

The Search for Joseph Tully – William H. Hallahan. A riveting supernatural investigative story. I still recall the beginning where the sword maker tests the still molten blades on… well, enough.

Dragon Under the Hill – Grodon Honeycomb. Ancient Viking curse, Norse lore, possessed child, Lindisfarne, ancient Scandinavian torture (something about cutting out the lungs…). What more can you ask?

Salem’s Lot and The Shining – Stephen King. Spine chilling moments in both, but most people already know this.

Dark Gods – T.E.D Klein. Four novellas. The first two, Children of the Kingdom and Petey, are outstanding. They are creative and I haven’t read anything like them before or since.

Ghost Story – Peter Straub. There were multiple places where I had goose bumps while reading.

A Good and Happy Child – Justin Evans. I still can’t understand why this isn’t a huge hit among the horror masses. Great characters, intriguing plot twists, creepy moments, and an exorcism scene that I found unnerving. And, an unsettling ending to boot.

There are more, but I was just writing this off the top of my head. When other great horror novels come to me, I will devote space to them in the future. If anyone is interested in a good scary read, and you haven’t checked these out, I strongly recommend them.

The other day, I sent out two columns from the NY Times Book Review discussing the reluctance of novelists to post less than glowing reviews about the novels of their peers.

The columns, written by Zoe Heller and Adam Kirsch, pursue the topic from slightly different angles.

According to Ms. Heller, the fiction-writing world is quite small and a novelist serving as reviewer would not be likely to hide from a peer whose work was, well, panned. You’re going to run into the other author sooner or later. In addition, empathy for the other novelist is also high, because the reviewer also has firsthand experience in all that entails in crafting a novel. As a result, authors are often reluctant to inflict pain by taking down someone else’s baby – even to a slight degree.

Nonetheless, Ms. Heller writes it must be done – in order to maintain the vitality of literary discussion and defend the vocation of being a novelist.

Mr. Kirsch takes a somewhat different track. While writing a negative review can make enemies in the literary world, in the long run the reviewer goes a long way towards defining his or her identity and informing others about contrasts between novelists. The novelist reviewer is essentially drawing a contrast between his/her artistic self and the art of someone else. Like Ms. Heller, Mr. Kirsch indicates the task must be done, despite the risks.

Okay. I am clearly not in the league of these writers nor am I even in the same galaxy of the individuals they cite in their articles. However, I was fascinated by the discussion and couldn’t help applying it to my life – specifically as it applies to my new found efforts to provide written book reviews.

When I took on the task of trying to engage in social media, I decided one thing I could offer readers is my opinion about horror novels and novellas I was currently reading. I never considered myself as an author – even though my social media efforts were part of an overall promotional device so people could learn about me. I am though, an avid (although quite slow) reader – and I love horror novels.

So, what the heck, I could provide reviews of the stuff I was reading. I realized rather quickly in the review process that I adopted an approach very similar to what I use when grading papers of my graduate students. I am not an English professor, but a counseling psychology professor. But my grading often addresses topics like structure, organization, and clarity. I start with what I like about the paper, and then provide feedback on what needs work. My comments are meant to inform and be constructive.

How is this approach (that is, commenting on positive and negative aspects) taken in reviews, especially by other authors?  I have received many “likes” from authors, and I took that at face value – that they liked or at least appreciated my comments. My review efforts do not have a long history. I’ve only done a handful, but I have been fortunate to have read very good novels and novellas. There hasn’t been a dud in the bunch – I’ve been fortunate in that regard (I haven’t had to written a negative review). In fact, most have knocked my socks off. Have there been flaws? Sure. Most novels have flaws. But I feel it is my responsibility to let people know, especially authors, what my take was on the work. I am certainly aware that I am only one opinion of many, and the author can take it with a grain of salt. However, if I have informed him or her in any way, then that is great.

But what about potential readers? Does adding a criticism in a review deter readers from purchasing or reading a book? I hope not. I am very careful to qualify my remarks and make sure a reader of my review has a sense of context within which the criticism is written. On a personal level (and I’ve addressed this in an earlier blog), I often become very intrigued about a work of fiction when it receives a 3 or 4 star review and the person writing the commentary takes special care in addressing the reasons for the rating. Often it is these very comments that make me search out a book. After all, the reviewer has taken great pains to address the pros and cons… to me that clearly says that the book had quite an impact on the reviewer.

Sigh. I have no idea if I am making any sense. I do know that I will feel honored when someone takes the time to give me thoughtful feedback on my novel, Birth Offering.

Psst: I hope to have the same attitude when negative reviews appear….

Count me as one of the folks disappointed with the adaptation of Under the Dome. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, and the complexity of the story and characterization. I’m not sure why the adaptation needed to be altered to the degree that it was, but more creative people than me seemed to think it needed the new story line. Nonetheless, the increasing claustrophobic tension and growing peril present in the novel is nowhere to be seen in the mini-series.

I have been watching the BBC production of Broadchurch. This is a gripping murder mystery, and creepy to boot. 

Sow by Tim Curran is a novella depicts the worst kind of nightmare for expectant parents. Most parents-to-be are obsessed about morning sickness, fetal development, prenatal care, and comfort of the expectant mother. Richard and Holly, expecting their first child, are faced with something not covered in any how-to books on pregnancy. Holly becomes possessed by something unfathomable (a demon, a spirit of a witch from the 1600s?), and descends into the inescapable grasp of the monster. Richard, of course, is at his wits end trying to figure out exactly what is going on and what to do about it. Holly, who transforms into an old hag, taunts Richard unmercifully, but that image is nothing compared to the next transformation when the old hag/Holly transforms into a pig-like creature of primal origins - the stuff of pagan ritual. Richard’s efforts to deal with this madness and his fears about what exactly this “sow” is breeding comprise the bulk of the novella.

The novella is very well written (I only noticed two minor continuity errors). Mr. Curran has a strong grasp of his narrative and does not hold back on his description of the impact of this nightmare on Richard and a few other minor characters. Much of the story is pretty disgusting stuff: their bedroom takes on the appearance of a pigsty with rancid conditions, mud and fecal matter are everywhere, maggots and other revolting life forms permeate the story… feelings of revulsion are ever present. The author has Richard do some investigative work in an effort to understand the origins of this haunting, and succeeds in presenting an interesting historical backdrop. Much of the human backdrop is also revolting and dovetails well with the events Richard is experiencing.

The disgusting features of the story are the driving horror components in the work. This makes for unsettling storytelling, and certainly kept me reading to the ultimate conclusion. There were times when I was hoping for a little more than revulsion to propel the story forward, which did happen to some extend towards the end. While revulsion can be a supportive factor in a good horror tale, wallowing in gross-out descriptions (and we’re not talking about blood and guts here, but fetid conditions) carries you only so far. Nonetheless, Sow is a gribbing novella and another good release from Darkfuse. 

I am excited to announce that the official (new) launch day for my novel Birth Offering is September 15. On that day, the ebook version is available for discounted pricing on the Damnation Books website. On September 16th, the ebook goes on sale on Amazon with the trade paperback book following 7-10 days later. Other vendors like Barnes and Noble will also have it available within two weeks of the launch date.