Two evil girls from beyond the grave beset two creative nice guys!

I feel like I won at book bingo—two of the books from my last batch of checkouts had almost exactly the same plot! Stranger still—I really enjoyed both of them, and would recommend them to anyone looking for a creepy domestic thriller or two.

In Crazy Love You by Lisa Unger, Ian is a successful graphic novelist trying to create a normal, fulfilling adulthood far from the demons of his past. As a child, his inner pain about his baby sister’s death at his mother’s hands manifested as obesity and isolation. His only friend was a wild girl named Priss whose rages and addictions mirrored his own, and his graphic novel series is based on their relationship. When he falls in love with nice, normal Meg, Priss re-enters his life in a big way, devastating his hard won successes and forcing him to define what kind of man he really is.

In The Damned by Andrew Pyper, Danny Orchard is a successful new age memoirist, famous for having died and come back, at age sixteen, to tell his tale of the afterlife. The fire that killed him also killed his twin sister Ashleigh, only she stayed dead. Since Ash was a budding psychopath who terrorized her family and manipulated her friends, her survivors weren’t too dismayed. Unfortunately, her bond with Danny transcends death, and her violent jealousy has forced him to live a life of isolation. Then—you guessed it—Danny accidentally falls in love, and when Ashleigh’s anger manifests against his fiancé and her son, he must finally find a way to free himself.

A perfect pair of quick weekend reads, fabulous brain candy for those who like a little supernatural in their thriller. Take two, and enjoy!

Creepalicious Horror

Once in a while I like a good horror novel. For me, that’s psychological and character-driven rather than everybody dying in a mess of gore. Adam Nevill's Last Days hit the spot. It pulled me in quickly with good, even-handed writing and a main character that I instantly felt that I knew: the gore came later, in small, spicy doses.

In the beginning, artistic thirty-something Kyle Freeman is disillusioned, disaffected, and indebted. His award-winning films have earned him a cult following, where "cult" translates into no money and no producers for further projects. When the CEO of a New Age line of films approaches him and offers him creative control over an investigative piece, it seems too good to be true—but impossible to refuse.

The assignment is to delve into the history of a 70’s era cult that ended in mass murder/suicides. The CEO has connections, and has arranged never-before-allowed interviews with survivors in London, France, and California. Kyle is soon following what may be the blueprint for his own destruction, as every brush with the cult’s old stomping grounds leads to more seemingly paranormal activity. Footsteps in an abandoned house: a blurry figure caught on film whose shape isn’t quite right. Stains appearing in the form of twisted skeletons, as if malformed creatures tried to push through the walls and left negative imprints behind. A tiny shoe, dark and old-fashioned, smelling of death and ash.

Last Days is an enjoyable horror novel that will leave you totally creeped out and unable to walk around your house in the dark for weeks—at least, I’m hoping it will only be weeks. Ask me in March.

Cutting edge speculative fiction: Southern Reach

The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer is comprised of Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance.

The settings:

• Area X, where a large and possibly growing strangeness has impinged on a coastal community
• the lighthouse
• the topographical anomaly, sunk deep into the ground but perceived by the consciousness as a tower
• the swamp
• Southern Reach, the bureaucratic governmental response to Area X, in the form of a collection of brick buildings, a border crossing, watchtowers, and the people who staff them

 A few major characters:

• The biologist: the main character and only point-of-view character of Annhilation. She’s a member of the latest expedition to venture into Area X under the guidance of Southern Reach. Stripped of her name, conditioned by drugs, hypnosis and other forms of mind control to withstand some of the previously observed effects of Area X, she may be destined to be the only survivor, depending on how you define survival.\
• John Rodriguez/Control: The incoming director of Southern Reach, and the main character of Authority. A man whose determination to succeed is met and undermined by the horrific, extensive, and mysterious effects of Area X on his staff and himself.
• Gloria/Cynthia: The previous director of Southern Reach, whose secret past ties her to the nascence of Area X.  Most present in Acceptance

This series is unusual, even bizarre. It may be classified as science fiction or even horror, but it’s narrated so intimately that it feels more like an in-depth study of human nature and what a truly alien influence or presence or attempt to communicate or attack might look like. After years of humanoid TV aliens, whose cultures are just instructive fun-house versions of human culture, it’s kind of wonderful to force your mind to contend with the truly alien, and how limited and limiting is our human perspective in the context of the universe.

Science fiction books definitely do this better than television—CJ Cherryh comes to mind, and Sherri S. Tepper, but Vandermeer has snuck up on it from a different direction. If this intrigues you, please give it a read. For me, the first book was fascinating and the last one a bit of a let down (I tend to enjoy the inexplicable more than the explication, no matter how vague) but I expect this series is bizarre enough and amorphous enough that many different interpretations will exist.

In the absence of civilization

With aching arms, Malorie rows two small children down an unseen river. All are tightly blindfolded, straining their ears for the slightest sound, knowing that they may be surrounded by unseen dangers, but that their eyes must stay shut if they are to have any chance of survival.

From this strange beginning spins a tale told with alternating chapters of the frightening and bizarre present and the even stranger past that carried Malorie to this point. From the initial sparse outbreak of inexplicable suicides, to a population dwindling to tiny pockets of terrified people hiding behind blackened windows and barricaded doors, theories abound about the cause; but solving the mystery is not the heart of the book. Survival is. The persistence of life. The meaning that people have for each other. The strength in facing the truth about what needs to be done, and doing it, even in the midst of deepest grief.

Bird Box by Josh Malerman is a literary apocalyptic horror novel, mesmerizing and even beautiful, despite some truly ugly and bone-deep scary scenes. In the absence of civilization, like the darkest of nights, we can see more clearly the light of our souls, cast by our words and actions. And perhaps the shadows thrown by our own weaknesses are clearer too. In Malerman’s book, it’s the human characters whose cruelty and madness haunt me, far more than the supposed monsters.

NOS4A2 @ Christmasland

Titled with the vanity plate NOS4A2 (Nosferatu), Joe Hill’s latest might seem to be just another vampire book, but never fear. Hill’s blend of strong characterization, a classic but nuanced good-versus-evil plotline, and paranormal events impinging on the mundane world is reminiscent of Stephen King. His unique interpretation of the vampire tale transcends cliché.

We meet our hero, Vic, when she's only eight and known as The Brat. She gets the coolest bike ever for her birthday, back in the days when a kid could ride around a small town all day without supervision. Her dad warns her never to ride across the Shorter Way Bridge, a decrepit covered structure overdue for collapse. But when Vic’s parents have a fight, she dares herself to do it, wanting to shock them out of their selfish behavior. Her dangerous ride leads to her first discovery of a special and costly talent for finding lost things, no matter how far away.

Years pass. Vic grows up, hurting both from what’s she’s experienced because of her talent, and from her father’s abandonment. At 16, she runs into Mr. Manx for the first time—a man with a gift somewhat like hers, but much much worse. He has the ability to take children to Christmasland, where it’s Christmas morning every day, snowflakes are made of sugar, and there’s no such thing as sadness, conscience, or fear. Where little boys and girls get to go, if they’ll only go with the Gasmask Man and give up their souls. Vic's first encounter brings her close to death, and leaves her terrified, half-believing she's crazy.  Christmasland just won't leave her alone, and Vic must eventually face Manx again, when the well-being of her own son is at stake.

Vic is an extremely distinctive and sympathetic character, damaged and floundering but strong at the core. The love of her life, Lou, a fat motorcyclist/comic book geek/mechanic, is so real and likeable I wish he could come over for dinner. And, of course, there's the tragic but heroic stuttering librarian, Maggie Leah, who I'd be proud to work with, so long as she got the monkey off her back. I finished the book in two days and am still wishing it lasted longer. If, like me, you enjoy horror fiction that relies less on gore and more on mind-bending twists of reality, and poignant, knife-sharp details, give Joe Hill's NOS4A2 a try
.

The Dying of Friendship

A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan is the scariest book I have ever read. I'm not made of very stern stuff: I usually prefer scary books that aren't actually scary. Stephen King is good: chilling, except that I don't really believe that (for instance) an industrial laundry machine is going to come hellishly to life and suck me in and fold me. You know: scary, but not scary.

A Prayer for the Dying presents horrors that are all too plausible.

A diptheria epidemic strikes the small Wisconsin town of Friendship in the late 19th century. Jacob Hansen is the town's policeman and undertaker. He is a Civil War veteran, devout Christian, and loving family man. To him falls the duty of managing the epidemic and attending the dead. He blockades the town, preventing (with force) anyone from entering or leaving. He quarantines sick people, preventing them (with force) from leaving their homes. As more and more people are infected, tragedies accumulate, and Jacob grapples with impossible decisions.

And make no mistake, things get very, very, very bad in Friendship. The reader eventually realizes that Jacob clings to his religious devoutness to mask from himself his own terrible darkness. His attempts to save the town become frantic as he strives to flee from the implications of his own deeds.

One of the fascinating things about this book is the narrative style. It's written in a sort of second-person, essentially Jacob's internal monologue, the story he tells himself about himself. Like this:

Friendship's my town, you say, and they think you're too serious, too sentimental, a fool. They think the war did something to you. Maybe so, but for the good, you think. That kind of talk doesn't temper your fondness for them. It is your town, they are your people.

At first I found this distracting. But soon it had the intended effect of getting me intimately inside Jacob's head. I was right there with him when he lied to himself; when he did appalling things, and told himself they were his duty. Can one do good via evil means? When one's world is flooded with evil, is it even possible to recognize goodness any more? Who among us is completely free of self-deception? O'Nan brilliantly winds us into Jacob's moral coils, and it's impossible to find an easy way out.

A Prayer for the Dying is powerful, thought-provoking, masterfully-written, and I'm not ashamed to admit that it completely unnerved me. If it sounds intriguing to you, I heartily recommend it.

(And if the story about the demonic laundry machine sounds a little more comfortable, it's called "The Mangler," and you'll find it in Night Shift by Stephen King.)

Arsenic in the sugar

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson is about family, and murder, and the inexplicable cruelty of ordinary people.

Constance, 28, is ladylike and agoraphobic. She never goes beyond the garden. Her sister Merricat (as 18-year-old Mary Katherine is called) is fey, hostile, conscienceless, and just plain weird. Merricat is our narrator; it's through her questionably-reliable eyes we see the events of this novel. Constance and Merricat have lived alone, with their damaged uncle Julian, since terrible events destroyed their family six years ago.

Merricat loves their isolation. Any change in the status quo upsets and angers her, and she has an obsessive system of magical safeguards all over the property: locked gates, books nailed to trees, buried teeth. Constance, too, has her protective rites: wholesome meals on matching china and grandmother's silver service. "We will take our meals like ladies," she says, in the midst of chaos. Gradually the sisters come to seem like refugees, ritualistically assuring themselves that life is normal and safe.

But their life is not normal, and they are far from safe.

Shirly Jackson was herself agoraphobic; for long periods she was unable to leave her bedroom. Her books and stories are peopled with women who cannot escape their fear - who, sometimes, embrace it. None have the sweet, shocking remorselessness of Merricat Blackwood.

I've written before about Jackson; I loved her earlier novel, The Haunting of Hill House. That book is a shining pearl of a ghost story, a perfect example of a very familiar genre. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is genreless and unique. It's a shot of distilled female anxiety and rage, and it burns as it goes down.

Hill House, not sane

I don't believe in ghosts, and I don't really care for ghost stories. But I do like The Haunting of Hill House, a surprisingly creepy book written by Shirley Jackson in 1959. Its opening lines are famous:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

Four people decide to spend a summer at the notorious Hill House, documenting any paranormal activities they may observe. One of these is Eleanor Vance, a lonely woman who, we soon learn, has a rich and weird fantasy life. Eleanor does observe paranormal activities at Hill House; oh yes, yes she does.

Maybe that's because Hill House is haunted. Or maybe it's because Eleanor is going crazy. While I don't find ghosts scary, there is certainly something about the prospect of losing one's mind that chills the blood.

The neat thing about this book is that you can read it either way: it works as a ghost story, and it works as a psychological profile of a woman who's cracking under pressure. Not many authors are skilled enough to make that work.

Incidentally, a couple of movies have been based on this book. Do yourself a favor: skip 'em, and read The Haunting of Hill House instead.

Let the Right One In

This weekend I saw a really bad horror movie. I mean a boring, not-scary horror movie.

I won't try to explain why I like movies to be scary; but the experience did get me to thinking about what is scary, and what isn't.

The thing I learned from the bad horror movie was this: realistic gore does not scare me. It doesn't matter how genuine those entrails appear to be -- I know they're not real, and I'm not scared. Horror happens in the imagination of the viewer. A movie has to engage my empathy, make me imagine myself in the horrifying situation. Somehow, it has to get behind my skeptical thoughts and chill my spine. And showing me every bit of violent mayhem (enhanced with excellent computerized special effects) is exactly the wrong way to do this. Far scarier are the movies are the movies that don't show me much at all.

Take The Blair Witch Project (available from the library only on VHS), in which three college kids get lost in the woods and encounter something terrifying. The movie never shows us the terrifying thing, and it's not at all clear what happens to those kids in the end.

Or Let the Right One In, a weird little Swedish movie. In it Oskar, a lonely, desperate 12-year-old, meets Eli, his new neighbor. Oskar thinks that maybe Eli is lonely and desperate too. He may be right about that, but he's definitely wrong in thinking that she's human. Eli seems to like Oskar, but perhaps she just has a use for him. The fact that we aren't really sure is part of what makes this movie so unsettling.

All children are afraid of the dark. Spare me the entrails; the really creepy movies are the ones that just show you the darkness, and let you imagine what might lurk there.