Okay,
quick re-cap although we're five month into this now – lovely wife
and partner Nicole D'Amato created a three-book-a-month challenge.
For October, I may have leaned slightly towards Stephen King. And it
may have been a little infectious. Not only was 1408 one of the
Halloween horror movies watched (re-watched) this month, but Nicki
was compelled to delve into King's “Pet Sematary” over a re-watch
of Mary Lambert's incredible film version. Admittedly, I also had
only read King's “Pet Sematary” novel earlier this year. However,
I feel I made up for that infraction by consuming not only one of my
favourite Bachman Book (and King's least favourite), “Roadwork”.
I had no expectations for this novel and found it King at some of his
most mundanely humane – and I actually mean this in a very good
way. His take on marriage and human relationships are far ahead of
his then-young years (the novel was written in the seventies,
post-'Salem's Lot).
Adding to this I actually, finally,
read
“The Skin Trade” (aka “Dark Visions”) which includes stories
by Stephen King, Dan Simmons (as I continues the exploration of his
work from last month's “Lovedeath”), and George RR “Game of
Thrones” Martin, in his experimental horror days. The standout of
this book, for me, was an otherwise-unpublished novella by Stephen
King titles Dedication.
Can't
explain that one here, but should be read, and I was so glad that it
was at least published as part of this literary genre anthology.
I
also worked in a retrospective of Ray Russell's gothic works,
published by Penguin and curated by filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro,
titled “Haunted Castles”. Ray Russell is fast become one of my
favourite underrated genre writers. (If you can get it, please read
his short novel “A Case against Satan”).
And lastly, while I was
fully intending to take in yet another Preacher graphic novel, that
intention was thwarted whan I came across a novel by Craig Spector –
one half of the 80s-90s splatterpunk team of Skipp/Spector – in a
thrift shop for a buck. Truthfully, I'd been interested in this book,
“To Bury the Dead”, for quite some time. I'd read one of John
Skipp's solo efforts (post-”Animals”), but I was curious about
Craig Spector's solo work as well. During the reading of “To Bury
the Dead”, I have to admit, I was mostly left with the feeling that
from Spector's point of view, his writing really benefited from his
previous partnership of John Skipp. Skipp's writing is more
pared-down, pulpy, fast and furious. While Craig Spector undoubtedly
maintains a high energy to his writing, it's thickly steeped in
machismo and patriarchal heroism; it's testosterone-fueled to the
point of being a little eyebrow-raising in these times. As fast as I
was burning through the pages of “To Bury the Dead”, I was
constantly and uncomfortably aware of the author's then-ideas of
male-dominated ego-heroism. However, through the last fifty or so
pages, things took a turn towards the existentially philosophical,
turning something that at first appeared bizarrely conservative and
right-wing into a work that explored ideas of, overall, understanding
– which sort of saved this novel for me (and took it in a turn
towards the surprising liberal). If anything, Spector's novel ends up
being an experience in the complexities of Americans' personal
beliefs and politics, and ideals that may have been built in the
blood of America but has also softened in the education of the
people. I'm actually glad I read this novel for the first time in the
currently heated times of America, Americans, and their politics. It
gives a strange light to Spector's work. Conversely, of you might be
interested in his ex-writing-partner's anarchic horror-lit, may I
recommend Skipps's “The Long Last Call”. Next month, I'll be back
on Preacher!
--Vince
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