Back For Another Crack At The Rack: The Rack II: More Stories Inspired by Vintage Horror Paperbacks (ed. Tom Deady)

Oh, hell yeah. Look, sometimes sequels are better even though the original was great. Mad Max and The Terminator? Both great pieces of genre entertainment. The first sequel to each? Lightning in a bottle. And that's the situation we have here. Last week, I set out my 'floor and ceiling' framework of story collection criticism: The floor is the minimum general quality of each piece in the collection, and the ceiling is the maximum quality of the best pieces in that collection. The best is when you have a high floor and a high ceiling. And, guys, we have one here. 

I love this book. I'm really excited to discuss it. Just to say it, this will probably be the blog post for Thursday as well, because while I like to get a whole week's worth of material out of a book, I wanted to give this book the sort of massive review it deserves. Think of this as getting a king-sized candy bar from a trick or treat house.

A quick note on the introduction, which is that IMO you should wait until you're done with the book. I always read the foreword last because you never know what it might give away--I like to go into collections relatively blind as regards the content of each story.  That's especially true here, where Hartmann "tags" each story with tropes, vibes, and plot points in a way that I assume is similar to what she's done in  101 Horror Books to Read Before You're Murdered. (Which I'm interested to check out--the last time I used a reader's guide like that it led me to Laymon and Keene so I'm excited to see what's been going on more recently. Hopefully, more stuff like The Rack series).  

“Rarest of Terrors” by Maxwell I. Gold

Synopsis: Quick mood-setting tone poem. 

Worthy of the Paperback Horror Tradition? 3 out of 5 Great Tor Covers for Oxrun Station Novels. We are setting the stage for the delights and terrors to come, and Gold references plenty of those elements (I like the line 'junkyard-possessed cars' in particular. 

Thoughts: It's fine. I don't have a lot to say about this aside from what's above; this is a vibes piece and I enjoy it and now it's onto the show!

“The Laffin' Man” by Poppy Z. Brite

Synopsis: Two kids, one of them fatherless after a car accident, are drawn to a bizarre toy at the mall.

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 4 out of 5 Wind-Up Monkeys: During the horror boom, we had truckloads of scary-ass toys and artifacts every month. You could probably fill up a shipping container just with sinister jack-in-the-boxes from paperback horror covers. And, of course, Brite was part of the later part of the horror boom and part of the splatterpunk/transgressive horror tradition.     

Thoughts: Laffin' Men are real and they're upsetting as hell. They look like a racial caricature that was created without any particular ethnicity in mind to belittle, so they just float around the world like a Penanggalan, seeking the ruin of souls. I looked it up and there was a "Tyrolean Yodeler" which sounds like it could be a little racist but there was an Austrian company that made these and I think they're allowed to traffic in Tyrolean stereotypes. 

Anyway. . .

This is a very strong start to the book, and maybe the second best Brite story I've ever read (after "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves").The writing is clean and straightforward, and the themes of youthful sexuality and ambiguous relationships are moving, kind, and sensitive. This makes what happens so much more devastating.

The Laffin' Man himself, and the related horror content, feels a little out of place. Certainly the story has to, sadly, end in the horrific (lower-case h) manner it does. I wouldn't go as far as Hartmann does and say it has a true crime feel to it, but I see what she's getting at. However, the Horror in a capital H sense (the maybe supernatural content) doesn't fully feel earned. We haven't had enough about "LM" to establish him as some sort of "The Monkey"-style evil presence. I think that might be the point--that this isn't *really* a supernatural horror story, but just a story of love and loss and pain, and then the Laffin' Man himself is there, maybe serving as a mocking messenger of cosmic irony, and the off-chance that LM was 'really' involved gives our narrator more guilt. 

We're not quite finished at the mall yet, though, because up next it's...

“The Mall” by Lee Murray

Synopsis: Jim's still in the doghouse with his wife after he was too busy flirting with a coworker to keep young Matty from breaking his arm. A Christmas shopping trip at the mall seems like it might start to herald a thaw in relations...but then Matty goes missing. 

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 1 out of 5 Kids-In-Peril Shockers: The story taps into the same fears of abducted children that (as we see in the tale itself) began roiling mass media in the 1980s. And, of course we have the shopping mall as the center of everything (like the Brite story). This doesn't feel super paperback-y to me, but we don't care because who's complaining about quality like this? 

Thoughts: I've been peeking back at Hartman's notes on each of these so far, and I agree with her assessment here: "Scared the shit out of me." 

Masterful, basically a real life tragedy with enough elements of the supernatural to make it stand out. Murray cranks up the panic and you feel the adrenaline and hope fighting with the exhaustion and despair as Jim races around the shopping center. I read this story on the T during my morning commute and even though I was surrounded by people I felt isolated and captivated and blown away. 

What fundamentally makes the story work, I think, is that what happens to Jim (and Matty) is on one level Jim's fault and a foreseeable consequence of his actions. At the same time, the supernatural element makes what happens manifestly unfair. Jim's family is victimized by the tragedy in this story, but Jim can't even take the dubious pleasure of being the victim (since it's his fault) or ever coming to some sort of understanding  It's all gone wrong and it's all over.

“Comeback Kid” by Christa Carmen

Synopsis: A former star gymnast returns as a coach to work at the elite, abusive gymnastics program she suffered in as a girl.

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 1 out of 5 Creepy Cabins. But 4 out of 5 Not At Nights. This feels more contemporary in subject matter and approach than anything, although there are some similarities to the 1970s rape-revenge tradition (which I understand is now being reinvigorated as the "Good for Her" subgenre. I love it). The horror literature tradition this feels closer to is the interwar pulp sadism of anthologies put together by folks like Christine Campbell Thompson and Charles Birkin, and reminds me of tales like Reminiscent of tales like Thompson's "Behind the Yellow Door" or Birkin's "An Eye for an Eye." 

Thoughts: It's fine; my reaction to this is similar to my reaction to Carmen's story from the first volume (I think I preferred that one, though). There's some stuff I like, a few things I don't, overall not one of my favorites in the collection but that may be personal taste. The writing is fine, there's some horrific imagery. I think the framing device of returning after a period of time is what hurts it. I wonder if I would have liked this more if it went the Suspiria route and we were experiencing the unpleasantness alongside the young characters, and then going and discovery the really nasty experiments the program is up to. As it is, it's a lot of build up for a payoff that comes close but doesn't, well, stick the landing. 

“The Green” by Michael Rowe

Synopsis: Terry Nulty has problems. Problems with gender, problems with family, and possibly problems with whatever lives in the old graveyard that mauled little Mary Agnes O'Toole a few years ago. 

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 2.5 out of 5 Gnazi Gnomes: Despite the teaser image, we don't actually have gnomes here, but we do have small things that attack in swarms, which is very paperback horror. This is more of a drama with fantasy elements and, gasp, emotional resonance.

Thoughts: Very good story, kind, delicate, but also unflinching. Rowe makes us feel Terry's discomfort and pain by placing us in a community where meanness and gossip and callousness are the ways of life. I think it's no coincidence that the town is called "Oldright." We can pick that apart two ways: "Old right" can mean a conservativism of the most retrograde sort, narrow-minded and callous. It can also suggest "old right, young wrong"--the adults don't care about the young people or how they feel. Both of those permeate the story. 

We begin with the news of a savage attack on a child, and Maureen Nulty's response is to disparage the O'Toole family. Even when Maureen sticks up for Terry against the evangelical bigot Dora Burns, she does so by starting a vicious gossip campaign against Dora, and she seems motivated as much by her anti-Protestant prejudices as by her concern for Terry.

Even the most sympathetic character (after Terry)--Mr. Fisher, the "confirmed bachelor" who owns the antique shop--winds up as stern and dismissive. Really, the only ones who understand are the fairies.

My one criticism with the story is that (as with Brite's story), the horror element feels a little contrived. In Brite's tale, the lower-h horror of the ending is fine, but the possibly supernatural piece doesn't work. Here, the supernatural stuff works fine, except when it gets properly horrific. It relies on the right person popping up at the right time, just as the real pith of the story (Terry's struggles with gender) is resolved, solely to toss some red meat to the audience and let an unsympathetic character bite the dust. I almost wonder...did we need that?

Here's the thing. If you said, "Gordon, I'd like you to read a story where traditional fairy legends intertwine with a young person's narrative of gender dysphoria and affirmation," I'd respond, "That depends, do the Fair Folk rip somebody to shreds like me with a plate of crab Rangoon?" And if you said, "No, it's just a fantasy," I'd reply "You know, I still have a couple Richard Laymon novels I haven't read yet, so I'm gonna pass." But, here I am saying I would have liked this story more without the horror elements. 

This is only partially a criticism--I'm impressed with Rowe's ability to tell a story where the elements that would usually interest me least are what I remember most. Good stuff. 

“Daughter of Dogs” by Jessi Ann York

Synopsis: A rural outcast begins an uneasy relationship with a Vietnam veteran dog trainer. 

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 2 out of 5 Packs of Rabid Dogs: From Cujo to The Pack, Pulpy Paperback Puppies have a strong pedigree (sorry). Vietnam veterans, whether as friend or foe, do too. And, while Shirley Jackson was more the grandmother of the paperbacks from hell than a participant in them, there's a lot of it here. 

Thoughts: We start off very strong, with some sort of Lucinda Williams/Annie Proulx/Shirley Jackson mishmash. I love the sense of place York gives Wartrace, Tennessee. You can feel the cold and imagine K-Mart denim jackets infused with cigarette smoke. I'm interested in these women, and why they hate their community and why their community hates them. There is a ton to explore here, but then we're plunged into a story that, although it has its merits, just doesn't seem quite as fascinating as these three ladies.

Part of the problem is how it's told--not in terms of writing quality or style as such (that's all good) but in terms of chronology. I strongly believe that more stories should avoid non-linear storytelling. Here, there are a number of flashbacks and flash forwards in the middle of the tale that fragment it and confused me without (in my opinion) adding anything to the story. 

It's a shame, because the beginning and ending are both very good. 

“Head Hunter” by B.D. Prince

Synopsis: Chandler Pratt despises his wealthy father-in-law, and the feeling is mutual. A trip to Arcane Antiques and Curiosities gives Pratt the chance take out the old bastard once and for all. 

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 5 out of 5 Killer Toys: In truth, this bears a little more fealty to Creepshow than anything else, which places its roots more in the 1950s. But are you going to say Creepshow isn't part of the vintage horror tradition? Really?

Thoughts: This is very fun in an EC Comics way (and shrunken heads were a common fixture of the horror comics). As I said, it feels a lot like Creepshow in particular; this takes place on Father's Day, for one thing, and Chandler is a Pratt but more notably, the two images of Pratt fantasizing about killing Nathan Cromwell (who I kept imagining as Gene Hackman's character in The Birdcage) are I think homages to the two scenes in "The Crate" when Henry Northrup imagines murdering his wife. Not that there's anything wrong with that; both scenes are shocking and clever and pack a bit more shock and gore and fun into the story. I liked this a lot. It's funny from the jump, with Pratt's derisive reference to his overweight wife as being "all Hilton and no Paris", and the rest of the story goes that way. 

 

“As the Circus Leaves Town” by Morgan Sylvia

Synopsis: The world has ended, but the show goes on. Specifically, Countess Dawson's Cirque of Mystical Wonders, which tours the remains of America. But what exactly do they get out of it?

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 3 out of 5 Vampire Acrobats: There are a lot of elements of the classics here (vampires, clowns, the apocalypse), and the flashback scenes nail the old-school vibe. Not quite so much the rest; it's doing its own thing. 

Thoughts: I hate to say it, but I'm slightly burned out on circuses after gorging on the buffet of carnival food delights that was Circus of the Dead. But, even if I were reading this story completely cold, I think I'd have some issues.

There's too much and it's overstuffed. "Circus after the apocalypse" is a great idea. "Vampire circus" is one that's been done successfully before. "Vampire apocalypse" has too. "Circus after an apocalypse that was probably caused by vampires and the vampires are also involved in the circus" is just a bridge too far for me. And that's before we get to "Burmese floating head vampires".

Do you ever go to a frozen yogurt place, and get carried away with all of the different toppings you can put on and then by the end you sort of have an undifferentiated sugary morass? That's kind of how this feels. All the elements are fun and cool on their own but all together it's a little much. 

I really like the couple of flashbacks to before, where we hear about growing disappearances and have a sense that bad things are happening and getting worse but society--for now-- is holding together okay. Those bits are good and it's a part of the apocalypse you don't often see in fiction. In particular, I like the flashback where the kids investigate the creepy house. We have a "smaller-scale" horror set piece (the kids going into the spooky vampire house) but also the background of a larger story involving ever-mounting disappearances. It reminded me of They Thirst, and I love They Thirst. 

I also like the circus material, and I should emphasize that the writing itself is fine. I don't think this story works as well as the others, but again--we have a high floor here so it's not like this is close to being "bad". 

“The Creak on the Attic Stairs” by Tamika Thompson

Synopsis: Uncle Luke is dead. So what's that making the noise near his old room in the attic? 

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 1.5 out of 5 Attic Apparitions: Sort of like the Yardley story in volume I, we have ghost and haunted house themes, which were a staple of the paperback era, but then they've been a staple of all supernatural fiction before and since. 

Thoughts: Great story! For some reason, the whole time I was thinking "this should be in Women of Darkness." I think it's because it's 1) very well written (excellent characters, always realistic) and 2) one thing that struck me about the stories in that book was how many of them have a strong sense of a particular time and place and culture. Even when those stories didn't fully engage me, I enjoyed reading them. This has all of that AND it fully engaged me, so. . . 

If I'm not saying much about the meat of the story itself, that's because I don't want to give it away. It's a shocker. 

 “Bats! Bats! Bats! (Fun for the Whole Family)" by Jonathan Maberry

Synopsis: Tommy's dysfunctional family isn't interested, but there's no way he's going to miss out onMr. Attercop's Horrifyingly Haunted House of Chiroptera. Can you blame him?

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition?  5 BATS! out of 5 BATS! (BATS! BATS! BATS!) No matter the context of the story, something titled "BATS! BATS! BATS!" is intrinsically paperback horror. 

Thoughts: After I got this book the other weekend, I occasionally found myself chanting BATS BATS BATS BATS BATS BATS like it's LMFAO's "Shots." Other times I was saying it like Clarence Boddicker saying "Guns, guns, guns!" Sometimes you don't need a fancy title. Sometimes you just need BATS. 

I do like a bat-themed paperback nasty, although they all have a bit of weakness. Nightwing has incredible cover art, but is more interested in being about conflict between whites and Native Americans. Which is more worthwhile than throwing BATS BATS BATS BATS at everything perhaps but if you give us that cover, well, I don't want Killers of the Flower Moon. Guy N. Smith's Bats Out of Hell bungles the whole thing by making the bats secondary to the plague they carry, except that isn't interesting either (and the main character is a pretty unpleasant).  Jeff Rovin's Vespers has the best bat mayhem (including a bat attack on an evening Little League game, and later on, a group of black-tie patron's at a Metropolitan Opera production of Die Fledermaus getting swarmed) but also has hideous, Michael Slade-esque info dumps about bats (and also has a character fondly recall making love with her colleague in a bat cave on a bed of bat guano or something). Not even Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Zindel could pull it off (and I loved his other YA trash-horror novels).

Maberry doesn't have a high bar to hurdle, but he makes it difficult anyway. Spoiler alert: There isn't a massive bat attack on Pine Deep. At least, not the way you'd expect. I'll stop complaining about this in a moment and get to the actual story.

But, you know, I do feel cheated by the title (not by the story). Even that, though, is part of the authentic paperback horror experience (especially when it comes to BATS). And, to be clear, the story is still good. 

It's just...let me tell you a story. On Newbury Street in Boston, there used to be a clothing company named "Johnny Cupcakes." One day, I saw a group of tourists taking in Newbury and one of them, a larger gentleman (it's relevant to the story, just wait) trekked up the stairs to the second floor of the old Brownstone, and then came back down, defeated. "It's not a bakery," he told his group. "That's a pretty mean trick to play on a fat guy, putting up those stairs like that."

That's a little how I felt with this. It's a pretty mean trick to play on a horror guy, naming a story BATS! BATS! BATS! and then not having a swarm of bats devour a town. 

Well...except they might be about to, and Maberry may be operating on a much cannier level, doing a bait and switch and giving us a story about another kind of monster that hits on a darker and more emotional level.  Maberry's a good and clever writer (I never read any of the Pine Deep books but I read Patient Zero when it came out and loved it) and he deserves the benefit of the doubt, so I'll give him credit. In that case, he's pulled off a nifty magic trick, setting up a bleak story while distracting us with BATS! BATS! BATS! 

It's also possible, given the story takes place in Maberry's Pine Deep mythos, that there's an additional angle going on that I don't know about having not read the books. 

It's a good story. You should read it. You'll like. You'll love the ending. 

I'm just saying, sometimes you want cupcakes. 

“Black Thumb” by Larry Hinkle

Synopsis: Mia has a green thumb, which does wonders for her garden. It goes less well for her and her husband when they bury their beloved dog Sunnie in the back yard.

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 5 Out of  5 Reworkings of "The Monkey's Paw". Straight down the middle paperback horror, bringing ghoulish and familiar terror to the suburbs.

Thoughts: The obvious reference point is Pet Sematary although there are a couple other stories this reminds me of--RC Cook's "Green Fingers" (which became a Night Gallery episode) and Joe Hill's "Mums" which became a Creepshow episode. As with his previous story in Rack I, there's not much wheel reinvention going on. But the wheel has already been invented, so why not play around with it? That's what Hinkle does, and I think this story is even better than the first one. More showing the actual meat of the horror, more surprises (this story, ah, goes for the throat faster than I thought it would), and a good ending. This is exactly what you're looking for when you reach for a horror paperback: Good "fun" horror that still has some sharp edges. 

“Midnight Rider” by Mike Deady

Synopsis: A man discovers his wife, who passed away at the top of an amusement park's Ferris wheel, reappears there every Halloween at midnight.

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition?  1 out of 5 Rides on THE BEAST (which I think is usually about as many rides as someone could expect on that thing...): The teens and the amusement park made we think we were going that way. But, like Carmen's story earlier, I trace this lineage back a little further. Say, 5 out of 5 "Alfred Hitchcock" Edited Horror/Thriller/Crime Anthologies. 

Thoughts: This wrong-footed me a little; the beginning with the teens reminded me of the YA horror novels that used to pack the shelves at my library growing up (especially when they get into...CAR THIRTEEN). Then I got worried, because we wind up with two characters having some dialogue that seems unnecessary and expository and credulous--the observations they make about the barriers between life and death being lowest around midnight on Halloween is something that our main character should figure out himself later (I think he does). These guys don't believe in the ghost at all (why should they?) 

And then the story really begins, and we're in BUSINESS. This story feels the most self-contained and short story-ish (this is not a criticism--the whole blog is devoted to short stories). While many of these works feel like they're playing around with the novels that I think most people instinctively associate the 'paperbacks from hell' with, this is structured like a self-contained story. There's no larger world to build or explore here. And, the fact that Deady name-drops a John Christopher story (I couldn't find out which one it was in my research, so let me know if you know what it is) suggests that he's working in a slightly different and older short story tradition. This one is more like a conte cruel than a supernatural story, in that the supernatural here is a wholly reliable, mechanical part of how the world works and that's in fact what causes things to go poorly (you thought they wouldn't? Buddy, this is a horror anthology). 

A good story, clever and nasty and old-fashioned in the right ways. Bonus New England flavor points for setting a scene at a Ninety Nine and having the main action take place at what I assume is Canobie Lake Park. 

 “The Light You Follow Can Burn” by Jessica McHugh

Synopsis: Adam and Meg are getting divorced, but Adam doesn't want the marriage to end just yet. 

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition?  1.5 out of 5 Isolated New England Island Communities: I have a lot of thoughts about this story, but I will say that aside from the setting and the introduction of a cult theme a ways in, this isn't obviously paperback horror-y. 

Thoughts: I love the story but I think it needs a little more focus. 

There's a lot that I like here and a lot that it's trying to do. In some parts, it reminds me of a Harlan Ellison story, something like "Count the Clock that Tells the Time" or "In Fear of K" or "The Other Eye of Polyphemus," a look at damaged relationships using fantasy to dramatize mental state. 

In other parts, it reminds me of a Gary Braunbeck story: Again, emotional damage expressed in part through the fantastic and horrific, although more grounded in reality. Part of this story specifically reminds me of "Haceldama," my very favorite Braunbeck tale. 

However, both of those writers' works tend to have some sort of internal logic spelled out pretty well--with Ellison, it may be the rules of a fantastic world, and with Braunbeck it's generally 'our world' with a couple twists thrown in--and that keeps it together. So now we're in more Steve or Melanie Tem territory (not only their territory, of course, but they're the first that came to mind, and I can never sing the Tems' praises enough), where the line between our world and the world of metaphor is hazier a lot of the time, and things slip back and forth impressionistically. However, the Tem stories like that I can think of are usually shorter than this, and I think that's key. If you're going to go longer, then the lack of clarity makes the whole thing a little shaky. 

It does have a terrific ending, though. 

“The Wash” by Kristin Kirby

Synopsis: Jenn returns to her hometown and finds herself haunted by a fiend she and her friends vanquished years ago.

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 5 out of 5 Childhood Friends Reuniting To Fight Hometown Evil: Returning to your hometown and putting a stop to an ancient evil that's surely predates IT (the best known of the bunch), but it created a template that writers use to this day. More than that, though, Kirby's subject matter and approach follow the footsteps of the Almighty Priest of Perversion, the Count of Chaos...RICHARD LAYMON!

Thoughts: Yeah, this is a Laymon-esque story. Some of that is that we have a "crazy hobo sex murderer living in a ditch." There isn't a single bridge or ravine in a Richard Laymon book that isn't inhabited by at least one vile vagrant. In addition, the plot particulars of "sleazy itinerants vs. vigilante teens" drives the plot of Laymon's Funland (one of his best books!), so we are in Laymon territory. There's also some Nightmare on Elm Street stuff.

I like this story. This is a bit simpler compared to, say, McHugh's story, but I think that's fine. What we have here really is a straightforward horror novel or slasher movie but with the fat trimmed off. 

I also think Kirby does a good job at walking a tightrope here. The subject matter is intrinsically sleazy and, but Kirby doesn't go into too much detail about unsavory particulars. At the same time, she doesn't pull too many punches, so it still has a nasty kick. Just not too nasty! 

“beepbeepbeepbeep” by Jenny Kiefer 

Synopsis: Sarah's life has gone to hell with the arrival of her baby brother Caleb. Now Mom and Dad don't have the time, money, or energy for her, and Caleb ruins everything. The one silver lining is the electronic pet she got for her birthday. . .

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 5 out of 5 jars of Monster Blood if we expand vintage horror paperbacks to cover stuff like Goosebumps (which I refuse to think of as vintage because I grew up with it but time comes for us all).

Thoughts: The hits keep coming. I remember the Tamagotchi craze, and I had one or two (I might even have one tucked away somewhere). They were fun but also stressful. Reading this story I have no doubt that Kiefer owned one and felt the same way. 

This is a great story. Kiefer takes a classic relatable issue (the jealousy of a child after a new sibling arrives, and the physical, financial, and emotional tolls it takes on the family unit--this itself was a common Goosebumps theme for obvious reasons), and stretches it out to hideous, horrific lengths. The birthday party scene is a masterpiece of this, with Sarah noticing the differences between the quality of the cake and pizza this year versus last year. Kiefer packs in so much sensory detail, but it's never overwhelming. It's perfect.

The back half of this story is grim and relentless: Imagine if someone adapted Jack Ketchum's "The Box" as an episode of Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of the Dark and you get the idea. The ending is one of my favorite kinds of ending--the one that's slightly ambiguous as to what's going on in the particulars, but which ever option it is, it's not gonna be good. Charles Grant's "Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street", maybe my favorite story by him, does the same thing...in, now that I think of it, a not dissimilar set of circumstances. 

Incredibly good, the sort of story that immediately puts a writer on one's radar screen. 

 

 “We Have (Never) Been Here Before” by Jonathan Lees

Synopsis: Why bother? We already know how this story goes...right?

F̷̯͝i̸̥̓v̸̛̼e̴̳̅ ̴͙̈́o̸̡̐u̸̮̚t̴͎̿ ̷̣̔o̵̦͠f̷͓͛ ̷͍͑F̸̝͋í̷̝v̴̠̏ḙ̸̄ ̶̱̀Ú̴̠ń̴̡h̷͙͗ȯ̶̰l̴̞̂y̴̠̚ ̵̨̾p̶̗̊L̷̻̐e̸̹̍ḁ̸̄S̸̪͑u̵͔͌ȓ̷͉e̶̛͎s̴̫͋: We're through the looking glass, folks. Read on. 

Thoughts: This is a tremendously dense and textual piece of meta-horror that also brings the goods as a genuinely scary story. It is hard to describe, even though the MO is pretty simple: We have a description from an increasingly frustrated and unnerved narrator of the beginning of a horror movie (?), as a family arrives at their creepy new house. Each moment bristles with the possibility of a million lurid horror set-pieces, but none of them happen. Yet, this isn't a simple goofy exercise in subverting expectations or mocking horror cliches. Because there is something happening. The mystery here is that there's something missing (a conventionally understandable horror plot) and there's something extra (our narrator). 

So, what or who exactly is our narrator? 

One answer that comes to mind is that the narrator is a ghost or a monster, lurking in the house. The glee with which the narrator describes some of the scenarios is consistent with that, as is the trajectory the story begins to take towards the end. But, that doesn't track with everything we're told the narrator sees, and I think it is a mistake to assume we just have, say, a grumpy vampire dreaming of eviscerations. 

A second answer is that the narrator is the victim and the monster or antagonist is something in the narrative itself. The narrator is a jaded horror fan who is, for some reason (perhaps it's the afterlife) being tormented, blue-balled by the invocation and then denial of any number of horror scenarios. He (and I do feel it's a he, although I don't know whether it matters) expects to get what he paid for, and he's both frustrated by the lack of 'the goods' and alarmed and afraid that the narrative, such as it is, doesn't follow any of the predetermined paths of horror pleasure. This is the sort of "Funny Games" interpretation. I don't think it's all of the right answer. I do think that the narrator's habits and preferences have led him "here", and this is not exactly a desirable situation, but it's more of a consequence than a punishment. 

A third answer is that the narrator is a camera or film projector. It would explain why it's seen everything before, why it has both a body and no body, why it always demands to be in the light and hates the dark and the inability to describe. It also explains the frequent jumps in subjectivity from "we" the audience to "we" the threat to "we" the family of potential victims. It's a cute, clever conceit but it doesn't explain why the camera should suddenly have an opinion on the goings-on. 

The fourth answer is a synthesis of what we've got so far--we have a "monster" or inhuman narrator, and it is bound up with notions of narrative expectations and practices of description and narration. This is what I'd call the Resolution interpretation. This is a reference to my favorite Benson and Moorhead movie, which (at least in the reading which makes sense to me) is about narrative force itself as an Old God, strewing the piece of land it's tied to with on-ramps for any number of horror movie scenarios, determined to force its victims into playing out a narrative. I think that the narrator has somehow become a part of the movie/story, but he's only starting to recognize it.

In effect, the thing that's not there that should be and the thing that's there and shouldn't be are linked. The reason the story isn't going anywhere "satisfying" (despite some elements in the story that are bizarre and that do pose a challenge for this interpretation) is because the narrator is part of it and hasn't realized it yet. It's like he's a driver sitting at the wheel and wondering why the car isn't going anywhere and the reason is because he hasn't turned the key and pushed the pedals. The narrator is going to have to add the missing element, the explanation, the horror, and he's going to have to go from being the passive consumer of pre-made horrors to creating and perpetrating them himself. 

What does this mean? I'm not sure (and again, this is just me putting my old English major hat on and taking some ideas out for a spin--I'm not claiming Lees intends any of this, at least consciously), but I have one theory, in the context of this book: The narrator is a reader becoming a writer. He's read all the old paperback classics, all the knock-offs of The Amityville Horror and Jaws and Carrie, and now he's in the position of writing his own story. Without him, there won't be any horror. But now that he's facing the need to create, he doesn't know what happens next. He has complete control and no guardrails and that scares him to death.

It's not a one to one between the narrator and Lees, I think (the narrator is much too callow for that), but maybe there is a part of him, somewhere, that identifies with this? Or maybe this is me projecting some of my own desires and anxieties into the story?

I can't remember the last time a work of  horror fiction invited me to engage with it on this level. Great job!

“Red God Waiting” by Ai Jiang

Synopsis: A woman in an unhappy marriage looks for help from a new god.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition?  3 out of 5 Hysterical And Lurid Books Based on the McMartin Case. This feels like another instance of an author taking a basic paperback horror set up and putting their own spin on it, which I love to see.

Thoughts: HOT DAMN Ai Jiang can write. Looking at her list of awards and nominations, I see that many of you already are aware of this, and I may be somewhat late to the party.

Anyway, this story rules. Strong execution and strong content. This legitimately feels like the sort of "New Horror" (more graphic and impressionistic) that you might have seen in something like Kathryn Ptacek's Women of Darkness anthologies or something like that (this is my second reference to Women of Darkness, and I just got part II in the mail last week, so I think I know what the next couple reviews may have to be...) . It's vivid, clever, with just enough details, usually sensory, including scent and taste, which don't often get as much of a workout in horror.  Not only are these strong bits of description in and of themselves, but they anchor the reader, and keep the more abstract stream of consciousness elements from floating away (contrast this to, say, the Chandler and Winter-Damon story we discussed the other week). 

 “A Serpent's Thirst” by Alyssa Alessi

Synopsis: A Puritan woman in a small community embraces a very different religious tradition.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 4 out of 5 Wicked Witchy Women: This feels more like an expanded version of the historical prelude to a paperback nasty set a couple centuries later, but it ticks the right boxes and scratches the right itches.

Thoughts: It's too bad this comes after Jiang's story above, which is thematically similar, because it unfairly suffers in comparison. It has good New England witchy vibes, and just when you're starting to think "Okay, I get it, I've also seen The VVitch," blammo, Alessi throws in some nifty body horror. 

Part of what's missing vs. the Jiang story is a sense of motivation. Sure, Puritan society is patriarchal and incredibly unfun for anyone and quadruply so if you're a woman. Even then, give them some cool speeches! Have them talk about the connections of the snake-ladies to the serpent in the Garden of Eden or something! I'm glad the story errs on the side of less explanation than more--I'm usually not on the "OH I NEED THE LOOOOORE WHERE'S THE LOOOORE'" side of things because "Lore" for its own sake is often meaningless and ruins mystery. But, I would have liked to understand everything a little more. 

Maybe it is all there and I'm too dim to get it and I'm going to wake up one of these days in the park next to my apartment surrounded by snake witches. 

Which, to be fair, sounds like quite a way to go. 

“The End of the Jetty” by Mike Sullivan

Synopsis: Matt's mom told him not to go to the end of the jetty, but it's only going to take a second, and then he'll be one up on his snobbish frenemy Stuart. Just as long as he makes it back. . .

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition?  5 out of 5 Covers of Sea Monster Books That Will Make You Never Go In The Water Again.  

Thoughts: Quick and nasty little story, and one that feels like an early chapter of a sea creature attack novel or something similar. 

I'm glad this story is here, much like the Prince story. It's a good contrast to a lot of this book. Think of paperback horror as a metal band: Got big in the '70s, became huge and bloated and decadent in the '80s, and then tapered off when the boom broke in the '90s. (I'm not sure what literary genre plays the role of grunge in this metaphor, so let's go no further). Now it's 2025, they're playing at the state fair, and they want to play some stuff off their new album. And it's good, really good! But you'd feel cheated if they didn't play the hits. 

That's what a story like Sullivan's is--the hits. If you're picking up an anthology based on classic paperback horror, you expect to see a story like this: No frills, just chills. And if any of this seems in the least bit condescending or damning with faint praise, it isn't. I love the more experimental stories in here, that flip things around and revise and revisit. But I also love the reason we're all here in the first place--massive amounts of bloody nasty disreputable mayhem. 

“Sickle-Shaped Claw” by Eric LaRocca

Synopsis: A census taker and a lonely old man discuss a fossilized velociraptor claw. 

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 3 out of 5 Harry Adam Knight Books. This takes us back to the good old days when Pluto was still a planet and we thought dinosaurs were miniature Godzillas and not oversized cockatoos. LaRocca's execution is much less 'paperback-y' but that's part of the appeal of this series: Seeing different authors put their own spins on the source material.

Thoughts: It's great watching LaRocca's brand of transgressive horror blast its way into the mainstream. This was the first story I went to in the book because I was very curious to see how he approached the theme. It's good and interesting--a very LaRoccan riff on cheesy subject matter. 

My one problem is that I think there's a bit too much focus on the more obvious Chekov's Sickle-Shaped Claw question (whose throat is going to get slashed, when, and why?) and less on the coolness of the concept "what if there were something hunting you and it couldn't actually harm you but you felt threatened by it?". It's a very well done idea. 

So well done, I just realized it's also a metaphor. Well played, Eric. 

“The Woodhill Wet Nurse” by Todd Keisling

Synopsis: Peter's first spring break as a college student is spent working for his tyrant stepfather's landscaping company. Today's assignment--a derelict house that hosted a series of infant murders. 

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 5 out of 5 Insane William Johnstone Books: This is much better than Johnstone's work, but it does capture the same moments of jaw-dropping "what the FUCK?" that you get from such things. 

Thoughts: This one is nuts. After the scene-setting prologue, we jump right into the mayhem. Some of the beginning is familiar, but Keisling quickly takes you into some horrific territory. You'll learn an exciting new word to describe the monster in this book, one which will doubtless scurry out from the dark crevasses of your mind whenever you're about to fall asleep for the rest of your life. I won't do Todd the disservice of spoiling it for you. Outrageously disgusting and scary, but not without its own weird, dark sense of fun. 

“The Cartographer of Blades and Stars, Of Flesh and Agony” by John Langan

Synopsis: Four young boys have just trapped the Poughkeepsie Ripper in his own lair. Now what?

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 5 out of 5 Post Hannibal-Lecter Serial Killer Novels: We have a lot of paperback era elements: Some "Kids on Bikes" stuff, serial killers (with explicit shout-outs to Harris' novels), a disturbing derelict mental hospital, and some other stuff I can't mention here. 

Thoughts: First, give a round of applause for another banger of a title from John Langan. It's fun to say in the Bane voice, by the way. If you told me "John Langan has a story in this book" but didn't tell me the title and then showed me the table of contents, I'd have zeroed in on this one.

Enough kidding around. How's the story? It's a tour de force. 

I was despairing of adequately conveying what makes this story so good because there are so many elements. But--it's simple. The reason this story works is because it is fundamentally a straightforward genre story. There's a bit of a twist to it, sure, but that twist is also broadly straightforward. That's one layer, and then intertwined with that is Langan's writing. It's intelligent, somewhat mannered, occasionally ironic. It comments and contextualizes and lets us see enough of the big picture. This is the key to why the story is a masterpiece: It is both very easy to follow and read, and it is a complex, multi-layered piece with a lot of intellectual firepower. This is not to say that this is "just" a simple story that's been adequately dressed up with enough high-brow style to impress snooty, literary types. All of the description and the philosophizing and the switchbacks and counterfactuals serve the story more than their own cleverness though, they convey the reality of the situation.   

I remember the first time I saw Mad Max: Fury Road, and what struck me was how it was both grindhouse-y low art exploitation and a well-executed art movie. For me it all comes together in the [sandstorm where the Bullet Farmer shrieks and blindly fires machine guns] as "Dies Irae" plays. This is like that, a combination of horror writing at its most basic and also at its most intellectual and complex. 

“Bistritz” by Jamie Flanagan

Synopsis: A doctor and aspiring artist, driven mad by the lack of color in terminally gray Bistritz, Romania, finds an unlikely muse.  

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 2 out of 5 Romanian Villages: We have all the ingredients here of a horror story in the Universal pictures mold, and some of that bedrock of 20th century horror is still around and kicking in the horror paperback era. I could imagine this in one of Grant's Shadows anthologies, for example (more about those and their place in paperback horror below). 

Thoughts: This piece and the next one are sort of cool-down pieces from Langan's. Really, anything after Langan's would have to be. Structurally, that works (it reminds me of how in my radio DJ days, you'd program a block from low energy to high energy and then back down again). It reminded me in places of Tanith Lee's "The Devil's Rose" from, you guessed it, Women of Darkness. 

If you view this as primarily an exercise in mood and imagery, it is effective. Prose is non-visual, of course, but this story stands out for how it paints a paradoxically vivid picture of a drab, oppressive milieu (I imagine Flanagan's extensive screenwriting experience helps here). 

As a story, though, I didn't find it that compelling. It's interesting, sure, but it doesn't reach up and grab your collar and demand your attention like the strongest pieces in this book. It's also, sigh, unnecessarily non-linear.  

“By the Hair of the Head” by Joe R. Lansdale

Synopsis: A student lives in an old lighthouse with a man who has a mysterious past.

Does It Continue the Paperback Horror Tradition? 4 out of 5 Shadowpunk Anthologies: "Paperback horror" makes me think immediately of the wonderfully disreputable and lower-brow parts of the genre: Guy N. Smith, Richard Laymon, the millions of Zebra and Pinnacle books with skeletons and cats and such on the covers. However, the horror boom encompassed a wider variety of material, not the least of which was Charlie Grant and his many anthologies. One of these was the Shadows series, in which "By the Hair of the Head" appeared. Oh, and we have a haunted doll. That's pretty paperback.

Thoughts: It's fun seeing some of the writers who contributed to the golden age of paperback horror appear in books along with new and rising stars. What's really fun is that, whereas in the first volume the King story was objectively better than everything else (no shame in that, it's prime vintage King), here I don't think the Lansdale story is better than several of the contemporary ones. That's exciting!

That's not to slight Lansdale or his tale. This is a less in-your-face story than some of his other work from the same time period. Lansdale, in his foreword, mentions Alfred Hitchcock Presents as an influence and it's hard to imagine the story in anything other than black-and-white (although it would make a hell of a radio play). The pleasure here is less that the story is surprising--it's very clear early on where the story was going--as much as it's a familiar tale being told by the CHAMPION MOJO STORYTELLER. Nice, almost cozy, but with enough of a creepy edge to keep you satisfied. A great choice of a closer. 

Conclusion: Do I need to say more? Buy the book. Read the book. Enjoy the book. Keep this series going, because Deady & Company are onto something good.