Doctor Sleep - thoroughly satisfying horror novel

RIP VIII is over.  Another year of fabulous dark supernatural reading.  Altogether I read 8 books for the challenge, though I haven't had time to review them all.  The big one I haven't reviewed is Doctor Sleep.  And this is solely because I finished reading it two weeks ago, and even though I managed to read and review The Bone People after, otherwise it is the busy time of year for me - two birthdays and Hallowe'en in the space of three days. Getting ready for all of it always takes more time than I think it will!
                                                                                    

So, for the past two weeks, I've been holding my thoughts about Doctor Sleep in my head, turning over how good this horror novel is.  I really, really liked it.  It is the only sequel that could have been written to The Shining.  My one caveat is that it is does not have as many genuine heart-stopping thrills as I would have liked it - it seemed gentler on Danny than The Overlook was.  Is this because he is an adult now, and has made peace with seeing ghosts?    At the beginning of Doctor Sleep,  3 years after The Shining has  ended, one of the spirits comes back to haunt him - it is chilling, especially when Wendy sees the traces for the first time.  Will he be haunted forever?  Can one escape one's gifts?  What happens when you don't try to escape it, and embrace it?  As  a 5 year old, Danny could only survive the horror at The Overlook Hotel.  As a young child, the new other child character in Doctor Sleep, Abra Stone, is gifted far beyond Danny and even as a baby things happened around her - telekinesis, until she is able to speak, and later control her emotions.  She is the star of Doctor Sleep, but Danny Torrance is the heart.

 Danny Torrance is an interesting character.  He is an alcoholic, just like his father before him. And he is aware enough to know that he is like his father, except where Jack would hurt (and enjoy hurting in the mean part of himself) his family, Danny does not.  It is not part of his character, never has been.  Danny drinks to avoid feeling and seeing the spirits around him.  Even though his gift fades with age, he still has it.  So when he does an act that is mean - when he does something that causes such guilt in him that he can't escape it - he decides to change.  To make up for what he's done.  And he goes clean, joins AA.   This part does take a bit of getting through, as we go through the steps with him.  Hang in there.  It's important, and important for Dan's character growth.  It doesn't last very long, either.  But he has to get sane for the story to move forward.  Eventually he does, and the story then moves at a fast pace.

Dan eventually finds a use for his gift, a way of being there to help others cross over to the other side when their time has come.  It's very beautiful and gentle and melancholic, the way Danny himself is.  He has never recovered from The Overlook, though he has gone on from it.  That's the way it should be.  He encountered such horror there that no one would fully recover.  So the AA bit makes sense, especially as his family role model is his father, Jack, the alcoholic.  If you remember  Jack Torrance, this is what he also has, the gift, only not so much as Dan, and this is what he is jealous of.  Who can escape their legacy?  Alcoholism is tied up with what happened at the Overlook Hotel so much that Dan could either become an alcoholic, or a teetotaler.  There would be no in-between for him.

     But this is a horror novel, and the horror soon does arrive.  There are spooky moments, many kinds.  One of the eeriest (and based on a true story, except that one is about a dog who does this) is the cat that predicts who is going to die in the seniors' home where Dan Torrance ends up working at.  The cat works 'with' Dan in this, so that soon the nurses on shift, call Dan when they see the cat sitting on the bed of  a person, because they know the patient is about to die. Dan can take his turn sitting with them.  They start to call him Doctor Death as a way of accepting that he is helping easing their passage. The way of death, and who is not fearful at that moment? The name is not used in  the wicked way we would think Doctor Death could be used.  So Danny has become - continues - to be good, a good, decent man, good in the way that as a child he was a good child.  He has odd things occur around him and meets others who have the gift of "the shining", also.  All this happens after he stops drinking, which is key.   He has to be open to life in order to find his role, his place, to find good things happening in it.

The main event that is strange is that someone starts to write on a marker board he has in his room.  "Hello", the first time.  And in this way, infrequently, they communicate, until one day evil comes to take her.  Her name is Abra, and she is a little girl in the next town from where Danny settles. And she is a child gifted with the shining so strongly that she makes Danny look like he has only a little. Extraordinary.  Imagine what The Overlook Hotel would have done with her!!!

Because that is the key, of course.  The Overlook Hotel burned down when Jack Torrance forgot about the boiler that winter night long ago. But what happened to the evil lurking there?  An evil place doesn't start at the first floor, or the walls of the house.  It starts below, in the ground, too.  Evil attracts evil, and the people attracted to the campground that replaces part of the Overlook Hotel are not very nice people at all.  Oh no. Middle-aged RV'ing retirees, who feed off the bright spirits of the children who have the shining. Now that's horrific.

I won't say anymore, because Doctor Sleep is a thoroughly good, deeply satisfying horror novel. There is one story of pure horror in it, an image that haunts me, that makes the horror in this book all too real.  I almost wish there had been more of this, that we get to see a little more what happens to a few of the other children taken, so that we have time to experience the horror of what will happen to Abra when they come for her. And to think about the horror that all children experience when they are taken, because that is the real horror this story is based in.  Not that I want to experience it or even think about it, but Doctor Sleep gives us readers a way to understand a little the horror that is experienced.  It is too easy to look away, to not think about it, to forget that this really happens, and much, much too often.  This is a recurring theme in Stephen King's work, that people, especially adults, have a way of forgetting what they don't want to see or know.  In Doctor Sleep it's not as if no one notices children disappearing, but because the killers are careful to space it out, and they do it along highways and small towns, moving on quickly so that they can't be traced, just another bunch of campers on the road seeing America, no one notices them.  The banal face of evil, in trailer camp clothing, polyester, masquerading as satisfied older people.  Stealing children.  It's really quite a horrific way to envision who is taking the children.  Because no one sees or can trace them.  And there is no peace for the families, ever, in real life.  In the novel,  Dan and his friend struggle to reveal what they know without being accused of being the killers - always a threat when one is psychic.

Abra however is so gifted, that she is able to see True Knot, as the killers call themselves, while they are looking for children with the shining.  And I won't say any more, except to say that this is such a satisfying novel of horror, and resolution.  For all the characters, Dan especially.  What he couldn't do as a child, he can do as an adult, which is choose to fight against evil, not just witness it as he did as a young child.  And Abra herself is old enough as a 12 year old to choose to fight them (or not to). Doctor Sleep is about choices, all kinds of choices people make, every day, in big ways and little ways, and how our fate finds us in the end.  I do wonder what Abra will become as an adult?  She has so much power, surely she was made for big things? 

The Shining  is an experience of horror - and a fabulous ghost story.  It's from the point of view of Danny as a 5 year old, and this is part of what makes it so horrific and so accessible for readers.  Doctor Sleep is about adult themes, family and heritage of all kinds, as well as about one of the enduring themes of horror in our day:  the kids who vanish, the milk carton kids we used to call them. Except they are real, and there are far, far too many children who have disappeared and whose fate is unknown.  It's almost overwhelming how many children have disappeared over the past 40 years. Doctor Sleep is a novel about what happened to some of these kids, and it will really make you think about going into any rest station along a highway.  And really hang on tight to every child you have, all the time.

It's also about trust, and taking chances, and facing up to horror and trying to stop it.  It's refreshing to read a story that values the good in people, and cares about the horror of the victims fate.  This is no slash and gash novel, this is thoughtful horror fiction, a darned good story, and interesting.  Lots to think about, which is why it's taken me a little while to do this review.

 As a reader who loves The Shining, it's been a really satisfying journey with Dan Torrance in Doctor Sleep.  Easily my favourite duology in horror writing, and one I will return to again and again.  And yes, do read The Shining first, every time.  Doctor Sleep is built on what happens in The Shining.  I reread The Shining in September, review here.

The Shining is one of the seminal horror novels for me, along with The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.  Almost everything I read in horror is compared to these two.  Doctor Sleep is a muted kind of horror, with only glimpses of the kind of horror that made The Shining so great as a horror novel.  The Shining is better in so many ways for pure scare moments for me, and yet Doctor Sleep is kinder, sweeter, and I like it more because of this.  They are both very good horror novels, among the best.

I am really happy Stephen King continued the story of Danny Torrance. 

Other reviews of Doctor Sleep:
The Well-Read Redhead (some spoilers)
Chrisbookarama
Bibliophile By the Sea
Emily Barton over at her library blog, Pequea Valley Reader's Blog

RIP update: Two excellent haunted house novels, and one determined WW2 ghost

                                                                 

  I have been very bad at doing reviews this year, and as part of my motto to start being a good blogger again, I'm starting today with catching up with what I've been reading for RIP:  Awesome haunted house and ghost stories. Ghost stories of all kinds,  all of which want one thing: to possess the teller of the tale.  *shiver*  It's been wonderful reading so far.  So, for your reading contemplation, are the reviews of Hell House, The Shining, The Greatcoat,  all read in September. 

I've also devised a chill meter, to help me rate the scariness of what I'm reading.  Hair rising on my arms, jumping at noises while I read, and seeing shadows out of the corner of my eyes, and most of all, not being able to read it while I am alone in the house.  All these factor in to my chill-o-meter.

  Hell House is one of Richard Matheson's unsung masterpieces.  Unsung because unless you read horror, you won't have heard of this book.  And yet it is as good as The Shining, or The Haunting of Hill House, though in a different way.  And it's a shame it's not better known, because Hell House is as frightening a ghost story as any book you will read.  I have seen the movie made from Hell House, Legend of Hell House, and it is equally as frightening, though some of the interior characterizations are missing, of course.  I find that reading about atmosphere and ghostly settings is as frightening to me, as seeing it visually.  It is very difficult to create a ghost movie that is realistic and effective on everyone, which is interesting when  you are trying to show a good friend what frightens you, and half way through, they say, "Is anything going to happen?  Because this is kind of boring."  Real story, it happened to me once!  So, I know that even if I find Hell House and The Shining deeply frightening, it won't be for everyone.  If you like ghosts, if you like evil ghosts who want to possess the character just because they can, if you like hauntings where there really is hauntings and it's not just in people's minds, then both Hell House and The Shining are for you.

Ok, to Hell House itself.  The Belasco mansion is a house built in 1919 in Maine, by a wealthy millionaire who early on showed a habit of being able to bend people to his will.  It was built in a remote location in Maine, near a village as the only means of human habitation, tucked away in the wilderness. At the mansion, parties and soirees and long holiday stays were held, and as the years wore on, people came and stayed.  What went on in the mansion was never spoken about publicly, as Belasco, the owner, ensured the silence of anyone who attended.  Many people never left.  What went on?   Belasco set about creating a private world where people could do what they wanted to, with no repercussions.  It's chilling to think about, and Matheson uses this fear of what people would do if they could, to great effect in Hell House.  After Belasco's death, the house sits in silence, until a psychic investigator brings a group in to investigate.  Rumours have abounded about hauntings and smells and noises, and deaths, and excesses in the parties - unexplained deaths, suggestions of murders, orgies, human decadence and degradation. Slowly it gets the name of Hell House, as the supreme haunted house. 

    Out of the original 9 people psychic party  members in 1940, only one survivor:  Benjamin Fischer.  And as the novel Hell House opens, another group of psychic investigators is going in, twenty years later. Ben Fischer is one of them.  Even he isn't sure why he is returning, since he barely made it out alive the first time.  As the novel progresses, though, he realizes that he has to act, he has to do something to stop it all, to save who he can.  Miss Tanner, who runs a spiritualist church and is a recognized eco-plasm medium, is the other.  She senses things, feels things, and does seances.   Dr and Mrs Barrett round out the four people.  Dr Barrett wants to prove that psychic phenomena doesn't  mean that ghosts exist, that there is a rational explanation for everything. He does not believe in ghosts.  He is the person running the investigation, and has all the latest psychic equipment for measuring phenomena that exists. Mrs Barrett doesn't want to leave her husband alone, although the truth is, she doesn't do well on her own without him.  And one September day they arrive for a one week stay at Belasco House.  Only two will make it out alive.

     Hell House is  about a house that is haunted, and about the exploration of possession and evil and how little defenses there are against such things.  Richard Matheson has created a novel that is disturbing and frightening - but not in a bad way, we don't see the debasement and debauchery that went on in the house, we only hear about it when the characters talk about the history. Only one scene really is graphic from the earlier time period when the house re-enacts some of what happened in it.  There is some Christianity religion involved, which would have made this book racy in the way The Excorcist was, and The Omen, back when they came out in the 1970's. Hell House was written in 1971, so it is similar in tone to them, where religious symbols being debased is shocking and part of the horror.  It is still sickening to read about now, though I find the shock value is gone in the time between the 1970's and now.   The malevolence of the spirits is terrifying. And yet, this isn't a novel where everyone dies, there is a resolution to it, and a satisfying one.  It is a very good horror novel, and an excellent novel about hauntings and how dangerous they are.   It has more than enough spookiness and atmosphere for me.  It's one I can't read (or watch) by myself at all.  4.5/5  chills.  Highly recommended

The idea of a house like this existing lingers on, afterward for me.  Could it happen?  And would you be able to go into one and withstand it, if it did exist?

The Shining  - Stephen King.  The Shining is one of my all-time favourite books.  I love this story with a passion,  of little Danny Torrance and the horrors he endures at Overlook Hotel.  I just finished re-reading it last week, and I was surprised by a few things:  just how good a novel this is:  the characters are fabulous and the exploration of the marriage between Jack and Wendy is perfect; the horrors that Danny goes through are completely believable and chilling each and every time I read them, and

I have found that I have forgotten some of the novel, so when I read the scene of Danny in the cement tube, I swear I got goosebumps as he tries to dig himself out and something is crawling after him to grab him.  Just writing about it makes me chilled!  I'd forgotten about the basement, and I'd forgotten about how much of the hedges are scary.  I did also forget that the two little girls from the Jack Nicholson movie, are not in the book.  That movie scared the living daylights out of me,specifically the two little girls appearing at the top of the stairs - for years and years I had to turn the lights on to go up staircases.  When I got to the end of the book, I thought, the girls! where are they?  and then realized - they aren't needed, they were never part of the book. It surprised me, but didn't lessen how much I enjoyed The Shining. I had completely forgotten the last scene in the shed, and was horrified at what almost happened there.  There is as much evil haunting in The Shining as there is in Hell House, and even some of the partying/murders/people behaving terribly in the hotel as in the house.  But for me, even though I like Hell House very much, I love The Shining.  The characters in Hell House aren't quite as well rounded as in The Shining.  I don't like Jack Torrance very much, but I understand him so well.  This is Stephen King's great gift, that he can create such real characters.  They are people we know, who live next door, get on the bus with us, go grocery shopping, and have hopes and fears like we do.  Wendy Torrance is a much better character than she is in the movie.  She is much smarter (than in the movie), and we see how her family relationships shaped her for a man like Jack Torrance and why she would stay with him.  It's brilliant psychology, and makes what happens to this family so vividly real.  At the heart of The Shining is Danny Torrance, the 5 year old boy who shines like no one else.  The Shining is the gift to perceive things as they are, to psychically be aware of what has gone on before, and to come.  The second sight, precognition.  And Danny Torrance has it in spades.  In the hands of a lesser author, Danny would never be as realistically drawn.  It is difficult to write about children without making them precocious or unreal.  Indeed, in The Shining one of the doctors Jack and Wendy take Danny to, says that he is very bright, advanced for his years in his reading and verbal skills.  We do see him teaching himself to read, because his father is a writer and teacher, and Danny gets rewards as he learns to read more. It's things like this that make the book real.  This is what we would do with a precocious child who is anxious to make his father proud of him. What they don't know is that Danny wants also to be able to read a sign he keeps seeing in his visions: redrum.  He is trying to find a way to stop what is going to happen, although he can't because it's him the hotel wants, his shining gift that makes the hotel become stronger.  And he is 5, and so is still at the mercy of everything around him, including his parents' dysfunction and weaknesses.  So what shouldn't work, a 5 year old hero at the heart of a ghost story, works wonderfully well here. Danny is so brave, and doesn't know how to stop what is happening to his father.  That is some of the horror at work here, this wonderfully drawn little family, and the helplessness with which they watch one fall to his ruin, and cannot do a thing to stop it because he can't, or won't, do it himself.

 Wendy knows that Danny knows things, though it is only at The Overlook Hotel that she realizes how much he can see what is going to happen.  They work on each other, Danny and the hotel, and this is a fascinating idea, that a person with a psychic gift can influence a site to become stronger in its' hauntings or presence or influence. 

Fabulous horror book, good haunting scenes, eerie moments, frightening ghosts - one of the best ghost stories, ever.  Chills abound, 5/5 

Other reviews of The Shining:
Kelly at The Well-Read Redhead
The Book Smugglers
Wendy at Musings of a Literary Feline



 The Greatcoat - Helen Dunmore.    Set in 1952 Yorkshire, The Greatcoat is about a young woman,  Isabel Carey, who has just started out on married life as the wife of a young doctor.  She finds a RAF great coat in the wardrobe and draws it around her because she can't get warm in the cold flat she and her husband are renting. Isabel is not self-assured,  due to many losses from the war in her own life, and it is this lack of foundation in herself that leaves her open to being worked on by the wishes of others.  She becomes haunted by a young pilot, from the Second World War.  Who is he?  And who is it that he thinks she is?  This is not a simple little ghost story, it is a disturbing, thoughtful and eerie one.  Why does no one see Isabel when she sets out to the  airfield out of town with the pilot?  Why does he know her as someone else?  Whose memories are she getting?  When near the end, she faces a choice: to be herself, or let someone take her over, is the haunting truly over when she makes her choice? Can it be?  Or does after one feels the imprint of another time and another person's memories, do they truly go away?  Is Isabel  more vulnerable because she feels as if she is on the outside looking in, as she says, not feeling real in her own life? 

It is also a lovely ghost story, filled with little moments of Isabel learning about herself and who she wants to be, and her husband's view of her and their life together, and some of the memories of the ghost haunting her.  But it's not that simple, and it becomes dangerous to Isabel at the end.  I liked the setting of Yorkshire, and the empty abandoned airfields, with all the losses of the war still hanging over everyone as they try to move on.  What happens to those who didn't come back, who were cut short at age 18, 20, 22?  Where do everyone's desires go?  When you are young and vulnerable, and someone really really wants something, what happens?  There is a lot going on in this slender novel, and it is very enjoyable read.  I really liked it. This is not a scary story, there are no real chills or jumps, but it is eerie, and disturbing.  Ghosts aren't supposed to be comfortable to be around, they are of a time and place - a person - no longer here. I liked how the haunting was done, and why.  Although I wasn't sure if I would like Isabel, I did end up caring about her in the end.  I'm pretty sure I will carry the last image around with me for a while to come.  It's a very good ghost story, and highly recommended.  4/5 chills

Other reviews of The Greatcoat:
Eva at A Striped Armchair
Bride of the Book God
Bluestalking


Please let me know if you have reviewed any of these, and I will add them to the post.

Now, for Doctor Sleep! 

An interview with Stephen King, and some thoughts on The Shining

I"m in the middle of reading The Shining today.  It was a lovely dark and rainy day, perfect to catch-up on one of my favourite horror novels.  For some reason I forget how well-written King's novels are - he does description mixed with unsettling overtones very well.  In one of my few times away from the book today, I found this interview with King today over at the Guardian Online.  There are a few plot points given away, but if you are skilled at skimming as I think many of us are (so we don't get to spoil books we haven't read) then the interview is very good. 

Doctor Sleep in 3 days!!!!!  I've already ordered my copy from Amazon, though I did what is a silly thing - Amazon have changed their policy and if you select 'super saver no shipping costs', everything gets sent in one box.  And one of the things I ordered takes a month to come in.  So my plan to read it next weekend might not work out.......I used to be able to select that, and Amazon would send things separately anyway, which I keep hoping will happen.  

 The Shining is as good as ever.  And frightening.  Danny Torrance is one of the best 5 year old heroes in literature, and what he has to endure is horror.   Some of what makes The Shining so frightening for me is that Danny has to endure it alone, and that scares me to think about.  This is what makes the movie The Sixth Sense so scary for me too.  Psychic children who have to deal with terror on their own.  They are figures representing the terrors encountered in childhood, and how to find their way through it, except that The Shining is written for adults.  We are both Danny Torrance, encountering the unknown, and his parents, simultaneously, adults who also encounter the unknown.  And the horror in The Outlook affects adults and children.  So no one is safe.  Doesn't that creep you out just a bit?  That's fear and horror that we all feel in our deep instinctual natures, far away from logic.  The deep part of ourselves that knows that ghosts exist, remenants of the past, and badness and evil.  This has been a very bad week in so many ways, in the world, and that fear of the evil people can do to one another that as a world we are witnessing - the mass shootings in the US on Monday, and in Kenya today - is the same kind of evil that lurks in minds everywhere.  Most people are able to turn away from it, and choose love and kindness and compassion.  But something in Jack Torrance - his willingness to blame his problems on anything but himself, really - his unacknowledged desire to strike out at everyone around him - the darkness that lies where people hurt one another - that is what is at the heart of The Shining. The isolation of The Overlook Hotel exaggerates  whatever people bring with them to the hotel.  It works on their innate sense of themselves.  And then there is the Overlook Hotel itself, with the evil at the heart of it.  Places do affect people. I firmly believe that buildings, places in natures, contain memories of what happens, impressions, sort of.  But all this is to try to explain how The Overlook Hotel could be real, which is another way of saying, a haunted hotel can exist.  And that is the question that horror novels try to answer: what happens if ghosts and haunted places are real?

I do know that if I had Danny Torrance's gift, or Dick Hallorann's, I wouldn't be able to stay at the Overlook Hotel.  I know it's not a real place.  I'm thankful!!  But.....the book.  The book scares me that much, that I can't read it when I'm alone.  Delicious, creepy, haunting (certain scenes have haunted me for most of my life), frightening, as I watch the slow unravelling of Jack Torrance, his wife's inability to protect herself or see the truth until it is almost too late - though I don't blame her, she is a perfect characterization of what happens in a marriage - and Danny himself, small Danny, horror lurking in every passage and corner and wall for him. 

I so hope Doctor Sleep is as good.  It will be different, of course. Danny is grown up, and an alcoholic, reliving his father's pattern (as families do), without the anger. A small child, a little girl this time, is part of the book, again, which can only be good.  And it's all about the Shining and how it is used. I want to be scared, the way The Shining scares me, every time I read it.

Back to reading The Shining.  I'm just at the part where Jack has threatened to write the history of the Overlook Hotel and been told in no uncertain terms by his ex-alcoholic friend who sits on the board, that he will be fired if he does.  Things are about to get much, much worse for the Torrances.

The book I am most waiting for this fall is......

   I am so excited.  I am starting to count down the days!  Needless to say, I'm getting this in hardcover the day it comes out.  What's that, you say?  Susan, you don't like hard covers, you can't carry them?  That's true.  But this book I plan on staying in and reading all that weekend.  I'm not going anywhere, dear readers.  The book I am talking about is, of course:
                             

The new horror book from Stephen King.  Doctor Sleep carries on the story of Danny Torrance from The Shining.  The Shining is one of my all-time favourite novels, and is due for a reread, which is so handy considering the sequel is just about to come out!.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reading slump or no (see my  post  from yesterday), at least I'll have The Shining and Doctor Sleep read in September.  The hard part is waiting for RIP to officially start, so I can count it as one of my RIP books.  And Doctor Sleep.  I can hardly wait!!!!!  What happened when Danny grew up???????????

To get you (and me) into the mood for RIP, here is a link to an Entertainment Weekly interview with Stephen King from last winter, about how he came to write Doctor Sleep.

One month from tomorrow, my Gentle Readers! Doctor Sleep is out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A fun way to exchange books

My friend Patricia has Crohn's disease.  Every year she holds a fundraiser, for the annual Crohn's Charity Walk held here in Ottawa.  In the past few years she has come up with a fun way to raise money for this cause: a book exchange.  Bring a box of books, peruse all the books everyone else has brought, and after leaving a donation in the jar,  leave with the books you want.  This has grown until this year, they had two tables filled with books, with people bringing boxes in (we brought one too), and leaving with as many books as they brought.  We raised a lovely donation of money for Crohn's, and I personally found some awesome books to bring home:

Of Saints and Shadows - Christopher Golden
Ring of Bright Water - Gavin Maxwell
Russian Winter - Daphne Kalotay
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simonson
Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor - Stephanie Barron
The Darkness and the Deep - Aline Templeton
The Children of Hurin - JRR Tolkien
The Dragon Who Liked To Spit  Fire - Judy Varga
December - Phil Rickman
                                                    

I think I found some real treasures here, I've been wanting to read Major Pettigrew's Last Stand ever since Raidergirl3 raved about it in 2010,, and here at the end of 2010.  I want to try the Jane Austen mysteries for fun.  I read almost everything put out by Tolkien, but not Children of Hurin  yet.  Ring of Bright Water we owned as children, and I think my daughter will like it as she gets older.  Plus I need to reread it.

Mostly, I felt really good at supporting such a good cause for a dear friend.  Books to bring home - icing on the cake. Delicious icing!

And, bonus for second-hand stores:  I  found this in a new antique/second-hand store that has opened in my neighborhood. I have been searching for a copy of It, The Stand, Salem's Lot and The Shining by Stephen King - all of which I am certain I own, but are not on my shelves.  I am waiting for 11.22.63 to come out on July 5 in paperback (countdown is on!!), and have found myself craving a Stephen King to read - either Salem's Lot, or The Stand (because I'm missing the read-along online, I know!!!)  - or the only recent one I haven't read yet, The Cell.  Lo and behold, today in this vintage second hand store I found The Cell!  
A friend who reads horror  had just mentioned  to me that this was one of the recent ones she'd read that she really liked - vintage King, she said.  I was able to return the favour about Duma Key, which I really enjoyed three years ago.  So on this very warm late spring Saturday, I have a new to me Stephen King to read.  I don't know about you, but for me, Stephen King and lazy hot days made for reading go hand in hand.  Hurray for second hand stores!

Ghosts and Fringe

Here is such a cool post:  Neil Gaiman interviews Stephen King.  It was for the UK's Sunday Time Magazine, but because the paper is locked, Neil kindly posted the full interview on his blog.  How could anything be better than two of the favourite writers of our generation sitting down to talk writing, fame, and family?  I have to read Stephen's new book 11/22/63, which is coming out in paperback on July 5. 

Here are some reviews from bloggers so far on 22/1163:
Caribousmom
Becky's Book Reviews
Book Den
Rhapsody in Books
Bibliophile By the Sea

Continuing the theme of horror:
Ghosts......Emily over at Telecommuter Talk has a lovely post on the kind of ghost she likes to find in stories she reads. It got me to thinking, because I loved Caspar because he was a friendly ghost and Emily didn't, about the nature of ghosts and what we want in our ghost stories.   I write ghost stories too (like Emily),  as well as read them voraciously.  So, what she wants to know is, do you like your ghosts malevolent, or friendly?  Let Emily know.....For myself, I love a ghost story.  The scarier the ghost, the creepier the setting, the better the chill and the goose-flesh feeling.  It's very difficult to write a good ghost story, and while Emily quotes MR James (I am in the midst of reading a collection of his ghost stories), I myself think The Haunting of Hill House (by Shirley Jackson), The Shining (Stephen King), and The Woman in Black (Susan Hill) are three of the most frightening novels featuring ghosts ever written. They each came close to inducing a real state of fear in me, so much so that I had to keep checking that the doors were locked and no one could get in.  Stephen, in the interview above, talks about writing a sequel to The Shining, called Dr Sleep.  Danny Torrance, all grown up, and still with the shining.   Let me tell you, I don't care if it's in hardcover and weighs 20 pounds, I will find some way to buy it the day it comes out and get it home, and lock myself in my house to get it read uninterrupted. Then there's Joyland, about a serial killer in an amusement park. That one is creepy just to think about!  Oh, I can hardly wait!  So I have to say Emily is right:  malevolent ghosts make the best horror stories. 

I do have to say that I love sad ghost stories too.  I think I just love ghost stories, period.  If you like ghost stories, is there a kind that you prefer? Victorian?  Modern?  Angry ghosts, vengeful ghosts, sad ghosts?  How about haunted things?

Some recent books featuring ghosts that I really enjoyed are:
The Secrets of Pain - Phil Rickman (Oh, I haven't reviewed this one yet, bad me, this was so good and eerie and one of the best sense of being haunted books I have read recently)
Maureen Johnston's The Name of the Star (this was particularly frightening and riveting, I loved it, still have to review it)
Dark Matter - Michelle Paver - this was terrifying and fabulous and yet another to review.  Go read it if you haven't.
Anya's Ghost - Vera Brosgol  (graphic novel, the ghost is not who you expect, very good)
The Ghosts of Belfast - Stuart Neville - modern thriller with an ex-soldier of the IRA haunted by the ghosts of the people he killed.  It was much more moving than I would ever expect.
Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror - Chris Priestly  Oh yes, this was another good novel of ghosts and hauntings and shadows that move......
Tamsin - Peter S Beagle- that judge!!!!  talk about malevolent!  a wonderful ghost story

There is something vulnerable that I think ghosts make us feel.  They penetrate our fears and reveal that death does exist.  I don't like when madness is linked to horror, as if the mind has to break down before it can see the other side, or see things here that a normal mind can't see.  It makes me wonder who is making the rules up, who has decided that ghosts don't really exist?  And why is it more sane to not see them?  less scary, yes, but isn't it the scariest when the person is sane, and see ghosts?  I think so.

What are some of your favourite ghost stories?  Let me know, and Emily, please.

And now for something completely different:
Fringe is renewed!  Yaaaay!  For 13 episodes only, though it does let the writers wrap up my favourite show on tv.  Friday's episode saw a tear or two when they had to close the bridge to the other world.  I am constantly amazed and surprised by Fringe, even after 4 years, even when I think the episode is slow, or the story is familiar, there is all the delights of watching variations of our characters in other worlds, and how they are different.

RIP VI - Anya's Ghost and The Thirteen book reviews, plus Under the Dome and The Strain

I am feeling so proud of myself:  I have already read two books for RIP VI, and I'm working on book #3!!  Plus, for fun, at the end, I'm going to throw in book reviews for two other horror books I read just before the challenge started.
Anya's Ghost - Vera Brosgol.
This is a YA graphic novel, newly published this year, and a terrific read.  It's about Anya, who falls down a well, and what she finds at the bottom.  It's about high school, and fitting in, and discovering that no one is exactly as they appear.  And it's about discovering that even ghosts aren't all that they appear to be, either.  The characters are all fun and wonderful, from Anya herself, a teen Russian emigre who has done everything she can to fit in, including shortening her surname to something pronounceable, to all the teens at the school - the author has taken the popular girl, handsome boy, gym class, and made them universal  figures: we all knew a girl in school like Elizabeth, beautiful and graceful, and her boyfriend Sean, good at sports and gorgeous, who Anya has a terrible crush on.  Anya's family - her round mother who feeds her and younger pest brother seem familiar, from the first page.  Yet, Anya's mother with her round smiling face and 'eat, you're too thin' jump off the page like concerned, loving mother she is.  They are real people caught on the page.   Anya's ghost is the other main figure, and it's so much fun to watch how the ghost moves around Anya, and what Anya learns from the ghost.  This is a little darker than you would expect, which makes it all the more believable and fun to read. Including myself, every teen I know comes up on the dark in their teen years, in themselves and in others. Anya's Ghost is a graphic novel about the truth behind the image, just like the ghost who is more than she seems.   Plus, it's a ghost story.  I really liked Anya, and I'm really glad she did what she did at the end. Lovely graphic novel, a little bit eerie, and very enjoyable. 4.7/5

The Thirteen - Susie Moloney
Susie Moloney has published three other horror novels:  Bastion Falls (which I haven't read yet), A Dry Spell (read quite some time ago), The Dwelling, and just this month, The Thirteen.  The Dwelling scared me so much - a true haunted house story, with an ending that still bothers me (in the good way, that I'm still thinking about it) now, several years after reading it.  Susie Moloney is Canadian, and it's lovely to have a really good horror novelist in Canada.  That's not to say we don't have lots of short story writers in horror, we do, but a consistent good horror novelist - Susie Moloney is one of our best.  Plus, she shares my name, sort of (I've never been a Susie).  So, onto The Thirteen:
The premise of The Thirteen is that a circle of women have a made a deal with the devil in order to get all that they want.  Now, being someone who knows quite a few pagans, many of whom are practicing wiccans, normally I wouldn't give this book another look.  I get tired of the idea that witchcraft and wicca are 'bad' and evil.  Certainly you can use magic for ill, to harm another - and in a way, what these witches in The Thirteen find out is that even with the best intentions, if you make a bargain with something that is inherently evil, all your good intentions turn on you in the end.  The price they pay is high, and that's part of what makes this book so satisfying.  The other part is that the heroine, Paula Wittmore and her daughter Rowan go home because Paula's mother is in the hospital, and what they find in Paula's old childhood suburb Haven Woods, is anything but a haven.  This is a fun read, with magic shown properly - the bad uses of it, and the good. It's creepy, and it's fun too - Paula finds love in the most unexpected place, and in the end, it comes down to family.  Even the ending, which is a bit of a shocker, makes sense.  Very well done 'witchcraft gone bad' book, a lot of fun to read, and makes good use of those soulless places, the suburbs. I think this might be the most satisfying of all of Susie Moloney's books to read.  Highly recommended. 4.5/5


So, my two freebie reviews for this RIP VI challenge, are for two books I read just before the challenge started.  I couldn't wait!  One really good read, and one so-so.
Under the Dome - Stephen King.
Unputdownable.  This is the most recent of King's novels, a hefty 1,072 pages.  It is good.  One of his best novels, for me.  I loved his resolution - it sounds preposterous, and yet, who among us hasn't had that very same thought?  I can't reveal it for those who haven't read the book yet, but it's a thought I think everyone has had.  It's all to King's credit that he makes this a good horror novel from two angles:  from the mystery of the dome that is placed over the town, and if they can solve it, and from the townspeople themselves, especially the awful family of  Jim Rennie and Junior Rennie.  It even had moments that made me laugh out loud, in the midst of horror and nightmare scenes - pantries were never my favourite place to begin with, but now they will carry with them an unforgettable image of Junior and his girls. It's good to see black humour in a novel of Stephen King's, and Under the Dome has it.  Which didn't detract from the horror or the believableness of the book - I found the laughter good, like King had taken time to be with his characters and see that in the midst of terror, there can be moments of hilarity and humanness.  All of King's strengths are here:  his amazing realistic characters, the way a small town works - the power of the town council, how most people try not to think too hard about what's going on, about how terror can be used to control a population.  I found the last particularly satisfying given the last 10 years of Western culture and the feeling of terror that we've never managed to let go of (I have my own cynical reasons for why this has happened).  The heroes - Barbie, Julia, Andrea, Scarecrow Joe, Norrie, and all the one who act bravely and still die - they are ordinary people who could be any one of us.  That is Stephen King's greatest strength in his writing, his characters and how they talk, that they are just like you and me, caught on the page.  I started reading and I couldn't look away.  The horror is good, and creepy in places, though this is not a 'ghost story haunted house' book, this is about the horror that we do to one another when under stress. And that makes it one of his most frightening and realistic horror novels of all.  4.7/5 (because throwing in a haunted house would have been so cool! lol)

The Strain - Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

                       I wanted to like this book. I really did.  I picked it up with all good feelings, because Bride had bought it - she is usually a good judge of horror books.  The sequel is out in paperback too, so I thought cool, I could get in on the series.  Alas, I didn't find much that was believable in this vampire novel.  There are moments that are very good, and very eerie, and how the vampire plague spreads was quite good.  But the premise - that some old guy from ancient history revived itself during the Holocaust, and has somehow eluded any notice until a dead plane lands, with a mysterious big box aka the coffin, arrives and 'disappears' on video - and no one thinks, hmm, Dracula even - that bothered me.  Dracula and the box of earth have filled our literature since the beginning of the 20th century.  I'm not saying the old creature couldn't stay hidden, I just found the idea that someone else wanted him brought over in order to start a plague, a bit iffy, AND how did the vampire know to start a plague in New York City? Was he hired?  If so, what could a vampire possibly want that anyone human could offer him? (except the way over the ocean, but as Stoker showed, pretty easy to arrange.....)  So, I had struggles with this book. I kept seeing it as a movie, and I think that's exactly how it was written, as Guillermo Del Toro is a movie maker first.
     The characters are good, the setting - New York City - very believable, especially the infighting amongst who had responsibility for the flight, the bodies afterward, though why only four survivors - again, not explained.  If you need to escape completely for a day, this would be a good book to do it in, as it is well-paced and full of action.  Just not entirely believable.    I will say though, how the plague expands - that's the best part of the book, the horror part.  I wish we had more of the horror, the being stalked by the newly made vampires, that eerie feeling of being watched, and the slow realization that something is wrong, in your house, in your street, in your neighborhood.  Maybe Bk 2 will have it..... 3.5/5.

So, how has your RIP VI reading going?  Have you read anything good and satisfying so far?

If you are in the mood to discuss horror, Emily over at Telecommuter Talk has a post on why she reads horror, here.  She took it from my previous post with questions I asked at the end, of my thoughts on why I read horror, here.  Do you have any ideas about why you enjoy reading ghost stories or horror, that you are discovering while you make your way through this challenge?  Why do you look forward to this challenge so much?  What have been your favourite discoveries over past RIP reads?  Please let me or Emily know, we both love to discuss horror, as you can see!  (Thanks Emily, too, for doing a whole post on this subject!)

My favourite RIP reads
I've been a part of RIP for three years now.  I have read some really good ghost stories, been thoroughly scared, and discovered some very good novels.  In fact, one of my RIP reads became my books of the year:
Lonely Werewolf Girl(actual book review here) - Martin Millar - 2008.  I see that The Woman in Black - Susan Hill, and The Terror - Dan Simmons, and The Night Country - Stewart O'Nan, were all read that year.  No wonder I couldn't decide which to pick - in looking back, these all could easily be my books of the year.  In fact, I thought The Terror was,  I loved it so much also, for a separate year.  I think in my mind they are tied now, both are so good.  2008 was a banner year for me.  Coraline by Neil Gaiman - another YA horror book that lingers.  Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle.  They were all on my top 10 books for 2008.  I've linked to all my reviews in case you are looking for something to read for RIP, or just want to see what I thought about the books.  Those are all my favourite reads, too, now.  Books that are permanently on my shelf, along with The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff, and The Passage by Justin Cronin.  I couldn't wait for RIP to read the last two, but if I had, they would be part of this select group. 

Sunday Salon - Stephen King is back!!!

Sometimes, very occasionally, a book is worth the buzz around it. Even more rarer, a book is better than the reviews. I am so thrilled to say that Duma Key deserves more rave reviews than it got. It's a return to vintage Stephen King, MINUS the extra gore-fest that he admitted in his first writing nonfiction look at horror book, Danse Macabre, that he would do if he got stuck when writing. He would go for the gross-out rather than holding back. In Duma Key, he has learned how to hold back, and for the first time since The Shining, I found myself scared, and hearing noises in the dark that weren't really there, and scared of my open windows at the back balcony - I had to close them both in order to get rid of the feeling someone was there, looking in, so I could finish the book. That's how effectively creepy Duma Key is. And I am so delighted to be able to say it. Uncle Stevie is back.

Duma Key is about a wealthy construction owner who survives a terrible accident at one of his worksites, and what happens to him afterward. A lot of people aren't aware that when there is a head injury, sometimes the personality changes, and anger and other emotions are much more uncontrollable for the victim. King writes about this in his character, and it is one of the strengths of this novel that the anger doesn't take over; this is not a novel about rage, it's a novel about finding strength to recover no matter the odds. And Edgar Freemantle loses a lot in this story, but he doesn't lose his sense of humour, and Stephen King the author doesn't lose the plot.

So now you are asking me, "So Susan, what about the horror? Is there any good horror in this story?" Oh my, yes, there is. To aid in his recovery, Edgar's doctor recommends a change of scenery, and Edgar goes, as many people do, to someplace warm: Florida. Except he's not in the centre of Florida with all the snowbirds (as we call our Canadians who head down south for the winter, and there are a lot of us, thus the term!), he's down on the edge of Florida in the Gulf, on a tiny island which is called a key. And this is not a good island to live on. It is owned by one family, the Eastbournes, that Edgar finds during the novel have a tragic history. But he only discovers this slowly, because Edgar discoveres that he can draw, and not only can he draw, he is almost possessed to do so.

This part of the book where Edgar lets the paintings come through him, the focus and the opening of himself to it, feels so authentic - this is what an artist does, this is what any creative person does, this is how Stephen himself recovered from his terrible car accident when he was hit by the truck driven by a man who had bent over to dig some food - a steak I believe -for his dog. The truck smashed into Stephen, as we all know, and he almost died. Some of that recovery process is used to excellent service in Duma Key. One of the best things is that Edgar doesn't question opening himself to his art; he does not know what he is painting or why, the pictures just come to him, so he paints them. When he discovers that the figure he is painting is someone he loves, both he and us the reader share in that awful moment of clarity that something dreadful might happen, might be happening, and can it be stopped?

There are genuinely terrifying moments in this book, of which one scene has direct links to a scene in The Shining, but I don't want to say any more. I do know that if I was alone in a house and woke up to find footprints that aren't mine leading to my bedroom door, I would be out of that house so fast there would be a puff of air behind me. Edgar doesn't leave, but I never felt the same about the Big Pink, as he calls the house he stays in, again. I felt dread throughout the rest of the novel that he was staying there still. It was like the horror was drawing nearer to him, only he couldn't quite grasp it, but we the reader can.

At the end of the book, when he could have so easily gone for the gross-out, King doesn't. And so I can genuinely say the ending is as effective as any he's done. This book is almost as good as The Shining. It has the same slow build of wrongness, the same slow build that terror is coming but we (and the characters) don't know where from, and of good people caught in a spiral that they can't get away from. When the evil is revealed, it's not a cop-out as say some of Stephen's middle books have had; the characters here have a choice of action, have a choice to fix it, and they try. They are heroes. This is like The Stand mixed with The Shining. Without the grand scale of The Stand, and without the absolute terror of Danny alone with his gift in that terrible hotel. For me, The Shining is one of the scariest novels of all time. Duma Key is not as scary as that, but it comes a very good second in Stephen King's books for me. It does not have as many scary moments as The Shining, but it shares some of the same themes: isolation, a gift one can't control, an old evil that needs to be contained, and good friends that help the hero. One of the main differences is that this is an adult novel, with the characters of varying ages, with adult themes of love, and loss, and death. Like Bag of Bones (the last Stephen King novel I read), the characters are thoughtful, and look backwards and forwards to try to explain what happens, but they do not have all the answers.

I like this restrained ghost-story telling. And don't get me wrong; there is plenty of death, and gruesomeness in Duma Key, but it fits into the story. And the ending is good, very satisfying. Indeed, when I closed the book late last night, I wanted more of Edgar Freemantle. I wanted to know what his life was like, the adventures he had, what he thought about things. I genuinely like him. And that is some achievement in any book, never mind a horror book.

This is a good horror novel, and one I can happily recommend as a scary read. 4.5 /5, because I would have liked more spookiness...

This is my first book read for Carl's RIP IV. I hope the others are as good. I'm just sad it took me a year after buying Duma Key to read it!

Today's Bluenose Excerpt:
"A dwelling known as Shelburne House was erected at the time of the Loyalists but it was torn down many years ago. The sound of the front door opening and of an officer's sword clanking as he ascended the stairs was heard at times, but only by certain people.
"One time a lady who had never been in the town before was a supper guest at Shelburne House and, during the evening, she heard this same mysterious interruption. When her husband called for her later she asked if the house was supposed to be haunted. He asked her whatever made her think such a thing? 'What did you hear?' he said.
" ' I heard the front door open and it was followed by the clank of a sword on the stairway, ' she said.
" ' I can't say you imagined it,' her husband said, 'for it's been heard before.' Nobody knows the reason for it, or whether this was a restless ghost or a scene re-enacted from the past. "

And as a treat, since I have missed a few days posting, here is another ghost story:

When Annapolis Royal was taken over by the English in 1710 a number of the people who came also brought slaves with them. Some of their descendants are there to this day....I visited one of the older women one day with the following result.
"When I was first married I lived in a house on the left hand side of the Granville road above the railway tracks. One day I was in my kitchen when I looked up and saw a man standing in the doorway with a chain around one leg and a dog sniffing at his heels, and I could hear the sound of the dog sniffing. That seemed so strange to me. I wasn't frightened, but I must have moved because suddenly they disappeared and I have never seen them since. He must have been trying to lift the wooden latch to come in. I didn't like to say anything about it to anybody until one day the rector's wife came to call. I thought she would laugh at me but I wanted to tell her and I did. But she didn't laugh. She knew the history of the houses in Annapolis and she said that years ago that house had belonged to a general and that he was known to have had a slave who was chained by the leg."

I've been reading.....a little bit of very good horror!!!

I realized last night that I hadn't posted for most of this week! I made the decision to start reading more in the evenings, so I've been happily reading every night. This seems to mean less blogging......so I am still finding a balance between writing here - I would like to write every other day, at least - and reading. It has been blissful to sit every night and lose myself in a book. I read "Lean, Mean Thirteen" by Janet Evanovich, two wonderful short stories by Neil Gaiman in "Fragile Things", realized I couldn't keep reading "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell since I've got it on my non-fiction challenge list that begins only in May! and I've begun "The Shaman's Crossing" by Robin Hobb, which I was supposed to read for the birthday challenge last month and missed getting to. All these I will review, but I am too tired tonight,too wired after our Ottawa Senators lost their hockey game tonight in a wild game. I was shouting at the tv so much my daughter came over to see if I was okay!

So I know what I want to talk about: Stephanie over at Stephanie's Confessions of a Bookaholic, has a post about the 2007 Bram Stoker Awards. For those who don't know, these are given out every year for the best horror writing of the previous year. This year's winner was for first novel: Joe Hill for A Heart-Shaped Box, and Sarah Langan for The Missing. Go see Stephanie's blog for the complete list and her comments, and the comments of her readers. They're interesting. What I wanted to talk about was, how many of us read horror now? So, I thought I'd do a little meme and see if anyone wants to answer. Feel free to pick it up for your blog, and let me know, or come whisper your comments :-) to me.....

Horror Reading Meme
Do you read horror novels?
Yes. But I am picky. I love spooky, atmospheric, creepy, ghosts and haunted houses and shadows. I dislike slasher books and movies intensely, though Hallowe'en counts as one of my all-time scary movies and I own it.
If we do,who do we read?
Stephen King! Dan Simmons, James Blaylock, anything with ghosts or vampires with it. I read the first 4 of the Lestat Vampire novels by Anne Rice. Shirley Jackson, Peter Straub. Ray Bradbury
What kind of horror?
See above. Ghost stories, particularly.
And if we stopped reading it, why?
Because it got silly in the last decade, with slasher cyberpunk gore books without much plot or characters. I really like atmospheric settings - Ray Bradbury was very good at evoking a mood, as is James Blaylock, and Stephen King.
I have started reading it again, because I have found scary ghost stories again. I read, last year, James Blaylock's Night Relics, which has a haunted house and ghosts, and though the ending wasn't what I expected, it still had plenty of chills. I've picked up Stewart O'Nan's The Night Country, which I have heard alot about and when Carl does his RIP challenge for this year (he has assured me he will!), this book is top of the pile. I'm getting Stephen King's new book for my birthday next month, Duma Key, which many reviewers has said is his best in a long time.
What are your favourite horror books?
It, - Stephen King
The Shining - " - this is the most frightening book I have ever read. I am still unable to read the novel when alone in the house, even though I have read it several times and I'm 44 years old!! the hedge moving at the corner of Jack's eyes, and little Danny and the terrifying things he sees that no one else does, completely terrify me.
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson (and a very scary movie too,) one of the best ghost stories EVER!
Dracula - Bram Stoker still the best vampire novel, dark and gothic and frightening and creepy. The sense of moral dread as well, of not knowing how to protect from evil.
*Some Canadian Ghosts - SHeila Harvey - a collection of Canadian ghost stories. This is the first book I read about ghosts as a child, and the first four stories scared me so much that I got chills and had to put the book down. The 'story' (since these are supposed to be true stories) about Pamela and her haunted house, and the doll no one liked, even now writing this makes the hair on my arms move just writing about! Truly frightening hauntings.

There are short stories I could add, but I won't right now. I'll save it for October..... and it's late, and I have to go find them! but this brings me to Neil Gaiman's "October in the Chair" in "Fragile Things" , which is one of the two stories I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. This is what got me thinking about ghost and horror stories, since his story ends on a truly frightening note. As I read it, I thought, "aha! this is what horror is supposed to be like!" The thing in the closet, the thing upstairs/downstairs/at your front door, what we are all afraid is in a haunted house - this basic, primitive fear is what I want in my horror. Stories that are about the dark. But not serial killers etc, which are another whole kind of monster genre. I want the unseen, that which we know is true when the lights are out.

"October in the Chair" is the prelude to "The Graveyard Book", which as you all know is Neil's latest book, due out next fall. After reading this short story, I am going to be first in line...counting the days and hours...and I am awed in a way I wasn't before, by Neil's writing.
And, since I write ghost stories and horror stories, I have a new lease on this part of my writing life, which had laid dormant for years until recently. I have the answer to "why write horror?". Because we are all afraid of the dark. And we know there is good reason to be. So, we have ghost stories, horror stories, and fairy tales, and sometimes we make it out safely, and sometimes we remain lost in the woods forever.

Goodnight! Happy reading!!

Why Write?

In Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke writes: "Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: Must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity..." (First letter, Vintage edition, translated by Stephen Mitchell).
I was perusing some blogs last night, and came across one http://bookworld.typepad.com/book_world/
in which the writer is talking about Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way". I too have done morning pages for many years, up until I moved back to Canada in 2001. With various break from writing them in those years, but at that time I always returned to them. For those who have not encountered her books, Julia writes about creativity, and how to free yourself from what holds you back so you can be as fully creative as you want to be. I found the Artist's Way (as I wrote in a comment to the above blogger) that I found "The Artist's Way" very useful for uncovering my hidden wounds regarding my creativity, and what was holding me back in my writing. I am still uncovering the latter, as I struggle to finish my first full-length novel, the one I've been writing for over 10 years now. Writing the morning pages helped me to see I had plenty to say, and I had no problems writing 3 pages a day! But I couldn't write about writing, I had to write about my day and my complaints, (according to her guidelines) and I found eventually that I could either write in my pages, or later in my regular journal, OR I could write my book each day, but I couldn't do both at once. Julia must have found that the stresses in her life were interfering with her writing. It has taken me until this year to finally realize that if I don't write creatively, I start to feel at odds with my life. I have to write. If I write, I feel a deeper peace with myself and the world, I am content. If I don't write, I start getting short-tempered, and it grows until I am unbearable to be near, until I finally write again. So I have had to decided that it doesn't matter if what I write is crappy, or banal, or boring (though I hope it is not!) - my usual reasons for stopping what I am working on - I have to write. And not in my journal, but creatively. So, in the deep dark of my night, my answer to Rainer Rilke's question do you have to write? is yes, I do.
So my current writing mentor is Walter Mosley's "This Year You Write Your Novel." This book has aided me immensely in getting over the mental blocks I put up to writing, which have to do with expressing myself creatively. Which I discovered doing Julia Cameron's morning pages! The only way through the block is go through it. So after a 4 week halt in writing my novel, on Thursday I set the alarm clock early enough and started writing again. I keep "This Year You Write Your Novel" on my bedside table, and I dip into it every night before I go to sleep. So I start my day with writing, and I end my day with thinking about writing. In between, as he says, becuase I am writing every day, the book - chapter - scene I am working on, or story I am telling (depending where I am with the story) sit with me, and through the day pops into my head. Both he and Stephen King in "On Writing" say that the most important thing to do is write everyday. Even on weekends, during holidays - even Christmas morning, even on holidays - write every day. I still struggle to write on the weekends, and am coming up to Christmas, so we'll see how I do then! In the meantime, I am three-quarters of the
way through my book, I estimate, of the first draft. I've been working on this draft since last May, writing about 1 page a day. As I wrote earlier, I have worked on many drafts of this book, never getting this far, although one year I cam close. I have never been happy with how it progressed, never happy with how I was writing it or where I ended up because it seemed I got side-tracked the further I got into my book. Part of the problem is I don't have an outline, but I have never been able to keep to an outline. Even in university when writing papers I could never write from an outline. I preferred to have an idea, make notes and find quotes, and then write it. I have scenes in my head for my book and I know roughly where I will end up, and what happens to the characters. Though I find I am still too restricted in my thinking/characters, and all the others want a say, too! so my first draft will be a first draft, my building block, and from there I can expand. This feels so good to be able to say at last, about my writing! I am writing!
Now if I can turn the dratted tv off more often so I can get more read......still working on "Cadillac Jukebox" by James Lee Burke, it is more interesting now but it seems to be taking a long time to read. I have so many books to read by Christmas - my From the Stacks list, plus two I just picked up, "The Night Country" by Stewart O'Nan and "The Safe-Keeper's Secret" by Sharon Shinn. Yes, I know the From the Stacks Challenge was supposed to keep me from buying more books! But I figure reading books from my bookshelves helps me feel virtuous because I am reading what I have, and I have to add more so my pile doesn't get too empty. Another blogger I read last night, http://geraniumcatsbookshelf.blogspot.com/ - see her blog on From the Stacks, - as the butterflies she describes on not having anything to read - ie the TBR pile is getting smaller when we read from it - describes perfectly well why I went out and bought two more books after picking five from the TBR pile!! Now to read them all! And hurry up January - hurry up Christmas - there are so many new books from favourite authors waiting upstairs! I've given them to my LSS to wrap up so I can't peek at them any more! so I will finish James lee Burke today so I can get started onto one of my books on From the Stacks Challenge. All the housework is done - we had my friend and her new boyfriend over for dinner last night, so yesterday was housecleaning and so today is FREE to read!!! When the kids let me, that is.....this blog has been interrupted countless times already and my LSS asked my I was writing it this early in the day (I normally do it after they are in bed). I said it was nice to work on this when I am awake, for once! I only have to take my walk today - there is leftovers for lunch, and dinner is trying out the new Indian curries from President's Choice line, so I don't even have to take a break to make meals! Hurrah!!! It's Susan's reading day!! may you all find time to read today too, Gentle Readers!