Mx3 Review: Darkness All Around by Doug Magee

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Jenn

  • Hardcover: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Touchstone (October 18, 2011)
  • ISBN-10: 1439154023
  • Source: Author

Eleven years ago, Risa’s alcoholic husband, Sean disappears. Shortly after, her best friend Carol is found brutally murdered.  She was able to move on despite these life-altering events.  Another man was found guilty of Carol’s murder.Sean was eventually declared dead and Risa remarried. She remained in the small-football obsessed town in which she and Sean grew up

Risa’s known her new husband, Alan, since her teens.  He swept in and helped Risa raise her young son, Kevin. Now Alan is running for Congress, obsessed with the election and his families public image. Imagine his reaction when Sean, Risa’s presumed-deceased husband, comes back in to town.

Sean has been in New York City for the majority of the past ten years. A severe alcoholic, he’s now recovering, able to get by thanks to a prescription drug trial he is a part of.  He woke up in a hospital those many years ago, with no memory of his past or identity.  Eventually he begins to recall some of his memories. One such memory is ghastly and horrid; he sees himself standing over Carol’s body with a machete in his hand.

Sean is desperate to turn himself in to the authorities.  No one seems to be interested in hearing the true account of what happened; they would prefer to continue to believe the man behind bars is the one responsible for Carol’s death.  Alan would prefer that Sean just leave town; news of Risa’s husband returning would soon be the talk of the small town and a risk to Alan’s campaign.

Risa, still jolted by Sean’s return, steps up to support him in his quest to find the truth about Carol’s murder. She’s willing to risk her life to protect Sean when individuals use force to prevent the truth from being discovered.

I was introduced to Magee’s writing when I read and reviewed his book Never Wave Goodbye last year. It completely terrified me, mostly because of the similarity in ages between the child in the book and my own son.  While I didn’t have that same connection with Darkness All Around, it still definitely was a book that grabbed and held on to my attention.  The main characters are strongly developed; the reader is familiar with their backgrounds and motivation. While the majority of the characters felt genuine, there were a few whose actions seemed a bit unbelievable. That said, Darkness All Around is still a chilling novel about secrets, redemption, and the intensity and power of the human heart.   Recommended.

Check back later today for a guest post by the author, Doug Magee, and a giveaway of Darkness All Around!

 

Posted in Murders, Monsters, & Mayhem, Mystery/Suspense, Review, Simon & Schuster, Thriller, Touchstone Books | 5 Comments

Mx3 Review: T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Jenn

 

  • Paperback:416 pages
  • Publisher:Berkley Trade (April 3, 2012)
  • ISBN-10: 0425245632
  • Source: Publisher

In Grafton’s 20th crime novel featuring Kinsey Millhone, private investigator is tasked with investigating an automobile accident when her elderly neighbor Gus, suffers a fall requiring hospital attention.  Gus has never been the easiest person to get along with; he was known to report everyone and everything he deemed to be going wrong in the neighborhood. Despite this, Kinsey still feels a need to assist her ailing neighbor. 

When he’s released from the hospital, it’s apparent that Gus requires assistance in his day to day living.  Kinsey tracks down his niece, who isn’t exactly excited about leaving her live to deal with her uncle.  She begins interviewing home care nurses to deal with her uncle, not an easy task.  Several of the nurses fail to stay an entire day, unable to deal with Gus’ behavior. But then she meets Solana Rojas and believes her to be a perfect fit. Aware of Kinsey’s occupation, she asks Kinsey to run a background check on this woman.

From page one, the reader is aware this woman is a sick, twisted psychopath, living the life and the identity of a woman she used to work with. She’s pretty slick, however, and is able to evade any suspicion when the background check is run.  She quickly assumes the role of Gus’ home care nurse and his niece heads back home to New York.

It doesn’t take long before Kinsey gets suspicious.  While she was never really that close with Gus, she is concerned about his well-being and begins to notice quite a few startling changes taking place.  First, his home was a horrible mess prior to his injury. Mouse droppings on the floor, rooms filled to the brim with old newspapers and other trash. Yet it doesn’t take long for Solana to take control.  She rents a dumpster and begins to rid Gus’ home of all the trash that has been piling up for years. 

On the surface, this appears to be an improvement, but when Kinsey learns that Gus’ mental capacities are waning she’s immediatly concerned.  Gus, despite his personality issues, was a pretty sharp guy.  Upon a visit to Gus’ home she notices a check register for his bank accounts. The balance is dwindling…quickly. It becomes her mission to find out who this Solana Rojas really is before Gus’ life begins to dwindle as quickly as his bank accounts.

It’s been several years since I’ve read any of Grafton’s alphabet series books, but it didn’t take long for me to get immersed in Kinsey’s life again.  Grafton’s books are set in the 80s, so it was interesting to see how much life and society has changed since then. No cell phones, no computer databases. It was almost refreshing to see a tech-free life again.

The strength in these books are the rich characters. One can’t help but love Henry, Kinsey’s sweet neighbor.  He’s Kinsey’s backbone and, oftentimes, her conscience. I appreciate how this book dealt with elder abuse, individuals taking advantage of the elderly for the sake of financial gain.  Gus was a pretty mean guy at times but he certainly didn’t deserve the treatment he received.

T Is for Trespass is a stunning, captivating book.  I’m truly glad this was the book that reunited me with Kinsey Millhone. It reminded me what I was missing; I can’t wait to dive back into this series!

I’m excited to be participating in this tour, sponsored by Penguin books. Yes, because it reunited me with a pretty wonderful series but also because I have a special treat for you, my readers.  Each blog participating in this tour is able to present its readers with an excert of V Is for Vengeance , the latest book in this series, scheduled for release November 14th.  Follow the blog tour to get a exclusive access glance inside the new book!  Without further ado…an exclusive look inside V Is for Vengeance :

Nearby customers seemed unaware of the drama being played out, but I was transfixed. The shoplifter’s gaze flicked from the loss- prevention officer to the escalators. A direct path would have forced her to walk right past him. I thought a move was ill advised and, ap­parently, she did too. Better to keep her distance and hope the threat evaporated of its own accord. In most stores, policy dictates that no one make contact with a customer under surveillance as long as she is still on the premises and has the opportunity to pay. For the moment, the woman was safe, though her agitation surfaced in a series of ran­dom gestures. She looked at her watch. She glanced toward the ladies’ room. She picked up a half-slip, studied it briefly, and then replaced it. The items she’d stolen must have felt radioactive, but she didn’t dare return them lest she call attention to herself.

The prospect of being apprehended must have obliterated the alter­natives she’d planned if the caper turned sour. Her best course of ac­tion would have been to adjourn to the ladies’ room and toss the stolen merchandise in the trash. Failing that, she could have abandoned her shopping bag and headed for the elevators in hopes of stepping into the next available car. Without the pilfered items in her possession, she’d be home free. Until she left the store without paying, no crime had been committed. Perhaps with something of the sort in mind, she removed herself from Mr. Koslo’s line of sight and ambled into the women’s plus-size department, where she looked right at home.

Koslo moved away from the counter without visual reference to the woman. I watched as he circled behind her in a wide arc, herding her from the rear. Claudia moved directly to the escalator and went down, probably to intercept the woman if she tried leaving by that means.

The shoplifter’s gaze darted from one area to the next as she con­sidered viable escape routes. Her only choices were the elevators, the escalators, or the fire stairs. With Koslo ten yards behind her, the el­evators and the fire stairs must have seemed too far away to chance. From her current location, the aisle widened to form a generous apron of pale marble that led to the escalators, tantalizingly close. She strolled out of the plus-size department and crossed the open floor at a leisurely pace. Behind her, Koslo adjusted his speed to correspond with hers.

On the far side of the escalators, I saw the younger woman in the dark blue dress appear at the mouth of the short corridor leading to the ladies’ room. She halted abruptly, and as the shoplifter reached the top of the escalator a look flashed between them. If I’d entertained doubts about their being in cahoots, I was convinced of it now. Maybe they were sisters or mother and daughter on a regular late-afternoon outing, ripping off retail goods. In that brief freeze-frame, I took a men­tal inventory of the younger woman. She was fair, forty by my guess, with untidy, shoulder-length blond hair and little or no makeup. She turned on her heel and returned to the ladies’ room while the older woman moved on to the escalator; Koslo seven steps behind her. The two of them sank from view, first the woman’s head disappearing and then his.

I crossed to the balustrade and peered down, watching them glide slowly from the third floor to the second. The woman must have real­ized she was boxed in because the knuckles of her right hand were white where she clutched the rail. The sluggish speed of the moving staircase must have sent her heart into overdrive. The fight-or-flight instinct is almost irresistible and I marveled at her self-control. Her partner would be of no help to her now. If the younger woman inter­vened, she risked being caught in the same net.

Claudia was waiting on the second floor at the foot of the moving stairs. The shoplifter kept her attention fixed straight ahead, perhaps thinking if she couldn’t see her two trackers, they couldn’t see her. Once on the second floor, she took a hard turn and stepped onto the next down escalator. Claudia stepped on after she did, so that now there were two store employees in that slow-motion foot chase. The fact that the shoplifter was aware of them took away their home court ad­vantage. By this time, however, the game was in progress and there was no way to abandon the pursuit. I could see a thin pie-shaped por­tion of the first-floor shoe department, which I knew was only a short stretch away from the automatic doors that opened onto the mall. I left the three of them to their own devices. By then, the older woman was no concern of mine. I was interested in her companion.

I crossed to the short corridor that led to the ladies’ lounge and pushed open the door. I was hoping she was still there, but she might well have slipped past me while I was watching her friend. To my right, an anteroom had been set aside for mothers with babies, affording them privacy to nurse, change stinky diapers, or collapse on a well-upholstered couch. That area was empty. Across from it, there was a room where sinks lined the two opposite mirrored walls, with the usual paper towel dispensers, hand blowers, and plastic-lined waste bins. An Asian woman foamed her hands with soap and rinsed them under running water, but she seemed to be the only customer present. I heard a toilet flush, and a moment later the younger woman opened the door to the second stall. She now sported a red beret and wore a white linen jacket over her navy blue dress. She still carried the shopping bag and her big leather purse. The only oddity I noted was a short horizontal scar between her lower lip and her chin, the sort of mark left when your teeth are driven through your lower lip on impact. The scar was old, with only a white line remaining to suggest a tumble from a swing or a fall against the corner of a coffee table, some childhood misfor­tune she’d carried with her since. She averted her face as she brushed by me. If she recognized me from the lingerie department, she gave no sign.

I kept my expression blank and headed for the stall she’d just va­cated. It took me half a second to peer into the wall-mounted recep­tacle meant for used sanitary supplies. Six price tags had been clipped from articles of clothing and tossed into the bin. I listened to the sound of her retreating footsteps. The outer door closed. I scurried after her and opened the door a crack. I didn’t see her, but I knew she couldn’t have gone far. I proceeded to the mouth of the corridor and peered to my right. She stood in front of the bank of elevators, pushing the down button. Her head came up, as mine did, at the sound of a persistent high-pitched whoop from the ground floor. The older woman must have breached the transmitter-receiver system at the exit doors, where electronic surveillance tags had activated the alarm. Once she stepped outside, it would at least allow the loss-prevention officer to stop her and ask her to return.

 

Following is a list of the other blogs participating in this tour.  Be sure to check them all out, the publisher is offering three sets of Q, R, S, T, U (paperback) and the brand new V to three different people who comment on every single blog throughout the tour (US/Canada only)

Tuesday, Sept. 27: Q IS FOR QUARRY http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com/            
Thursday, Sept. 29: Q IS FOR QUARRY http://www.jensbookthoughts.com/
Tuesday, Oct. 4: R IS FOR RICOCHET http://www.elizabethawhite.com/
Thursday, Oct. 6: R  IS FOR RICOCHET http://www.linussblanket.com/
Tuesday, Oct. 11: S IS FOR SILENCE http://www.devourerofbooks.com/            
Thursday, Oct. 13: S IS FOR SILENCE http://www.kittlingbooks.com/           
Tuesday, Oct. 18: T IS FOR TRESPASS http://bermudaonion.net/
Thursday, Oct. 20: T IS FOR TRESPASS http://www.jennsbookshelves.com/
Tuesday, Oct. 25: U IS FOR UNDERTOW http://popculturenerd.com/            
Thursday, Oct. 27: U IS FOR UNDERTOW http://www.bookingmama.net/

 Be sure to check out Sue Grafton’s Facebook page and her Web site for more information on the Kinsey Millhone series!

Posted in Crime Fiction, Murders, Monsters, & Mayhem, Penguin, Review, Thriller | 22 Comments

Mx3 Guest Post: John Everson, Author of The Pumpkin Man

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Jenn

Yesterday, I reviewed John Everson’s chilling book, The Pumpkin Man. Today, I’m happy to welcome John to the blog today to discuss the importance of music in horror.

 

The Music of Horror

I can’t live without music. I can’t really write without it either.  I’m not sure why anyone would want to go through life without listening to fun, catchy tunes every day, but I know there are people like that out there.  When I talk to a middle-aged person who has never been to a live concert and prefers to listen to talk radio instead of songs on their daily commute… well… I just feel sorry for them honestly. That seems like going through life without one of your limbs. Doable… but depressing.

The idea of life without music? Now that’s horror to me.

I’ve always been this way. I don’t like to read without music in the background, and I never studied in school without the radio.  I rarely watch TV. For me, I’m absolutely the happiest with an English ale in one hand and one of my favorite bands on the speakers in front of me. Preferably turned up loud.

What does any of this have to do with the reason I’m here on the blog today?

Well, music played a big part in the making of my new novel, The Pumpkin Man. Just as it has in all of my books really.  I started writing my fifth novel more than a year and a half ago, and in the midst of the most intense writing, I was getting up every morning before my dayjob to write for an hour or two in the quiet of dawn. But it wasn’t totally quiet.

On the speakers, I listened to a duo called La Floa Maldita. They’re a German electronica band with an evocative female singer and a dark undercurrent to their sound. It was a perfect soundtrack to the story I was trying to tell – the story of two young school teachers who lose their jobs and home and relocate to a remote part of the Northern California coast. But instead of finding a quiet summer vacation there, they instead find themselves rooting through a dead woman’s library of the occult, trying to solve the mystery of The Pumpkin Man, a seemingly supernatural figure who is killing people in their newly adopted town. But The Pumpkin Man isn’t your typical knife-wielding psycho. He actually carves the image of his victims into a pumpkin… and then leaves the pumpkin in place of his victims’ heads. And his cycle of killing is somehow connected to, and circling closer, to Jennica Murphy, our lead heroine.

There are Ouija board seances, secret crypts and rooms, and an overall feeling of impending doom with a ticking clock.

It was a fun novel to write, and it was definitely helped in its mood by La Floa Maldita’s own dark vibe. You can hear one of their tracks on my website devoted to The Pumpkin Man. Just visit the Music page.

Music has long held an important place in horror. The creepy mood of a haunted house is usually aided by a soundtrack designed to raise the hairs on the back of the neck. One of the most famous horror stories? The Phantom of the Opera.

What’s the first thing you think about when I mention the classic horror movie Halloween? For many people, it will be that eerie one-finger piano theme that director John Carpenter himself wrote. Words and visuals speak to the brain, but music taps in directly to the soul. And the soul doesn’t forget.

I’ve been a musician all of my life, and to be honest, writing a “theme” to The Pumpkin Man was something I wanted to do — I would have embedded it as background music on the website for the book.  As it turned out, the past year has simply been too crazy for me to work in my basement music studio, and so no theme music got written. But while I didn’t end up writing music for the book, I did end up partnering with a really cool new band who have a soft spot for things “horror”. They’re called New Years Day, and their track “Resurrection” is featured on the iPod of The Pumpkin Man web site’s “online Ouija Board” (click and give them a listen!)  And I used a collage of some of the instrumental segments of their music to form a “soundtrack” to the website. So log in and give them a listen while you read the Prologue of the book online.

I guess with all this talk about music, I should give you a short list of my personal favorites? If you’re not familiar with any of the following bands, I urge you to look them up… they’re worth adding to your daily playlist! I’ve thanked many of them in the Acknowledgments sections of my novels, because they’ve certainly (if unintentionally) inspired my work over the years.

My favorite bands to write spooky stories too include: The Cure, New Order, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Kate Bush, Elysian Fields, La Floa Maldita, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Conjure One, Delerium, October Project, Dead Can Dance, The Cult, Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie, Muse… the list goes on.  I think life should always have a soundtrack. Certainly all of my books do!

This Halloween, pull out something evocative from your CD or old LP/cassettes. Put it on in your living room and turn the lights down. Light a couple of candles.

And maybe… crack a copy of The Pumpkin Man?

I’d love to tell you a story and be part of your Halloween this year!

Jenn’s Bookshelves Readers can win an e-book copy of The Pumpkin Man and get entered into a contest to win autographed copies of either The Pumpkin Man trade paperback, or a GRAND PRIZE including ALL of John Everson’s novels as well as a signed poster and CD from the band New Years Day.  Just visit http://www.thepumpkinman-horror.com and fill out the Contest Form. Make sure you list Jenn’s Bookshelves in the referral site dropdown list.

 

Posted in Author Guest Post, Murders, Monsters, & Mayhem | 1 Comment

Mx3 Review: The Pumpkin Man by John Everson

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Jenn

  • Paperback:320 pages
  • Publisher:DP (October 15, 2011)
  • ISBN-10: 1428512128
  • Source: Publisher

Jennica’s father was found brutally murdered just a few weeks ago.  His head was never found, only bloodied pieces of pumpkin were found scattered throughout his home. If his death wasn’t enough, Jennica and her roommate, Kirsten, are both laid off from their teaching jobs at a local Catholic school. Desperate to get away, Kirsten and Jenn head to California to check out the home left to Jenn when her aunt Meredith passed away.

They arrive at the home on the North California coast:

The movement of the sea against the rocks must brook a special power here, where the freshwater flows into the salt, where the earth rises from beneath both seeking the clouds.  The moments after dark are pregnant sounds, each clock tick an interruption of some thing driven by land and sea and air.  If you walk out into the grassy hills after nightfall, if you only still your own noise enough to take it in, you can feel it.  You can feel how the earth has fallen silent, how the breath of the day has drawn in.

Yes, there is a pause in the air where the earth awaits the next movement, the next chance to give and take life, like a tide of animation.  The brackish water is just an illusion before the maelstrom, for the power of that earthen pause may be the key to the magic hidden here.  The pause in the air is a conductor; a promise and a threat.

 

Jenn always knew her aunt to be “eccentric” but when they arrive they find evidence of this.  The bookshelves in her home are filled with ancient books on death, potions, and the like. One of the most interesting was a photo album filled with pictures of intricately carved pumpkins. The darkness of the home is pervasive, so after a night’s sleep they head out into town to stock up on food.

Upon arriving at the small town store, it doesn’t take long for Jenn to realize the townspeople didn’t have fond feelings about her aunt. Upon hearing where they were staying, an old man urges them to “go back to where you came from and live a happy life.”  They get the same response when they head to a local bar for a drink.  This time, the townspeople are a little more hostile, serving the girls a rat under a silver dome dish.

As the days pass, Jenn learns a bit more about her aunt and her uncle, George, often referred to as the Pumpkin Man. He was skilled at carving complex images into pumpkins.  Each year, people would look forward to his big creation for that year. Until a little boy goes missing and the pumpkin displayed that year resembles the face of the missing boy. The local legend now states that each Halloween, the Pumpkin Man carves the likeness of his victim into a pumpkin, forever trapping that individual’s soul in the gourd.

Upon investigating the house more, they uncover a host of secret passages, locked doors, and a dark & damp basement that the girls decide to avoid.  As they lit a fire in the stone fireplace, they uncover a hidden compartment within the stone. Inside, they find a Ouija board.

Desperate for human interaction outside of the unwelcoming town, the girls head down to San Francisco.  They meet two young men, who eventually come to visit the girls at the house.  They bring out the infamous Ouija board, attempting to contact Jenn’s father. The response they get is not what they expect, the board prompting them to “GET OUT NOW.” The girls assume it’s the boys attempting to frighten them and ask them to leave.  Jenn begins to question this, however.  She felt something in the air…something that compels her to want to learn more.  The bits of pumpkin found lying in her bedroom one morning urge her to realize this isn’t a joke.  Someone is trying to tell her something.

The brutal killings of decades before start happening again. This time, the victims are the parents of the children from the previous murders. The killer cannot be the same individual, for Jenn’s uncle was hunt down by the townspeople and killed. When they alert the local police, they are all too familiar with Jenn’s aunt and her husband.  They almost seem a bit lax in their investigation, as if they know they cannot track down the killer and put an end to the brutal crimes.

Jenn is certain all of this has to do with her aunt and the mysterious home in which she is living. Something ancient and evil has been unleashed, the only way to put an end to the killings, for good, lies within the books in her aunt Merdith’s library.

As with Everson’s other books, The Pumpkin Man doesn’t fail to send chills down the reader’s spine. It is full of everything a good horror book should contain: a spooky setting, mysterious deaths, a small down with dark secrets, as well as rich and detailed characters. Obviously not a book for someone with a weak stomach, but if you are looking for a terrifying book to read this Halloween, The Pumpkin Man is the book for you. Read it at night…alone…if you dare! Highly highly recommended!
Be sure to stop by tomorrow for a guest post by the author, John Everson!

 

 

Posted in Dorchester Publishing, Horror, Murders, Monsters, & Mayhem, Review | 7 Comments

Mx3 Guest Review: The Shunned House by H.P. Lovecraft

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Jenn

What is Halloween without a little H.P. Lovecraft!? I was thrilled when I learned that Chris from Chrisbookarama was interested in doing a review of one of Lovecraft’s finest short stories! So, without further ado….

Earlier this year, I was blown away by the work of HP Lovecraft. After listening to an audio book version of The Dark Worlds of HP Lovecraft, I knew I had to read more. The Shunned House was published posthumously in the October 1937 issue of Weird Tales.

In this short story, the unnamed protagonist recounts the history of a vacant house in Providence, Rhode Island. When he was a kid, he and his friends would sneak into the cellar where luminescent fungi grew and strange fogs seeped out of the ground. As an adult, he shared his interest with his uncle Dr. Elihu Whipple, also fascinated with the old house, who gives him all his research to study.

The house was built upon a former burial ground by a sea captain. Over the years his family lived there, members of the household would sicken and died. The people who survived suffer from physical or mental weakness. No one suspects the house of anything more sinister than toxic mold and tainted water. The locals are slow on the uptake because generations of folks move in and die before the house is abandoned.

The protagonist continues to research the house, looking farther back into the records for clues to the reason why the house is contaminated. What he finds spurs him into action. He plans to spend the night with his uncle in the cellar of the shunned house. That’s when things get weird.

What I like about Lovecraft’s writing is how he reports rather than tells a story. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were reading a real account of actual events experienced by the narrator. The disconcerting part of it is that you never get the whole story. There are questions left unanswered. The reader doesn’t know anything beyond what the narrator knows. I was left wondering what really dwelt in the shunned house. Where did it come from?

Lovecraft’s vivid imagination created creatures like Cthulhu and it’s not surprising that he suffered from night terrors as a child. What is lurking in the shunned house is beyond my imagining. He could have easily gone with a typical haunted house story, instead the story turns more sci-fi. It’s really bizarre, in a good way!

If you like weird and unexpected horror stories, I think you’ll like The Shunned House.

Thanks, Jenn, for letting me be a part of Murder, Monsters and Mayhem! Hopefully, your readers will fill their need for Monsters with The Shunned House. And it’s available for free from ProjectGutenberg.

Chris is a reader and blogger from Nova Scotia, Canada. Halloween is one of her favorite holidays. It gives her an excuse to read spooky stories and eat loads of candy. She blogs regularly at Chrisbookarama.

 

 

 

Posted in Horror, Murders, Monsters, & Mayhem, Review | 4 Comments

Mx3 Guest Post: Scott Poole, Author of Monsters in America

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Jenn

Earlier today, I reviewed Scott Poole’s phenomenal book on the prevalence of monsters in American culture. Now, I’m excited to provide you with a guest post from Scott on his own obsession with monsters. First, a brief bio of Scott, taken from his Web site:

Scott Poole grew up in love with monsters.  Shock Theater on Saturday afternoon left him deliriously terrified as he watched Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein and The Wolf Man. Comic books like Tomb of Dracula and fan magazines like Famous Monsters offered even more frightening fun.  After seeing Star Wars for the first time, monsters became a religious experience with Tuskan Raiders, the Cantina scene and Darth Vader all becoming beloved friends and nightmares.

Somehow — and even Scott’s not quite sure how — he translated his love for monsters into a career as a historian and pop culture critic. A tenured professor of American History at the College of Charleston, he teaches a popular class about the image of the Devil in religion and popular culture and, of course, a class on America and its monsters. He is the author of several books dealing with race, religion and pop culture including Satan in America: The Devil We Know and is a regular contributor to www.PopMatters.com, an international magazine of cultural criticism.

 

Twisted Desire: Why we Cant Get Enough of the Monster

I love monsters.

As a kid in the late seventies, I used to spend long hours in front of our giant console TV watching Shock Theatre. If you missed out on Shock, this was a package of movies marketed by studios to local TV affiliates meant for late weekend nights or as Saturday matinees. It was a wondrous bundle of films that contained everything from the masterpieces of Lugosi and Karloff to the giant bugs and fifty-foot women of 50s sci-fi cinema.

When I became a teenager, the slasher genre had taken over horror and I transferred my affection for Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman to Freddy, Jason Voorhees and Pinhead. Even when I passed through an embarrassingly intense religious phase at about 14-15, I was unable to shake the dark visions of the monster. I still have exceedingly happy memories of a youth retreat that turned into a surreptitious viewing of the original Nightmare on Elm Street.

So it makes sense that I turned out to be the historian who wrote a book about the history of American monsters. And when you write a book about monsters, you get two very different responses. Some display a combination of curiosity and delight, either nerding out with you about their own delicious love of horror or confessing their secret fascination.

But then others give you a look of concern mixed with repulsion, half moralism and half “you’ve got something gross in your teeth.” They tell you they don’t like that stuff, it too weird, its gross, disgusting or in some way problematic.

These two reactions actually tell us a lot about the nature of the monster in relation to American historical experience. The dialectic of attraction and repulsion is wrapped around the roots of the monster’s multitude of meanings.

The sea serpent is a case in point. Fascination with the possibility of such a creature obsessed Americans from the colonial period through the nineteenth century. Natural science debated its existence. American pop culture celebrated it, so much so that in the 1850s, a highly popular piece of sheet music called “the Sea Serpent Polka” became all the rage.

And yet, Americans invested this monster with widely divergent meanings over time. In the 1630s, a few Puritans claimed to have sighted the beast off the coast of Massachusetts. They saw it as an incarnation of the devil “the old serpent whose poison hath run down to us” one said.

In the 1810s, the heirs of the Puritans in Massachusetts saw the same creature in Gloucester harbor. They gave it a cute nickname, tried to capture it and talked endlessly about their excitement over it.

Beginning in the 1980s, the knife -wielding maniac has gotten the same treatment. In that decade, a serial killer panic swept across American society. And yet, feeding this anxiety, came a flood of popular books about the deeds of John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy and other mass murderers. On the big screen, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees became national icons. And now of course we have Dexter, a handsome monster who gets his large audience’s full sympathy.

The monster threatens to rend and tear us and we run. The monster also delights, fascinates and even obsesses us, calling to us from the darkness on the edge of town. You know you like it that way.

Be sure to check out Scott’s web site which is full of additional resources. 

 

Posted in Author Guest Post, Murders, Monsters, & Mayhem | Leave a comment

Mx3 Review: Monsters in America by W. Scott Poole

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Jenn

  • Hardcover:290 pages
  • Publisher:Baylor University Press (October 15, 2011)
  • ISBN-10: 1602583145
  • Source: Publisher

Monsters have been a staple of American culture for decades, from the Salem witch trials to alien invasions and the walking dead. They didn’t just appear randomly; in Monsters in America Poole provides both historical and cultural studies that detail how and why these monsters became a part of our national identity. The book argues 

 “the origins of all of Amercia’s monster obsessions lie in something more substantial than media-driven cultural ephemera. American monsters are born out of American history. They emerge out of the central anxieties and obsessions that have been a part of the United States from colonial times to the present and from the structures and processes where those obsessions found historical expression.”

Christopher Columbus, great discoverer of the “New World” wrote in his diary of natives he encountered in the Caribbean, referring to them as ” one-eyed men and other men with the dog heads’ who decapitated their victims and drank their blood.” Finding monsters soon became an obsession for Columbus.

Puritans hunted monsters long before the Salem witch trials. The first settler accused of witchcraft was actually Margaret Jones in 1648. The obsession with witchcraft and hunts continued long after the Salem trials, African-American slaves were often accused of “conguration” or “sorcery”, the use of black magic against their white masters a common charge.

The slave industry has long represented a sense of overwhelming doom & darkness, starting from the slave ship itself.  Slaves often believed their masters to be cannibals, the slaves captured to serve as a food source for the slave masters. Many assumed the fires on decks of slave ships, intended to keep disease away, were instead cooking fires. Louisiana slaves saw their masters drinking red wine & assumed it was the blood of their African victims.

A cultural obsession with the dead became prevalent during the Civil War.  Wounded bodies filled the streets, disabled veterans roamed the streets with missing limbs.  These were many of the first visual instances of any sort of trauma to the human body. War photographer Matthew Brady documented the war with photography, showing citizens a side of the war they had never seen. The bodies were actually posed so they would produce the most emotional impact.  These photographs were displayed in an exhibition before being purchased by Congress, then used as photographic evidence of the conflict.

When Jack the Ripper ran rampant in England, the interest in these murders became just as popular in the United States. Several news publications suggested that many unsolved murders were actually victims of Jack the Ripper, despite the fact he was across the ocean in an entirely different continent. The American obsession with monsters continued.

The current obsession with watching grisly scenes of torture and death as a source of entertainment did not start with the Saw franchise. Public viewings of executions, including hangings, beheadings & lynchings, were not uncommon in the 1800s.  Oftentimes, these executions were reenacted for public entertainment.

Human beings as monsters, specifically those individuals of a race other than Caucasian, has run prevalent in American history. African Americans have long been portrayed as monsters, specifically the men. These accusations not only appeared in sermons or public speeches but also in medical journals. African American males were reported to have a monstrous sexual desire that could not be satisfied by women of their own race, all based on the size of their genitalia. 

The claims of hypersexuality in African Americans was showcased in the 1933 film, King Kong. White women have long been victims of this hypersexuality. African males were often referred to as “black beasts” and “ape-like”. The monster in this particular film seeks out a blond, beautiful, Caucasian woman. It was this desire for a white woman that caused the ape’s demise.

Actual monsters have also run rampant in American history. The “monsters” that in the 1930s performed medical tests on poor sharecroppers in Alabama, the infamous Tuskegee experiments, is evidence of this.  In the 1950s and 60s Dr. Albert Kligman performed experiements on prisoners at Philadelphia’s Holmesburg prison. He used prisoners, many African American, to test skin care products.  He would remove large chunks of skin from prisoners for testing. The prisoners were left with a checkerboard pattern of healing wounds on their backs.

As movies, books, comics became even more accessible, authors, graphic artists film makers used these tools to exemplify society’s fears. Following is a brief timeline of substantial events in US history, followed by popular media of that time:

  • 1950s Fear of the atomic bomb created an increased obsession in human abnormalities as a result of nuclear attack. Popular films included: Godzilla (monster created by atomic testing)
  • 1960s Women were often given a tranquilizer called Thalidomide as a cure for morning sickness. It was soon discovered to cause traumatic and extreme birth defects.  Additional The Love Canal tragedy caused numerous instances of cancer and other diseases. Editor Stan Lee created The Fantastic Four, human mutant heroes.  Many more icons of popular culture, all created from some kind of radioactivity, were formed, including Spider-Man and the X-men.

In the 1970s-1990s, the term serial killer became more prevalent. The names Gein, Bundy, and Dahmer became familiar names.  Following the horrible crimes at the hands of these monsters were films describing and featuring similar individuals, including Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Psycho. Citizens of this country had read so many vivid and explicit stories of the real-life monsters’ crime that violence and gore in movies became more prevalent. 

I’d be remiss not to mention The Exorcist,  a film that caused an extreme outcry from the Catholic Church.  This film without a doubt made a statement about the place of religion in our society. Rosemary’s Baby was yet another film that showcased the growing religious crisis in this country.

I could quite literally go on for pages upon pages on this subject.  With my background in psychology, sociology, and criminal justice,  and my love of the horror genre, I couldn’t help but immerse myself in reading Monsters in America.  I barely touched the surface on the wealth of information provided in this book.  To give you a visual, here is what my copy of the book looks like after reading it:

 Those pink things you see sticking out of the book are post-it flags, used to mark passages I found interesting & compelling.

 Monsters in America is a book full of historical data and research, so not exactly light reading, but incredibly rewarding and fulfilling reading. It is not a book meant to be read straight-through, but instead read in bits & pieces.  Unless you are like me, who became so obsessed with this book that I took it everywhere, frequently reading passages allowed to my husband and coworkers. It’s a given that Poole did a tremendous amount of research on this topic, thereby producing a work like none other. I haven’t come across a book that explores our history as it relates to horror in such tremendous and substantial detail.

I don’t read a great deal of non-fiction so the following statement is even more powerful: Monsters in America has without a doubt earned a spot on my favorite books of 2011. Highly recommended.

Check back later today with a special guest post from the author, Scott Poole!

 

Posted in Horror, Murders, Monsters, & Mayhem, Non-Fiction, Review | 10 Comments

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading This Week?

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Jenn

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading This Week? This is a weekly event to list the books completed last week, the books currently being read, and the books to be finish this week. It is hosted by Sheila from One Person’s Journey Through a World of  Books so stop by and join in!

Books Completed Last Week

Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist (review)
Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting by W. Scott Poole (review)

Currently Reading

Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry (audio)
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
Dead Mann Walking by Stefan Petrucha
Cemetery Girl by David Bell

Books to Complete This Week

Darkness All Around by Doug Magee
Pumpkin Man by John Everson

What are you reading this week?

Posted in It's Monday What Are you Reading This Week | 7 Comments

The Walking Dead Premiere Giveaway!

Posted on October 16, 2011 by Jenn

Unless you live in a cave, under a rock, on a desert island, or are otherwise unaware of the goings on of the modern world, you are familiar with the awesomeness that is AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD.  In honor of the premiere of the second season of The Walking Dead, I’m excited to provide you with a giveaway of pretty epic proportions.The winner of this giveaway will receive:

To enter, comment below with the name of your favorite zombie movie, book, show, etc. Be sure to include your email address when submitting your comment (comment form automatically prompts you for this information).  The winner will be contacted via email next Saturday, October 22nd. Open to US & Canadian residents only, please.


Posted in Murders, Monsters, & Mayhem | 50 Comments

TSS: Wrapping up #Mx3, Week 2!

Posted on October 16, 2011 by Jenn

It’s been an insanely busy week! With a visit by Carolyn Parkhurst (The Nobodies Album), a varietal wine tasting, and a signing by Rebecca Coleman, I’m pretty tired.  And these are only the events that took place at my local indie, let’s not even discuss how crazy things have been at home.

My oldest son, John, celebrated his twelfth birthday yesterday. We had a wonderful time; a dozen of his closest friends joined him for a few rounds of laser tag.  It’s really amazing how quickly time flies; I remember his first Halloween and now here he is, nearly a teen!

This week also wraps up the second week of Murder, Monsters & Mayhem. Let me tell you, I’m having a blast with this!  The intent was to share with you a bunch of my favorite “chilling” reads, old & new. I’m discovering a whole host of books/audiobooks  I want to check out, thanks to all of those bloggers participating in this feature!

So, let’s get down to the weekly giveaway.  This individual will win a ARC of both BLACK LIGHT and HARBOR,   two of my recent discoveries in the horror genre. The winner is selected from the list of links in the Mr. Linky here. Participation is EXTREMELY easy, just link up a post of a thriller, horror, suspense, mystery….pretty much any book/movie appropriate for reading  during the Halloween season.

That said, this week’s winner is…..Dawn Dalton with her post on The Busby Ghost!! Congratulations, Dawn!

To wrap up the week, following is a list of all the great posts from Week 2 of Mx3! Be sure to check them all out, there are at least two that involve giveaways!

Have you read any spooky reads? Be sure to link them up so you can be eligible for next week’s giveaway!

Posted in Murders, Monsters, & Mayhem, The Sunday Salon | 3 Comments