The Croning

May 31, 2012 Steve rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

"Monsters go wherever monsters wanna go." (The Croning)

I've always felt that Horror works best in the short form. Oh, there are many great Horror novels out there, but the short story, the novella, seem to provide the better stage, the better platform for the genre. Barron understand this Horror fact, as evidenced by this two previous short story collections (The Imago Sequence, and Occultation), which are, to my mind, among the best Horror collections ever gathered. And keep in mind these are n...more

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May 08, 2012 Benjamin Uminsky rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantastic-weird-lit, horror

As a caveat to this overly long review... full disclosure...I have an odd aversion to horror fiction in the long form. Hard to say why, but my preference in my weird fiction is for the short form, and to say that Laird Barron excels at this length is mildly understating it... the man is a modern master of the cosmic horror short story. Not to prattle on too much, but while I was of course very excited to hear about Barron's debut release of his first novel, my initial thoughts were: NOOOOOO!!! D...more As a caveat to this overly long review... full disclosure...I have an odd aversion to horror fiction in the long form. Hard to say why, but my preference in my weird fiction is for the short form, and to say that Laird Barron excels at this length is mildly understating it... the man is a modern master of the cosmic horror short story. Not to prattle on too much, but while I was of course very excited to hear about Barron's debut release of his first novel, my initial thoughts were: NOOOOOO!!! Don't chance it man... leave well enough alone... your short stories are so damn good. You don't need to pull a Stephen King for christ sakes.

Its not often that you come across a horror/weird tale novel that is capable of sustaining the tension, terror, horror, or weirdness over its entire length. More often than not, a typical horror novel simply loses steam and the end of what could have been a great story can't come soon enough (bloated plot lines, useless secondary characters, etc.)

For THE CRONING, not only is Barron's nightmarish cosmic horrors fully sustained (and ultimately build up a head of steam like a runaway freight train) over the length of 245 pages, but the the vile darkness that he exposes the reader to lasts well beyond the merciful shutting of the book. This is a lean-mean-primeval-terror-invoking-machine of a novel. In fact, Barron never really provides the reader with that sweet release of a nightmare coming to an end and fading into oblivion. I still get the willies looking over at that crone staring right through you from the front cover of the dustjacket (my hats off to Cody Tilson for that vicious portrait of what I believe is Michelle Mock, one of our key characters).

After having devoured this novel in a weekend, I now realize how Barron sunk his hooks into my imagination and why I can't stop thinking about all sorts of nightmarish visages and chitinous talons click-clacking in the darkness and from the slinking shadows. Naturally, one may credit the incredible imagery of terror incarnate that Barron so easily conjures with a few brush strokes of his distinct prose style. And while those images have been tainting my consciousness for the last 4 days, I think this novel goes well beyond the imagery.

Barron's delivery of this incredible tale is simply monstrous in its ability to shake the reader to his very core. How was this so easily achieved? I think it really comes down to Barron's masterful use of the unreliable narration device in combination with vivid flashbacks to the past, all mixed together with his dark musings of a cold and bleak cosmic philosophy.

Our key character, Don Miller, is developed in such a way that we are left frustrated for the poor doddering old fool who has swiss cheese for memory banks, but knows deep down that something is terribly amiss with his life. Barron pulls us in through Don, and when Barron puts Don through the meat grinder in very vivid descriptions of torturous scenes from his past, we are left struggling through Don's cobwebs when we zip right back to the present day and watch Don teeter about struggling with an odd sense of dissatisfaction with the wind down of his career and the loneliness and alienation of having a superstar academic wife who is out and about still pursuing her goals. The juxtaposition between the clear vivid past with Don's maddening inability to remember those scenes because his current memory is fogged over in the present, really gets under your skin. You feel for the poor guy, and so badly wish that he would just have a single epiphany, remembering something of the most basic clues that may illuminate how dangerously close he is to being yanked into the void along with his family. Barron tortures Don (and the reader) with little present day clues that trigger something deep down that is itching to surface and scare the bejeezus out of Don. Those little clues guide the reader in thinking about the layers of this story as it unfolds.

This plot device aside, I really also appreciated how Barron got this story started with a brief but vicious take on the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale that I don't think the Grim brothers could ever imagine. Barron of course brings the telling of this tale full circle by the end of the story, but with the tie in to the names of Mock and Miller, this reinterpretation of an already twisted tale nicely sets a nasty foundation for the rest of the novel.

Imagine if you will, a vile alien presence that has been with mankind since the beginning of time, since we were nothing more than primordial ooze. Hints of this presence makes its appearance in various cultures and mythologies/fairy tales, but the "truths" have been hidden away and who better to follow the bread crumbs than by anthropologists who have an inkling of what to look for. Barron of course does a wonderful job here with giving us an outstanding female lead, Michelle Mock, creepy family and all, to explore these "truths" while her husband Don is bumbling along trying to just keep his head above water.

I credit Barron for giving us a wonderful portrait of a powerful, intelligent, and ambitious woman who does truly love her doddering and cuckolded husband (I say cuckolded because unbeknownst to poor Don, Michelle has been off cavorting with the outer darkness for years).

Anyways, not to overly spoil things, but I certainly loved the ending (although I do agree with some of the reviews that Barron may have erred in illuminating things too much in the end, but then again, maybe Barron is just preparing us for further shocking developments of his mythos). His take on why us puny humans are nothing more than play things to a cold cosmic darkness, was very reminiscent of Michael Shea's "The Autopsy", which was equally chilling in his rift on how humans are nothing more than insignificant ants, simply capable of offering up their terror and dark emotions as nourishment and mana for the unrelenting and cruel appetite of an unknowable alien presence. Barron's similar approach is a bit darker and crueler in his exploration of this philosophy than Shea. This idea, at it core (made great by one HP Lovecraft) is what fuels the engine of cosmic horror... humanity's own insignificance.

One last minor thing...for those of you who have read Barron's other short story collections, he does a wonderful job in tying in key elements from some of his other short stories (Mysterium Tremendum, The Broadsword, etc). There is a ton of cosmic conspiracy theory here and occult worshiping that leaves one to wonder where else Barron can go with this. Perhaps another novel or maybe more short stories/novellas to further spread his already bleak world of darkness and unreality. I'm definitely along for this wild ride.

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May 05, 2012 T.E. Grau rated it 5 of 5 stars

Laird Barron made me gain five pounds.

No, he didn’t hold me down and shovel deep fried butter wedges into my gaping yapper (although, dare to dream). What he did was write a colossal piece of fiction that was nearly impossible to put down, even at the gym, where I do much of my reading every morning. As I hazily recall, just before cracking open Barron’s debut novel The Croning some weeks back, I marched my happy ass off to the local garishly lit LA Fitness, eager to absorb a few pages in betwee...more Laird Barron made me gain five pounds.

No, he didn’t hold me down and shovel deep fried butter wedges into my gaping yapper (although, dare to dream). What he did was write a colossal piece of fiction that was nearly impossible to put down, even at the gym, where I do much of my reading every morning. As I hazily recall, just before cracking open Barron’s debut novel The Croning some weeks back, I marched my happy ass off to the local garishly lit LA Fitness, eager to absorb a few pages in between moving weighted objects from one place to another. Forty-five minutes later I found myself on the floor, sprawled in some lazy stretching pose, peering at the pages in front of me with wide, slightly twitching eyes while sadly oblivious meatheads preened in front of mirrors around me. I was hooked, boated, and clubbed, and stayed that way until I closed the last page some blurry span of time later. As I became doughier, I also became more willing, suppliant. I was fattened and ready for the provender plate of dear Old Leech. Just like They wanted it.

Barron’s storytelling has that rare power of grip, weaving a particular strain of beautiful, sinewy prose that somehow possesses enough tiny microfibers to pick up the grit and sharp things swept into the corners of forgotten history. Both beautiful and monstrous, his evocative imagery lures you into the forest with the cadence of lost eons, leaves you in expectant silence, and then rips back the shading canopy, exposing you to the terrible realities that lie waiting under the thin veneers of bullshit “civilization”.

Not surprisingly, the writing is a reflection of the writer and his unique experience set. Barron grew up in the wilds of Alaska and spent several years fishing the murderous Bering Sea and racing the Iditarod on arctic tundra like some goddamn throwback to a time of brawnier, more road-tested scribes, who could lay down some poetic verse before laying you out in a pool of your own teeth for spilling his drink. Papa Hemingway. Jack London. Dashiell Hammett in a parka. All sitting in the corner booth of the Bar on the Borderland, waiting for their Weirdling pals from the Pulps to show up and swap stories of the violent and strange.

Indeed, his meaty, imaginative style is an amalgam of all of these rough and smooth elements, taking shape as a barrel-chested ballerina, a professional wrestler moonlighting as an ice skater. A pagan ninja hopped up on blood saki, beautifully weaponizing the sublime and stuffing horror into documented and geological mysteries long buried for a reason. Barron respectfully nods his heads to his forebearers, but is truly his own man, blazing his trail through the wild, untamed places to find the haunted ruins. The cryptic mounds. The dolmens... This is Weird fiction boiled hard.

Unfairly or not, Barron is often compared to (elder)godfather of cosmic horror H.P. Lovecraft, but in many ways, Barron’s work is far more bleak than the Gentleman from Providence. In Lovecraft’s Mythos, profoundly alien Great Old Ones and Outer Gods were mostly oblivious or apathetic to our meaningless existence. The horror often came from the realization of unimaginable truth. Much like Barron, HPL’s protagonists reflected the man, and as such, were bookish and aloof, ghosts in the coal powered machine, sneering strangers in the hated crowd. In Laird’s “Barronic Mythos” (an increasingly legitimate construct that I may or may not have just given a name), the unearthly entities not only know where we are and what we’re doing, they pop in from time for a bite, and/or to continually fuck with us just because they can. His characters ARE the crowd, reflecting all strata of life, from the aristocratic elite to the shithouse dogs. Barron understand them all, and spares none. All are claymation figurines caught up in a Game Unutterable organized before the beginning of time. All of them are doomed, and Barron allows us a front row seat to the slow, excruciating execution.

The Croning, Barron’s first full-length novel after making his bones and racking up accolades as a conjurer of short fiction, is a perfect reflection of what he does as a writer, while serving as a stage one culmination of much of his storytelling from the past decade. Characters, artifacts, and even families that were introduced in such short stories as “Mysterium Tremendum” and “The Men From Porlock” reappear in The Croning ready to cast off their potential and reveal their dreadful destiny. After a prologue of sorts, which serves as more than just a pitch-black origin story of Rumpelstiltskin, we are lead through three life stages of the affable geologist Don Miller, and together, we follow Don as he follows his brilliant and headstrong wife Michelle, forever living in her secretive shadow as she chases arcane anthropological discoveries around the world, when not locked away in her study researching her family tree, obsessing over the hard-to-find root system buried impossibly deep in the antediluvian loam. As Michelle pursues her own path that occasionally intersects with her husband, Don is left to reflect on his own life barely lived, and in doing so, starts to unspool – with the help of off-the-grid intelligence agencies, old money eccentrics, and even his own son – the mind shattering reality of what has been slithering around his ankles and through his home for decades, and his role in ongoing Outer Machinations older than the cosmos and twice as dangerous. Cults and conspiracies. Secret societies and powerful bloodlines with grand designs forged through unwholesome alliances dating back to the Stone Age. Mind snuffing dread born beyond the reach of time and space. This is the world of The Croning, and this is the writing of Laird Barron, who effectively synthesizes science fiction with science fact, creating a New Kind of Truth that can be as mortifying as it is wondrous. And it all works. Perfectly, it works.

Much like Bloch, Carter, Lumley, Campbell, Klein, and even Ligotti before him, and with the curiously scarred crone looming protectively behind him, Laird Barron has emerged as the new poster boy of cosmic horror, thankfully without a shred of pastiche anywhere in the shot. The Croning shows an already masterful writer fully in the throws of his own, unique style somehow getting better, and that bodes well for us, his readership, which grows by the hour. We are the Children of Old Leech, and we love you.

In the end, and after all of this convoluted blather, I supposed the highest compliment I can pay The Croning is that it’s the sort of novel I wish I had written had I not first read it. It’s a gift of cosmic naturalist horror that will force you to re-examine everything and everyone around you, if only slightly. The X-Files in print, only infinitely scarier and hitting far closer to home. It will make you fear the trees. It will make you check for zippers.

I reckon that’s not too shabby for a first novel.(less)

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Jun 26, 2012 Quentin rated it 3 of 5 stars

I just finished this earlier today, and have been turning it over in my head since. So what follows may change as I think more on it.

Also, let me preface by saying that I am a huge fan of Barron's short story collections "The Imago Sequence" and "Occultation". Barron writes in the tradition of Lovecraft, about cosmic horror, and humans trapped by powers they cannot control or even really impact. But the big difference is in style--Lovecraft's prose is all explosive adjectives and wild descriptio...more I just finished this earlier today, and have been turning it over in my head since. So what follows may change as I think more on it.

Also, let me preface by saying that I am a huge fan of Barron's short story collections "The Imago Sequence" and "Occultation". Barron writes in the tradition of Lovecraft, about cosmic horror, and humans trapped by powers they cannot control or even really impact. But the big difference is in style--Lovecraft's prose is all explosive adjectives and wild descriptions, but Barron goes in the opposite direction. His writing has an extreme economy to it, which reaches almost Hemingway-like proportions. And, along with this economy in prose, I have always enjoyed Barron's allusions to the horrors he writes about, rather than outright explanation. He implies terror and sketches the edges of it, but doesn't fill in. And of course, this makes it that much scarier for the reader!

The plot centers around geologist Donald Miller and his anthropologist wife Michelle Mock. The plot begins with a re-telling of Rumpelstillskin (yeah, the fairy tale) that is equal parts funny and unnerving, then moves into the various creepy vignettes from Don's life heighten the tension. The story jumps across time, when they are young, middle-aged, and quite old. Events in Donald's life gradually take on a heightened and frightful significance, even as his frequent memory-loss washes that significance away. What becomes clear is that, through his wife and her family, Donald is privy to a horrifying invasion of our world by creatures called "The Children of Old Leech". These creatures (or references to them) have appeared in other Barron short stories as well. Barron's gift for allusion and implication make the first half a very tense and creepy read.

But I found myself disappointed by the ending of "The Croning". I won't spoil it, but suffice it to say, Barron essentially writes a complete description of the mythology of Old Leech that he's been building in his short stories. By the end we know exactly what has been chasing Donald this whole time, what its motives are, and even a (admittedly difficult) way to defeat it, or at least check it. And that just took all the thrill out of it for me. The ending was satisfying, and the first half of the book is quite good, even if it drags in a few places (long descriptions of Don's relations with colleagues, friends, and Michelle's family felt a bit tedious). But the thorough (and in my mind, unnecessary) explanation of the Children of Old Leech and their abilities just felt like giving away the store.

I still like Barron's work, and will continue to recommend his short story collections, but I feel like having the length of the novel made Barron feel that he had to fill it with too much information about his subjects, and that ultimately detracted from the "frightful things" he had created.
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May 13, 2012 Jordan West rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bought-new, read-in-2012, strange-stories-and-weird-fiction

I am literally counting the days until this comes out; Laird Barron is easily the greatest US writer of weird fiction since Ligotti and his first novel is a cause for celebration. I haven't been this excited about a book in a long time.

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May 25, 2012 Gavin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

The Croning is an unashamed love-note addressed to H.P Lovecraft, where the o is a heart. Which is fitting, as Laird Barron does everything Howard did before him, but different and mostly better, and at least where not better, magnified.

The novel opens with an updated riff on (of all things) the story of Rumpelstiltskin. I've waxed lyrical about how I love the re-contextualisation and appropriation of older stories into a newer thematic and narrative frameworks so I won't do it again here but bo...more The Croning is an unashamed love-note addressed to H.P Lovecraft, where the o is a heart. Which is fitting, as Laird Barron does everything Howard did before him, but different and mostly better, and at least where not better, magnified.

The novel opens with an updated riff on (of all things) the story of Rumpelstiltskin. I've waxed lyrical about how I love the re-contextualisation and appropriation of older stories into a newer thematic and narrative frameworks so I won't do it again here but boy howdy this book is how it is done in that regard. From there we jump forward a few hundred years into the head of Don Miller, which -suffering from dementia as he is- is a reasonably confusing place to spend the time.

Barron seems to have realised that a full length horror story with a continuous narrative thread is a pretty tall ask, so breaks the book down into a series of vignettes peopled by the same cast, with variable success. The memory-loss is used as a way for us to be told these stories in flash-back without Don applying any of the lessons he should have learned, unfortunately it gives the book crippling pacing issues. You find yourself reaching the end of a cracking horror story where men are lifted bodily from the ground by otherworldly forces and torn shrieking from this plane, only to segue into... Don and His Son Tidying a Cupboard. Another issue being when Don is confronted by the next bit of malign interference you're sitting in your chair shouting "no! You daft bugger! It's that giant slug-man-thing again! Run away!" while he burbles through the scene ignorant of his surroundings and the impending danger. Far worse would have been for the book to reach fever pitch 20% of the way in then try to maintain that, but it's a partial solution at best.

Those quibbles aside, though, this is a legitimately scary book. I say that as someone who hasn't been scared by a book since he stopped being a teenager but this thing gave me a shiver once or twice and had me peering over the kindle and around darkened corners far more times than I'm comfortable admitting. Barron's vocabulary and prose are superbly well suited to the task at hand and the whole mythos he constructs around Old Leech is wonderfully baroque and nihilistic.

Best of all, though, is the way the story ties together for the ending. Ending a Cosmic Horror is pretty unrewarding because (view spoiler). I can't even hint at it without ruining the whole thing for you, but I was absolutely, hair-on-end ecstatic when I realised how thoroughly I'd been had.

For horror played straight, I find it difficult to imagine you can get a much better novel than this.(less)

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May 06, 2012 Brett Talley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Note: I received an ARC copy of The Croning.

It’s rare that I read a book and think to myself, I could never have written this. Call it hubris, pride if you will. It just doesn’t happen.

I could never have written Laird Barron’s The Croning, and I consider that the ultimate compliment.

I’m a naturally optimistic guy, and it shows in my writing. I like keeping hope alive, and so even when I write horror, it tends to have a hopeful tone. The Croning is not hopeful. It is not sunny. It’s dark man, w...more

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May 30, 2012 Jared rated it 5 of 5 stars

A tiny candelight held up to the moments in life where reality turns to nightmarish horror. Barron explores one man's flickers of insight into the sublime Lovecraftian terrors that are ever-present, but rarely seen. Except for some minor pacing problems in the middle, Barron has written a nearly flawless horror novel that will probably be considered a classic in the years to come.

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Oct 10, 2012 Katy rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of horror and psychological suspense

Recommended to Katy by: NetGalley

Shelves: ebook, galley-for-review, net-galley

Book Info: Genre: Horror Reading Level: Adult Read: started 5/17/12; re-started 5/20/12 and finished 5/21/12

Disclosure: I received a free eGalley (eBook ARC) from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Oops, forgot to rate this!

Synopsis: Strange things exist on the periphery of our existence, haunting us from the darkness looming beyond our firelight. Black magic, weird cults and worse things loom in the shadows. The Children of Old Leech have been with us from time immemorial. And they love...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Peter rated it 1 of 5 stars

I do not typically write reviews. This book needs one. It also needs an editor.

This is one of the worst books I have ever read. I'm not exaggerating when I say that virtually every sentence needs something done to it. Barron's narrative voice is a mess: sometimes he's overusing profanity, sometimes he's so squeamish about it that he's using phrases like 'pee drops' in lieu of; sometimes he's writing anachronistic Lovecraftian madlibs for scenes occurring in the modern day, sometimes he's using w...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Tripp rated it 4 of 5 stars

It has been years (ok maybe one year) since I have read a horror novel worth recommending. Barron has written a number of short stories that dance around the label Lovecraftian and now he managed to craft an engaging novel that shares Lovecraft's love of truly cosmic horror.

The book kicks off with a revisionist version of the Rumpelstilskin myth and then moves to the modern day. Readers a tad quicker than myself will pick up on the tie to the fairy tale. Those like me who missed it initially wil...more

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Sep 12, 2012 Jody rated it 5 of 5 stars

Elizabeth Pepper and John Wilcock wrote the following about Granada, Spain, in their nonfiction tour de force titled MAGICAL & MYSTICAL SITES: EUROPE and the BRITISH ISLES (published in 1977 by Harper & Row): “The area of Sacro Monte. . . . It was in a cavern here, carefully sealed with great blocks of stone and guarded by a solitary pillar, that a bizarre discovery was made. A dozen skeletons, dating back to Neolithic times, were found sitting in a circle around the skeleton of a woman...more Elizabeth Pepper and John Wilcock wrote the following about Granada, Spain, in their nonfiction tour de force titled MAGICAL & MYSTICAL SITES: EUROPE and the BRITISH ISLES (published in 1977 by Harper & Row): “The area of Sacro Monte. . . . It was in a cavern here, carefully sealed with great blocks of stone and guarded by a solitary pillar, that a bizarre discovery was made. A dozen skeletons, dating back to Neolithic times, were found sitting in a circle around the skeleton of a woman wearing the remains of a leather tunic on which were incised complex geometric patterns. Also in the cave archeologists discovered such signs of ritual magic as amulets and inscribed clay discs of the types usually identified with sun worship. The floor was covered with beads and seeds of the opium poppy, which was known in earliest times as nepenthe, a narcotic.

Anthony Roberts in his GIANTS in the EARTH theorizes that the woman must have been an adept and spiritual guide who led the initiates into an astral state of contemplation. ‘The people who made this magic trip,’ he says, ‘had never returned from its magical revelations, and this was quite possibly by choice.’”

Take heart, readers of dark fiction, for someone has returned (bringing with him the Children of Old Leech), and he has written a novel about such mysteries -- written fiction, mind you, because to do otherwise, to speak the truth, might invoke a horror upon us mortals more terrible than that which befalls our hapless protagonist, Donald Miller, in Laird Barron’s stunning debut novel THE CRONING.

Donald Miller, a geologist and academic, worships his beautiful and enigmatic wife, Michelle Mock, an anthropologist with strong ties to mysterious moguls around the globe. But not all is well with the world for Donald, as he would have it, as his wife has a habit of suddenly taking off unannounced to explore this-or-that anthropological dig while in the company of one or more of her male colleagues -- often staying gone for weeks at a time. But Donald is a good husband and does not complain overmuch or ask too many questions, until one morning in Mexico City, while both are enjoying a spring vacation together, Michelle receives a phone call in their hotel room from a colleague who informs her of a dig nearby and would she care to join him for a few days. Michelle tells Don she’ll only be gone for a short while, then plants a kiss on him and takes off.

Don has misgivings, however, and sets out in search of Michelle, whom he has begun to suspect of doing more than digging in dirt with her colleagues. When Michelle stays gone without a word for more than two days Don begins to worry that something terrible has happened to her, and searches for her in dead earnest.

Something terrible is indeed happening, but Don is wrong about to whom it is happening.

THE CRONING is highly recommended reading for anyone who enjoys conjugated light and dark, and all those squirming little crevices in between.
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Aug 06, 2012 Aidan Fortner rated it 2 of 5 stars

First off, I hadn't read any of Barron's short fiction prior to picking up his debut novel. However, I read a rave review of "The Croning" in my favorite horror culture rag, Rue Morgue, and thought there was no way they could steer me wrong. What a naive, misguided fanboy view...

Barron's prose is dull. He relies on crude swearing and very tired cliches much too much to be interesting. His characters are rather one-dimensional and also seem cut from a cliched cloth. I'm sure he thought he was bei...more

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Jun 21, 2012 Michael Larson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Laird Barron really knows how to get under my skin. I've followed his short fiction since his first collection, 'The Imago Sequence', and while I usually don't get creeped out reading books, his writing always has me thinking twice before turning out the light at night, and doing a double-check under the bed before attempting to sleep (I'm a thirty-year-old man, if you needed a mental picture of that).

It's tempting to bring up Lovecraft when describing what works about Barron's writing, but the...more Laird Barron really knows how to get under my skin. I've followed his short fiction since his first collection, 'The Imago Sequence', and while I usually don't get creeped out reading books, his writing always has me thinking twice before turning out the light at night, and doing a double-check under the bed before attempting to sleep (I'm a thirty-year-old man, if you needed a mental picture of that).

It's tempting to bring up Lovecraft when describing what works about Barron's writing, but the truth is, aside from the fact that they both fit squarely in the genre of cosmic horror, Barron's work is quite different from the near-insane ramblings of the narrators of most of Lovecraft's stories. Sure, the end point is the same for both authors, with the protagonists of each realizing their overwhelming smallness in the scope of the infinite universe, but where Lovecraft's stories are told from the perspective of men locked away from society, scribbling away in the turret room of their mansion or a hut in the middle of the darkening woods, Barron's stories are set in the real world.

His writing is so colorful and alive that I would enjoy reading his work even if there weren't unnameable creatures lurking on the margins of the page. The main character here, Donald Miller, comes off as a guy who's never particularly asked a lot from life, and even though it seems like his strongest drive is to keep his eyes shut to the darkness he keeps catching sight of all around him, I really liked the guy. I think this is one of the keys to good horror- creating a real, human character, and then causing some really bad stuff to happen to said character. And oh man, there is some really bad stuff going on here.

Barron excels at creating not just the scenes of stark terror, of which there are plenty, but also in the little details that begin to make you see that all is not right. Whispered conversations barely overheard. Characters vanishing with little explanation or concern. Faces glimpsed in the midnight woods. The tiniest movement of a cellar door.

The only place that the book faltered a bit to me was Donald's forgetfulness. So many terrible things happen to him here, throughout his whole life, and the only thing keeping him from turning tail and spending the rest of his life under a mattress or in a loony bin is the fact that he forgets all of the traumatic events. It's certainly a believable defense mechanism, but it's used a few too many times here so that it begins to feel more like a convenient plot device than an actual affliction of Don's. I feel that this may have been a result of Barron's experience as a short story writer, and in order to have Don go through all that he does, there's no real way to deal with his mind not breaking in two than to give him amnesia.

All in all, though, a truly spooky book by one of my favorite writers of modern horror.

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Jun 20, 2012 Daniel Powell rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's been said before in almost every review that I've encountered on Laird Barron's The Croning, but I'll have to just repeat it here to have it on the record: this is one of the best debut novels I've ever read.

It's not just a terrific debut, it's a frightening masterpiece of a novel. Barron's longish short fiction set the bar exceedingly high, but he didn't waste any time vaulting those expectations with this piece.

Barron's prose style is complex and filled with haunting imagery. His locales,...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Seregil of Rhiminee rated it 5 of 5 stars

Before I write anything else, I'll mention that this review is based on a PDF ARC of The Croning.

Laird Barron's debut novel, The Croning, is an astonishingly good and original horror novel. It's an impressive debut novel, which was worth the wait, because it's written in beautiful English and the story is suspenseful. I was very impressed by the way the author has managed to blend modern storytelling and Lovecraftian cosmic horror, because this combination feels fresh. (I have to confess that wh...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Squeasel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Meh?

Normally scary stuff scares the crap out of me (note, I don't admit this very often, since gothish people who wear black are apparently supposed to not get scared by scary films and books, I've been told) but other than the first 50 pages of this, which I found relatively interesting, the rest was just me wondering when it might get interesting again, and hopefully live up to some of the reviews.

(Also, apparently women are evil and middle aged women even more evil... still not really sure...more

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Jul 08, 2012 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

Between meals, I'd rustled about in my electronic rucksack for a story or three to read. (The device is already jammed with so many acquisitions that I could open my own lending library. Upside: no dust on these, so less sneezing while looking.) And I returned to one of the annual Best Horror collections that I am always so hopeful about as I crack the cover and so unsatisfied by as I toss the text over in the pile, maybe half-read.

Horror's an odd genre. As a longtime fan, I'm always hoping for...more Between meals, I'd rustled about in my electronic rucksack for a story or three to read. (The device is already jammed with so many acquisitions that I could open my own lending library. Upside: no dust on these, so less sneezing while looking.) And I returned to one of the annual Best Horror collections that I am always so hopeful about as I crack the cover and so unsatisfied by as I toss the text over in the pile, maybe half-read.

Horror's an odd genre. As a longtime fan, I'm always hoping for that delicious sense of holyshit, or at least an occasional sped-up heart rate or the tickle of a dread from something glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. I ate this stuff up as a kid, and I still get a nostalgic knot in my stomach when I recall my post-fourth grade summer of Salem's Lot, where I spent many nights sweating under the covers, anxious that I not make eye contact with the vampire kid at my window. I lost five pounds, I think. Or maybe that night I rushed through The Exorcist while home alone, hoping my grandparents wouldn't return 'til I was done, and hoping my grandparents would hurry the fuck home, so I could calm down. I don't want here to rehash previous, tedious thoughts on why horror mattered to me (although I think most explanations are far too pat and comforting). I simply want you to know how deeply stories of shock and dread embedded themselves in me, made me a reader in many ways. I long for a return, but here's the odd part: I haven't outgrown the need but so much of what appeased me then (what seemed like a meal) now comes off too often as thin gruel, cheap hamburger, or overcooked. Between the well-received pulp which bores me a bit and the well-received great stuff which bores me a lot, there's little nutrition. Every now and again, a Let the Right One In, or some time in The Ruins, or a writer like David Nickle, or... a Laird Barron.

Barron could easily go the over-sauced route, as he's deeply influenced by H.P. Lovecraft--whose work is profoundly silly, and yet still occasionally works. Barron prefers the constant shadows out of the corner of the eye, with an occasional strobe of Something Horrific flashing center-stage. He writes in a way that will, sure, pour it on, but he's also got a wicked sense of humor that'll bite through the florid passages. I was blown away by his story "The Broadsword," and so I grabbed this novel--and wow, what fun. Where Barron is most successful is in structuring--scenes, sentences, and particularly the arc of the novel--in such a way that the Horrific scratches in the walls, a sound to the sides of what's happening at center--he's a wizard of Dread. And this appreciation for the oblique keeps the thing(s) out of sight--turning the silly into sublime, in the classic sense.

For instance, the opening section is a rewrite of Rumplestiltskin--told with a contemporary snarky wit, a disinterest in overselling or expositioning the revision to death, and a little bit of narrative magic that becomes ever more startling (and Barron's sneakiness ever more impressive) as the novel moves into its final act.

Silly, right? Who's fucking scared of Rumplestiltskin? Ah, that's the joy of the genre -- when it works, it finds an uncanny dread and otherness everywhere, right under our noses, in our bedtime stories.

I'd have to admit that there are moments where prose is too purpled, metaphors thud to the floor, the meal gets a bit gamy. But it's a helluva first novel, and for a horror fan, it's a find. (less)

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Jun 05, 2012 Alex rated it 4 of 5 stars

A lot of reviewers have been hung up on making the comparison that Laird Barron is a modern Lovecraft or that this novel in particular is Lovecraftian. I think, in short, this is a stupid thing to say. It denies Barron any credit as a new, creative author and it shows a lack of foresight and imagination on the parts of those readers that they choose to think only in terms of Lovecraft.

Yes, we are treated to Lovecraft's idea of cosmicism and a new "mountain of flesh" horror-diety, but this is not...more

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Oct 17, 2012 Gaurav Sethi rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is a very dark and creepy story. A new Queen, a promise, spun gold, a creepy dwarf, a beautiful anthropologist, a befuddled husband, acid trips in Mexico, creaky doors, vague memories of human ritual sacrifice, blood, caves, darkness. Intrigued? then do yourself a pick up this very short novel. It reads very much like a young Stephen King novel, somethign that will keep you up at night and have you turning pages and jumping at noises in the dark.

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Sep 03, 2012 Hilcia rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-read, speculative-fiction, horror

II've read and loved Barron's short stories. It is the reason I immediately purchased his full length novel The Croning. I thought The Croning began rather well, with a fairy tale that Barrons turned into a dark horror tale. Unfortunately, the central character is rather uninteresting with a narrative voice that lacks excitement, and that never changes throughout the story. Flashbacks break whatever momentum is gained and foreshadow most of what's to come, so that by the end there are little of...more

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May 12, 2012 Doug rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who like Cosmic Horrors. Fans of Campbell, Lovecraft, and Aickman.

the gist. Don Miller is a man with problems: he is uncomfortable around his children, he has grown afraid of the dark, his career floats on the periphery of being washed up, his memory is worse than ever, his wife disappears for weeks at a time on trips to who-knows-where, and things lie in wait for him in the dark of his cellar and in the woods beyond his house. Things that sometimes protect him, sometimes slither around his life, and always make him afraid. In his 80s, Don begins to finally se...more the gist. Don Miller is a man with problems: he is uncomfortable around his children, he has grown afraid of the dark, his career floats on the periphery of being washed up, his memory is worse than ever, his wife disappears for weeks at a time on trips to who-knows-where, and things lie in wait for him in the dark of his cellar and in the woods beyond his house. Things that sometimes protect him, sometimes slither around his life, and always make him afraid. In his 80s, Don begins to finally see enough puzzle pieces at once to understand the direction his life has been taking, and his past and present are a horror story of impressions, leading up to his own important choices, assuming he gets the chance to make one.

one paragraph review. Laird Barron is the sort of writer who ends up time and time again in Lovecraftian anthos with nary a Azathoth nor Cthulhu to be found, which makes him a bit of a rarity, though The Croning finally helps to cement his own mythos and expose some answers to lingering background questions deep in the worlds he has crafted in his previous stories. If you like Barron's previous, you will probably adore this book and might even consider it required reading. If you have never delved into Barron or have found his latter works impenetrable, then this is still recommended in that it has longer stretches to breathe and mostly avoids some of Barron's more impressionistic leanings while still invoking his sense of mood-over-action and broaches the fighting spirit that his tough guy characters—this time replaced by a bit of a doddering, but spirited, academic—have often effected. His craftmanship here delves into the edge of literary fiction, especially in the third chapter where Don faces old age moreso than monsters and a scene at his grandfather's grave is less horror than Delillo-esque ruminations, but the overall story is still about the things that go bump in the deep night and the drip-drip terror of gaining universal perspective. Don is a doomed man and everyone, especially the reader, knows this more than he ever seems to realize. Overall, a great book, with a very strong mythos—easily one of the best in horror history—and much to praise in its pages.

plus some paragraphs. Even though I ranked this book as great [and gave it five stars on Goodreads], it is not without problems. Nightshade's editors have let a handful of typos slip through, the kind that spellcheck wouldn't catch: cage for case, if for of, and ragged for dragged. Extra words like "in" showing up in sentences where it shouldn't go. Many make sort of interesting malapropisms and the book is never rife with them, but it did kind of slap the tone around a bit. There is at least one moment where Don references a truth about how someone died before being told the "secret" of how they died, though that might simply be his sieve-as-a-mind spurting data he already knew out into the void.

And the bits where Barron shines, the bits where Don's old-age life and its various failures are wrapped hand in hand in horror, seem to fade over time and are replaced by elements maybe a bit more fright oriented.

Still, if you have been craving Cosmic Horror with a capital C and H, and have grown tired of octopus-headed copycats stalking humanity through the void, this is really one of the best chances to catch such a thing. The use of an octogenarian who traverses past mistakes through flashbacks, only to forget them later, is a fairly fresh salve to some of the stagnation that haunts the genre's protagonists. His grasp of language is strong, his pacing and revelations are designed for heavy impact, and his horrors are full of imagery and not easily ignored. Best yet, he manages to leave some questions unanswered and hints at even more horrible stones left to unturn, even if he does manage to have a pair of big exposition dumps that feel out of place with the even heeled ignorance that had been piloting the book up to that point [one is melded directly into the scene, one is kind of grafted on but technically exposes more information].

Make it through the third chapter and you will know if it is for you. And if you like part of it but not all of it, try reading the story "--30--" and see how that sits with you. Many similar themes are exposed in that shorter work, and the writing is a bit more chaotic. And if that doesn't stick with you, well, there you are...(less)

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May 16, 2013 Pan rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: NOBODY!

Shelves: 2013, failures

I can't seem to articulate a review for this book beyond: I hated it! I picked this up from my local libraries e-book collection. I'd decided to try to budge my kindle spending and take a break with this freebie. It was the worst decision I've made this year. I actually made it to 93% before finally calling it a failed attempt.

The narrative voice is horrific and convoluted. The "foreign vocabulary" is down right insulting due to it's ridiculous stereotyping and tired out cliches. The majority of...more

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May 17, 2012 Heidi Ward rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: own, horror, 21st-century, weird-fiction, cults, creepy, very-disturbing, suspense-thriller, secret-societies, occult, myth-folklore-fairy-tales, family-dynamics, best-read-in-2012, cosmic-horror, pacific-northwest, blogged

The Croning is a perfectly horrible book, and I mean that in high compliment.

It's rare that a horror story actually scares me these days (and more's the pity), but Barron's first novel is wrong in all the right ways, leaving behind a caul of unease, and a wicked dose of the cosmic heebie-jeebies. (I'm thrilled to admit that when I finished it last night, I left the lights on.) Also? Un-put-downable. The Croning sustains the poisonous adrenaline level of one of Barron's short stories over almost...more The Croning is a perfectly horrible book, and I mean that in high compliment.

It's rare that a horror story actually scares me these days (and more's the pity), but Barron's first novel is wrong in all the right ways, leaving behind a caul of unease, and a wicked dose of the cosmic heebie-jeebies. (I'm thrilled to admit that when I finished it last night, I left the lights on.) Also? Un-put-downable. The Croning sustains the poisonous adrenaline level of one of Barron's short stories over almost 250 pages; once you open the cover you are done for. But the faint-of-heart be warned: this is a seriously dark and unpleasant ride, with a sucking black hole where some might prefer redemptive resolution.

With each tautly descriptive and hallucinogenic page, the dread level ratchets up another notch, for both the reader and our "hero" Don Miller. Don, a former geologist and cave-expert now in his early 80s, has recently come to suspect that his notoriously unreliable memory is finally going for good. As Don settles into uneasy retirement in his wife's ancestral family home in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, he reviews his apparently charmed life: moderate wealth, adventurous travel, family and a 50-plus-year marriage with love of his life,the still-vivacious -- and still-successful -- archaeologist Michelle Mock.

But there is something wrong. Don feels a creeping dread about the house and the Mock family's mysterious history, as well as Michelle's long absences, unreliable itineraries, and violent mood swings. Now, Don's fears begin to coalesce into a pattern of nagging inconsistencies and memory-repression so terrifying as to indeed resemble dementia. This challenging timeline structure leaps back and forth across more than half a century of Don's life, methodically revealing the horrors that have been conspiratorially hidden from him until now, and unveiling the truly nightmarish source of Don's dis-ease -- his brushes with a cthonic cult that has flourished from before the dawn of time, and demands unimaginable sacrifice from its chosen acolytes.

In The Croning, Barron has fleshed out the rumors of "Old Leech" and his minions, who have appeared in certain of his short stories, creating an ancient and bloodthirsty mythology of Lovecraftian scale, but with a stench of cosmic horror that is entirely his own. It's sick, but I want more.

(less)

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May 07, 2012 Sam rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a stellar book, in many senses of that word. Firmly implanting the cosmic in "cosmic horror," Laird Barron's first novel takes a number of threads started in his short stories and weaves them into a stunning gallows rope. The longer novel format gives Barron the space to lay out a deep back story and slowly simmer his nightmarish stew, as opposed to the microwave oven necessitated by the short story form.

The Croning tells the story of aged geologist Don Miller and his anthropologist wife...more This is a stellar book, in many senses of that word. Firmly implanting the cosmic in "cosmic horror," Laird Barron's first novel takes a number of threads started in his short stories and weaves them into a stunning gallows rope. The longer novel format gives Barron the space to lay out a deep back story and slowly simmer his nightmarish stew, as opposed to the microwave oven necessitated by the short story form.

The Croning tells the story of aged geologist Don Miller and his anthropologist wife Michelle Mock. Jumping around between three different periods in their shared life, we meet their family and associates, as well as government agents and the ancient cult of Old Leech, familiar from some of Mr. Barron's previous stories. Unfolding for the most part in his familiar Pacific Northwest locales, the strange family histories of the Millers and the Mocks slowly but surely crystallizes into a soul-shattering fugue of doom and unthinkable horror.

Barron includes enough of the mundane and the familiar in the story to give it a good grounding. To his credit, the settings seem very real, even when very unreal things are occurring. As the tension ratchets up and the story starts moving faster and faster, the little details and realistic touches from earlier in the book lay a nice groundwork for the creeping dread and awful realizations to come.

Mr. Barron's central theme strikes me as an alloy forged from classic Lovecraftian cosmic horror, Thomas Ligotti's idea of The Darkness, and his own unique rare-earth minerals. This overarching mythology has been teased and hinted at in previous stories, and here it is laid bare. If I have any quibble with this book, it would be that the concepts underlying the "Barronic Mythos" (to quote T. E. Grau) are almost too illuminated. The story features some nice twists and reveals right up until the end; when that end is reached, it appears there is little ambiguity left regarding the story of Old Leech and related entities.

Still, at this point I trust Barron implicitly. I have liked or (more frequently) loved everything he has written to date. He is a well-reasoned and seasoned writer of exceptional quality, and The Croning is one of the best novels I have read in quite some time, horror or otherwise. Beautiful and brutal, with genuine skin-crawling moments shuffled in with scenes of wide-eyed wonder. I predict you will see this book on many Best of 2012 lists and awards ballots.

Laird Barron has proven, definitively, that he can write long stories that are just as effective as his short fiction, and I'm looking forward to reading more, much more, of this unique man's singular and haunting vision. (less)

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Feb 20, 2013 Gary Cantara rated it 2 of 5 stars

I absolutely loved the opening of this book. So imagine my disappointment when the main plot began to unfold and I found myself so utterly bored, the notion of finishing the book began to seem like a terrible burden. Really, I was that bored with it. I get this story's effect depends on the accumulation of small details. And maybe if I managed to get through the first half of the book, it would snap into shape and I would understand the five star reviews here. But it was just too slow and too du...more

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Aug 06, 2012 Christian rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror, fiction, weird-fiction

For me, the Croning was not a five star book (contrary to what so many seem to think is amazing art). I forced myself to finish this book simply so I could give it a fair review.

I will agree that Laird Barron is a rising star among horror writers. With a few exceptions I love all of his short story work, I own both of his collections and eagerly await more. He evokes the kind of cosmic, otherworldly horror that made me enjoy Lovecraft.

However, Barron's strength is not in novels, as proven by th...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Cameron rated it 3 of 5 stars

There's a wonderful, vivid story in here, but it doesn't start till the halfway mark, and the climax and revelations are all one person telling another what's been going on. It's a shame because the writing and characters are strong, the unreliable narrator device works very well, and the eerie atmosphere is maintained throughout, but the revelations are all fired in one talky shotgun blast at the end (which is still fun to read).

I don't think it was intentional but a small amount of Lovecraft's...more

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May 30, 2012 Tina rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: best-of-2012, all-time-favorites, horror-supernatural

If Lovecraft was still alive, he would have some competition. If you like horror, then read this. But, fair warning - it's very dark, and it kept me up too late, pondering our little blue orb floating around in the shadows of the universe.

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Feb 05, 2013 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very mixed feelings about this. For the most part this was an excellent, creepy horror tale, slow building and subtle but still full of shocks and gore and dark humor aplenty. It reminded me a lot of "Rosemary's Baby," but by way of Lovecraft rather than the Catholic Church (it's a cosmic horror retelling of Rumpelstilskin.) Ultimately though, I don't think it was good as the sum of it's parts. Much of the books pages turn out to have been there for atmosphere and didn't really do much for the s...more

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