F.R. Jameson's Blog, page 6
April 14, 2019
Holiday!
I’m on holiday in Ireland this week, so I’m not posting. But here are some photos of me writing in The Emerald Isle the last time I was there.
[image error]
[image error]
April 10, 2019
The Babadook (2014)
For years
now, it seems that people have been raving about how good THE BABADOOK is. So, I
freely confess that I should have got to it earlier. In my defence, there are loads
of classic horror films out there, and so many new ones being released, and as
such a man who doesn’t have that much time to see horror films can swiftly fall
behind. Yes, I’m five years late but I finally got there and all I can say to
anyone else who has similarly fallen behind is: Believe the hype about THE
BABADOOK!
In Australia,
a young widow with a son who seems to have emotional problems struggles to make
her way each day. She clearly hasn’t processed her grief, her son has just been
excluded from school, but far more dreadful problems are about to arrive. A
scary children’s book has appeared on their shelves, and THE BABADOOK has
invaded their home.
What makes it so effective is that although there is an external invader (and this film is so horror literate that the image of the Babadook itself is borrowed from Lon Chaney lost silent chiller LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT) what really makes it so creepy is how much of the horror comes from the internal.
[image error]
This is about a young woman’s descent into madness and the things she might be capable of doing when her senses collapse. At the centre is a truly great performance from Essie Davis, who elicits empathy right at the start, and terrifies later even as the viewer still cares for her. Yes, The Babadook itself is undoubtedly scary, but this is a film about much more than jump-scares from a monster, it’s about mothers and sons and grief and loss, and it’s that emotional depth which gives the scares proper meaning.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
April 8, 2019
Lair by James Herbert
This
is not a great book.
But
then I knew that going in.
As
a teen, I read all three of James Herbert’s ‘Rats’ books and, while I didn’t
remember much about the characters or narrative, I did recall that none of them
are particularly brilliant.
I’ve
read this again now as I wanted to see how you build on a first book to create
an epic horror trilogy. (There’s a project of mine coming in 2020 which, ahem,
will have something of that.) However, a good example of world/mythos building this
really isn’t. It’s not even a great example of progressing what went before.
Four
years after the rat attack on London, they’re at it again – only this time in
the less scary setting of Epping Forest. But rather than playing with the ideas
of the first book and turning them into something new, LAIR is more of a re-tread
– a whole other episode rather than a follow on. There’s a new lead character butting
heads with various bureaucrats anxious not to make a fuss and claiming there’s
no problem. (Herbert had clearly seen JAWS). We also have a fit young lady who
the hero manages to get it on with despite the chaos, and it’s clear that the
whole thing is going to run a very predictable path.
The things that I always like about Herbert are done well here: the gore and the creating of odd minor characters (a flasher features prominently and – SPOILER – meets a bad end). But it’s also lumpen, with extraneous sex scenes and rubbish dialogue. So, in all crucial ways, it’s your average James Herbert book. But it’s a James Herbert novel that doesn’t build on his greatest success, instead it tries to replicate it in a not particularly interesting way.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
April 2, 2019
Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970)
Here’s a bonkers slice of 1970s Italian Giallo.
A group of beautiful, affluent people are lounging
around on a private island (there is a plot point about a professor who’s being
pressured to sell his secret formula, but it isn’t important) when one of them
is murdered. To save his body decomposing in the sun, the survivors bang him
into a large freezer they have to hand. Before long though, one of the young
attractive ladies is bumped off and she’s put in the freezer too. Clearly, no
one is safe and that freezer is going to get fuller and fuller.
It’s obviously a riff on Agatha Christie’s AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, but with even less realistic characters. I’ve written elsewhere about how Christie doesn’t really do characters, she does archetypes. But compared to this, she writes some of the most beautifully observed people ever put in fiction. By contrast, here we have men and women who – when their love-making and general indolence is interrupted by a brutal murder – regard it sad eyed for a little while before going back to love making and general indolence.
[image error]At least two people have died by this point.
The acting is variable, the score is jarringly
jaunty and it’s all utterly ridiculous. (There is a nice twist though.) However,
that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON (I have no idea
what the title means, either). In its sheer sun-kissed beautiful madness,
there’s something quite transfixing about it.
I know from my reading that there are other much weirder and nuttier films in this genre out there, but to a relative newbie like myself – this was a bonkers treat.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
March 31, 2019
Malevolent by Jana Deleon
A young widow, who committed justifiable homicide against her
husband after he turned into a crazed stalker, hires a private detective when
she is stalked again. The stalker this time? Her husband, seemingly from beyond
the grave.
It’s a great set up for a thriller, but what make MALEVOLENT
by Jana Deleon such an interesting read is how it makes no bones about its real
subject: violence against women.
The private detective she hires is another young woman: our
protagonist, Shaye Archer. She was found at the age of about fifteen with
plenty of scars and broken bones, but no memory at all of who she was or what
had happened to her. Since then, she has been through mental and physical rehabilitation
and now runs her own detective agency. She isn’t specifically there to help
injured females, but that’s clearly what she does.
Through the course of the book there are four other women (at
least, just in case my memory is playing tricks on me and there is another one)
who have violence inflicted upon them. And, so as well as a whodunnit, the book
becomes about women coming together and fighting back. How if women have each
other’s backs, then they don’t won’t be broken by what happens to them. They
can emerge stronger and more resilient.
It’s a great message and one I’m sure resonates through this series which begins in such a strong way.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
March 27, 2019
The Garden on Sunset: A Novel of Golden-Era Hollywood by Martin Turnbull
There’s a great romance
to early Hollywood.
It’s the pioneer
spirit, a 20th Century goldrush of people arriving in this
California town and suddenly becoming unfeasibly rich and impossibly famous.
(Seriously, go back and read about the lives of silent film stars – most of
whom are utterly forgotten today – there are Russian Tsars who weren’t as
opulent.) That same romance is there in the coming of a sound – a time of great
flux for the industry where anything seemed
possible.
That romance is, of
course, captured wonderfully in SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, and is also picked up with
real beauty and empathy in THE GARDEN ON SUNSET. The first of a series I know
I’ll be devouring.
Set in a real hotel which
was once the property of a now has-been silent film star, Alla Nazimova (a real
person, but capturing the Norma Desmond-esque rise and fall that some of these
people endured), the book follows three young wannabes in Hollywood following
their dreams. Through a series of vignettes, Martin Turnbull leads us through
the end of the roaring twenties, the coming of sound and the depression. But
even though there are big events taking place, it’s a very human book with a
fantastic amount of empathy and wit. It isn’t a love story in any normal sense,
but it is about romance. The romance of the age, the romance of hope, the
romance of people with dreams.
Obviously, I write about movie people too (when I have my noir hat on, at least), so the world this evokes was always going to appeal directly to me. As such I opened the first page with probably ridiculously high expectations, and I’m pleased to say I wasn’t disappointed.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
Eden St Michel #BookReview #IndieAuthor
A lovely review of Eden here. Feeling well chuffed, right now.
Written by F. R. Jameson
Avenging her secret could put a noose around both their necks…
Joe might be a stuntman, but still he’d never expect to end up in bed with a genuine movie star. However, that’s what happens the night he meets the ultra-glamorous, Eden St. Michel. Swiftly they’re the talk of the town. Their passion fast, intense and dangerous.
But Eden has scars from her past, both mental and physical. Joe needs to be her hero, although retribution won’t be easy. One misstep could mean the end of their careers and – maybe – their lives.
After a sudden moment of violence, Joe finds himself in deadly trouble. He may have the love of a good woman, yet it’s leading him to the gallows.
But what if the only way to save Eden is to make that ultimate sacrifice?
Eden St. Michel: Scandal, Death and a British…
View original post 502 more words
March 25, 2019
A Woman’s Work is Never Done (Avon Calling! 1) by Hayley Camille
It’s 1940’s New
York and there’s a psychic Avon lady out for revenge.
Now that’s a
great set up for a story, and one I wish I’d hit upon myself. It’s evident throughout
how much Hayley Camille is enjoying not only her own idea, but the world she is
evoking. The sheer vim with which she attacks it is contagious. She really
brings alive the period, nailing down a verbal style – slang and all – which
few of us would have been around to experience (if it ever really existed
outside movies), but all can recognise. If I had a quibble it would be that the
death scenes are a little perfunctory, a pop of a knife then the bad guy falls
dead, but maybe they are ratcheted up in the next instalment.
As this is a serial drama across short e-books – this one is about twenty-five pages long – which is an interesting form in which to tell a story (harking back to the old Dickensian chapbooks) and one I might explore. Obviously, I can’t go so far to steal the psychic Avon lady idea, but I’m fascinated to see how this series works and will grab the next instalment soon.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
A Woman’s Work is Never Done (Avon’s Calling! 1) by Hayley Camille
It’s 1940’s New
York and there’s a psychic Avon lady out for revenge.
Now that’s a
great set up for a story, and one I wish I’d hit upon myself. It’s evident throughout
how much Hayley Camille is enjoying not only her own idea, but the world she is
evoking. The sheer vim with which she attacks it is contagious. She really
brings alive the period, nailing down a verbal style – slang and all – which
few of us would have been around to experience (if it ever really existed
outside movies), but all can recognise. If I had a quibble it would be that the
death scenes are a little perfunctory, a pop of a knife then the bad guy falls
dead, but maybe they are ratcheted up in the next instalment.
As this is a serial drama across short e-books – this one is about twenty-five pages long – which is an interesting form in which to tell a story (harking back to the old Dickensian chapbooks) and one I might explore. Obviously, I can’t go so far to steal the psychic Avon lady idea, but I’m fascinated to see how this series works and will grab the next instalment soon.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
March 20, 2019
Borderline by Lawrence Block
Narcotics, gambling, prostitution, lesbianism, incest,
serial-killing. Here’s a book working hard to scandalise all kinds of 1950’s
mores, to such an extent that it really does become exhausting. Various
characters interact in a Mexican town: a jaded gambler, a divorcee looking for
thrills, a lost teenager and a serial killer. They see and do depraved things
and its all going to come to a bad end.
The whole feels like some kind of fever dream. I’d guess it
was written quick for a pay-cheque and Block was frequently wiping sweat from
his brow, not because his temperature was raised by his own lurid imagination,
but probably because he was trying to get out ten thousand words a day. All the
time, Block thinking that if he had to shock, he might as well give it
everything he had.
It’s not a bad book, but it’s also a long way from being a good book. Best to read it as a period piece, a book who’s views on same-gender relations are aroused, puritanical and a long way from where we are now. ‘Quaint’ wouldn’t be the right word, as it isn’t pretty enough for that, but it is definitely dated.
My debut novel, THE WANNABES – which has been out of print for a little while – is now available for free. A supernatural thriller of beautiful actresses and deadly ambition in London town, it’s well worth your time. You can get your copy here!
