Steve Stred's Blog, page 83

Book Review Revisited – Kiss Me by Andrew Pyper

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(This review originally featured on Kendall Reviews on July 12, 2019)

Title: Kiss Me

Author: Andrew Pyper

Release date: 1996

Ok, ok, I’ll finely admit it – Andrew Pyper is my favourite author. Wait? You didn’t know that! Well, what rock have you been living under?

Seriously, from my PYPER-MAY-NIA celebration (where I got to interview him!!!) to my frequent sharing of Pyper related stuff on Twitter – I have been a massive fan since I discovered ‘The Demonologist.’

But truthfully, I was scared to read ‘Kiss Me.’ Why? Well, I knew this book wasn’t a horror/thriller collection of stories. I was worried that maybe, just maybe, this wouldn’t be enjoyable and then it would affect how much I loved his writing. How foolish does that sound?

Now that I’ve read ‘Kiss Me,’ I’m thoroughly kicking myself in the backside that I waited so long. A great writer is a great writer and in his debut collection, released all the way back in 1996, Pyper delivers a collection of stories that resonate beyond a time or place.

Much like he did with ‘The Homecoming’ this book will read differently for each person based on where they grew up and where their life took them.

The stories within this collection are a cavalcade of growing up in small-town Canada tales. It’s like a high school reunion where you sit down and chat with someone about what happened after everyone graduated. There was only one story in this collection I didn’t connect with; “The Author Shows a Little Kindness,” but even then the story was told with such high quality that it didn’t lag or diminish the overall feel.

I wished I had read this a long time ago. Sometimes though, a person has to be in a certain time and a certain place to cherish the subtleties in a release even more, so I’m happy that I finally tackled this collection and I think everyone should give it a read. It may not be HORROR or a PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER, but it will speak to you and really does show that Pyper is a truly talented writer.

I can’t pick out a singular stand out tale for me, simply because I loved every other one, and liked the single story that didn’t connect. That’s a fantastic job done by a phenomenal writer.

Star Rating (out of 5): 4.5*

A collection of unexpected literary gems!

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Kiss Me was released in 1996

Look, so far along the way on this journey, I’ve been candid about each and every experience reading Andrew’s work.

‘Kiss Me’ frightened me to no end.

Seriously.

First things first – the cover. I actually love this cover. Especially versus the ‘Kiss Me’ Kindle single cover;

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No offense to whoever designed that – but it reminds me of a Molson Canadian beer commercial, while the lady on the cover holding the beer and savoring her smoke in silent contemplation in the original, really spoke to me.

But compared to all of Andrew’s other works, all of his ‘horror/thriller’ stuff – this looks like it may very well be from a different author.

Secondly – the stories. This isn’t/wasn’t marketed in the least bit as a ‘horror/thriller’ collection, and rightly so. It isn’t. We didn’t begin to see Pyper’s true leanings until ‘Lost Girls’ arrived a few years later.

Now, before the Pyper-super-super fans jump down my throat (Randall, I’m looking at you!), I am aware that Andrew has other short stories out there. I haven’t read every short story from him, as I haven’t snagged those anthologies as of yet. As well, Andrew collaborated with a very cool company on an “experience package.” Which I haven’t seen. “The Buried Puppet” from The Mysterious Puppet Company looks great (and if you want to order one – or love me enough to buy me one and sent it; https://mysteriouspackage.com/products/the-buried-puppet) and Andrew wrote the narrative for it.

But ‘Kiss Me,’ is none of that.

What ‘Kiss Me’ is, is a collection of stories that feature a staggering amount of Canadiana and homage to the every-person. I’ve often described this collection as a The Tragically Hip album on the written page. Where Downie used lyrics and his voice, Pyper uses words and his writing voice.

Once I cracked the pages open (in reality, loaded my Kindle hahaha!) I found that I was reading Pyper as Pyper, just without the level of absolute horror or stressful anxiety that is normally attached to his work.

So, while I personally believe, this is the forgotten Pyper book, I wish more people would  read this and experience the stunning stories that are featured here. This collection reads like a cross-Canada journey. We get so many different people, from different walks of life, but with the ease with which Andrew writes, you immediately feel like you are reading about a relative, a colleague or a friend.

The review I wrote for Kendall Reviews is being revisited today as well, which is a bit of a chuckle, seeing as I got a non-horror book to featured on a horror site, but that is purely from the Pyper name. Andrew is renowned for his dark fiction.

To wrap this retrospective up, I really would love it if you would take the journey and discover just how phenomenal of a writer Andrew is. This collection perfectly encapsulates that, by having a “horror/thriller” writer pen some stunning literary stories, but still using the same writing voice.

Amazing stuff.

As always.

 

Andrew Pyper Books In-Depth

Hey friends! Hello and welcome to a very cool second interview that Andrew so kindly agreed to do!

Before we start, big thanks to all of those who’ve followed along so far! This has been a very cool project this year and with only one more week to go, I’m sad that we’ll come to the end!

Alright! So, without further wait, when I proposed doing a second Pyper-May-Nia! I asked Andrew if he’d be up to doing a new interview, but also a second “interview.” I have the second interview in quotes, simply because it’s not a traditional type of interview. This one is made up of two questions each about every one of Andrew’s books!

Kiss Me

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Andrew Pyper’s debut collection ‘Kiss Me’ was released in October 1996.

Steve: When you look back on those stories now, do they feel foreign to you as the writer you are now versus then? The emotions and nostalgia within them must return immediately and transport you to a different time.

Andrew: Probably every book you write (and probably every book you read) acts as a time machine. They mark a personal time and place in a way unlike other experiences – at once intimate and solitary, swimming in the subconscious, surprising to yourself. Because it’s a collection of short stories, Kiss Me transports me to a broader period of times (the years over which the stories were written) and individual moods (unlike a novel, which usually marks one major life change or state of being). They are the stories of my teens and 20’s. As I think the cover copy put it, they are stories of “firsts”: first kiss, first heartbreak, setting childhood behind. They are also my first real attempts at writing fiction worthy of publication, so they’re marked by a searching for who I was as a writer. What was my “voice”? I think you see even back then an inclination toward the dark revelation, the Gothic, the sinister possibilities that follows the ends of the narratives. Signs of things to come.

Steve: Do you have a personal favourite story from that collection?

Andrew: I don’t know if it’s my favourite, but I used to love to choose “If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now” when I was invited to give public readings from the book. It has some funny parts (always good for reading to an audience) and very specific settings that would have resonated with the people I was reading for (Queen West in Toronto in the late 80s – a very different place than it is today). And it has an unexpectedly hopeful ending. Come to think of it, it would be fun to read that story to an audience again to see if it still has emotional/humourous traction (like a Buster Keaton movie is always funny) or whether it’s a product of its time (like a sitcom).

Lost Girls

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Andrew’s debut novel, ‘Lost Girls’ was released in 1999.

Steve: This was your debut novel and it was a hauntingly beautiful piece. Was it based on a specific story you’d heard before or read about?

Andrew: Lost Girls was a combo platter of a number of my concerns at the time – concerns that largely remain with me, though they’ve mutated over the years. What do we see on that plate? The way the past reaches into the present in forms more frightening the deeper its been buried. Small town weirdness. An investigation that isn’t really about what it starts off being about. Ghosts. Water. A crime. So the inspirations for that book are numerous, and while I didn’t know it at the time, they formed an adaptable template for what would roll out to be my life’s work.

Steve: What happened in this story was awful, but how the town reacted was very typical of a small town. I remember being just devastated when I was done reading this. Was this a hard book to write emotionally?

Andrew: It was like finding myself. Which, yes, can be an emotional test for sure. But it was also an exciting, revelatory process – all these dreams and obsessions and fears erupting on the page, each of them declaring “That’s you!” in one way or another. I don’t think I realized going in to writing Lost Girls how personally involving the process would be.

The Trade Mission

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The Trade Mission was released in 2002.

Steve: Set in the deep Amazon, this was a fantastic tale of survival in a truly inhospitable place. I saw photos of you scouting the area for research. Did actually going there make the book darker or give you a better appreciation of how hard survival would be? When you went to scout, did you have any uncomfortable or uneasy events occur?

Andrew: My research trip to Brazil for The Trade Mission was mostly to get a feel of the physicality of the rain forest. How to write about its particular humidity, its smells, the look of the Manaus riverfront? A sensory expedition. And while that was enormously useful, I think what I got from that trip that was really helpful was the feeling I had of just being a tourist. Being a bit lost all the time, not understanding the language, noting how the food was different, trying to read the signals of people I had contact with. The strangeness of being the foreign visitor. That became the foundation of the novel’s theme in a way I hadn’t anticipated before I went to Brazil. And the condition of feeling alien against the novel’s premise of a pair of tech bros who think they’ve found a “universal” morality app – this became the ironic touchstone for the project.

(Photo One: Andrew preparing to take a dip into the River Negro

Photo Two: A secret grave along the river bank.

Photos used with permission by Andrew Pyper)

Steve: While it was originally released as The Trade Mission, it was also released as Dark Descent. Was there a specific reason for that?

Andrew: The US hardcover edition was titled The Trade Mission, but its sales left something to be desired, particularly coming after the success of Lost Girls. So they re-titled it for the mass market paperback edition. Sales-wise, I don’t think it made any difference.

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The Wildfire Season

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The Wildfire Season was released in 2005.

Steve: As someone who has lived under evacuation order from a serious forest fire, you absolutely nailed the tension and unpredictability of fire and the damage it does in the outdoors. The fire itself was its own, well developed character. Was that the most challenging aspect when writing this book?

Andrew: First of all, thank you. The Wildfire Season is the most deeply researched of my books, in the sense that I did the most work preparing to write it. Fires, bears, living in a small community in the Yukon. It was all new to me. But the hard part came later, when I had to decide how to move between the different narrative strands of the story and how much weight and time to give to each of them. I sometimes think of a novel as a console of dials, each one controlling the volume of a particular voice. How loud should each one be? Turn them all too low and you can’t hear anything. Turn them all to 10 and it’s just noise. So you toggle between them, turning and lowering and – this is the crucial bit – using some more than others. The Wildfire Season required many decisions of this kind, and they’re decisions that invite second guessing. But I think once I had Miles and Rachel in my head, they became the heart of the book, the thrumming beat that goes through the whole thing even though they only share a few of its pages.

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(Welcome to Ross River sign, picture used with permission by Andrew Pyper)

Steve: What drew you to Ross River? Oddly enough, a former co-worker of mine grew up near Ross River. When I mentioned the book he said, “yeah, there’s only two things there – fire fighters and beer drinkers and that’s usually one and the same.”

Andrew: Well, sounds like I picked the right place then! At the time, I chose Ross River because it was the right dot on the map: small, overlooked, isolated, the literal end of the road. When I traveled there to research the place and its physical surroundings it confirmed my expectations. I got into a bar fight my first night there (a longer story for a different time!) and saw a number of people caught in some form of in-between space. The old ways vs. the new ways. Town vs. the bush. Pride vs. sadness. Addiction vs. clean. You’d drive into Ross River and think “Nothing happens here,” but you’d be wrong. There were a lot of decisions having to be made internally by everyone who lived there. And it was that tension – Should I stay or should I go? – that is the central question for all the characters in the novel.

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(Andrew scouting the Fox Fire location. Photo used with permission by Andrew Pyper)

 

The Killing Circle

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The Killing Circle was released in 2008.

Steve: Your Instagram handle is apyper29. Patrick uses Brain Dead 29 in the book. Coincidental numbering or is 29 a meaningful number to you?

Andrew: Yup. It’s my birth date.

Steve: The book reads with very lush descriptions of walking around Toronto. How much did the day-to-day mundane moments of life inspire you to write this book?

Andrew: It’s a very location-specific book, and the location was my immediate neighbourhood at the time. I made a deliberate decision to try and weave a Gothic monster story into an urban, contemporary space that you wouldn’t normally associate with the supernatural or horrific. So while the one half of the novel is “real,” the other half is literally about the imaginative: a circle of writers making stuff up. I was attracted to the idea of having a character – and a reader – start out feeling secure about where the boundary between those two worlds existed, and then erasing the boundary as the story went along.

 

The Guardians

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The Guardians was released in 2011

Steve: The Guardians was a thoroughly enjoyable coming-of-age story. I can’t stop thinking about it and digesting what I read and it’s set itself nicely on my mental shelf of favorite book I’ve ever read. Just left me stunned. I felt it was elevated even further by the main character having a neurological disorder. Had you been wanting to write a coming-of-age story before this? Do you have a personal favorite coming-of-age book?

Andrew: Thanks again – that’s very kind of you to say! I don’t think I was looking to write my version of the coming-of-age novel, but that’s what The Guardians turned out to be. I set out initially to write my take on a haunted house story. To make it my own, of course, required characters and a setting and narrative premise specific to my inclinations, something that had meaning for me, which started me down the path toward what is probably my most autobiographical novel. The more personal I made it the more it made sense as a story (which is not always the case). As for the second part of your question: The Catcher in the Rye hit me right in the sweet spot when I first read it.

Steve: As you say in the book, every small town has a haunted house. Growing up, did you have a haunted house that you remember, or the house that the kids stayed away from in the neighborhood?

Andrew: There were a few “creepy houses” in Stratford, but I don’t recall any of them being designated as “the haunted house” in quite the decisive way as the house in The Guardians. I assembled a lot of the stories I heard from my father (who was a doctor, and knew a lot of the violent/scary/weird scuttlebutt from the hospital) and combined them with horror fiction tropes and imagined a town where every other house was a haunted house. I saw my town as more dangerous and secretive than it probably was in reality, but after a while, seeing things through the imagination becomes more real than not.

The Demonologist

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The Demonologist was released in 2012

Steve: ‘The Demonologist’ seems to be many people’s first Pyper book, and it was also my first. Did you know you’d written something special when you were finished?

Andrew: I’ve grown to be wary of those feelings about a book once it’s finished. One’s sense of a novel’s accomplishment – and one’s own confidence – ebbs and flows in such dramatic ways that such assessments are rendered of little use, if not outright hazardous. But yes, I felt I’d struck a mythic vein with The Demonologist, something I felt very close to. It’s a story that took root in my life during the writing in a way that was different from the others. Without going into details I’ll say that while it was an exciting book to write, it frightened me a little too, like I’d invited a guest into my home that I had to keep a close eye on.

Steve: When you wrote ‘The Demonologist’ did you have an actor in mind for Professor Ullman? If it was made today, is there an actor you see and think ‘that’s Ullman!’

Andrew: The Demonologist has been in development for a movie for a long time now, and over that time various names have been tossed out to play David. One that I put forward at one point was Denzel Washington – he has such an amazing way of conveying grief and conviction through his eyes and his body alone. But right now? There’s a few ways you could go on the casting, really. I just think it would be important to find someone who can convey that interior darkness that David carries.

The Damned

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The Damned was released in 2015

Steve: This was such a great read. I remember zipping through this when I bought it. I really felt like the house Danny’s sister perished in could’ve been any house on any street. Did you base the house on a real, specific place?

Andrew: The location of that house and its exterior details are specific to a house that I chose when I was researching the book in Royal Oak, a suburb of Detroit. But its interior was made up from rooms I’d encountered in my past: the main floor was from my grade nine girlfriend’s house, the upstairs bathroom (where the afterlife scene with Danny’s mom takes place) was from my own house growing up. You pull in whatever fits, whatever feels real to you as you go into a scene.

Steve: Twins have always spoken of this very unique, almost telepathic connection between them. Were there any sets of twins that really stood out to you?

Andrew: I needed the twins of The Damned to be linked but very different. That relationship was modeled, loosely, on fraternal twins I know who – at least back then – fought all the time but would stick up for each other with equal ferocity. That dynamic of simultaneously being at war with each other and for each other was what I wanted to capture.

 

The Only Child

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The Only Child was released in 2017

Steve: You know how much I love the opening line of this book. It ties into the amazing ending and the pure carnage that gets unleashed. Did you have the three books/stories this was based on as the inspiration for this story originally or did it evolve into that?

Andrew: The inspiration came from an observation I made (and possibly made by others several times before, but was just new to me) that the English language, modern tradition of the “monster” were all versions of one of three conceptual sources: the parasite (vampire), the undead (zombie), the diseased psyche (serial killer). And where did these concepts come from? Notably three novels published within the nineteenth century: Frankenstein, Dracula, Jekyll & Hyde. From there, I speculated about how there might be a single being that inspired all three of these stories – the monster that inspired all monsters. This was the concept that pulled me in.

Steve: Did you do any specific location scouting for this book? Your descriptions – specifically when our antagonist describes the meetings with Mary Shelley – were so vivid, when I Google mapped it, it was so accurate! (Yes, yes, I Google mapped it.)

Andrew: Ha! Yes, I traveled to most of the locations in the novel, though I also did a bit of Google mapping myself too. I spent some time in Hungary imagining where my characters would have contact with each other, where they came from. Along the way I was nearly attacked by a guard dog on the grounds of a shuttered asylum – a real experience that made its way into a scene in the book.

 

  The Homecoming

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The Homecoming was released in 2019

Steve: The father/head of the family that owns the house/acreage is very mysterious. He himself was a character that was minimally featured but when he did show up, added significantly to the story. Was that character based on anyone from history?

Andrew: The Homecoming was a response to the question – put to myself by myself – of how I would approach a “classic” murder mystery. My version ends up breaking a lot of the rules and expectations of the form, as I bring in elements of other genres, other worlds. Without giving too much away, the matter of identity plays a central role in the story, and how we understand ourselves, our families, where we come from. So the father figure of the novel is at once the dominant figure of the novel, and in another sense is a total absence. He’s not based on anyone in particular. In my mind he is the “absent father,” a role that plays a part, I suspect, in many of our lives.

Steve: The book is such a perfectly crafted thriller set in the Pacific Northwest. I’m going to assume you’ve seen the memes about ‘staying in a mansion for $1 million with no phones etc.’ Did that at all inspire the initial making of ‘The Homecoming’?

Andrew: While I was familiar with the trope of “staying in a haunted house overnight to win a fortune” – a set-up that’s been around since Haunting of Hill House and probably well before that too – I wasn’t really aware of all the different versions of the challenge online until after the book was finished. “No phones” is of course now a fantasy world that is harder and harder to convincingly build, as they seem to have been fused to our bodies. As an aside, I’m working on a project where I proposed that a character forget her phone at one point and even though she did so in a moment of emotional turmoil and distraction, the people I’m working on the project with refused to accept that anyone would ever forget their phone no matter what. So…yet another challenge for us novelists!

 

The Residence

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The Residence will be released September 1st, 2020!

Steve: The story of Pierce, his wife Jane and the ghost is incredibly fascinating. While researching it, did you find many White House haunting stories?

Andrew: I certainly did. The White House has a rich history of association with the paranormal and the occult that I was only superficially aware of when I stumbled on the story of the Pierces. It really is this mythical hub of strangeness that lies at the very centre of the capital, the country.

Steve: This question is from our friend Sam Brunke-Kervin: With ‘The Residence’ being based around true events, what other “true” ghost story would you love the chance to turn into a novel?

Andrew: The true horror story behind the Amityville hoax. That would be complicated and fun.

 

**

Seriously!

How amazing was that?!

Thank you so much, Andrew, for responding with thoughtful, insightful and candid replies. I’m blown away.

 

 

Book Review Revisited – The Trade Mission by Andrew Pyper

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(*This review originally was featured here on May 31, 2019)

Title: The Trade Mission

Author: Andrew Pyper

Release date: September 1, 2002

 

As most of you have seen, I’ve been celebrating all things Andrew Pyper this May – dubbing it PYPERMAYNIA.  I started the month off by reading his latest The Homecoming which was a stunning work of family tension and psychological thrills.  It catapulted itself into my favourite book position and one I’m actually considering re-reading, which is something I very, very rarely do.

My ambition was to read The Homecoming, The Trade Mission, The Killing Circle, The Guardians and Kiss Me, his short story collection.  Sadly, I have failed you all, as in the month of May I read The Homecoming and last night finished The Trade Mission.  I’ll still be reading the other three here in short order, I’d just hoped to get through all five.

In May, Andrew also kindly agreed to a short interview and it was one of my literary highlights to ask him some of the burning questions I had clanging around my head.  I cheekily even asked him two more questions via DM that he amazingly answered, but all in all, I’m super happy about PYPERMAYNIA and I hope some others were able to add his books to their TBR or even read some of his work.

Now, as for The Trade Mission – this was a book I’d had on my TBR for a little while.  I’m a sucker for all things ‘Lost World’ sounding.  Whether it’s the Amazon rain forest, a forgotten island, Dyatlov Pass or something just set in Siberia, then I’m game.  The synopsis is one that would always grab my attention – a group of Canadian entrepreneurs have travelled to South America trying to increase interest in their start up business.  While there they go on a sight-seeing trip up one of the numerous rivers.  After a celebratory party one night they are kidnapped by unknown assailants and from there it becomes a tale of survival.

The story is told from the point of view of 38 year old translator Liz Crossman.  The other main characters are the two faces of the business Wallace and Bates as well as 50 something Barry and another co-worker Lydia.  I can’t honestly say I remember what Barry and Lydia’s jobs were but enjoyed both characters immensely.

The opening to the story in my opinion is a decent set up for what the business is and why they are down in South America, but ultimately wished it was a tad shorter.  The true grit in this tale is Pyper’s psychological journey once the characters are captured.

The jungle itself is one of the biggest antagonists in this story.  They are in the middle of nowhere with the only source of travel being on the river, which itself plays host to a number of animals wanting to turn them into a snack.

The survival aspect and tale in this story is top notch.  From their capture through to the ending I enjoyed watching each characters descent into turmoil and madness.  It should be noted that at the same time of reading this, I was also reading The Silence by Tim Lebbon and Let’s Go Play At the Adams’ by Mendal Johnson.  While I haven’t finished The Silence yet, I did finish Let’s Go Play and this trio of stories all play with the mental aspect of survival as well as what happens when the odds are turned against you.  They worked well to heighten each other and I really lucked out into each working off of one another.

Overall this is another exciting entry into Pyper’s bibliography and one I’m glad I finally got to read.  I’m looking forward to finishing off the rest of his work and will await the announcement of his next release!

4/5 stars to a gripping tale of survival that takes place in a world where everything is out to kill you.

We’re not in Canada anymore…

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The Trade Mission was released in 2002.

So, up to this point, I’d read all of Pyper’s work except ‘The Trade Mission,’ ‘Kiss Me,’ ‘The Guardians,’ and ‘The Killing Circle.’

Notice something with those releases?

Except for ‘Lost Girls,’ and ‘The Wildfire Season’ those are all of Andrew’s earlier releases.

You see, I was a feeble coward. Andrew had wowed me with ‘The Demonologist,’ ‘The Damned,’ ‘The Homecoming,’ and ‘The Only Child,’ and a big part of me was worried that I’d find one I didn’t connect with or worse yet, enjoy.

‘The Trade Mission’ other than ‘Kiss Me’ seems to be the forgotten Pyper. I see a bunch of his books on Twitter and Instagram all the time, but I very rarely, rarely see ‘The Trade Mission.’

Why?

The synopsis should grab you and bring the reader in. We follow some young entrepreneurs on a trade mission to Brazil, trying to sell their amazing new product. When an eco-tour river cruise goes wrong, they end up lost in jungle. And then things get worse.

Like all of Andrew’s books, and something I mentioned in the previous post about ‘The Homecoming,’ one of the main characters in this book is the jungle and river itself. This book is set in a completely inhospitable place. An area of the world where you can walk two minutes in any direction and end up completely lost or devoured by any of the massive predators that call that territory home. And that isn’t mentioning the mysterious indigenous populations that consider foreigner’s to be put down on sight.

What I loved about this book was how Andrew made me feel like I was there, that I was the one surviving and doing whatever I could to make it to the next minute of the day.

By the end of this book, you’ll feel just as exhausted as our main character does and, while I won’t play spoiler, you’ll see the ending as a satisfying conclusion.

Now, of all of Andrew’s books, I didn’t feel as connected with this one, but I think that was based on the setting, not the writing style or the story itself.

I really enjoyed this one and it gave me the kick in the pants to not be so scared to read his other ‘older’ releases!

On one last note – I only recently discovered that this was also released as ‘Dark Descent.’

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For why? Well, Andrew actually answers that question on the 22nd!

 

Book Review Revisted – The Homecoming by Andrew Pyper

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(*This review was originally published here on May 10, 2019)

Title: The Homecoming

Author: Andrew Pyper

Release date: February 26, 2019

If you’ve followed me on any of my social media platforms – you’ve seen me rave about Andrew Pyper and how he’s my fav author.  If you haven’t – well… uh… he is!

I’ve read a number of his works and as I’ve said before, something about the way he writes connects and resonates on a different wave length for me.

As I’ve made my way through prior releases, each one has etched itself into my mental library.  It started by discovering The Demonologist, then I read The Damned and The Lost Girls.  When I read The Wildfire Season, I sat stunned when it was done.  There were so many personal connections that I felt like the story had been written specifically for me.  It vaulted to my fav read by my fav author.

Then I read The Only Child.  Someone had asked me if I’d read it and I said ‘yup’ all confident, then realized I had it confused with Lost Girls.  So I snagged it, read it and was blown out of the water.

Pyper has a gift with using minimal words for maximum description.  His prose flows so easily off the page that you are immediately sucked into the story and you begin to root for the characters almost from word one.

The Only Child had my favourite opening line of anything I’ve ever read.  I didn’t expect it to be topped, and The Homecoming didn’t.  But the opening chapter.  Hells bells.  Pyper goes straight to the jugular here and then its full throttle until the horrifying, heart breaking ending.

The Homecoming is one of the more unique tales I’ve read, but that’s with most Pyper books.  Nothing is what it seems.  Go read the synopsis of The Only Child as an example for that.  His stories are complicated wrapped with technical aspects told with simple words.  It’s the hallmark of a deft story teller but also a confident writer.

The premise is pretty straight forward – the often absent father, who lived a mysterious life, dies.  His family is summoned to a sprawling piece of property in the Pacific Northwest where they find out that they will each receive a sizeable inheritance, but it comes with a catch.  They must live at the property for the next thirty days, no contact with the outside world, no cell phones, no TV, no internet.  No leaving the property.  If they do they will be disqualified from their inheritance.

The property and house they’ve been brought to, is called Belfontain and the three grown children all have memories of the place – whether it’s actually being brought there when they were little or through stories they remember their dad telling them, the place has a fairy tale quality to it.

Pyper’s description of Belfontain actually reminds me of Blaylock Mansion near Nelson, BC.  I grew up near Nelson and that mansion and property always had an air of mystery about it.  If you’ve never seen it before, check it out – https://www.blaylock.ca/

Now, I’ll keep this review completely spoiler free, but within the first 20% of this book Pyper takes that simple premise and completely throws it out the window.  More surprises from the father’s past make appearances, the dread and horror grow and Pyper keeps you guessing right up to the very end.

This book has elements of Frankenstein, A Clockwork Orange, The Island of Doctor Moreau and that’s just scratching the surface.

At the end of the day, this book was phenomenal and I would have read it in one sitting if time would have allowed.

I think even though Andrew Pyper is my favourite author, I read his work more critically than any of the other authors I love, because I have elevated my standards for what I expect of his writing.  That sounds unfair, but I don’t think it is.  I also know now, having read six of his books that I don’t expect to be disappointed.

I can’t say that Pyper has gotten better with each release he’s had, I would instead describe it as getting bolder, greater.  There’s a quote floating around that says; “Pyper may be the next Stephen King.”  I’ll second that but with two caveats.  First – Pyper’s work is never bloated or overly detailed for page counts.  The Homecoming is listed at 368 pages but reading it you feel like it could easily have been only 100.  Every single word has a purpose and the story flows so freely and easily that you’ll be surprised at how much you’ve read in such a short time.  The second is I’ve never read a Pyper book where I finished and went ‘huh?’ at the ending.  Many people say King struggles to end his books, and I’ve come across that a few times, but never with Pyper.  They always end purposefully.  (Side note – Mr. Pyper, if you are reading this, feel free to write a 1000 page book.  I’d read it!)

This is one review where I could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it up here.  This was my first read for my PYPER-MAY-NIA celebration and tonight I’ll be starting The Trade Mission.  When I reviewed The Only Child I said I put off reading it after I got it because I didn’t want it to end and not have a new Pyper book to jump into.  To have The Trade Mission, The Guardians, The Killing Circle and Kiss Me lined up after brings a smile to my face.

In closing – I’m elated to read that The Homecoming is being adapted for TV.  I’ve fallen out of love with watching TV but this will be one show I’ll make an effort to see.  And for those at home keeping score or wondering – I can confidently say that The Homecoming has become my favourite Pyper release.

This is a must read for all fans of the horror/thriller/suspense and was an easy book to score 5/5.

You can’t always go home…

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The Homecoming was released in 2019

It’s funny.

I’m writing these retrospectives during a global pandemic and the premise of ‘The Homecoming’ is almost topical, to a degree.

A family get’s thrust into a mysterious mansion in the Pacific Northwest. They are told that if they stay here, together for a certain amount of time, with no outside contact, they’ll each collect a portion of a massive inheritance.

But that’s where the similarities to any memes end and Pyper makes sure nothing is as it seems.

I really started to wiggle my way into the larger horror world in 2018. I’d released a few books at that point, but didn’t really take the time to interact too much on Twitter or Instagram, and had really been just posting on Facebook. After making a number of connections and relationships on Twitter, I saw that Andrew Pyper had a new book coming out.

As a super fan – I was over the moon.

I saw it was available on Netgalley, but I decided to wait. I didn’t request it. I pre-ordered the ebook and then when it loaded onto my Kindle even my wife mentioned my smile was intense!

You see, ‘The Homecoming’ was my very first Pyper that I owned (in some format) on day one. It was like a band you loved but had always missed release date.

Maybe a week after the release date, my wife and I were walking in our local Shopper’s Drugmart and she noticed that the book was there and it was 25% off.

“Get it,” she said, “I know you’ll be begging for it anyways.”

“But Amanda,” I replied, “I have all his other books!”

She probably grabbed it with a mocking eye-roll, but I didn’t care – it was in my possession. And, amazingly, I sent it to Andrew and got it signed.

‘The Homecoming’ to me is a book that really showcases how Andrew is the most ‘vicious-commercial’ writer out there. Don’t believe me? Read this and tell me differently after the ending. I can guarantee you, the two part ending, or two act ending, depending on how you want to categorize it, will be something you never see coming. Ever.

And when I use the word ‘commercial’ I don’t mean it in a negative way. No, I mean it in a visible way. Much like King, Crichton, Gaiman, Hill, Koontz, and even Malerman now, Pyper is one of the rare horror author’s whose books you’ll find in Walmart, Costco and grocery stores.

When you read a book like ‘The Homecoming,’ you become engrossed. I’ve often talked of Andrew’s writing voice and his use of setting as a character. Both of these are on full display here. With simple, concise descriptions, you get the entire layout and it becomes ingrained in your mind. The estate is known simply as Belfontain. It has a fence, an impressive main living house/mansion and throughout the woods around it, guest houses or work houses. But it’s those things beyond the edge of the forest, that still reside in the fenced property that Andrew uses to the detriment of the reader.

In my review, I mentioned how much it reminded me of a mansion on the outskirts of Nelson, BC. Blaylock Mansion was always a mystery to me, a place that I’ve longed to visit and take a tour but also one I want to never go on, just so that it stays a mystery to me, if that makes sense. You can find out more about this mansion here: https://www.blaylock.ca/

Growing up, whenever we’d drive by it, my head would snap over and I’d watch it pass by, wondering just what was behind those windows, those doors. Much the same as Pyper brings you into this imagined location and once we get the expected ‘bump in the night,’ he never let’s his foot off the gas.

Andrew has a number of writing trait’s or trademarks, but to me, the one that I enjoy the most is the way he writes. It never changes but always progresses. He has become a more refined writer and has excelled at the craft with each and every release, but as I’ve found out by just recently reading two of his earlier releases, the Pyper that resides in a Pyper book has never wavered, never changed.

For that we can all be thankful for.

When I finished this book, I did feel crushed. A new Pyper book had come and gone, and at the time, nothing had been completely announced yet for 2020’s ‘The Residence.’

But, ‘The Homecoming’ is a book I’ve found, that doesn’t get read and stored away. No, it stays alive within the reader for long after. When you drive through the mountains it makes you wonder. What’s at the end of the driveway? What is beyond that fence? Where do you go when that gate opens?

All of these questions will go through your head while reading the story. They’ll be questions you re-ask yourself time and time again, months and years after having read this book.

That’s just what Pyper does.

GUEST POST Revisited: How two Canadian’s made me a better writer.

(** This post originally featured on One Legged Reviews, on July 12, 2019**)

“So you’ve got a direction, but not a destination?” – Biker, One Week (2008) played by Gord Downie.

Hello. My name is Steve Stred and I am Canadian. We may already be friends or acquaintances over on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. You may just be a fan of my work as a new indie author who writes dark, bleak horror. Or heck, you may even just be a fan of my reviews over on Kendall Reviews.

No matter how we met or became friends, whether in real life or through social media, you’ll more than likely know that I am a proud Canadian. I grew up in the super small, unincorporated community of Burton, British Columbia. Approximate population – 100 people. Sometimes more, sometimes less. We were roughly thirty minutes from the town of Nakusp and three hours from Kelowna. (Google it – go ahead I’ll wait. Yeah, see how small it is? Now you zoom in – see that ball field in the middle? My childhood home is the one just to the right of it. When you zoom in as far as you can and it says Burton Main Rd – our home is just to the right of ‘Rd.’ That’s my mom’s car all blurry. She still lives there.)

I loved my childhood. I spent a lot of time by myself in the woods behind our house and really learned to utilize my imagination to create different games etc. I also loved playing sports and enjoying the outdoor offerings, which has been a big inspiration on my writing. I recently revisited my hometown while at my Grandpa’s memorial and I was struck with just how many of my stories, novels, and novellas are based on places and things from there.

But I didn’t really grow up wanting to be a writer. It was a combination of two other Canadians; Gord Downie and Andrew Pyper who gave me the confidence to pursue writing.

For those who don’t know, Gord Downie was the lead singer for the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip. I discovered The Tragically Hip on Much Music. The song “Ahead by a Century” from the album “Trouble in the Henhouse” blew my mind. It was Canadiana through and through and haunted my brains. To this day, when I hear this song, it sticks in my head for weeks.

The Tragically Hip – Ahead by a Century







Though this came out in 1996, I didn’t explore much more of the Hip’s music until I heard “Bobcaygeon” from the album “Phantom Power” released in 1998. The lyrics to this song are few powerful and allude to a different moments in Canadian history.

The Tragically Hip – Bobcaygeon



Then in 2008, I saw a trailer for a movie that I knew I needed to see. ‘One Week’ tells the story of a man who finds out he has terminal Cancer. So he buys a bike and heads West, across Canada. He leaves behind his job, his fiancée and family and just drives West. He’s young, doesn’t have much time left and wants to find himself, discover more about himself before he passes on.

One Week Trailer



Not only is ‘One Week’ one of my all-time favourite movies, it also inspired my short story ‘Jim’ from my collection Frostbitten: 12 Hymns of Misery. The premise of the movie and my story – where one day you simply find out you have a terminal disease and don’t have much time left really gets to me. More so now that I have a young son, but I think it’s a frightening thing that could happen. And yes I do dwell on this frequently.

Oddly enough, there is a horrible, strange connection between ‘One Week’ and Gord Downie. You see, Mr. Downie appears in the movie as Biker Guy. Joshua Jackson, yes of Dawson’s Creek and Fringe fame, plays the main character Ben. So Ben heads West and along the way runs into everyday Canadians. One such character is Biker Guy who Ben meets at a motel. That meeting leads to this interaction;

Biker Guy: “You know they’ll approve Medicinal Marijuana for Cancer treatment.”

Ben: “Why did you bring up Cancer?”

BG: “I had an ass-load once.”

Ben: “So you got treatment?”

BG: “Actually… it went away on its own.”

Ben: “Seriously?”

BG: “Nah, I’m just shitting you man. I got treatment.”

On May 24, 2016, Gord Downie was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Brain Cancer.

Now you are asking yourself – where does Andrew Pyper fall into this equation?

Great question. Let me tell you.

I’ve been reading horror/thrillers for almost 30 years, ever since my mom’s friend, our neighbour let me borrow some of her Stephen King books. I stuck to the tried and true and mostly read King for many years.

Then, in 2015 I was in a Walmart in Abbotsford, BC and I was looking through their paperback section where they typically have 2 for $15. I’ve told this story a number of times, but it really is a in key moment both my journey as a reader but also as a writer.

In the 2 for $15 section that day, I spotted ‘The Demonologist’ by Andrew Pyper and ‘The Troop’ by Nick Cutter. I read the synopsis for both and was very intrigued. I also saw that both of them were Canadian. I went into shock. I’d been a pretty sheltered horror reader for many, many years and to see that not one but two authors from Canada had books out like this, really threw me for a loop. To see a Stephen King blurb on Nick Cutter’s book and to read that Pyper’s book was an International Bestseller was amazing to my Canadian reader’s brain.

I talked about it so much my wife finally told me to go back and just buy them, so I did. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love ‘The Troop,’ but it didn’t speak to me like ‘The Demonologist’ did.

Pyper embraced being a Canadian and actively includes Canadian locations in his books. I’d never experienced it before and it left me thrilled (and my wife a bit annoyed at how much I kept talking about it.) I grabbed Pyper’s other books ‘Lost Girls’ and ‘The Damned’ next and when I began reading ‘Lost Girls’ and it was set in Northern Ontario I could have cried. I’d finally found my author.

As I started my writing journey, I knew that it was ok for me to base my stories around my childhood haunt in Burton. I try not to ever use specific locations as I like to leave some ambiguity as well as to allow the reader to use their imagination and place the location somewhere they’ve been, but all of my releases have been based on real places, real locations in and around Burton. I have a few upcoming releases that aren’t, but for the most part – anything wilderness related I’ve released – Burton.

By Andrew Pyper showing that it was ok to embrace Canadiana and use real Canadian locations I was able to write how I wanted to write. After all, if my favourite author (and bestseller) can do it, then why can’t I?

I spent the month of May celebrating my love of Pyper and it’s still ongoing, but I had the chance to interview Andrew via email. I’ll remember it forever and can’t thank him enough. I even made sure to ask him about any difficulties he’d come across from being a Canadian author and was happy to see that it wasn’t anything major. (Condensing his reply – essentially everyone thinks Canada is really far away.)

But my Gord Downie – Andrew Pyper connections don’t end there. I really respected just how much Mr. Downie spoke out about reaching people and fighting for the rights of the less fortunate. He became an advocate for Aboriginal Rights and spoke out about environmental issues frequently.

After his diagnosis The Tragically Hip announced a farewell tour, which culminated with their last performance, a home town show that was also aired live on our national television channel, the CBC. I had hoped to get tickets for me and my father in law Peter in Calgary, but sadly they sold out in minutes.

On August 20, 2016 the band performed one last time in Kingston, ON. It happened during the Summer Olympics and CBC cut through coverage off to go live and showed the entire concert commercial free. I watched it while my wife puttered around the house (we were only a week away from our son joining us at that time.) I cried pretty much from the opening song (Fifty-Mission Cap) to the last song from their encore, which you may have guessed was Ahead by a Century.

“I write every day. I walk around in silent conversation with my latest unfinished songs.”— Gord Downie, 2009.

While the quote discusses Downie’s approach to songs, it’s how I’ve always approached my stories. It’s how my brain works and functions.

As I continued writing I kept Downie’s words front of mind and my belief that is was ok for me to be a Canadian Horror Author. I wrote a blog once called “I’ll never be a bestseller… and that’s ok,” and I still stand by that sentiment. I write stories I want to read, stories that I need to tell, stories from where I’m from. I believed this because Andrew Pyper was Canadian and his books connected with me, which meant just maybe my stories might connect with others as well.

After those first three Pyper releases, the next book of his that I read was “The Wildfire Season.” The story follows a chief of a forest fire brigade. I smiled frequently while reading this book, as Pyper mentioned numerous small towns in Western Canada that I’d visited. I was also intrigued as the story itself is set in Ross River, in the Yukon, which is very rare to read Yukon based thrillers.

On October 18, 2017, I was in Peace River, Alberta for our regional clinic for work. I finished reading ‘The Wildfire Season’ as we flew up. Just before lunch that day the news began to trickle out that Gord Downie had passed away at the age of 53. As we always do in Peace River, we ate lunch at Tim Horton’s. The reason Ben decides to ‘go West,’ in the movie – a Tim Horton’s Roll-Up-the-Rim cup has it printed on the inside. When me and my colleague had finished lunch, he drove me up to an overlook so that I could see the town and the mighty Peace River. I’d never been in the town before and wanted to check it all out. As we drove up the winding road the local radio played “Ahead by a Century.” Part of their ongoing tribute to Mr. Downie that day.

Recently, I was back in Peace River for work again and wouldn’t you know – I was reading “Trade Mission,” by Pyper. This odd Canadian connection continues.

I hope one day to meet Andrew, shake his hand and thank him for inspiring me in a way I didn’t know I needed. I’ve been fortunate now to strike up a casual social media friendship with him, messaging occasionally and getting butterflies when I see that he’s taken the time to reply. I never like to feel like I’m bothering anybody, so I need to keep myself in check from not messaging him every day.

When it came time for me to really look at writing my newest release “The Stranger,” I had the confidence in myself to pursue the environmental and bigotry story lines because these two Canadians laid the foundation down for me to be confident. I thought about Gord Downie’s work with Aboriginal rights and people. I looked at Andrew Pyper’s scope of work and his dedication to not being afraid of saying he’s Canadian in a literary world populated with Best Sellers from other countries.

And I looked at myself and thought about the road I’d taken to get here.

They did it before me.

I knew I could do it.

So I did.

And I can’t thank them enough for making me believe in my Canadian-ness.

“I love this country. I love my idea of this country.” — Gord Downie, 2012

* Thanks Jim & One Legged Reviews for all your support and for inviting me to contribute a guest column!

Guest Book Review: The Only Child, reviewed by Jennifer Sullivan

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Title: The Only Child

Author: Andrew Pyper

 

I’m pleased to also offer up a guest review from my friend Jennifer Sullivan of Andrew’s fantastic book ‘The Only Child.’ Jen is a fantastic friend, fellow reviewer from Kendall Reviews and one of the few people in the book world I’ve actually met!

(I’m super jealous because Jen has actually met Andrew!)

Take it away Jen!

**

Years ago, my critique buddy, Larry Brown, convinced me to attend a book reading from an author I hadn’t heard of at the Brantford Public Library.

“He writes spooky things. You’ll like it,” Larry said, knowing my weakness for anything horror related.

The author was Andrew Pyper, the book ‘The Damned.’ Walking out of that live reading I became a Pyper fan. Not just because ‘The Damned’ sounded like something I needed to read (which it was), but because of the way the author talked about his creative process. In answering questions, he spoke as if the characters were real, as if he were transcribing memories instead of making the whole thing up. And even when his stories take a turn toward the supernatural there’s such a heightened sense of reality that I can believe in monsters.

In Pyper’s novel ‘The Only Child,’ the main character Lily believes in monsters, too. Not the mythical creatures, but the human variety. After years of working as a forensic psychiatrist it would be nearly impossible for her to downplay the evil that lives inside humanity. Yet, there’s a memory from her past, the night her mother was killed, which her scientific mind can’t quite unravel. When she meets a new patient, a man with no name, who knows more about Lily than should be possible, her quest for answers becomes more desperate.

After the man she comes to know as Michael escapes custody she chases after him in a cat-and-mouse game through Hungary, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Lily and Michael’s encounters are often brief along the way, but through conversations and letters he leaves behind she learns of his connections to Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and even Robert Louis Stevenson. At first the information seems to be the ramblings of a madman, however as pieces of Michael’s past start to come together, Lily’s doubts begin to fall away, and she reconsiders her lack of faith in non-human monsters.

‘The Only Child’ is one hell of a ride! From bringing together elements from Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, to the descriptions of the European cities, and the complexities of the character relationships, this is a novel you fall into and it consumes you to a point where you have to remind yourself the story is fiction.

As soon as I read the first line of ‘The Only Child,’ I was hooked: “She was awakened by the monster knocking at the door.” How can you read that and not want more? There’s no long preamble or unnecessary character set up, he just jumps straight into the story, grabbing the reader straight away. The rest of the novel is just as lean too, something I’ve come to expect from Pyper. He never takes the story down inconsequential tangents, nor does he interrupt the pacing for flowery descriptions or sidebar internal character thoughts. Every word on the page is there for a reason. However, the author’s exactness still manages to paint vivid mental images of the scenery and provides character introspection. It’s almost like magic.

While the plot is thrilling and the style of writing is beautiful, what I will probably remember most about ‘The Only Child’ is Lily’s character. She’s a woman conflicted with herself, which starts from the first page and intensifies through the story. Her memories of the night her mother was murdered is at the heart of her internal struggle. In keeping with the classic Gothic stories woven into the book, Lily’s fight centres around what science can prove against what life’s experiences demonstrate to be true. Being a woman of science, Lily wants to completely dismiss anything that can’t be logically explained, and as evidence mounts for the existence of the supernatural, she begins to unravel, clinging on to anything and anyone that might provide comfort. In the end though, she comes to accept that she’s known the answers all along and embraces who she really is in a final scene which still gives me shivers.

There’s so much more I could say about what I enjoyed in this book, but I don’t want to spoil anything, so suffice to say, I highly recommend ‘The Only Child.’

My rating is 4 of 5 stars.

As a brief end-note, in March of 2019, I was fortunate enough to attend the Toronto International Festival of Authors presentation called “Oh, The Horror of It All” where Andrew Pyper spoke as part of a fantastic panel. After the event I was able to chat with Pyper briefly, and he signed my copy of ‘The Only Child,’ which is a real treasure!

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If you’re ever able to attend one of his live events, don’t let the opportunity pass you by – he’s passionate about books, writing, and is an all-round wonderful person.

 

Thanks so much, Steve, for sharing Pyper-May-Nia with the world and for allowing me to celebrate our mutual love for this superb Canadian author!

**

Absolutely my pleasure, Jen! I hope to be able to meet up with you again in the future!

So, now really, what are you waiting for?!

 

Book Review Revisited – The Only Child by Andrew Pyper

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(Review 1 of 2 featured for The Only Child, with Jennifer Sullivan providing the other one today! This originally was posted to Goodreads on November 14, 2018)

Title: The Only Child

Author: Andrew Pyper

Release date: May 23, 2017

“She was awakened by the monster knocking at the door.”

With that opening line burrowing in your head, ‘The Only Child’ kicks off. What a ride.

If you follow me on Twitter, you have undoubtedly come across any number of my tweets stating how Andrew Pyper is my favourite author. I have shared this tale before, but I stumbled across Mr. Pyper’s work in Walmart of all places.

Leading up to reading ‘The Only Child’, I randomly read ‘Vlad the Impaler’ and ‘The Resurrectionist.’ In hindsight, I truly couldn’t recommend two books better to read beforehand than those.

‘The Only Child’ reads like a horror book, wrapped in a dark psychological drama, wrapped in an ongoing ‘Where in the World is Carmen Santiago?’ – action adventure. I read this in three sittings (only because I had to travel for work so saved it for the plane) and the number of phenomenal cliff-hangers in this book is amazing. You will be flipping the pages frantically, being pulled ever further into this amazing alternative history tale.

The story follows the main character Lily, haunted by the visions she sees of her mother’s death all those years ago in their tiny cabin in Alaska. Now working as a psychiatrist at a criminal centre in New York, she is assigned a curious admission. A man who tells her he is the true-life inspiration behind Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This patient tells Lily that he is over 200 hundred years old. Then the cat and mouse game begins.

One of the numerous gifts the author has is the ability to transport you to an exact location and allow you to feel the street under your feet, the buzz of surrounding traffic and people, and the smallest details that let your fingertips to actually feel the environment. His ability to use minimal words to convey maximal emotion will make you gasp time and time again.

Until reading this book, my favourite book of all-time was easily his 2006 release The Wildfire Season. Until reading this book, it was. ‘The Only Child’ transfixed me from sentence one and never let go. I found myself pausing at points and using google street view, only to find the exact description I had read was so accurate I would be smiling.

The entire book is a sprint, a trip around the world that ends with a dramatic and action-packed finale. Sometimes you can go home again, and in this case Andrew Pyper shows why you must and what secrets still lay buried.

I couldn’t recommend this book more. 5 star ratings are sometimes inadequate and in this case it falls far short of what I want to rate it.

If you haven’t read any of Andrew Pyper’s work, please, please fix that ASAP, and this would be a fantastic place to start.