Three More for the Shelf

Last three I read over the last . . . ten, twelve days? Something like that. I know, I know: how have I ever called myself a horror writer without having this one on my mental bookshelf? No excuse. It’s good, too. Most interesting, maybe, is the way Bloch starts so many of the chapters by kind of peeling up the last one, and then going through what went on over here in the story while that other chapter was happening. The effect, of course, it’s that we kind of a see the thing developing from a lot of angles, and come out feeling we know it pretty well. I don’t think I’d ever do it, or recommend someone do it, as it always feels like padding, like the writer’s nervous there’s not actually enough story here, so’s making sure to document every single footstep. But it works here. Also? I was able to pair this up with seeing on the big screen, in 35mm, which was about the coolest thing ever. How not to love the novel that puts one of my most cherished and dear songs up on a pedestal, and makes it key to the drama? But I don’t say what it is, just that it comes to suffuse the whole story. No, that’s the wrong word. It’s pulsing red line of magma tendriling up between the whole story. Were I blurbing it, here’s what I’d say: You’ll have ash on your fingertips by the last sooty page. Ash on your fingertips, an ember smoldering in your chest,  . . . → → →