Buddy Read for February 2019: Last Days by Brian Evenson

[Marie-Therese]

Our buddy read for February will be a novel from Literary Horror favourite, Brian Evenson.

Last Days is a 2009 novel that expands The Brotherhood of Mutilation, a 2003 novella which was rare and difficult to obtain (having been previously issued only in chapbook form) before Jeff and Ann VanderMeer included the entire text in their benchmark anthology, The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories. My first encounter with Evenson was in this anthology and I was blown away by the power and strangeness of the novella, which mixes noir-like detective fiction, body horror, satire, and a sort of dreamy, existential prose into a surpassingly strange amalgam. Despite its limited distribution, the novella was so successful and critically acclaimed that Evenson expanded it into the full-length novel we'll be reading this month.

Praise for 'Last Days' has been pretty much unanimous and the novel has been recently reissued by Coffee House Press (2016, with an introduction by Peter Straub) to renewed interest.

Just a warning for the squeamish: according to critics, this is a fairly graphic, violent novel that details the activities of an amputee cult. That noted, I'm generally pretty wussy about blood and guts and I had no trouble reading the original novella. Evenson's prose has a detached, spartan, almost clinical quality that makes even the most grotesque situations relatively easy to read. I find him more disturbing on a philosophic than a visceral level. But your mileage may vary.

[Bill]

Thanks to Marie-Therese for setting up the thread!

In case Coffee House books are not easy to come by in your town, Last Days is available as a $2 (!) e-book.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶]

I've ordered a copy through interlibrary loan so I'm not sure when I'll be in a position to chime in. I hope to have it by the end of the week, though, and will start reading when I can. This was a well-timed choice from my perspective, as I was just about ready to transition from reading Evenson's stories to his novels. Looking forward to the discussion!

[Marie-Therese]

So glad you'll be joining us, Sean!

[S̶e̶a̶n̶]

Marie-Therese wrote: "So glad you'll be joining us, Sean!"

Great intro to the thread, too. Your description of the book has heightened my anticipation.

[Magnus]

I must have read this one 3 or 4 times. This is a great occasion to give it another re-read.

If it isn't too late, I would recommend that you skip the introduction by Peter Straub since he retells much of the plot.

[Bill]

Welcome to the buddy read, Magnus! I've only read Last Days once, but it's one of my very favorite Evenson books.

Thanks for the warning on Straub's intro. I can't remember what I did on the first round, but I tend to avoid intros.

[Nickronomicon]

I have never read this author, but Laird Barron mentions him in just about every interview I’ve heard him do, so I’m in!

[Bill]

Welcome Nickronomicon!

[Omar]

happen to have in the current to read pile, so i'm in.

[Bill]

Good to have you on board, Randolph and Omar!

While we're giving everyone a little time for their copies to arrive, here's how it begins:

It was only later that he realized the reason they had called him, but by then it was too late for the information to do him any good.

I love how Evenson pulls me into the story right away, quickly setting up the dread and paranoia; I'm already looking over my shoulder suspiciously, braced for the worst. Classic.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶]

Okay, finally have a copy. Will start reading later today.

[Bill]

Two chapters in. It's been years since I read this. I frankly don't remember it being so funny. I'm laughing out loud and cringing every few pages.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶]

Randolph wrote: "I need to learn how to self cauterize."

Practice makes perfect, Randolph.

I read into chapter 5 last night. I find that Evenson's clipped dialogue and rapidly escalating narrative generates a strong desire to keep turning the page. Kline is spot-on with his amusingly terse responses, definitely channeling his hard-boiled detective predecessors.

[Bill]

Sean wrote: "Randolph wrote: "I need to learn how to self cauterize."
Practice makes perfect, Randolph."
Ten fingers and ten toes afford a lot of practice. That would bring one to a twenty, not a very impressive twenty in the self-cauterizing brethren, but still.

[Bill]

I'm curious: where is everyone on this? It's easy for me to sit down and slide through this like a hot, self-cauterizing knife through butter. Happy to wait a bit; I've started Part 2 of the second section, also called "Last Days".

Gabriel Blackwell says it much better than I can in his review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[S̶e̶a̶n̶]

I just finished it. That's a pretty good review.

[Bill]

I'm done, but will try to avoid spoilers. Some thoughts...

I thought the first section "Brotherhood of Mutilation" is stronger than the 2nd section. But that's a hard act to follow.

The Pauls! Hilarious and horrific. I haven't heard the Hindemith left-hand pieces, but the Wittgenstein-commissioned Ravel and Prokofiev concertos are performed regularly. (The Rudolf Serkin recording of the Prokofiev 4th was a favorite back when I was a teen.)

I love Evenson's language, and his control of pace. There are really slow sections (for example, when Kline is lying down in pain, or waking up), that rev up until everything is a blur, with just flashes of detail registering. A few years ago, I met Brian Evenson at the book release party for the first edition of Baby Leg, and asked him about pace in his novels. He said he used to listen to a lot of contemporary classical music, with significant variations in tempo. The choppy Part 1 of the second novella is all very short chapters; am I being facetious when I think of that as a sort of scherzo?

Last Days seems to be a transitional work in Evenson's novels. There are some wonderful set pieces (Gous' party! the strip show! and of course, the Pauls). Then Immobility and The Warren are much more narrowly focused, with minimal casts of characters.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶]

I agree about the first section being stronger. I found the violence in the second section not necessarily gratuitous, but certainly a bit tiresome. It radiated a level of nihilism that didn't interest me. Having just read so many of Evenson's stories, though, I'm not sure it was the best time for me to approach his novels (or, at least, this one). It felt like the frenetic bursts of prose that constitute his short stories could not effectively sustain themselves when employed here in the long form (this also could be related to the form, these being two novellas sewn together). All this being said, I have a copy of Immobility at home that I still plan to read sometime in the near future, as I'd prefer to process another of his novels before taking a longer break from his work.

[Bill]

If you're done with Last Days and looking ahead, please join us for the March 2019 buddy read (Colin Insole's Valerie):

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Bill]

Randolph wrote: "In the early parts I was like, ick, when it came to the amputations and the gore but I gradually became numb to it. I wonder if this was Evenson’s intention."
The way I read Evenson, the extreme events are usually presented in a dry, matter-of-fact way, and never seem to be gratuitous. Bad things happen; I don't think he's out to be shocking.

I do agree that in the second half of Last Days, I respond to the violence somewhat differently. We've kind of seen what he can do with that type of material; I think I would have preferred a little less of it, and maybe more of the Pauls. Horrible ideas can go horribly wrong, in more than one way (!)