20th Anniversary Countdown: Guest Post #19

In celebration of my blog's 20th anniversary, I'm having guest posters every week leading up to the big day. This is the penultimate guest post!

Allison is a Canadian blogger who is an honest-to-goodness school librarian. She lives with her husband and her dog Lucy and she has two grown children. I wish I could tell you exactly what Allison writes about, but it turns out that even when she's writing about being sick, it's irresistibly delightful and often hilarious and mysterious because she still has not told me what song she was talking about in that post from three months ago. She also does these amazing book roundups at the end of the year and I read those posts like I will be quizzed on them, taking notes and putting books on hold at the library like it is MY JOB. Do you want to read someone who will make you laugh and also keep secrets from you for months? Check out Allison over at Bibliomama. 

(I asked her if it was okay that I named her dog and not her kids and she wrote back "Yeah, my dog is cuter than my kids at this point, I'm comfortable with it." Sorry, A & E!!!)

If you don't think Lucy is The Cutest, your heart is made of ice. 

Let's welcome Allison!

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Hi! ("Don't stress about the post" Engie said. "Anything will be fine." Engie said. Me: spends ten minutes trying to figure out the best way to say hi to everyone before just going with 'hi'.)

I discovered Engie through Nicole (Nicole is the gift that keeps on giving in so many ways), and managed not to scurry away even though when I started following her she was blogging every single day, and then she declared she was done and proceeded to keep blogging nearly every single day, while also working and exercising regularly and keeping track of her spending and tracking all her goals. Only occasionally do I wonder if we're actually the same species, as someone who blogs maybe every week, and works part-time, and exercises maybe every week and tracks my goals like this: "oh, right, I had goals. Have I met them? Gonna say no. Should probably get on that."

Engie IS, however, a friend who does occasionally read horror, which is always an exciting thing, because I do not have many. 

Let's begin with the obvious question - why DO I love horror books and movies? I thought I would talk about this for a bit so if you're like 'horror, ew', you can read the preamble and either think 'oh, I kind of get it now' or 'no, still ew', and then not read the list of actual books if you so choose. 

It's not actually because I like to be scared. I'm scared of so many things - failing at stuff, looking stupid while doing stuff, being a bad mother, being a bad wife, people I love dying, eggplants - and it's not fun. It's also not because I like seeing people in pain or dying, which I realize is a bit counterintuitive - I even feel bad for the obvious throwaway person at the beginning of the book or movie who exists solely to set up the Big Scary Thing. I have mixed feelings about when this character is given a rich backstory and is really likable - in a way I respect and appreciate that this is done, and in a way it makes me really bitter that we were shown this just so we'll feel worse when they're horribly murdered. I'm not into slashers where people are just mown down one after another, and I'm not a fan of gore, although it's not a deal-breaker. I like smart, creepy horror where no one - or very few people - end up dying. [Note from NGS: Eggplants. LOLOLOLOL.]

After some thought, I've come to the conclusion that  I like horror and dark fantasy for the same reason I used to give when people asked why I like the show Northern Exposure so much - I like art that admits the possibility of strangeness. Northern Exposure was a basically realistic show about a town in Alaska and its citizens and their relationships. They dealt with living in an isolated community, everyone knowing everyone's business, and then every now and then people in town would start dreaming each other's dreams or something. 

Stephen Graham Jones - a fantastic author who writes Indigenous horror - writes in the foreword to Never Whistle At Night (an Indigenous horror short story anthology) that "What stories like this do for us is make the world just a smidge bigger, yes? We now have to expand the borders of the real to allow for, say, two timelines to simultaneously exist. No, not just exist, but intersect." I grew up pretty devoutly Catholic, which for various reasons I'm slightly bitter about now because it did more harm than good but, call it wishful thinking or apophenia, I do believe that there is more than just the mundane and the visible. 

So why horror and not just fantasy? Not really sure. I'm not big on sword and sorcery. I value the Aristotelian function of catharsis - filtering pity and fear through art. In my mind, the best horror is more sad than frightening, because at the heart of it is the fear of losing the people we love. More recently, I have been impressed by the brilliance of several authors writing Social Horror, where issues like racism or misogyny are - or run parallel to - the threat. It makes so much sense if you think about it - something like racism, when you drill down on it, is actually horrifying and evil. Couching it as actually evil (without using this as any kind of excuse) is both fitting and, often, extremely persuasive.

Compiling a list of twenty of my favourite horror books has brought to my attention that I read male horror writers out of proportion to male writers in general. Is that because women haven’t traditionally written horror as much until recently, or just an unconscious bias? Given that I have made a concerted effort (even more than my natural inclination) in recent years to read more women, I clearly need to pay more attention. 

These are in no particular order: 

Knock Knock Open Wide by Neil Sharpson (2023)

This was in many ways just a story about generational trauma, a fractured mother-daughter relationship, and a nearly-flawless queer love story. The unfairness of how some lives are blighted by causes beyond their control dovetails wonderfully (and dolefully) with horror lit. I also loved the weaving in of Celtic folklore.

Where They Wait by Scott Carson (2021)

Scott Carson is a pseudonym of Michael Koryta, who writes thrillers. I find his thrillers fairly inconsistent - some are beautifully written and contain beautiful writing about various landscapes that adds depth to the story. Some are shallower and thinner. Hey, who hasn't rushed a piece of work to meet a deadline, right? I can't remember how I stumbled on his alternate writing persona, and I didn't  know what to expect, but I would like to find him and take him gently by the lapels and implore him to henceforth devote himself solely to horror writing.

New England history and the ghost ship trope are used to brilliant effect. There are also well-developed characters, insightful writing about friendship, going back to where you grew up, being defined by your work, the lure and dangers of technology, and other bittersweet facets of the human condition. And a little bit of terrifying sort-of-folklore-based sort-of-science-based scary stuff that I don't want to go into because it would be spoilery. 

Clearly I have a partiality to mythology-based horror, and this is a splendid example. 

Lute by Jennifer Marie Thorne (2022)

I got this from the library and it was one of my five-star reads for 2023. I later bought my own copy because I had to own it. This is sort of akin to the Ursula K. Leguin story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" - would you be willing to live somewhere idyllic where very few bad things ever happened if the payment was that every seventh summer seven people would die? 

I have no issues at all with horror that just tells a great story - I often like it more than overtly 'literary' horror. But this was a really lovely, beautifully-written tale that just happened to be about whether or not an island will really kill seven people as payment for seven blissful years. Nina is a great character, whose backstory makes it abundantly clear how she ended up living here as the wife of the Lord of the Island, although she wears her status uneasily. There is tension, but it's more a meditation on duty and sacrifice.

Let There Be Dark by Allen Lee Harris (1994)

I got this as a crappy little paperback from the library near the house we rented in Toronto. I wasn't expecting a whole lot, and ended up being blown away. The power of stories and the creative process is used to great effect, and the characterization and relationships really shone.

The Watcher by Charles Maclean (1982)

I guess if I had grown up without the internet I would never have known differently, but I hate to think of the books I would have missed without it. I tracked this down after seeing it referred to as "a lost horror classic, back in print at last!" Somewhat amusingly, I looked up what year the book was published just now, thinking maybe the fifties, and it was 1982! It was a while ago that I read it, and I'm not even sure the writing was great, but it was memorable just for the completely unexpected direction it went in.

Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (2017)

Graham Jones is fast becoming one of my favourite horror authors, and for a favourite I am torn between this and Night of the Mannequins - honestly, in Mannequins the first line is "So Shana got a new job at the movie theatre and we thought we'd play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead, and I'm really starting to feel kind of guilty about it all" that is hard to beat. But this struck me in the heart so acutely that I think it pulls slightly ahead. Stephen Graham Jones entwines the experience of being Indigenous and its attendant joys and horrors with more otherworldly horrors to devastating effect. 

The Good House by Tananarive Due (2003)

I think Due's The Between was one of the first books I asked to have special ordered back in 1995, when this was barely a thing. I have snapped up everything she's published since then. This plays on the perpetual fear we have of harm coming to our children, and features generational trauma and vodou-flavoured magic. I'm surprised this author isn't more well-known. Many of her books, this included, would make fantastic movies.

The Dead Zone by Stephen King (1979)

My favourite older King book. It's been decades since I read it, and I can still remember entire passages of it almost verbatim. It starts with an almost-perfect love story. It illustrates that, although we sometimes wish for powers of perception and knowledge, in actual fact knowing the future would be a terrible gift. There are stories within the story that were perfection in their own right.

The Need by Helen Phillips (2019)

It takes almost no effort for me to remember having babies and small children and, even though I loved them more than my life, feeling so exhausted and overwhelmed and alone that I would have done almost anything for an hour of quiet. This is about that kind of wish being granted in a really twisted way. It's also a searing piece of writing about what it's like being a mother without a village in the modern world. It definitely won't hit the same for everyone, but I felt absolutely cratered at the end. 

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (2007)

I think I read this before I realized that Joe Hill was Stephen King's son (Owen King also writes and kept his father's last name, do we have opinions about that?) The main motif is the fear of our wrongs coming back to haunt us, as well as the fear of the losses that aging brings. It also involves a man who examines his own behaviour, which is its own kind of gratifying. I also really liked Horns, but then Hill seemed to go so far over the homage line that it looked like he was just trying to be Stephen King the Second, which I found a little disappointing. [Note from NGS: Why should they change their names? I share my father's last name, even though he was sort of a dick. But it's MY name.]

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey (2014)

Ecological horror. The beginning is a slow burn with mounting menace where it takes time for the reader to realize what the actual threat is. Chief in my mind are beautiful relationship between the teacher and the  pupil, and the difficulty of distinguishing the monsters from the humans. [Note from NGS: I actually read this one, too!)

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (2013)

I liked The Shining as a book. I hated the movie, even though it's supposed to be a masterpiece. Jack Nicholson was brilliant, but Shelley Duval was annoying (and then I learned how she was treated during filming and that was terrible and I felt sorry and also furious with the director). They made a couple of changes that seemed utterly nonsensical to me. [Note from NGS: Obviously, Allison is wrong about this movie. It is a masterpiece.]

Anyway. I liked the book well enough, although it seemed very much of the time it was written (1977) and wasn't my favourite of King's. When the sequel came out in 2013, 36 years after the original, I was intrigued. Doctor Sleep is about the son from the first book. I absolutely loved it. The old one even smelled like the seventies to me - cigarettes, whiskey, musty carpets - which probably means it was very effective, but the sort of sordid, polyester-and-rattan shoddiness didn't click with me, even though the book was born a few years after I was. The new one is melancholy and bittersweet and seems a little more mature (I'm going on very subconscious feelings that I'm trying to articulate) and I absolutely loved it. It was also a rare and sweet chance to see something brought full circle generations later.

John Dies at the End by David Wong (2007)

Well not actually by David Wong - I did a whole post about how I feel about pseudonyms when I first read this. Anyway, this was bonkers batshit bananapants crazy, hilarious, and weird. And scary, and funny, and a little sad. And weird. There are moments of genuine fear, loss and human connection. And penis jokes.

The Orphan Choir by Sophie Hannah (2013)

Sophie Hannah generally writes mysteries that begin with a seemingly impossible set-up and then go on to explain everything with varying degrees of success - when they're good, they're very, very good, but to me, this was even better. I'm so curious how it came to her. Fear for our children is the deal, of course. I read this years ago, and yet I can still recall many scenes perfectly, such as one charming and amusing one in which the main character talks about a woman she knows who remarried and is besotted with her new spouse and loves introducing him to everyone. When the main character gets annoyed with her own partner for being dense she wonders "where is my superior second husband?" 

I read this in the midst of a run where I disagreed with everybody on Goodreads about every book I had read lately, and it was no different, except for my eminently sensible friend Sarah. I don't think I've ever seen a better illustration of the term 'psychological suspense'. Louise's twin aggravations - the neighbour who blasts loud music at night and the school choir that is co-opting her young son's entire childhood - are so sharply portrayed that I could feel my blood pressure rising. A fine balance is maintained between a suspicion of paranoia and the belief that terrible forces actually are at work, and the resolution was perfect and devastating.

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden (2018)

I read this because I am a school librarian in elementary schools and many, many elementary school kids are shockingly bloodthirsty little mothereffers who are all about the horror. Obviously I would prefer not to recommend substandard horror, although I do not do most of the ordering and I have to work with the tools I am given. This is one I am happy to thrust into their morbid little hands - it's a genuinely scary story, but it also delivers emotional intelligence and genuine friendships.

Thirteens (and the other books in the Secrets of Eden Eld trilogy) by Kate Alice Marshall (2020)

I had Coraline by Neil Gaiman in here, but for various reasons I am replacing it. I have now read Kate Alice Marshall books pitched at adults, young adults and children, and although her adult books are good, she really shines at horror for teenagers and children. A lot of this wonderful series revolves around palindromes, which meant I could give them to my daughter Eve as a Christmas present, addressed to my very favourite palindrome - she was twenty but she loved them too. Again, a deliciously creepy and intelligent story and a super-lovable and insightful and compassionate trio of friends. So satisfying. 

Into the Grey by Celine Kiernan (2011)

A ghost story that is haunting in all senses of the word. Twin brothers and family strife and charming Irish dialect and sense of place. 

World War Z by Max Brooks (2006)

I would say it's the first faux-documentary horror I read, but that would be Carrie - hard not to bring a lot of horror back to Stephen King. I still thought this one did a great job, though, using a theoretical zombie outbreak to criticize government corruption and ineptitude and human selfishness and shortsightedness. There are some striking parallels to the pandemic, which is unsurprising, and also a bittersweet and hopeful humanity. I was confused when I saw that the movie was coming out, since I thought it would be really difficult to make a film treatment of this. Turns out the filmmakers thought the same thing, so they just used the title and almost nothing else. [Note from NGS: This is a great audiobook.]

The September House by Carissa Orlando (2023)

I don't want to get too spoiler-y, but this one takes the haunted house as metaphor thing to a new and terribly effective level. What if you realized your house was really truly haunted but you really didn't want to move so you just tried to accommodate yourself to the haunting? How much washing blood off walls and dodging around screaming ghost children and making up excuses to not let your kids visit would you be able to stand? [Note from NGS: I want to take this opportunity to once again plug the "Haunted Housing Market" episode of the podcast Imaginary Worlds. It's fabulous and related to the haunted house trope.]

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (2021)

This was the first book I read by this author, and I have subsequently tracked down and read every other book of Ward's. Looking Glass Sound is a close second, but this is my favourite so far. It has a lot of classic horror elements - a house with strange, secretive inhabitants, a new neighbour, a cat. And yet it still feels a little new and different. [Note from NGS: My husband and I both read this one, too. We refer to Olivia the Cat regularly in this house.]

The blurb says this is for fans of Gone Girl which, what? And The Haunting of Hill House which *dies laughing*. Listen, I have TRIED to read classic horror. I have tried to read classic horror that I've already READ, on the basis that maybe I was too young and shallow to appreciate it. The Haunting of Hill House and The Turn of the Screw are NOT SCARY. There, I said it.

Also, there is an Australian horror writer named Kaaron Warren. I have had some nice Twitter exchanges with her (I called her sick and twisted and she thanked me profusely), and in her Goodreads bio she says she is an avid and broad reader but also loves reality tv so don't expect sophisticated conversation from her - clearly she is my kind of people. She is also a very, very good writer, and I am here to counsel you in the strongest terms not to ever read anything by her lest it scar you for life. I cannot, in good conscience, write a whole post about horror lit and not warn you that Kaaron Warren is TOO HORROR.

Thank-you Engie, for giving me something to think about other than the fact that my children are gone AGAIN (I want my children to have happy, fulfilling, independent lives and careers and I also want nearly uninterrupted access to them, is that so much to ask?). Also, the song is "Young Man" by Jamestown Revival.

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And, with that, a months long mystery has been solved! [Allison, for my part, I do see it as a meditation on taking his own life, so do with that what you will.]

What do you think about the King brothers using the last name King in their writing careers? What do you think about pseudonyms when the authors also include their other names?