Summer Reading Roundup

I tend to read a lot in the summer and slow down in the fall. The extra sunlight fuels my desire to escape, and books provide the easiest way to slip off to another place for a little while. There’s also no football in the summer. Without further ado, here is a roundup of some of the books I enjoyed this past season.

 

The Invention of Ghosts by Gwendolyn Kiste

Gwendolyn Kiste is one of my favorite writers, and I was delighted to have gotten the 100th copy of The Invention of Ghosts. The proceeds for this chapbook went to the National Aviary, and the book has fantastic illustrations throughout. Like the previous work I’ve read by Kiste (And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe and The Rust Maidens), the prose is imbued with poetic beauty, and the story contains a moving emotional core. Anyone who has ever had a friend they’ve lost touch with will be wanting to call that person after reading this. It will also get Donovan’s Season of the Witch stuck in your head.

 

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

By pure chance I happened to watch Deer Woman, an episode of Showtime’s Masters of Horror, not long ago. I was writing a werewolf short story, and I had revisited An American Werewolf in London and happened across Deer Woman as a result. Both works share John Landis as a director, and I should note that Deer Woman is set in the same universe as An American Werewolf in London because the protagonist of Deer Woman references the events of An American Werewolf in London. Anyway, Deer Woman was at least part of the reason why I decided to check out The Only Good Indians, which focuses on similar mythological elements. This novel by Stephen Graham Jones is a lovely, weird romp. Basketball, Native American Reservations, and youth’s sins all factor into why this book is so good. The point of view changes a lot in here, and you even get some chapters from the monster’s perspective. This keeps you feeling uncomfortable and stops you from being able to blindly root for the monster’s demise. These choices by Jones make this book unique.

 

Reanimators by Pete Rawlik

For a while, I’d been thinking, why hasn’t anyone done a story that pulls together a bunch of Lovecraft’s connected mythos into a singular tale? Well, I had somehow foolishly missed out on Reanimators existence until recently. The novel weaves the tale of Dr. Stuart Hartwell, a contemporary of Herbert West, as he moves through the years in and around Arkham. In the narrative, Hartwell encounters several of Lovecraft’s most famous characters and even intersects with several of Lovecraft’s best tales. This was a ton of fun to read, and I can’t wait to dive into the sequel. Maybe one day I’ll do a post trying to diagram out all the references and Easter eggs. Indiana Jones even pops up in the text.

 

Sefira and Other Betrayals by John Langan

I’ve already written pieces on two of John Langan’s previous works, The Fisherman, and The Wide Carnivorous Sky. I loved both of those, and I also enjoyed Sefira. In this collection, some of my favorites were In Paris, in the Mouth of Kronos, The Third Always Beside You, and At Home in the House of the Devil. At Home in the House of Devil was particularly fun because I happened to be writing a paper about Young Goodman Brown while I read it, and there are connections to be made between the two tales. I should also say I’m currently reading John’s latest collection, Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies, which was recently released from Word Horde.

 

The Croning

Laird Barron weaves an interesting tale of dark fantasy and horror here. I especially loved the opening, which is a retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin story in cosmic horror fashion. The protagonist in this novel has memory problems, to say the least, and that makes the narrative intentionally disjointed, but when the ending comes, it makes all the reader’s disorientation serve a ghoulishly good finale where the secrets are revealed, and the debts must be paid.

 

Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King

Silver Bullet is one of my favorite horror films of all time. A big part of why I love this movie so much is tied to the fact that I saw it at a young age, but I also think it’s a brilliant gem. The way the movie builds dread as it slowly progresses toward the climax, the excellent performances, and the way the werewolf’s killings impact the small town of Tarker’s Mill combine to make Silver Bullet special. So, it was only a matter of time until I read Cycle of the Werewolf. While I enjoyed the novella, I felt the story worked better as a screenplay. The close bonds between Marty and his sister, and Marty and his uncle, weren’t present in Cycle of the Werewolf, and they’re a major reason why I love Silver Bullet. The story felt hollow without them. Although, the movie didn’t have the stellar art by Bernie Wrightson.

 

Three other books I read this summer were The Color Out of Time, The Ancestor, and A Cosmology of Monsters, but you can find my thoughts on those tales by checking out the links above. It was an excellent summer for horror. Now here’s to the spooky season.

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The Rust Maidens

The Rust Maidens CoverBack in October, which feels like a million years ago, I did a short review of Gwendolyn Kiste’s And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe. I loved it, and I couldn’t wait to find some time to read Kiste’s novel, The Rust Maidens. This past February, which also feels like a million years ago now that Spring is arriving, I finally got to devour it.

In summary, I adored many of the same things in Kiste’s novel that I did in her short fiction. There is a lyrical quality to her prose, and her narrative is filled with metaphors and subtexts for readers to digest. While I haven’t read a vast amount of Shirley Jackson, I have read enough to see parallels to Kiste’s work. So, if you are someone who enjoys Jackson, I think you’ll find The Rust Maidens to your taste.

Reading novels now that I have a graduate degree in writing, I often find myself looking at the structure of books. In The Rust Maidens, the story is told from a single protagonist, Phoebe, but Kiste foregoes a simple linear narrative in favor of one split over two different years, 2008 and 1980. The novel opens with a world-weary Phoebe returning to her hometown of Cleveland in 2008. Since the older Phoebe has already experienced the climax of the story, Kiste can build mysteries to intrigue the reader by teasing revelations to come with the inner monologue of the protagonist. At the end of the first chapter, Kiste leaves readers pondering the two primary questions at the heart of the novel. Who are the Rust Maidens, and what happened to them? These are the questions that will propel readers through the book, but in case that’s not enough to keep you reading, there is a healthy dose of juicy cliffhangers. These are effective in novels because you can always choose to flip to the next page, whereas in television, especially classic network fair, you’re stuck waiting for a period you have no control over.

While I won’t get into deep spoilers, as I feel the secrets of books are for readers to discover and not for reviewers to impart, I do have a few additional thoughts on this novel. I loved the fact that the older Phoebe’s story takes place in 2008, the year of the great recession, which perfectly parallels the economically challenged Cleveland presented in 1980. Kiste’s descriptions of both the settings and the Rust Maidens themselves leave you feeling like you’re covered in grime, in the best kind of way. While the community in which Phoebe grew up in 1980 has significant issues, I loved a moment near the novel’s climax where the reader gets to see that not everyone within that community is as heartless as they seem for a large portion of the tale. There is a tremendous grey quality to the morality of the characters at the heart of this story, and I live for that kind of complexity.

If you’re hesitant to jump into a novel by Kiste because you haven’t read her work yet, I’d advise you to check out her short story, The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary). It’s a fun addition to the mythology of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it’s got a lot of thought-provoking subtexts, and it’s nominated for a Stoker Award. If you’re already familiar with the works of Gwendolyn Kiste, there’s a world of other great horror writers to explore, a few of which I discuss in my Women in Horror Month article.

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And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe by Gwendolyn Kiste

And Her Smile Will Untether the UniverseAnd Her Smile Will Untether the Universe by Gwendolyn Kiste

And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe has the honor of being the first book I read completely digitally. That is a testament to its readability. I loved having it in my pocket to page through whenever I had downtime over the past month. This is a fantastic collection of short stories. Each one has its charms. The Man in the Ambry was a particularly spooky standout that had me glancing a little longer at the closet by my bed, while The Five-Day Summer Camp and The Tower Princesses provided Twilight Zone-esque social commentary. Kiste’s prose is often beautiful as she mixes tragic romance, nature, and societal flaws into a delicious cocktail. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe is how well the tales fit together on a thematic level. While I pick up a copy of Kiste’s novel, The Rust Maidens, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of this collection.

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