Julie in the Horror Section

Hi, I'm Julie. I've never really been a big horror person - the closest I ever really came before the last few years or so was Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the like - but then I started watching Stranger Things, and attending Rural Gothic virtual conferences, and hanging out in the LibraryThing Gothic Literature group.

Now, I find myself dipping my toes further and further into the horror genre and finding things that I like. I'll probably never be a true horror buff, but I'm definitely finding subgenres and niches in horror that are to my taste and interest - enough to make tracking my reading forays into the genre here and discussing them with other fans worthwhile.

My main thread is over in Club Reads, but I'll be posting reviews of any books I read that are or are about horror here going forward, starting with The Castle of Otranto and the three books I've read this month by Jennifer McMahon. I may even go back and bring over some older horror-related reviews from 2020, as well.

I look forward to discussing the genre - or at least some subgenres of it - with all of you in this group!

Read May 14-15, 2021: 3 stars

I found The Castle of Otranto interesting, though I did have some trouble with the formatting. Trying to figure out who's speaking in a book written before the convention of starting a new paragraph for each new speaker, or even the use of quotation marks, definitely slowed me down and made it harder to parse what was going on.

The plot was interesting, and definitely contains the elements we now associate with the Gothic genre. Interestingly, it also has a lot of the hallmarks of the classic tragedy.

From a modern standpoint, the characterization was flat and in some cases even inconsistent, but Walpole hardly seems to have been going for round, believable characterization, and at the time he wrote the book, that wasn't a fault, as far as I know.

And even with that wooden characterization, I still found myself wanting Matilda to get her happy ending, and dismayed when she was killed, which is quite a feat on Walpole's part.

The pacing felt rushed, to me, but again, stylistic differences in fiction writing between the 18th century and now account for that.

All in all, I think it's an okay story whose importance lies in its breaking with contemporary literary trends and its place as the beginning of the Gothic genre. Clery's introduction (my copy is the Oxford World Classics edition, and includes a 36 page introduction by E.J. CLery) was fascinating, and definitely enhanced my reading experience by providing the historical context necessary to get the most out of the novel itself.

The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon: read May 18, 2021, 4 stars

This one was a book bullet from Carol420 in the Mystery and Suspense group.

I read this book in a single day - I started it at 12:38 pm over lunch, and finished it at 6:12 pm, over dinner - and I really enjoyed it. The plot and mystery kept me absorbed all the way through, to the point where I found myself resenting phone calls from friends, the need to make dinner, and the call of nature, because they interrupted my reading.

The setting was vivid. The town of West Hall felt very real, with appropriate complexity and depth, and rang true as a small New England town, albeit one more rural than the small New England town in which I live.

The characters were similarly well-rendered. Like real people, I didn't love or even like all of them - I had an antipathy for Martin from the moment he entered the novel, and that's nothing on how I felt about his brother - but even those for whom I felt little sympathy struck me as entirely believable.

Likewise, the relationships depicted throughout the novel all felt deep, complex, and incredibly real. The novel particularly focuses on mother-daughter relationships, and one sibling relationship, all explored in depth and with thematic resonance. While none of these reflected the particular mother-daughter or sibling relationships that I'm part of in my own life, I'm sure that many women will see their own experiences reflected in this book.

I also really like the plot itself. The ending surprised me, and yet also felt entirely right. I closed the final page feeling exactly what I felt that I should be feeling - a mix of satisfaction, sated curiosity, and melancholy, with a twist of unease. Not to mention a certain degree of awe at McMahon's skill at weaving the story together.

I will say that certain facets of the narration - the prose - left something to be desired. Some of the writing struck me as needing a final polish. But the story was more than gripping enough that the narrative prose quickly faded to the back of my mind as I lost myself in the story anyway. This is not a book in which the beauty of the prose is the focus or the point, and the things that are the focus, this book does very well, indeed.

As a final note, I'll add that in the past I've usually avoided anything that could be classed as horror, because I don't enjoy being afraid. I haven't tried to watch Criminal Minds since I moved into my own place. I don't go on roller coasters for the same reason.

But I tried this anyway, because the story intrigued me and it came highly recommended, and I don't regret it even a little bit. I did find myself a little spooked while and directly after reading, but not nearly enough to detract from my enjoyment of the book. And, of course, it does point to McMahon's skill as a writer, that she was able to convey tone so well that it affected me so much.

Don't Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon: read May 20, 2021. 3.5 stars

I enjoyed reading this book. As with The Winter People, the mystery/suspense plot drew me in and held my attention - so much that I finished the whole book in a single day.

(I've done that twice now, both times with suspense novels by Jennifer McMahon, and I feel like I could continue, but I'm actively deciding not to. It turns out that reading books in single days requires the setting aside of all other responsibilities and tasks, which, while fun, isn't really practical more than once in a while. Alas.)

In this book, McMahon takes on the folklore of Faerie and changelings, all with a dark, sinister twist. While I was never really afraid while reading, per se, Don't Breathe a Word definitely left me unsettled, and a little reluctant to turn out the lights for a while. In this book McMahon more than demonstrates her ability to create atmosphere and leave a lasting impression on her readers.

Don't Breathe a Word, which was published in 2011 and was McMahon's fourth novel, is concerned with some of the same themes and contains some of the same motifs, as in The Winter People, which was published three years later in 2014: the question of whether places can be evil, the idea of doors to other worlds hidden in seemingly ordinary landscapes, sibling relationships, mother-daughter relationships, motherhood, family, the ways that the past haunts the present. I'm sure there are more that I've left off and will think of as soon as I hit post.

These themes and motifs do not come across as stale for their repeated exploration, however. Each McMahon novel I have read so far has come at these questions and relationships from a different angle and through a different lens, and wrapped in an exciting suspense plot that more than keeps things interesting, besides.

It was evident while reading Don't Breathe a Word, especially having read The Winter People first, that Don't Breathe a Word was an earlier effort by an author gaining in skill with each new book. Certain elements of the writing in this book are noticeably less polished than in the later book. For instance, McMahon in 2011 was very liberal with parentheticals in her prose in a way that she had reigned in by 2014. She also outright states themes in the voices of characters a few times here, where by 2014 she had gotten significantly more subtle.

That's to be expected, of course - writers should improve the more they write, just as anyone improves in their craft as they gain experience. And while Don't Breathe a Word isn't quite as accomplished as The Winter People, it's still a great read and well worth it in its own right, not just as a comparison for McMahon's later work.

Creating and rendering complex, believable, full characters seems to be a particular strength of McMahon's from early on, and it's on full display here. The main character, Phoebe, in particular felt real right from page one.

Unlike The Winter People and The Night Sister, both of which employ multiple POV styles in alternating chapters, Don't Breathe a Word is told from a single, deep, limited-third-person point of view - that of the main character, Phoebe. I found this strategy less effective than the alternating POV - as apparently, did McMahon, given that she seems to have abandoned it in later books.

I did have a problem with faux-cursive font in which the book excerpts included throughout the book are rendered. The use of this font, clearly meant to mimic handwriting, is an unnecessary affectation that comes across as silly, artificial, and too try-hard. It' also an ableist barrier to entry for readers with learning disorders and disabilities such as dyslexia or even bad eyesight. I found the font difficult to parse myself, and I have no such organic handicap hindering me - I can't imagine how difficult and obnoxious it must be to readers who do have disabilities of that type.

All in all, despite some technical flaws that kept it from a full four stars, Don't Breathe a Word is a gripping suspense novel that looks at interesting themes and asks interesting questions, and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys suspense, supernatural or horror mystery, darker looks at faerie folklore, or McMahon's other books.

Thanks for the posts/recommendations; the McMahon novels look interesting. I've read a lot of horror and lately have been seeking things listed under any combination of the terms "gothic," "literary," "mystery," etc., and I'm surprised her work didn't turn up in those searches as it seems to fit right in.

For those who don't read much horror but are considering trying it out, I often recommend two from Peter Straub: Shadowland and Ghost Story. Straub's horror isn't the kind in which blood drips from every page (so to speak); he's a fine writer whose work is a bit more than the genre label might suggest.

In general, no one considering horror needs a recommendation to read Stephen King - by virtue of being part of the English-speaking world, you already know who he is and likely have already decided to, nor not to, try him out - but for those already considering trying him, I suggest starting with Salem's Lot or The Shining, because they are relatively short, they make sense (he occasionally goes off the rails, but not in these), and they are good (by which I mean: if you don't like these, you won't like King). Having said that, some of King's best writing isn't horror at all, and the best of his non-horror work may be the collection Different Seasons, which consists of four novellas, two of which are the basis for popular movies (Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption) many people don't associate with King.

>5 St._Troy: McMahon's books are billed as suspense, actually. Though I did see them on the horror shelf at my local indie bookstore today.

I've read Stephen King's On Writing, and really loved it. I've never read any of his horror stuff, but I'm definitely aware of it. Thanks for the recommendation!

Yesterday I finished M.R. James' short story collection Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, which I downloaded as an ebook from Project Gutenberg.

I enjoyed the collection overall. I thought the stories were interesting, well constructed, and in a few cases even eerie, if not actually frightening, and the humor worked for me.

Unfortunately, I found the running thread of...I'm not even sure what to call it, Christian supremacy, maybe? Pro-Christian propaganda? Anti-non-Christian bigotry? Well, whatever it was, I found it incredibly off-putting.
It noticeably detracted from my enjoyment of the stories, enough so that it brought my rating down from 4 stars to 3.5.

For anyone not bothered by that sort of thing, this collection will probably be a solid read. I will note that I was able to read several stories by phone on my balcony after dark without trouble, and I've gotten spooked watching Criminal Minds alone on sunny afternoons, so those looking for the truly frightening should probably look elsewhere.

Horror is a fun genre. I've always found myself interested in the genre both in movies and books. There are so many subgenres I'm probably not familiar with.

I found books like The Omen to be way better than any movie made from the book.

Horror also goes off in other fun historical fiction like Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter.

>8 Adamtbest: I mean, books are (usually) better than their movie adaptations generally, regardless of genre. :)

I've been narrowing down the horror subgenres in which I am (and am not) interested.

So far, I've determined that slashers are definitely not for me.

I'm more interested in horror that has an element of mystery to it. What keeps me reading is a desire to find out what happens next and what's behind the mystery.

I've started another Jennifer McMahon novel: The One I Left Behind. I've only just finished chapter three, so I don't have any real comments on the book yet, except that McMahon's skill with characters continues to impress me.

I have finished The One I Left Behind by Jennifer McMahon. This one was different than the others that I have read by her, and I'm not sure that it's even really horror. It read more like a thriller or suspense novel, to me. There was no supernatural element, and I'm not sure that the presence of a serial killer alone makes something a slasher. Review to come in the next couple days, but for now I'll say that I enjoyed it, and that McMahon's skill with character and setting continues to impress me.

The One I Left Behind by Jennifer McMahon: 3.5 stars

This one did not grip me as much as the rest of the Jennifer McMahon books that I have read so far, but I did enjoy reading it.

McMahon did not include a supernatural or speculative element in The One I Left Behind as she did in all of the other books of hers that I have read so far. This read very much as a straight suspense/mystery novel, with maybe a touch of thriller, as well. I do not think that I would classify this one as horror, even of the non-supernatural slasher variety.

That isn't a problem for me - I read a lot of non-supernatural mystery and suspense - but it is worth noting. I was definitely expecting this to be more like the other McMahon books I have read, and was surprised when no supernatural element turned up as I read.

What was present in this book from McMahon's others is one of her most common themes: the relationship between mothers and daughters, this time in the form of the relationship between the protagonist, Reggie, and her mother, Vera, which is very much at the center of this book.

As usual with McMahon, the perspective on the mother-daughter relationship in this book is different than those in any of the other McMahon books I have read so far, and the relationship itself is well drawn and deftly explored.

Once again, I was struck by McMahon's skill at using concrete details to render vivid characters and settings that feel three dimensional and real. This book, unlike the rest of those I have read so far by McMahon, was set not in Vermont but in small town Connecticut, and McMahon made the town feel so real and so vivid that by the end, I felt like I had actually been there myself.

The use of the inter-cutting of the two time lines to control the story's tension and pacing was masterfully done, and works well for this type of story. The prose itself was well written, fading into the background as I was immersed in the story.

I found the resolution of the murder mystery satisfying, but the resolution of some of the other plot threads left me somewhat less satisfied.

The subplot around Tara and the ouiji board was left dangling, in my opinion, and felt to me almost like a relic of an earlier draft where there was a supernatural element. I also felt that the resolution of the interpersonal conflicts was a little too easy, and the ending was a little too pat.

All in all, The One I Left Behind is a good story with a few problems which, along with the fact that this particular story just didn't grab me as much as some of McMahon's others have, kept it from reaching that full four stars.

I binge-watched the Dutch TV series The Chestnut Man over the last two days on Netflix. It's billed as crime, and it definitely is crime, but I think it definitely at least edges on horror through the whole series, and in the last episode crosses over that line entirely into full on (non-supernatural) horror.

Review to come when I'm not working.

First horror-adjacent book of 2022!

Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction by Grady Hendrix with Will Errickson: 3 stars

I picked this book off the shelf while browsing the nonfiction shelves at my local library, drawn by an ongoing fascination with genre, literary, and publishing history. In it, Hendrix and Errickson, who appear to have co-written the prose together rather than having contributed different parts, write up the history of direct-to-paperback horror novels over the course of the '70s and '80s, starting with the very late '60s and following the narrative all the way to the boom's end in the very early '90s, including summaries of novels that fit into each trend or category discussed, interspersed with pages dedicated to specific important cover artists. The book also includes a truly impressive amount of cover art throughout.

This book is not concerned with the entirety of the horror genre during the decades covered. It is only really concerned specifically with the direct-to-paperback novels that had such an impressive boom in popularity and production during the era. Authors like Stephen King do appear in the pages, but not a lot, or often, and Hendrix and Errickson do not touch upon anything that would have been considered literary fiction (as some genre fiction is) at the time of publication, or even today, for the most part.

The tentative tip-toes that I have taken into the horror genre have almost all been books that cross-over with another genre - usually mystery, urban fantasy, supernatural, or folklore, sometimes weird fiction - or predate the horror genre as it is now defined, and only qualify in retrospect, like Dracula and other 19th and early 20th century novels.

Which is to say that I do not read the type of stories Hendrix and Errickson are discussing. I never have, and I doubt that, with one or two exceptions (again, Shirley Jackson, and even that's only a tiny possibility) that I ever will. They're not the type of story that I enjoy. I don't actually enjoy being horrified, or grossed out, or scared. And having read the summaries provided in this history, I can pretty firmly say that I would almost certainly not enjoy most of the books discussed in Paperbacks from Hell.

None of that means that there is no value to discussing these types of books, or that there is anything wrong with reading them and enjoying them (with exceptions. There are absolutely books discussed in this that I strongly feel have no redeeming value at all, including the one described in the introduction, which nearly turned me off reading this entirely) I only include all of this to provide context for my actual thoughts on Paperbacks from Hell.

Because despite having no history of or desire to read the types of books under discussion, I mostly enjoyed reading Paperbacks from Hell, and am glad that I gave in to impulse and checked it out. (Not that there was much chance I wouldn't. Giving in to impulse like that is more common than not, with me :) )

The book is divided into chapters by different trends in horror paperbacks, such as Satanic cults, haunted houses, attacks by animals (and vegetables and bugs), creepy children, etc. In each chapter, the authors not only summarize examples of the trope, they also give a surface reading of the societal, historical, political, and economic factors that propelled each trend to popularity and lay behind the fears embodied in them. For example, they attributed the Satanic cult trope to "the fear that we are losing our individual identities to become servants of another's will" (41), and the popularity of haunted house novels to "economic anxiety" (105).

The authors never went any deeper into analysis than this, which frustrated me over and over as I read, but in a general history of this type there wasn't really room or reason to do so.

Along with the summaries, the authors also provide critiques of the novels they discuss, pointing out to readers which ones are particularly good or well written or otherwise worth taking a look at, which would be helpful to anyone reading this book who, unlike me, is actually looking to get into the direct-to-paperback horror books whose history it chronicles.

For those who are, like me, uninterested in reading these types of books, Paperbacks from Hell also serves as a useful reference, providing the context and history and summaries so that we can read about and understand the trends, genre, and history generally without having to read any examples ourselves.

There was, as I mentioned, a lot of art in this book. Really, a truly impressive amount. And apart from the inserts about individual important cover artists and their work, the authors also discuss the different trends in horror paperback cover art in the main text of each section. They explain the importance of cover art and the role it played in the popularity and sales of these books, which was interesting to me. They mention more than once the publishing trick of putting popular motifs, such as creepy children, or priests, or Satanic imagery, on covers even of novels where the motif doesn't appear in the actual story to capitalize on their popularity, as well as different cover art techniques such as die-cutting, foil, etc used to make covers stand out.

The parts that I appreciated the most, though, were the parts where the authors discuss the back-end publishing world, the way it worked, the ways it changed, and how all of that affected the genre. That sort of behind the scenes stuff always interests me, and in this case, it also spoke to changes to other genres and the fiction publishing world in general that I have observed and read about elsewhere. One particular example that I found so interesting I photographed the paragraph was an explanation of the 1979 Thor Power Tool Co Supreme Court verdict, which made it illegal to value unsold inventory below cover price, and how that affected the entire publishing industry, making it so that "a successful book now had to sell blockbuster numbers" and ending "the day of the midlist novel."

The prose is snarky, sarcastic, and irreverent in a way that may bother some readers, but did not really bother me. I actually got a kick out of it several times and enjoyed many of the quips, though it did on occasion get grating. It helped that whenever there was a discussion of an individual author or artist, especially one who was not given their due or was mistreated by publishers in their lifetime, that tone went away entirely.

The authors are entirely frank and up front about the inherent racism, transphobia, homophobia, and other bigotries in many of the individual works, and larger trends and tropes, that they discuss, which was refreshing and also made it easier to get through the descriptions of books whose entire premises were offensive.

I struggled with how to rate this one.This was not a great book. I wouldn't even call it a good book. The writing was nothing special, the books described are nothing I would ever read, and the analyses, what there was of it, was shallow and brief. I doubt that there is much, if anything, that this book is doing that some other book doesn't do equally well or better.

But the art was impressive, the windows into the publishing industry were fascinating, and the history was succinctly written, interesting, and useful to know. Plus, the book wasn't actually bad, nor did I dislike it, which eliminates rating below 3 stars.

It had some truly good bits, but those were balanced out by some truly annoying or bad bits, including the introduction, which nearly had me DNFing before I even really started, and the bulk of it was just...fine. Average. So in the end, I gave it three stars. I'm glad I read it, and I had fun enough doing so. But I wouldn't put it on any rec lists or up for any awards.

Just picked up the winter people cheap on kindle and I look forward to reading following your review
Rob, Bristol, UK

>15 runner56: I hope that you enjoy it!

I attended a virtual talk with horror author Richard Dansky over the weekend which is now available on youtube.

I found it very interesting, and have ordered The Jewish Book of Horror from my library.

I have finally started The Jewish Book of Horror. I have read the forward, the introduction, and the first short story, which was, appropriately enough, Richard Dansky's contribution, On Seas of Blood and Salt.

I will wait to review the stories all together when I've finished the whole thing, as well as the collection as a whole.

The Jewish Book of Horror edited by Josh Schlossberg: 4 stars

This is a collection of 22 Jewish short horror stories put out by the Denver Horror Collective in 2021. Most, but not all, of the authors are themselves Jewish. All of the stories feature Jewish characters, themes, history, and/or culture. There is also a frame narrative by the editor, Josh Schlossberg, a forward by Rabbi John Carrier, and an introduction by Molly Adams. Following the final story, there are small biographies of all of the contributing authors, including Schlossberg, Rabbi Carrier, and Adams.

I first learned about this collection from a zoom interview with one of the contributing authors, Richard Dansky, put out by a Jewish organization whose name I can't remember. I learned about the interview from MyJewishLearning's daily email of online Jewish events.

I originally ordered it from the library, but very quickly realized I wanted a copy of my own, which I promptly ordered.

This review will be of the collection as a whole. I will post my thoughts on the individual stories in a separate post, as I did with the last short story collection that I read.

The quality of the stories in this collection varied - some were excellent, some were average, some were really, really bad, and some were just not to my personal taste. That last is to be expected in any short story collection, and especially in one where the genre is horror, of which there are many, many types, many of which are not for me.

I was thrilled to see a collection of Jewish themed genre fiction, largely by Jewish authors, and even more thrilled that it was not all, or even mostly, Holocaust related. The discussion in Rabbi Carrier's forward of what makes a story Jewish was interesting, as was Molly Adams' introduction. The framing device written by Schlossberg tied the collection back to the larger horror tradition, which is a nice touch. I also really appreciated the inclusion of the author biographies at the end.

There are many types of horror represented in this collection, some supernatural and some not. In some, the supernatural element was not the part that made it horror. That variety means there's something to interest all different sorts of horror fans. It also makes it great collection for new horror readers not yet sure of where their tastes lie within the genre.

I could not figure out while reading what, if any, logic lies behind the order in which the stories are presented, with the exception of the last story, which is absolutely the right one to end with.

I do wonder why a few of the stories - those that were objectively bad in terms of grammar, narrative structure, POV consistency, and basic prose, rather than just not to my taste - were included in the collection at all. My best guess is that there was a length they needed to hit, and of course, the pandemic couldn't have helped. The collection came out near the end of 2021. Writers contracted to included stories may have found their writing quality suffering under the emotional stress of writing, and just living, for that matter, in the nightmare that was 2020 and 2021, and I can't imagine that the editing process wasn't also affected.

Despite the duds, and the stories that I just didn't enjoy, I am glad that I read and bought a copy of The Jewish Book of Horror. I enjoyed reading at least the bulk of the stories, and there were a few that were stunningly, breathtakingly good.

It was really nice to see Jewish characters, themes, and culture, especially in a genre fiction collection, and really fun to have so many Jewish POV characters and protagonists. It's not that often, in the grand scheme of things, that I see that aspect of my identity represented in for-fun fiction. In some cases, that extra bit of relate-ability actually served to enhance the horror.

Given all of that, I rated The Book of Jewish Horror four stars. In this case, the whole really is greater than simply the sum of its parts.

As promised, my short reviews of the individual stories in The Jewish Book of Horror. I have done my best to cover any spoilers that would ruin the reading experience, but if you're fanatical about avoiding spoilers, you might want to tread carefully.

There are 22 stories, so I'm breaking this into two posts, 11 stories in each.

On Seas of Blood and Salt by Richard Dansky: 3.5 stars. interesting, liked the narrative style. Read very much like a folktale. Felt a bit brief, and I wanted more of an explanation of the supernatural phenomena. Glad there are more stories about these characters. (Dansky mentioned as much in the interview I attended.) Jewish pirates! Not actually frightening, which for me is a plus, not a minus. No narrative transport*, which is what keeps it from a full 4 stars.

The Last Plague by KD Casey: 5 stars. So gut punching. So effective. The opening vignette, immediately familiar and relatable, enhances both the believability and the horror of what follows. The structure is perfect. The slow, gradual, but inexorable progression is pitch perfect horror. The POV and the ending are also perfect. Definitely achieved narrative transport. One of the best stories in the entire collection, possibly the best story in the entire collection.

The 38th Funeral by Marc Morgenstern: 3 stars. evoked no emotions in me. Did not achieve narrative transport. Ending worked. Believable. As a whole, okay

Same as Yesterday by Alter S. Reiss: 5 stars. clever, subtly effective. Horror is in the ending, which is absolutely perfect. I liked the protagonist, Danny. The setting is vivid, real, well rendered. The characterization is all round, believable. Excellent job creating a complex mood/atmosphere of melancholy, regret, wistfulness, sorrow, and despair all at once. Great details. Want to read more from this author. Magical worldbuilding is well done - well weaved in, no infodumping. The idea of hell as stagnation, even in a beautiful setting is fantastic and I love it.

How to Build a Sukkah at the End of the World by Lindsay King-Miller: 2.5 stars. weird. Very surreal. Couldn’t get a handle on what was happening on a minute to minute plot level. Vivid imagery. Creepy feeling, very atmospheric. Wanted to know what was happening. Definitely “achieved an affect” per Poe**. Impressionistic. Eerie. This is one of the ones that was clearly well written, just not to my personal taste.

Demon Hunter Vashti by Henry Herz: 2 stars. Writing is clunky and awkward. Very amateurish. Ending is too pat. Especially Vashti’s survival and “demotion.”. Characters are flat and cliché. Not very good. Interesting idea, though.

The Horse Leech Has Two Maws by Michael Picco: no rating. not sure how I feel about this one. I’m definitely missing some context – the postscript was clearly meant to make me realize something but I’m not sure what. Not sure that I can really decide how I feel about this story since I’m clearly missing important context.

The Rabbi's Wife by Simon Rosenberg: 3 stars. well rendered, believable, if not really likable, first person protagonist. Foreshadowing and figurative language points to reveal long before it comes, which is well done. Events all feel grounded in real everyday reality – both the campus Jewish stuff and the antisemitism. Interesting take on golem folklore. All of the other characters were also well rendered and believable, though I didn’t like any of them, except maybe Sora, but she was filtered through the protagonist's pov so much it was hard to tell. Definitely achieves unsettling tone. Multifaceted look at the concept of dehumanization and woman as object (of desire, as literal object, as tool). Not my kind of story – the horn-dog pov is off-putting for me – but definitely well written.

Ba'alat Ov by Brenda Tolian: 1 star. really gross body horror. Very surreal. Not for me, and did not enjoy the reading experience. May work well for other readers. Not badly written, just not for me.

Eight Night by John Baltisberger: 1 star. did not enjoy. Gross. Unpleasant reading experience, and also a bit too surreal for me. Another one that was well written, but not for me.

Bread and Salt by Elana Gomel: 3.5 stars. vivid imagery and excellent metaphoric and figurative language. Great prose style. Ending felt right for character and story, but also rushed and abrupt, like it should have taken more words/time to get there. Really liked, except for abruptness of ending. So close to 4 stars!

The second 11 stories will be in the next post.

*narrative transport is that phenomenon when you get so swept up in a piece of fiction that the rest of the world falls away as you sink into the story.
**Edgar Allen Poe believed that the goal of a short story was to "achieve an affect." He wrote an essay on this idea, which I read back in college.

My reviews of the second 11 stories in The Jewish Book of Horror:

In the Red by Mike Marcus: 3 stars. why are so many authors (generally, not in this collection specifically) allergic to the pluperfect tense? No narrative transport. Setting vague, though probably meant to be NY. Plot (Jewish protagonist harvests organs for money) makes me uncomfortable due to similarity to blood libel. Ending worked. Lack of use of pluperfect for events in narrative past really bugged me. Biggest issue was lack of narrative transport, which was down to prose style that just didn’t work for me. Ending did give me chills though.

A Purim Story by Emily Ruth Verona: 4 stars. excellent. Definitely achieved narrative transport. Characters all felt round and believable. Tension is handled well. Ending was right. Story felt complete and right length, even though I wanted more.

Catch and Release by Vivian Kasley: 1 star. inconsistent mixed use of perfect and pluperfect tenses made timeline difficult to parse. Prose is awkward and choppy. Definitely no narrative transport. Bad grammar, including tenses and less/fewer error. Really badly written, both on a basic prose level and on a narrative and structure level. Amateurish. Spoon-fed readers details that should have been left for us to figure out – doesn’t trust readers to think and understand. The premise could have been good but the really terrible execution ruined it entirely.

Pinechas the Zealot by Ethan K. Lee: 2 stars. didn’t get whatever reveal the ending was meant to spark. Needed another pass through and general editing. POV was muddy, especially in Ben’s sections. Certain procedural plot holes – wouldn’t the lead detective have gotten a background on the family, and thus already know that they were Jewish before talking to Ben? Why were they interrogating a minor without at least a social worker there to look out for his interests? How were they allowed to interrogate a child all night at all? - bugged me throughout. Disappointed that the ending didn’t explain or otherwise make clear what had happened. Not a satisfying read, definitely needed another draft or two, though it has potential.

The Wisdom of Solomon by Ken Goldman: 1 star. no narrative transport, no sense of satisfaction after reading. Oddly stilted prose – maybe attempting to emulate folktale feel, but missed. No clear narrative structure – protagonist Antagonist? Conflict? Everyone is passive, and the dybbuk and the narrative act on them. Also, how does removing Aviva’s vocal chords even purportedly “solve” the love triangle or issue of Aviva dating? Ableist. People who can’t speak out loud can still communicate, date, marry, and live full lives. Not only ableist, but also sexist – does not even pass the sexy lamp test*. The narrative treats Aviva as an object, only important in terms of her relationships to the male characters, as a prize that only one of them can possess, and worse, one which is only valuable for her voice, without which she loses all value.

Welcome, Death by J.D. Blackrose: 4 stars. nice little tale. I liked the ending and thought that it fit. Very short, but felt like the right length. Protagonist felt well rendered and believable, fully human. Well written. Achieved some degree of narrative transport, but not full immersion/transport. Felt almost fable-like. Only quibble: it didn’t feel like an inherently Jewish story. The supernatural element came from Christian lore, specifically the book of Revelation. It felt like the story could have been edited to fit any ethnic cleansing and still worked – not grounded in Judaism or in the specific setting. Contributed to fable feel, but made it feel like an odd choice for this particular collection.

Forty Days Before Death by Colleen Halupa: 2 stars. No emotional response, no real narrative transport. Characters, including protagonist, felt flat. Everything that happened felt plot-driven rather than character-driven, like characters were making the choices they did because they had to to move the plot forward. Protagonist falling for Mave felt informed rather than shown. Ending was too pat. Also unfortunate sexism by implication that women like Mave are bad and women like Reva are good. Interesting enough premise, but not executed very effectively.

The Hannukkult of Taco Wisdom by Margaret Treiber: 1 star. prose was amateurish, awkward. No narrative transport. Too surreal for me. Nonsensical. Jewish aspects felt false, tacked on – no one calls latkes ‘potato pancakes’ unless they’re explaining to gentiles, to give one example. I can imagine a Jewish cult, but not one worshiping a second or alternate god. structure??? characters were all flat. Everything felt random and pointless.

The Divorce from God by Rami Ungar: 1.5 stars. POV is muddy throughout. We’re in Rabbi Horowitz’s POV in 3rd person limited, but the exposition on Jewish law, custom, and tradition don’t make any sense in that context. They pull the reader out and break any narrative transport or immersion. Also, in the Rabbi’s POV, he should be using the Hebrew plural when he’s using Hebrew words, not just adding an ‘s’ to the Hebrew singular. Otherwise, he'd just use the English. That mix feels weird and unrealistic/inauthentic. Characters were flat, entirely one-dimensional. Didn’t believe that someone doing what Horowitz does wouldn’t be doing any background research or checking up on the women and their stories. Could have been made believable with more characterization, but as it is, it didn't work. All tell and no show. Interesting premise, I suppose, but very poorly executed.

The Hand of Fire by Daniel Braum: 3.5 stars. Well-written. Effective. Definite narrative transport. Ending felt right for the story. Chilling, goosebumpy. Wanted more background on Jeffrey’s parents and how they came to be raising him, etc. I wanted more about what the actual situation was, how it came to be, ect. A bit too vague for me. Also not quite my genre. vibe was not classic horror, not really creepy, per se, but definitely dreadful in the sense of full of dread.

Bar Mitzvah Lesson by Stewart Gisser: 3.5 stars. not terribly well-written on a prose level. In fact, the prose is rather clunky and awkward – but the ending gave me chills. Liked the ambiguity re Ha-Satan>'s motives. Achieved narrative transport by the end despite fighting against clunky prose. Definitely the right story on which to end the collection – very timely. If the author were better at the prose end of things, this could have been excellent.

*the sexy lamp test goes like this: can the main female character be replaced with a sexy lamp (or other object of value) without changing the rest of the plot? The movie The Sand Pebbles fails this test with every female character in it, and actually one of the male characters, too, if you'd like an example.

I started reading 100 Creepy Little Creature Stories yesterday, and so far, 6 stories in, I'm enjoying it. (The stories in this one are very short, and don't really require two reads the way many of the Gaiman ones do, so I can get through a bunch a day. Which is good, because unlike in the Gaiman, this book has 100 stories in it.)

I wanted something a little spooky for the end of October, and I've wanted to read more from the supernatural and weird fiction traditions for a while. The stories collected in 100 Creepy Little Creature Stories fulfill both desires quite nicely.

I do wish that the editors had chosen to put the dates of each story with the title, though. (Or, indeed, listed them all anywhere. The dates on the ones still in copyright are listed in the copyright info at the front, but there are no dates provided at all for the stories that are public domain.) I can live without an introductory blurb for each one, given how many stories there are, but a date for context would be nice.

The Children on the Hill by Jennifer McMahon: 4 stars

1978: At her renowned treatment center in picturesque Vermont, the brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Helen Hildreth, is acclaimed for her compassionate work with the mentally ill. But when's she home with her cherished grandchildren, Vi and Eric, she's just Gran-teaching them how to take care of their pets, preparing them home-cooked meals, providing them with care and attention and love. Then one day Gran brings home a child to stay with the family. Iris-silent, hollow-eyed, skittish, and feral-does not behave like a normal girl. Still, Violet is thrilled to have a new playmate. She and Eric invite Iris to join their Monster Club, where they catalogue all kinds of monsters and dream up ways to defeat them. Before long, Iris begins to come out of her shell. She and Vi and Eric do everything together: ride their bicycles, go to the drive-in, meet at their clubhouse in secret to hunt monsters. Because, as Vi explains, monsters are everywhere. 2019: Lizzy Shelley, the host of the popular podcast Monsters Among Us, is traveling to Vermont, where a young girl has been abducted, and a monster sighting has the town in an uproar. She's determined to hunt it down, because Lizzy knows better than anyone that monsters are real-and one of them is her very own sister.

Another excellent suspense novel from Jennifer McMahon. The suspense plot and mystery pulled me along and kept me engaged from start to finish.

As usual, McMahon's rendering of character and setting were excellent, and the tension and timelines were well handled. I love the way that McMahon reveals the secret at the heart of her novel jigsaw piece by jigsaw piece, switching between the two timelines, the monster book, and the journalist's book and letting you realize how they fit together as she builds to the reveal. I put together some of the clues as I read, and I enjoyed that lovely zing that always comes when I hit reveals that confirmed my guesses.

The ending was satisfying - surprising but also fitting and believable. The threads of the story were all tied up but not so tightly as to feel pat or contrived, and each character's choices and final situations felt true to the people McMahon had created throughout the story.

The novel's exploration of monsters and monstrousness was interesting and insightful. The references to other monster stories, including Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, were fun and added depth and meaning to the story. I'd never thought of connectingFrankenstein with eugenics before, but in hindsight it makes sense.

I enjoyed this novel from start to finish, and it made me think as well. Definitely a full 4 star book.