Reading Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates is like slipping into a fever dream. It’s all dark winter mood and brooding atmosphere in this novel. Bellefleur covers three generations of the Bellefleur family over the course of more than 200 years. Ms. Oates builds this long, sprawling novel with long, sprawling sentences filled with parenthetical asides and a… Continue reading Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates
I love rock n’ roll horror. It’s an under appreciated subgenre rich with untold stories. There isn’t enough quality musical fiction out there. Joe Hill’s Heart Shaped Box is an obvious exception. Anne Rice’s Vampire Lestat fronted a rock band in The Queen of the Damned, as did the pre-emo bloodsucker of S.P. Somtow’s Vampire… Continue reading The Devil of Echo Lake by Douglas Wynne
I re-read Stephen King’s The Shining recently in preparation for the release of its sequel, Doctor Sleep. I’m glad I did. The Shining is a beautifully written novel, simple, elegant, and powerful. There are only four main characters: Jack Torrance, his wife Wendy, his son Danny, and the Overlook Hotel itself. At its core, The… Continue reading The Shining by Stephen King
[Bob’s Note: The Bell Witch by John F.D. Taff will be released by Books of the Dead Press in July 2013.] John F.D. Taff takes us to Adams, Tennessee circa 1820 to tell the all-American ghost story of The Bell Witch. Taff extracts elements of real Southern folklore to build the structure of his story,… Continue reading The Bell Witch by John F.D. Taff
