A great debut to what promises to be a creepy (and thoroughly entertaining) series!
TRULY UNFORTUNATE is definitely a blend of genres – paranormal, hoA great debut to what promises to be a creepy (and thoroughly entertaining) series!
TRULY UNFORTUNATE is definitely a blend of genres – paranormal, horror, psychological thriller, and murder mystery. Whether there is intent or malevolence remains an open question, even as the novel reaches its closing pages, but it is certainly true (as the title coyly suggests) that one would be truly unfortunate if one was to upset Truly DeCanter, a young girl apparently suffering from repressed memories of childhood abuse.
Drawing on whiffs of the supernatural abilities of Stephen King’s eponymous character CARRIE, C.A. King places Truly at the heart of a pattern of unexplained deaths in Knollville. The police investigators acknowledge that the solution to the mystery, if it is even possible to find one, lies beyond the realm of normal human experience.
TRULY UNFORTUNATE is short and sweet but it’s a gripping page-turner and a novel that will definitely raise your eyebrows with hopes to follow up on further entries in the series. And, more than that, I’ll definitely be looking for other novels by the same author. Kudos to an up and coming Canadian author I had the good fortune to meet at a recent local book festival.
A dead end street – nine houses, nine neighbours, nine creepy little horror shorts!
The host of a street dinner party makes the startling revelation toA dead end street – nine houses, nine neighbours, nine creepy little horror shorts!
The host of a street dinner party makes the startling revelation to his guests that the original residents of their houses were a coven of nine witches who made a pact to keep “the spirits bound to the other realm”. But, in time, that magic has been weakening, “barely holding on by a thread”. If the residents fail to strengthen the number nine in their lives, then the resulting failure of that binding could free those spirits. “Terrible things could happen on Nine Street”. And THAT is the basis for a thoroughly entertaining collection of tales indeed!
TWISTED TALES OF A DEAD END STREET is a bravura collection of fast-paced horror shorts with themes of murder, animal abuse, paranormal, and malevolent spirits delivered with humour, a cast of characters with tongue-in-cheek Dickensian names, and suitably gothic atmosphere. Although each of the chapters stands on its own merits as a compelling short story, the linkage between the stories provides the basis for a clever ending twist in the final chapter.
This is the first of three books that I purchased when I met the author at a local book fair. I’m definitely looking forward to the other two and I’m thrilled to have made the acquaintance of such a skilled local author that I can happily recommend to fellow readers.
“Human beings have been eagerly devouring notions of evil and horror since we dwelt in caves and jumped at the shadows and noises occurring just outsi“Human beings have been eagerly devouring notions of evil and horror since we dwelt in caves and jumped at the shadows and noises occurring just outside the comforting range of firelight.”
“Canadians, especially, have always been concerned with notions of what lies beyond our normal existence.”
In ONLY MONSTERS IN THE BUILDING, author Mark Leslie went to great lengths to assure readers who shared his concerns that while paranormals might be creatures that inhabit that realm beyond our normality, they are definitely people too. People, in fact, with all the frustrations, foibles, fears, and failings that we “normals” deal with everyday in our lives. And, in crafting his cast of what Leslie characterized as “supernatural misfits (a studious fairy, a vegan vampire, a shy mermaid, a clingy werecat, and an extroverted troll)”, he also crafted a clever mystery and a brilliant master class in “show, don’t tell” character development!
How did he do it??
ONLY MONSTERS IN THE BUILDING is effectively a novel length reproduction of conversations in a series of therapy sessions between a confused patient (distressed werewolf and definitely paranormal though he may be) and his therapist. But Leslie has managed to alternate those periods of the eponymous Canadian Werewolf Michael Andrews’ directed self-examination with chapters of real-time interaction with the rest of his fellow abnormal paranormals in a cozy locked-room style murder mystery that makes the entire package genuinely enthralling, entertaining, humorous, and compelling.
Leslie’s development of Michael Andrews’ skills as an author and his personality and back story may not constitute a birth to present day autobiography (I mean … how could it? Andrews IS a werewolf after all!). But the extent to which Leslie injects himself into the Michael Andrews persona would please even the likes of Charles Dickens, author of the classic DAVID COPPERFIELD. The novel is absolutely jam-packed with film, music, television, and 20th century cultural references that reflect Leslie’s love of the world he lived in as he grew up. He even managed to sneak in a few cheeky references to his own writing by attributing it to work in Andrews’ bibliography. Fairy Ellie’s gushing praise of SILENT SCREAMS, Michael Andrews’ first and wildly undersold and distinctly unpopular first novel, was in fact a stand-in for one of Leslie’s earlier collection of short stories, ONE HAND SCREAMING which he prefaced with this comment concerning his propensity to mentally collect everyday occurrences for use in his writing,
“Silent screams bounce around inside my head like an impending storm brewing into a force that will escape in a wild dance of chaos and be lost forever if I don’t stop to jot them down.”
If you’ve got more time and patience than you know what to do with, perhaps you might want to re-read ONLY MONSTERS IN THE BUILDING with a view to snagging and listing all of the cultural references or Leslie’s meta-references to his own previous novels, novellas and short stories. An aspiring future scholar of English literature might choose to use that as in a Masters or PhD thesis after Leslie has attained classic status as a horror humorist.
Definitely recommended as one of my Top Ten favourites for this year.
Paul Weiss
P.S. Recommended that is with the very strong caveat that this is NOT a stand-alone novel and would make very little sense without an understanding of the Canadian Werewolf back story. But, fret not, do yourself a favour a go back to A CANADIAN WEREWOLF IN NEW YORK, #1 in the series. You're in for a real treat!...more
”I read evil things between the lines in the newspapers, and usually very faintly but sometimes quite plainly I see, behind the transparent front o”I read evil things between the lines in the newspapers, and usually very faintly but sometimes quite plainly I see, behind the transparent front of things, that cave-man face …”
THE CROQUET PLAYER is definitely not the kind of story HG Wells fans would expect if they were looking for sci-fi novels that might compare to the likes of THE TIME MACHINE or THE ISLAND OF DR MOREAU. It is actually a dark, deeply atmospheric ghost story written with a foreboding, “haunting” literary style that would have done credit to the likes of Edgar Allan Poe or HP Lovecraft. The evil in the story arises from a small town named Cainsmarsh in a clear reference to the first biblical murder. While it dabbles briefly in the ultra-religious Calvinistic preaching against the scientific truth of Darwin’s theories of evolution, ultimately THE CROQUET PLAYER is believed by literary scholars to be a cautionary allegorical tale warning England and the world against the dangers of Hitler and his emerging cult of Nazism. In effect, Wells compares an unnamed Hitler to an emerging universal evil in the world that is equivalent to a resurgence of antediluvian and unevolved beast man or caveman. Frankly, I think this is an insult to the behaviour and thinking of pre-Homo Sapiens species such as the Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon and reflects a rather self-righteous view of the advanced moralistic state of human thinking.
I would prefer to consider a somewhat more modern interpretation (strictly my own, I might add) in which the entire story is allegorical INCLUDING the references to caveman fossils and bones. Consider the caveman fossils and bones as being Hitler and the evils of Nazism which ought to serve as its own warning to today’s and future humanity. The frightening ghostly evil emerging from the mists of the story’s locale in Cainsmarsh stands in for the global fascination with neo-Nazism and hard right-wing politics with which the world is currently flirting. Most notably, of course, the USA might do very well to consider HG Wells as having offered a prescient warning against the rising evils of Trump, MAGA Republicans, and their version of neo-Nazism. YMMV and you might consider this idea to be far wide of the mark, but it is what it is.
“The big smile I’d been sporting vanished like critical thinking skills at a Trump rally …” It’s tough not LOL, you had me with the opening sentence!
“The big smile I’d been sporting vanished like critical thinking skills at a Trump rally …” It’s tough not to feel proud of a clever Canadian author who likes to take an occasional dump on the Republican situation in the USA. But I digress.
LOVER’S MOON, #5 in Leslie’s CANADIAN WEREWOLF series, closes with an ominous epilogue in which Michael Andrews, expat Canadian author living in New York City and the eponymous werewolf of the series, is advised in curt, unfeeling, and very hard-edged terms, that any further contact with Gail, the hard-won love of his life is out of the question. She is, forever more, beyond his reach. Gail’s brother, Ben, goes on, “Sit down, Andrews … you’re definitely going to need to be sitting down for this.” With hardly enough time to draw a shocked breath, HEX AND THE CITY picks up the story line there and continues.
For reasons long buried in the mists of paranormal’s antiquity, Michael Andrews’ and Gail Sommers’ love, their friendship, and, indeed, even the act of thinking of or communicating with one another, has fulfilled the terms of an old curse and opened the world to the predation of evil denizens of the paranormal world – trolls, wraiths, evil witches, and the mundane world of violent crime, hatred, and the unfortunately more familiar likes of hard right-wing xenophobia, pugilistic nationalism, and neo-Nazism. The ugliness of white supremacist skinhead groups like the Proud Fighters for America degenerates to dangerous new levels. HEX AND THE CITY is the story of Michael’s and Gail’s battle to deploy the tool of witch’s magic to reverse that curse and to find a way to fulfill their love for one another in spite of it.
“ … understand that you are a very small part of the world. You cannot create magic; you are magic. And you can learn to harness the power of the earth’s magic if you stop thinking about it and start listening to it. Every animal, every star, every blade of grass and drop of water. All life. All death. All of it is connected, and all of it is magic.”
In more general terms, HEX AND THE CITY might be characterized as an adult good vs evil tale set firmly in a world that is a combination of human evil, horror, and the paranormal. To a reader with firmly established left-wing proclivities like my own, it might even be perceived as an extended metaphor for the USA’s current struggle against the accelerating existential threat posed by the rise in right-wing Republican nationalism and its effect on American culture. However you interpret the novel’s story line, it must be said that HEX AND THE CITY is a gripping, fast-paced and deeply moving page-turner from first page to last that represents growth and an as yet unseen maturity in Mark Leslie’s writing skills that has been enabled, fostered, and assisted by his partnership with co-author Julie Strauss.
Kudos to both Leslie and Strauss for a job well done. I’m definitely looking forward to more of your work both in partnership and as individuals.
“…the terrible loathing he felt for God rose to his throat in a barely suppressed roar.”
Sean Costello’s fellow Canadian author, Mark Leslie, offered t“…the terrible loathing he felt for God rose to his throat in a barely suppressed roar.”
Sean Costello’s fellow Canadian author, Mark Leslie, offered the following back cover review:
“In HERE AFTER Sean Costello grabs his readers with both hands; one closes deftly around the heart, offering a touching and devastating glimpse of the loss of a child; the other propels you on a breathless quest … and sometimes with a startlingly quick chokehold on the windpipe.”
Frankly, I would have suggested that Costello’s other hand and the breathtaking (and heartbreaking) opening scene of a father’s grief at the death of his eleven year old child by leukemia took hold of me by a much more intimate and much more compelling part of my anatomy. No way was I setting HERE AFTER aside until I was finished.
Peter Croft is devastated by the loss of his son. But, when he seeks the solace and companionship of a grief counseling circle, it seems that the spirit of his deceased son has decided that he has one last job to do on this earth before he departs to his final rest. Croft is led on a gripping quest to find a new friend’s son who was kidnapped over two years earlier. Touching on themes of grief and loss, passion, love and friendship, suicide, and mental illness, with an absolutely perfect measure of hints of the paranormal, HERE AFTER is a tantalizing, perfectly paced psychological thriller.
Highly recommended. Don’t forget to stop reading every few minutes to take a breath!
“… she chanced a glance over her shoulder. That was when she saw him”
“… a heavy set man of about 250 pounds and perhaps six feet tall, wearing a red p“… she chanced a glance over her shoulder. That was when she saw him”
“… a heavy set man of about 250 pounds and perhaps six feet tall, wearing a red plaid hunting jacket, dark green work pants and steel toed working boots. That was not unusal in a mining community during hunting season. The peculiar thing that made Mary decide to hightail it out of there were the navy-blue ski mask the man wore and the hatchet he carried.”
LOL, Holy Jason, Batman … djathink!! I’d be shocked if I read anything at all by Mark Leslie and didn’t find at least one tongue-in-cheek, hit-you-between-the-eyes, come-at-you-out-of-nowhere piece of laugh-out-loud humour like that one. And that, of course, is despite the fact that it occurs in the middle of a totally serious short horror story whose ultimate character and surprise ending is near heartbreaking pathos.
NOCTURNAL SCREAMS VOL 4: LITERARY HAUNTS is an all too brief collection of three shorts that showcases the growing talents of Canadian author Mark Leslie. SPIRITS is a wonderful tale of undying love in a paranormal tale showcasing ghosts in a haunted theater. FALL SPECTACLE is the gripping tale of a small northern community terrorized by an axe murderer. And, last but not least, LESS OF A MAN is a novel twist on a zombie tale in a literary world that, for my money at least, is too darn filled with zombie wars and other zombie tropes of every conceivable flavour. Well, one might say that the flavour of this one is definitely unique. See if you don’t agree!
While Mark Leslie is also not above allowing a little romance and hot sex segment to make a cameo appearance from time to time, it is never gratuitous, intrusive or unreasonably graphic.
LITERARY HAUNTS, a thoroughly enjoyable one or at most two sitting collection of short stories is easy to recommend. I’m a continuing fan.
"... terrifying true tales from across Canada will make your blood run cold"?
Well, as an unconvinced skeptic about the reality of ghosts, visions, spe"... terrifying true tales from across Canada will make your blood run cold"?
Well, as an unconvinced skeptic about the reality of ghosts, visions, specters, phantasmagoria, and the after-life in general, I can't say that Joel Sutherland's collection of ostensibly true paranormal events made my blood run cold. But they're short, entertaining reading, they're certainly appropriate for the Hallowe'en season, and they are obviously thought to be a part of Canadian history that people have genuinely encountered and experienced.
Read and judge for yourself. The back cover marketing blurb suggests, "Prepare yourself to be haunted" ... well, maybe! But you can definitely prepare yourself to smile and be entertained.
“No amount of preparation would ever make the sensation of having his nostrils shoved inside his ass as he was squeezed to the size of tardigrade r“No amount of preparation would ever make the sensation of having his nostrils shoved inside his ass as he was squeezed to the size of tardigrade remotely pleasant.”
Passing “through a micro black hole that connected with the right dimension” is obviously a pretty tricky and physically demanding feat, LOL!!
I suspect it’s a simple truism that it’s impossible to find an anthology in which every story knocks the ball out of the park. So let’s get the bad news out of the way first.
A SONG OF DARK THINGS and MESSING WITH THE MULTIVERSE are, not to put too fine a point on it, simply indecipherable. They’re clearly included based on the stated anthology theme of “mystic portals”, “alternate dimensions” and “undiscovered landscapes” but I don’t think the intention was for their plots to remain undiscovered as well. In this reality, the editors of UNKNOWN REALMS would have done well to omit these two laggards as they are the ONLY weak entrants in a rock-solid anthology of winners!
As to the rest, THE MIDNIGHT CITY, for example, is at once a heartbreaking and heartwarming tale dealing with the emotional fallout of a friend’s suicide when one feels in significant part responsible for that suicide in the first place. THE DEMON OF CORPUS CHRISTI is a sweet little paranormal short in which an author solves the perennially recurring problem of writer’s block. MICROSCOPIC MAYHEM is a sci-fi treasure and, if I may say so, with a slight modification of character names and descriptions and a minor change-up in the terms used for technology, it would serve admirably as a screenplay for a STAR TREK episode in any of its incarnations. Brilliant, thoroughly enjoyable, humorous in good measure, exciting, high-speed space opera on board a starship with time and space travel capability.
I could go on but suffice it to say that every one of the tales in UNKNOWN REALMS save the two noted weak links in the chain are solid four- to five-star champions. I’ll definitely be looking for a couple of the collections referred to in closing marketing blurbs, A TWIST OF FATE: A Twisted Fairy Tale Anthology and COUNTERCLOCKWISE: A Time Travel Anthology. Yessirree, definitely recommended!
I purchased this gem at a local book fair so, with considerable thanks, I'll pass along extra kudos and two thumbs-up to the proud Canadian authors included.
A late night snack of shivers with a side of creepy laughs!
In honour of author Mark Leslie’s well-known favourite tipple, grab yourself a local craft A late night snack of shivers with a side of creepy laughs!
In honour of author Mark Leslie’s well-known favourite tipple, grab yourself a local craft beer (dark, of course) before you sit down to enjoy this delicious confection of three clever little “tales from just outside the normal realm. Tales that explore the shadows, that relish in the unknown, the eerie.”
I don’t know if Leslie even considered it when he brought the first story in the trio to life, but, for my money, A TASTE FOR DARKNESS is an imaginative and thoroughly modern take on Oscar Wilde’s A PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY. The LITTLE THINGS that find their way into Daniel Jackson’s home through a tiny hole in the ceiling might look like cute miniature gnomes or two of the seven dwarves out for an evening of “hi-ho”ing, but they sure don’t act like it! THE PIZZA MAN, the final entry in the collection, is an amusing variation on the zombie theme that is so overworked these days.
Three stories, three winners, … and there goes the last sip of that beer! And a quick note to Mark Leslie from an inquiring mind that wants to know: How did your roommate Maureen feel about the “unspoken compliment” you offered her in appreciation of your imagination of her late night back-lit silhouette when she read your first draft of THE PIZZA MAN?
“ … it seemed like his skin couldn’t hold the pulsing energy inside him.”
I’ve been a committed Mark Leslie fan since the day that I had the pleasu“ … it seemed like his skin couldn’t hold the pulsing energy inside him.”
I’ve been a committed Mark Leslie fan since the day that I had the pleasure of meeting him on a summer Saturday at a vendor’s booth at one of our local craft beer brewers. That first novel in the series A CANADIAN WEREWOLF IN NEW YORK - Michael Andrews’ very first romp as an alpha wolf in Central Park, followed the next morning by his first very painful and very naked reversion from lycanthrope to human – was right in my reading wheelhouse. I was definitely hooked. So I was pretty used to the Canadian Werewolf series mish-mash cross-genre melting pot – a blend of occult, paranormal, fantasy, suspense thriller, left-wing good guy vs far right-wing neo-Nazi bad guy, with a dash of sappy, happy, comfy romance tossed in for good measure.
LOVER’S MOON is definitely NOT that!
Co-authors Mark Leslie and Julie Strauss tell readers quite clearly what they are about to read,
“As a new era in the Canadian Werewolf saga begins, Lover’s Moon flashes back to the romantic and comedic story of how Michael and Gail met and fell in love back in the summer of 2011.”
Make no mistake! LOVER’S MOON is a full-bore rom-com with only the merest hint of the occult and absolutely zero of what might be called a suspense thriller plot-line. It starts and ends with Michael Andrews meeting and falling in love with Gail Sommers and dealing with the issue of how to reveal his rather life-altering circumstances to her. It is a prequel of sorts that fills in the back story of the rocky beginnings of Gail’s and Michael’s tempestuous relationship! That’s it … end of story!
And I am most definitely not a lover of the romance genre. But I have to hand it to this author team. From stone cold through heartwarming to blistering hot; laugh-out-loud humorous; enervating; delicious; realistic (well, as realistic as a romance between a werewolf and the owner of an occult shop in New York can be!); convincing; entertaining; and, perhaps most important, never saccharine or sappy for even a single moment, Leslie and Strauss made the romance come off the page (nyuk, nyuk!).
You don’t want to read this as a stand-alone novel but, as part of the series, it definitely earns its place. And the prologue and epilogue make it clear that there is definitely something back in the paranormal, occult and thriller vein coming up soon! I’m definitely looking forward to it.
“It has enchained and destroyed its people and their lives, it is a place of contained ill will.”
I have often said that the book that is all thing“It has enchained and destroyed its people and their lives, it is a place of contained ill will.”
I have often said that the book that is all things to all people that attracts unanimous acclaim (or revulsion) has yet to be written. Even when a book, such as THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE attracts such a preponderance of acclaim, there will be outliers. I am an outlier.
No shudders of fear, no frisson of terror, no clenching of the jaw in anticipation of some fearsome manifestation of evil or ill will! Indeed, my experience of reading THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE was limited to two emotions. The first was confusion and a simple failure to understand exactly what the back story was and what powers the author was trying to invest into Hill House. The second was boredom and a weary anticipation of waiting for something interesting to actually happen.
There is no question that the near universal acclaim that has been accorded to Ms Jackson’s novel puts it well into the category of modern classic. And, believe me, I really looked forward to the reading and wanted to enjoy it. But, it was what it was. In fact, it came within an ace of being set aside as a DNF as deep into the novel as twenty pages from the final paragraph.
“Michael Andrews thought he’d found the perfect woman”
In the previous episode, FEAR AND LONGING IN LOS ANGELES saw Canadian author and reluctant w“Michael Andrews thought he’d found the perfect woman”
In the previous episode, FEAR AND LONGING IN LOS ANGELES saw Canadian author and reluctant werewolf Michael Andrews accept the suggestion of his manager, Mack Halpin, to take a working vacation out west. Putting a little space between him and Gail Sommers, the girl friend who had just parted ways with him, he headed to Los Angeles to work as a script consultant on the movie production of his most recent novel. Now he’s back home with a new love, Lex Jones, and a new lease on life only to discover that the neo-Nazi domestic terrorist organization they battled in Los Angeles, had followed them to New York. Anarchy, fascism, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and violence rooted in hard core right-wing hatred fueled by the rambling musings emanating from the Oval Office were the order of the day. The clues pointed to a nefarious plot to bring New York City to its knees.
The volume and frequency buttons on Mark Leslie’s puns and dad jokes were turned up to 10 and, no question, I’m a fan. FRIGHT NIGHTS, BIG CITY explored aspects of the paranormal and the occult beyond lycanthropy in the form of new and interesting supernatural powers, vampirism, hexes and spells, and even rather unique methods of battling or nullifying those powers (including his own enhanced abilities as a werewolf!). Fabulous … loved that too! That Donald Trump’s lunatic demagoguery remains in full-flight in the lead-up to the 2024 general election and that the pace of the Department of Justice’s progress toward criminal indictments against him is positively glacial adds fuel to my full support of author Leslie’s obvious left-wing and anti-fascist sensibilities in an exciting plot. The world definitely needs more courageous and outspoken authors willing to call this particular spade a spade. Kudos and bravo for that, Mr Leslie!
So why not a five-star review?
FRIGHT NIGHTS, BIG CITY is still, underneath it all, a romance. But the sweet nothings, the cuddling, the love-making and the starry eyes are simply too cute, too saccharine, too frequent and too overdone for my tastes and, frankly, I found it all very distracting. I understand completely that the love between Michael and Lex and his confusion over his obvious continuing love for ex-girlfriend, Gail Sommers, are a critical part of the story but my personal tastes in that kind of thing need to see it toned down several notches. Other readers’ opinions may be different, of course, but I offer my honest feelings and put them openly on the table. Take note, however, that despite the misgivings, I still rated the novel as an enjoyable 4-star novel!
AND, I might add, there is clearly lots of steam left in the plot-line, and in the lives and the contributions to be made by all of the characters who have thus far put in an appearance (or not, as is the case of the invisible man). Woot, woot! Bring on LOVER’S MOON, the next novella, and your as yet untitled full length continuation in THE CANADIAN WEREWOLF series. Can’t wait!
“I know I shouldn’t love [Fae] as I do, stolen as I am from the mortal world, my parents murdered. But I love it all the same.”
When your fairy half-s“I know I shouldn’t love [Fae] as I do, stolen as I am from the mortal world, my parents murdered. But I love it all the same.”
When your fairy half-sister’s father slaughters your human parents and carries you in the dark of night to Fae, it ought to be a clue that Holly Black’s vision of the fairy kingdoms is not a gracious, welcoming land of beautiful green-skinned diminutive creatures and shimmering pixie dust. After her abduction by a Faerie warlord, who makes no secret of his hatred for the human race, Jude Duarte knows she has entered a land that you and I might think of as dangerous and darkly enchanted, a land in which the likes of Tolkien’s Gollum, Sauron and a cohort of bloodthirsty orcs would be comfortable and at their ease. With youthful courage, strength and resilience, Jude carves out a place for herself (literally, I might add!) in a world that despises her and treats her as beneath contempt for nothing more than her very human mortality.
Despite its characterization as young adult fantasy, THE CRUEL PRINCE is a harsh story, graphic in its depiction of violence, murder, and death, and plain speaking in its depiction of treachery, betrayal, the self-serving attitudes of wealth and privilege, xenophobia and misogyny. That said, lovers of fantasy are certain to find it compelling, gripping, and entertaining from first page to last. Jude Duarte certainly came of age but what a voyage it was to get there!
”Northing was fair in Faerie. She had learned to stop expecting it to be.” Her father ”hauled Jude to her feet and threw a heavy arm over her shoulders. He drew her and her twin in for an embrace. He smelled like smoke and dried blood, and Jude let herself sag against him. It was good to be hugged. Even by a monster.”
Unconditionally recommended. Upward and onward to the sequel THE WICKED KING.
A fascinating take on the history of Asian immigration to North America
DEAD MAN’S GOLD is a collection of ten short ghost stories related to the histoA fascinating take on the history of Asian immigration to North America
DEAD MAN’S GOLD is a collection of ten short ghost stories related to the history of 19th and early 20th century Chinese immigration to North America. Written in a style that emulates a story-teller’s passing on Chinese folk tales around a kitchen table, to children at bedtime, or even around a campfire (if the Chinese indulge in such things), Yee’s tales are short and sweet. But they are many, many other things as well – tragic, chilling, eerie, heartwarming, entertaining, heartbreaking, instructive, informative, evocative, humorous, poignant, elegant, sad, gentle, fascinating, and quite compelling - to mention only a handful of characterizations that come to mind. Modern readers with any heart, compassion, and tolerance will also be shamefacedly reminded of the fact that anti-Asian racism is undeniably a part of North American history.
Definitely recommended. And now I must see if I can find any other work from the same author.
"There's nothing more regular in its coming round than dinner-time, and nothing less regular in its coming round than dinner”
If there is a reader "There's nothing more regular in its coming round than dinner-time, and nothing less regular in its coming round than dinner”
If there is a reader in the world who isn’t familiar with Charles Dickens’ THE CHRISTMAS CAROL, I can’t imagine who it would be. THE CHIMES, Dickens’ second Christmas story … well, not so much! It’s about Trotty Veck, a discouraged, indeed despairing, elderly man who has allowed himself to be persuaded of the truth of the hateful upper class propaganda regarding the problem of poverty and poor people in Victorian England – that they are the author of their own ills; that to have a meal is stealing it from the mouths of their neighbours who have even less than they do; that they have no right to birth, to marriage, to children, to work, to pride, or to joy; that they lack ambition; that their problems would be solved if they only would make the decision to bootstrap themselves out of the doldrums.
In THE CHRISTMAS CAROL, Scrooge was a nasty, mean-spirited, tight-fisted, inconsiderate piece of work, to be sure. But Dickens told the story as a sentimental ghost story which allowed Scrooge, as an individual, to discover, through visions of past, present and possible futures, that the source of true happiness and joy was the giving of that happiness and joy to others around you. It was a morality tale and was clearly not intended to be a critical comment on Victorian class structure. THE CHIMES, on the other hand, was definitely a clear commentary on what Dickens saw as some of the social problems of the day – class divisions; the work house; legislation regarding debt and poverty; debtors’ prison; misogyny; and even prostitution into which so many impoverished, desperate women were forced with no other alternatives for food and shelter. Rather than using the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, THE CHIMES uses “goblins” emanating from the bells in the belfry of the local church to present Trotty with what a modern reader might call alternative possible realities. While these outcomes would not effect any immediate change on the desperate realities which they had to shoulder on a daily basis, more positive attitudes and a belief in themselves would definitely make for a happier, more uplifting life and even the possibility of working together with neighbours to effect possible longer term positive changes in society.
In more modern, rather rougher parlance, it was clear that Dickens was pointing an accusing finger at the upper class and calling them collectively “heartless, greedy bastards”. The message to the lower class poor folks was to have heart in spite of that greed from above. In short, “Don’t let the bastards grind you down”! With the knowledge that there would be upper class readers who would take mortal offense at this portrayal, he closed the story by breaking the fourth wall, pulling a velvet glove over his mailed fist, and speaking, nay pleading, with the upper class reader in a much calmer, and much more subdued voice:
"... try to bear in mind the stern realities from which these shadows come; and in your sphere - none is too wide, and none too limited for such an end - endeavour to correct, improve , and soften them."
"So may the New Year be a Happy one to You, Happy to many more whose Happiness depends on You! So may each Year be happier than the last, and not the meanest of our brethern or sisterhood debarred their rightful share, in what our Great Creator formed them to enjoy."
THE CHIMES is a powerful story and it deserves a greater readership.
The oil companies love to see aboriginals at revival missions, “They’re too busy praying to protest”!
After a bitter argument over Victor’s suggested The oil companies love to see aboriginals at revival missions, “They’re too busy praying to protest”!
After a bitter argument over Victor’s suggested sale of Joan’s ancestral property, Victor walked out and simply vanished. But over a year later when Joan wandered into a revival tent to see what all the local hype was about, she was gobsmacked to discover that the preacher was her lost husband, now “the Reverend Eugene Wolff, on a mission to bring his people to Jesus”. And he didn’t have the foggiest idea who Joan was or what she was talking about. Game on! Wow, I was hooked! A brilliant basis for a plot that Dimaline suggests was inspired by the traditional Métis mythology of the werewolf-like Rogarou. I thought THE MARROW THIEVES, Dimaline’s previous novel was fabulous so, obviously, I could hardly wait to get started.
And Dimaline is clearly no slouch when it comes to graphic, compelling, gritty, descriptive writing. The opening page of the prologue offers this (IMO) jaw-dropping, atmospheric description of a northern Ontario Métis reserve town:
“The town of Arcand was a church, a school, a convenience store, a bootlegger and a crowd of stooped houses leaning like old men trying to hear a conversation over a graveyard of Greniers and Trudeaus … Parties were held in kitchens. Euchre was a sport. And fiddles made the only sound worth dancing to. Any other music was just background noise for storytelling and beer drinking and flirting. Or for providing the cadence for fight choreography when you just had to beat the shit out of your cousin.”
I shook my head and smiled when I read that, convinced that EMPIRE OF THE WILD was going to be a winner. But, unfortunately, it was not to be.
If Dimaline had allowed the aboriginal mental image of the Rogarou to serve as a metaphor for mental illness, for example, or for the evils of evangelical Christianity and the fossil fuel industry attempting to woo the aboriginal population away from their ancestral beliefs and from their deep attachment to the land, I would have walked away a happy reader. Instead, the story attempted to become a supernatural thriller which treated the Rogarou as a reality. Its source, its rationale, its motivations and its conduct devolved into a murky hot mess, frankly, and the final few pages were (for me, at least) indecipherable. I have no idea what Dimaline intended the actual ending to be or to mean.
Without sporadic interludes of that brilliant narrative to which I already alluded, I may well have set aside EMPIRE OF WILD as a DNF. Here are a couple more examples:
On a young lady’s delight at watching her young man dancing in a pow-wow celebration:
“… side drops emblazoned with spirit bears and deep slashes of lightning; a vest, heavy with geometrics in glass beads, that closed with silver Indian-head nickel buttons; moccasins Jimmy resoled every fourth week so that the aphrodisiac scent of buffalo hide wafted when he passed by, copper ankle bells singing his steps like a goddamn wedding march. All this and the biggest, fullest eagle bustle you could imagine, plucked from the kind of eagle that hadn’t existed since dinosaurs two-stepped the earth … When Jimmy swayed by during Grand Entry, raising his dance stick strung with bear claws in her direction, Bee, sitting on the bleachers, a scone-dog in one hand, a du Maurier Light in the other, felt her eggs vibrating in her ovaries.”
Or Joan’s description of the piece of land that Victor wanted her to sell:
“Her plot made her happier than she could have imagined. [It] was less densely wooded than her brothers’, with a central, small, open field greened by ostrich ferns. Black birch trees peeled and perfumed the shaded undergrowth. The Chicken of the Woods fungus climbed trunks and fallen logs like fleshy scaffolding for industrious squirrels. Reddish soil underfoot was knocked loose in spring by the new growth of fiddleheads and later by morels, like sweet, brittle claws.”
Don’t I wish I could string words together like that?
But description alone does not a successful thriller make, supernatural or otherwise. Other readers’ opinions of that ending may differ from mine but I’ve looked at other reviews and I see I am far from alone in my befuddlement. So a 1-star failure as a thriller is upgraded to a 2-star read on the basis of Ms Dimaline’s skills as a writer.
Definitely an unexpected treatment of the paranormal
HAUNTING FIRESIDE STORIES is an intriguing collection of five short stories that treats the paranoDefinitely an unexpected treatment of the paranormal
HAUNTING FIRESIDE STORIES is an intriguing collection of five short stories that treats the paranormal – ghosts, werewolves and zombies – in a manner that will almost certainly surprise you. The endings of the stories, rather clever and brilliant inspired twists that will come at you out of left field, range from typically creepy horror all the way to humorous, heartwarming and romantic. Hallowe’en seemed to be a good reason to pay homage to a reading genre that normally holds no appeal for me and I’ll admit that HAUNTING FIRESIDE STORIES fit the bill perfectly.
Loading...
