fiction

THE DISTANT SOUND OF VIOLENCE by Jason Greensides — A Review

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BOOK | FICTION | LITERARY
THE DISTANT SOUND OF VIOLENCE
JASON GREENSIDES
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Do we ever escape the decisions we make when we’re fifteen?

Nathan Dawes, the loser from school, an outsider, street philosopher and member of The Grove Runners gang, needs Ryan’s help to get Stephanie to fall for him. When Ryan’s lawnmower is stolen, Nathan sees this as his chance to enlist Ryan in his plan. 

Although Ryan knows becoming friends with Nathan could lead to trouble, he reluctantly agrees to help.

Stephanie wants nothing to do with either of them. Besides, she’s more interested in the one guy in the world she really shouldn’t be.

As Nathan continues his pursuit of Stephanie, and Ryan gets mixed up with The Grove Runners, soon events overtake them all, haunting their lives for years to come.

Part coming of age, part mystery story, The Distant Sound of Violence is a heartbreaking tale of bad decisions and love gone wrong. It’s about choices that lead to violence, loss and tragedy.

Amazon Book Description
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THE DISTANT SOUND OF VIOLENCE by Jason Greensides is a hauntingly atmospheric tour de force with its stark and captivating descriptions of English life during the Nineties and beyond set in, on, and around the mean streets of London, its fully-fleshed characters as flawed and true-to-life as any character on a page can be, and its ringing dialogue that is at times achingly smart, witty, and/or sad, and that is always cut with just the right amount of a pleasingly rhythmic patios.

Not to say that I didn’t have some quibbles with this masterwork. At over 500 pages, I thought the narrator interjecting his personal story from time to time, while interesting enough to some extent, didn’t add enough value to the overall arc and purpose of the story to merit the lengthy interjections. Specifically, there is one part of the book where the narrator again interjects himself and becomes oddly obsessive in trying to track down and map out the locations of mysterious graffiti tags left by Nathan Dawes, our also oddly obsessive (but oddly obsessive with clear purpose) protagonist; where, in the end, all the time and effort spent in the narrator’s mapping of the tags served no revealing purpose that I can tell except to further highlight something that we already knew — that our protagonist is oddly obsessive to a life-wrecking fault.

But again, these are mere quibbles and ones not nearly severe enough to lower this grateful reader’s overall five-star ranking of this highly intriguing and highly recommended epic of a read.

THE LESSER DEAD by Christopher Buehlman — A Review

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BOOK | FICTION | HORROR
THE LESSER DEAD
CHRISTOPHER BUEHLMAN
AUDIOBOOK
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The secret is, vampires are real and I am one.
The secret is, I’m stealing from you what is most truly yours and I’m not sorry… 

New York City in 1978 is a dirty, dangerous place to live. And die. Joey Peacock knows this as well as anybody—he has spent the last forty years as an adolescent vampire, perfecting the routine he now enjoys: womanizing in punk clubs and discotheques, feeding by night, and sleeping by day with others of his kind in the macabre labyrinth under the city’s sidewalks.

The subways are his playground and his highway, shuttling him throughout Manhattan to bleed the unsuspecting in the Sheep Meadow of Central Park or in the backseats of Checker cabs, or even those in their own apartments who are too hypnotized by sitcoms to notice him opening their windows. It’s almost too easy.

Until one night he sees them hunting on his beloved subway. The children with the merry eyes. Vampires, like him…or not like him. Whatever they are, whatever their appearance means, the undead in the tunnels of Manhattan are not as safe as they once were.

And neither are the rest of us.

Amazon Book Description
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Except for the originals — Shelley’s Monster; Stoker’s Dracula; Stevenson’s Mr. Hyde, etc. — when it comes to horror, regardless the medium, whether it be movies or books (although, nightmares get a pass — nothing like a good monster trying to chase me down and rip me to shreds in my dreams), I typically will give a hard pass to any story with a monster in it. Not sure why… maybe because I find that most are just too goofy to suspend reality enough for me to enjoy them.

But I tell you what, I love Christopher Buehlman’s monsters like no man should ever love a monster.

THE LESSER DEAD is my third book by Buelhman — THOSE ACROSS THE RIVER and SUICIDE MOTORCYCLE CLUB are the other two and both are outstanding reads in their own right. However, by comparison, TLD is a completely exceptional read, a pure literary masterwork, not just as a genre novel, but as a true literary novel. But even regarding it just as a horror novel, by comparison with its angsty and vulgar (vampire) coming of age vibe to it, I would say it ranks as the THE CATCHER IN THE RYE of its genre if I didn’t think TCITR was so grossly over rated. But regardless, to me TLD, although a much more complete body of work than TCITR in my opinion, deserves such similar acclaim among its contemporaries as TCITR enjoys among its. Not to mention TLD has an ending that is pure literary genius.

As if that weren’t enough, Buehlman himself narrates the audiobook and his skills as a voice actor are equal to his skills as an author.

The dude’s for real folks.

#whythefhaventanyofthisdudesbooksbeenmadeintoamovie

Featured image courtesy of Goodreads

 

I’ve been got…

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For years my barely read first novel INSIDE THE SKIN (formerly The Sea Trials of an Unfortunate Sailor) had been pegged at 15 meager but oh so appreciated and loved Amazon reader reviews…

about

However, as of today there are now only 7.

I mean, c’mon…

Thanks Amazon.

Sigh…

#itainteasythiswritinggig

COCOA FIERCE & THE PANTYHOSE STRANGLER by Sean C. Wright-Neeley

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1977
He drove to a secluded, leafy spot, and looked at Cocoa covertly when they stopped. She patted her blonde wig, contrasting her chocolate skin, and popped her gum, pretending not to notice him pulling out a pair of nylons. Cocoa slammed his head against the steering wheel before he could act. He was out cold. Cocoa handcuffed him to the steering wheel. Vice arrested The Pantyhose Strangler. However, his car remains where he intended to assault and kill his fourth prostitute.

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There’s a story here somewhere…

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This abandoned car is oh, I don’t know, maybe a half mile or so from my humble yet lovely abode and it’s been parked right there for as long as I’ve lived in my said humble yet lovely abode, which has been oh, I don’t know, maybe eighteen years or so.

Every time I pass the beautiful, wabi-sabi of a relic on one of my walks, I always think to myself, I bet there’s a heck of story to go along with that thing…

And I also always tell myself that one of these days Ima gonna write my own story about it.

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What a Bizarro World We Live In

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So, it’s kind of becoming a thing for me to head straight to the WordPress reader after publishing a new post to do a search on whatever it is I have just posted about so I can see what others have written about it.

I like to do this especially after posting reviews since I don’t like to read other reviews regarding whatever it is I’m reviewing prior to writing the review…

Huh?.

Anyway, I did exactly that yesterday after posting my review of AND THE HIPPOS WERE BOILED IN THEIR TANKS .

First I did a search on the title and pretty much came back with zippo, except for my review.

Then I did one on Jack Kerouac and a ton of stuff came back on him of course, but nothing regarding the book I just reviewed.

Next came the search for William S. Burroughs.

I found nothing on his relationship with the book, as expected, but I found a whole slew of information about him that I didn’t no otherwise, which was easy because I really didn’t know much about him except that he was an OG Beat, the author of Naked Lunch, a junkie, and a murder.

Quite the portfolio of virtues, no?

So I had fun reading up on him for a while.

But then, all of a sudden, I scrolled upon a post by Zé Burns entitled How I Discovered Bizarro Fiction, and which I have reblogged here (way) down below for your entertainment and instruction…

And a whole new world opened up to me.

I cannot believe I have never heard of Bizarro Fiction before.

After reading Ze’ informative and highly interesting article about how he got turned on to the genre and where he trumpets the virtue of one bizarro writer in particular — Danger Slater, whose book now adorns my Want to Read list — I spent the next several hours digging deeper and deeper into the subject as a result.

What a ride that was.

Here are some description of the genre direct from Bizarro Central:

  • Bizarro is like:
    • Franz Kafka meets John Waters
    • Dr. Suess of the post-apocalypse
    • Takashi Miike meets William S. Burroughs
    • Alice in Wonderland for adults
    • Japanese animation directed by David Lynch

So, to be honest (Now, I’m not saying that I haven’t been honest up to the point… or am I?), I don’t really think the genre is for me.

I mean, I like the idea of it…

Just like I like the idea of low-grade cult movies, which is another comparison of bizarro fiction I found…

But I never, ever watch cult movies.

At least not any more.

Which takes me to where yesterday’s adventure eventually ended up.

When I was a kid growing up in Ashtabula, a lake-front town an hour or so east of Cleveland, there were some pretty bizarre dudes on TV back in the 70s and early 80s that would “perform” severely bizarre/warped skits interspersed and sometimes overlapping with seriously low-grade cultish movies, and/or Three Stooges skits, and/or cartoons.

These bizarre dude were Hoolihan & Big Chuck, The Ghoul, and Superhost… and their sole purpose in life was to lovingly pollute the hearts and minds of every adolescent in the Greater Cleveland area.

And they did.

At least they did of yours truly.

Poor Froggy never had it easy…

But that was long, long ago and I have long since pretty much turned up my nose to such bizarre, cultish entertainment…

And I expect I may end up doing the same with bizarro fiction.

I didn’t know it at the time when I read Brian Evenson’s Last Days [about] that he is regarded as a bizarro author (at least he is included in the long list of them on Bizarro Central’s website).

As you can tell by my review, I didn’t think too highly of his work…

Not because of its highly bizarre, cultish story (it really is a story about bizarre cults)…

But because it was poorly executed in my opinion, one which, as evidenced by the high praise it receives from others elsewhere, seems to be in the minority.

But who knows…

Maybe I’ll like Danger Slater’s work better.

In Zé’s interesting and informative post, of which I reblogged here down below for your entertainment and instruction, hé highly recommends Slater’s HE DIGS A WHOLE [about].

But I’ll probably start off with his novella ROADVOLUTION [about] since its available with Kindle Unlimited.

Hey, I’m not cheap…

I’m cost conscious.

Anyway, I’ll report back to you after I finish the read.

I promise…

🤞

TL;DR: There’s a thing called Bizarro Fiction. I may or may not like it.

AND THE HIPPOS WERE BOILED IN THEIR TANKS — A Rapid Review

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BOOK | FICTION | LITERARY
AND THE HIPPOS WERE BOILED IN THEIR TANKS
BY JACK KEROUAC AND WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS
FORMAT: AUDIOBOOK
RATING: ★ ★ ★

In the summer of 1944, a shocking murder rocked the fledgling Beats. William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, both still unknown, we inspired by the crime to collaborate on a novel, a hard-boiled tale of bohemian New York during World War II, full of drugs and art, obsession and brutality, with scenes and characters drawn from their own lives. Finally published after more than sixty years, this is a captivating read, and incomparable literary artifact, and a window into the lives and art of two of the twentieth century’s most influential writers.

Book description, grammar errors and all, as found at Amazon

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THE CONTORTIONIST’S HANDBOOK — A Rapid Review

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BOOK | FICTION | LITERARY
THE CONTORTIONIST’S HANDBOOK
BY CRAIG CLEVENGER
FORMAT: AUDIOBOOK
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This is the book’s description, as diminutive as it may be, and as it may be found on its Amazon page…

John Dolan Vincent, a forger who suffers from migraine headaches and mental illness, invents a new identity for himself in order to be released from a mental hospital and build a new life.

And this is my review of the book, as diminutive as it may be, and as it may be found as follows (huh?)…

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LAST DAYS by Brian Evenson — A Reluctant Review

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Subsequent to this seemingly short-sighted review, I was at least long-sighted enough to read more of Evenson’s work and happily I have found him to be one of the most interesting and smart and original voices writing today. Obviously I need to re-read Last Days because, obviously, the fault in its failure to successfully entertain me seems to lie with me and not Evenson.

However, until I do re-read the work, the original impression I have of it remains, so, so too shall the following review with its original two stars. – June, 2024

BOOK | FICTION | HORROR
LAST DAYS BY BRIAN EVENSON
RATING: ★ ★

I had been looking hard for a killer horror noir novel ever since reading FALLING ANGEL by William Hjortsberg, a stellar benchmark of the sub-genre that is in close competition for greatness with ANGEL HEART, its movie adaptation starring Mickey Rourke.

I eventually came across a couple of pretty good lists of horror noir books and found that LAST DAYS was high on both of them.

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In Last Days I thought for sure I had a ringer.

And then when I began reading Peter Straub’s introduction for it there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was going to be the absolutely best horror noir book I had ever read.

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