Category: Uncategorized
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Rosemary’s Baby (1967) by Ira Levin
During my week off, I revisited some of the genre’s modern classics, the novels that moved horror from the moors and the gothic mansion into the city apartment or suburban home. While all of my selections were fun to read, one of them really stood out for its continued relevance: Rosemary’s Baby (1967) by Ira…
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Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley
Here’s an embarrassing admission: Until this week, I had never read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). The reason for this omission in my education is simple. Without having studied the novel, I already knew that it was an exploration of the existential questions raised by a hubristic and masculine science. Its plot and images are part…
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Lone Women (2023) by Victor LaValle
Lone Women (2023) by Victor LaValle explores how the extreme conditions of a frontier setting can foster more fluid and creative affiliations. Without an entrenched social order to govern interactions, a Montana homesteading community makes it possible for Adelaide Henry, a woman of color, to adopt new identities and participate in unlikely partnerships. While this…
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Kill Creek (2017) by Scott Thomas
This review contains spoilers, but you should read it anyway. It’s horror–things end badly. Kill Creek (2017) by Scott Thomas makes two moves at once: It describes the process of sanitizing America’s racist past while it participates in that process, modeling how black history is erased. If there is a critique of white-centric storytelling and…
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Helpmeet (2022) by Naben Ruthnum
Helpmeet (2022) by Naben Ruthnum is a literary experiment that explores the relationship between language and pain. If you are interested in how writers negotiate the narrative problems posed by suffering characters, then I highly recommend this book. But I urge you to read it even if you have zero interest in the craft of…
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A House With Good Bones (2023) by T. Kingfisher
A House with Good Bones (2023) by T. Kingfisher takes a light approach to some heavy questions: Can you escape generational abuse? Can you repudiate the racism of your ancestors without rejecting their entire legacy? Can you stop a ghost from bullying your mom? The result is an uneven mix of interesting themes and undeveloped…
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The Spirit Engineer (2021) by A. J. West
Spoiler Alert: OK, not a true spoiler–it doesn’t give away the ending. Still, this review may tell you more about the book than you want to know. No big deal. Read it anyway. A fictional account of real people and events, The Spirit Engineer (2021) by A.J. West tells the story of Professor William Jackson…
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Mind of Winter (2013) by Laura Kasischke
Some of the best novels bring several ideas into relationship without fully resolving their connections. Instead of the stolid sureness of a single clear note, they have the haunting musicality of a wind chime. Laura Kasischke’s Mind of Winter (2013) is a wind chime. Rather than a linear narrative with a predictably unfolding plot, it…
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Joplin’s Ghost (2005) by Tananarive Due
Joplin’s Ghost (2005) by Tananarive Due participates in multiple genres–horror, biography and romance–to tell the story of Phoenix Smalls, a fictional contemporary character, and Scott Joplin, the historical “King of Ragtime.” Collapsing the past and the present, Due operates in multiple modes to weave a poignant, frightening, and utterly immersive story that explores how love…