The holidays are for coming together and spending some quality time with friends and family.
They’re also a time for your father and your uncle to get aggressively drunk and begin rehashing old football stories from the 1970s.
They’re a time of unsatisfying flatulence born out of days-on-end of overeating.
They’re a time of other people’s kids running around, completely unsupervised by their superiors, utterly destroying your living space.
They’re a time for your aunt to get her minivan so horrifically stuck in the snow next to your driveway that it is impossible to imagine how she could’ve possibly fucked up so badly.
They’re a time to pretend like you’re a fan of whatever lukewarm culinary disaster your aunt made that morning and subsequently drove over in the back of her minivan, all the while nervously chain smoking throughout her journey.
They’re a time for your dog to believe that because there’s a tree inside the house it’s okay to piss on it and because there’s a pine-tar tainted bowl of water at its base, it’s okay to drink out of it.
They’re a time to find out that your cousin, who you didn’t even know was seeing anyone, got engaged to a girl you’ve heard “things about” . . . from several of your own friends.
They’re a time for moms to find out about daughter’s tattoos.
They’re a time for dads to find out their sons have taken up smoking.
They’re a time for your spinster aunt to sit in a corner and whimper alone when she finds out that she’s about to become the only unmarried member of the family once your cousin marries “that” girl.
Credit: Photographer: Tracy Bennett
This year, our gatherings will be altered—perhaps eating dinner over Zoom instead of a relatives’ once-annually-used dining room table. At the time of this writing, the vaccine is just beginning its rollout so we’ve come this far, let’s not fuck it up worse now and think it’s wise to go over to somebody’s house and shout spittle at one another across a table. The brave get the glory but the cowards live the longest.
Above all else, the holidays are a time of gift giving and gift getting. As a writer I am obviously an avid reader. So, for purposes of this journal, I am going to list out the top five books I want stuffed into my stocking or otherwise gifted to me in a non-denominational fashion this holiday season.
Obviously, if you haven’t done-so already, I encourage you to immediately pick up a copy of my award-winning debut effort, Three Days in Ashford (no big deal) and read it. Or buy a copy for that horror / sci-fi enthusiast on your holiday shopping list. I unfortunately cannot put it in this listicle since I’ve obviously already read it, and these are titles from my “want to read” list. I’ve read none of the below yet but want to, badly. Hence my wishing for them to be purchased by someone else on my behalf. So, here goes.
5. The Troop – Nick Cutter
Amazon Description
“Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip—a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost story around a roaring bonfire. But when an unexpected intruder stumbles upon their campsite—shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry—Tim and the boys are exposed to something far more frightening than any tale of terror. The human carrier of a bioengineered nightmare. A horror that spreads faster than fear. A harrowing struggle for survival with no escape from the elements, the infected…or one another.
Part Lord of the Flies, part 28 Days Later—and all-consuming—this tightly written, edge-of-your-seat thriller takes you deep into the heart of darkness, where fear feeds on sanity…and terror hungers for more.”
Why I want this book
“The Troop scared the hell out of me, and I couldn’t put it down. This is old-school horror at its best.”
—Stephen King
If you need anymore reason than that, you ain’t living right. The synopsis is horrifying, and the plot seems as creative as it is unsettling. The reviews are plentiful and outstanding, and I’ve heard great things from many of my horror aficionado friends about the author. I’m very much looking forward to this novel keeping me up nights at some point this winter.
4. City Infernal – Edward Lee
Amazon Description
“When Cassie's twin sister, Lissa, commits suicide, Cassie discovers she can travel to Hell to retrieve her sister's soul. Cassie thought she knew all about the Hell of legend, but finds Hell has evolved over the millennia into a bustling city full of the damned with looming skyscrapers, crowded streets, systemized evil, and atrocity as the status quo. Welcome to the Mephistopolis Hell is a city. It stretches, literally, without end-a labyrinth of smoke and waking nightmare. Just as endlessly, sewer grates belch flame from the sulfur fires that have raged beneath the streets for millennia. Clock towers spire in every district, by public law, but their faces have no hands; time is not measured here in seconds or hours but in atrocity and despair. In the center of this morass of stone and smoke and butchery and horror stands the 666-floor Mephisto Building, where Gargoyles prowl the wind-blown ledges and from whose highest garrets the innocent are hung from gibbets and left to rot for eons. The lone occupant of the very top floor looks down upon his dominion and smiles a smile that is brighter than a thousand suns. Here, yes, everyone is dead, yet everyone lives forever. Welcome to the Mephistopolis. Welcome to the city of Hell. Welcome.”
Why I want this book
I’ve read a few of Edward Lee’s novels including White Trash Gothic and The Bighead. There’s bravery in horror writing and then there’s Edward Lee. There is no topic too perverse. There is no amount of gore too disgusting. As a writer of horror-fiction myself, my mind can wander into some fairly outrageous circumstances, but I’ve had to legitimately take breaks while reading some of his work. All the while however, the man can craft a story and is a hell of a writer. He guides you through the lunatic realms that he creates with almost a lighthearted, pulp-horror level of handholding, softening the blow from some of the visuals his storytelling evokes.
This book has been out for a while so shame on me for waiting so long to read it but . . . a vision of Hell from Edward Lee, sign me up!
3. Till Death – Jennifer L. Armentrout
Amazon Description
“It’s been ten years since Sasha Keaton left her West Virginia hometown . . . since she escaped the twisted serial killer known as the Groom. Returning to help run her family inn means being whole again, except for one missing piece. The piece that falls into place when Sasha’s threatened—and FBI agent Cole Landis vows to protect her the way he couldn’t a decade ago.
First one woman disappears; then another, and all the while, disturbing calling cards are left for the sole survivor of the Groom’s reign of terror. Cole’s never forgiven himself for not being there when Sasha was taken, but he intends to make up for it now . . . because under the quirky sexiness Cole first fell for is a steely strength that only makes him love Sasha more.
But someone is watching. Waiting. And Sasha’s first mistake could be her last.”
Why I want this book
I’d never read anything by Jennifer L. Armentrout until she presented me the 2019 IndieReader Award for Best Horror Novel for Three Days in Ashford. She was a previous winner of an IndieReader award as well and has long since become an absolute powerhouse, cranking out one incredibly well-written novel after another. She is a force of nature and a gold standard of indie horror who has stuck to those roots. She’s probably one of the best talents in the space and she took the time to chat with all of us during the awards and she was cool as hell all the while.
Her stories broaden the scope without missing a single beat—they’re scary, they’re sexy, there’s romance, there’s terror, and there’s humor. You come away having experienced something that encompasses a range of emotions, far more than simply scaring the shit out of you. I’ll more than happily while away the winter months while consuming her work.
2. Long Lankin - Lindsey Barraclough
Amazon Description
“In an exquisitely chilling novel, four children unravel the mystery of a family curse — and a ghostly creature known in folklore as Long Lankin. Sisters Cora and Mimi, along with village boys Roger and Peter, must uncover the horrifying truth that has held the isolated village of Bryers Guerdon in its dark grip for centuries — before it’s too late. Riveting and intensely atmospheric, this stunning debut will hold readers in its spell long after the last page is turned.”
Why I want this book
Those who have read Three Days in Ashford, know I love a good adaption of local folklore. Every town on earth has something that haunts it. Yet only the locals who have grown up there know of it and only they can properly tell it. I talk to a lot of people about what local folklore haunts whatever dot-on-the-map they grew up in. I’m often floored by how horrifying and vivid some of the yarns are that they spin.
This all being considered, Long Lankin seems like a dead ringer for my kind of horror novel. It sounds like the kind of book I’ll read through in a single sitting, fascinated, and enthralled the entire time.
1. House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
Amazon Description
“Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.
Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices.
The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.”
Why I want this book
I know. It is borderline blasphemy that I’ve never read House of Leaves. It is a near shoe-in atop every listicle of scariest novels ever written. It has been described as one of the most groundbreaking works of fiction of our time. I don’t know what’s happened. For whatever reason, I’ve just been busy over the last twenty-one years, I guess. 2021 is the year the streak ends, I pledge it to the heavens.
While every novel mentioned in this journal entry demands my consumption, House of Leaves, as much a work of art as it is a work of fiction, tops my list. I can’t wait to spend a few days in the very near term unraveling its masterfully crafted mysteries.