horrornonfiction – Tattered Covers & Broken Spines

Sequelland: A Story of Dreams and Screams

A collection of essays and interviews written and conducted by Jay Slayton-Joslin

4/5 Star Review

Jay Slayton-Joslin is a writer experiencing an existential crisis. His first book, Kicking Prose, came out in 2014. It’s a collection of poetry that he followed up six years later with Sequelland. Slayton-Joslin did not want one piece of work to define his career and this is the connecting theme that carries the essays interspersed throughout this book.

Click on the cover art to purchase from bookshop.org.

Sequelland is comprised of eleven interviews with directors and writers tied together with the self-reflective essays from the author. It is both an informative read and an homage to the legacy of horror sequels. While there are some big franchises involved, these sequels all struggled with small budgets, script changes, studio driven changes, and the directors who still made it work. We are talking about franchises that have shaped the horror genre – Nightmare on Elm Street, Saw, Hellraiser, Cube, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and even Leprechaun and Puppet Master.

This was a really quick and enjoyable read. Sequelland is filled with fun, behind-the-scenes tidbits about movies that genre lovers know, as well as with the headaches that directors and writers have to deal with in the industry. There is a section in the interview with Uwe Boll that I found particularly interesting that was about production budgets and profitability for films in the direct-to-video market versus the streaming market that dominates the industry today. I would recommend this collection to any fan of the horror movie genre.

I received a digital copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Behemoth

A novel of giant biblical monsters by HP Newquist

4/5 Star Review

Are you in the market for small-town secrets? How about an old testament cult? A whirlwind novel of mystery, murder, and disappearances? Well, friends, look no further – Behemoth is here to scratch that itch!

Robert Garrahan, a journalist by trade, has been making weekend trips between New York City and his small cabin in upstate New York to work on his book of New York architecture. One weekend, he detours into the small town of Morris for gas and is struck by the odd little town. It seems as though folks are coming out of their homes to watch him. The gas station owner and his daughter are friendly enough, they chat about the big city and how exotic it sounds. The next weekend, Robert stops again at the little gas station only to find the family gone and a new owner in place. He starts to dig into the town and finds that there have been a recent slew of disappearances in and around Morris and the book takes off from there.

I was a bit concerned about the Christian undertone to this book going in. I am not a religious person, and aside from the odd possession story here and there, I really prefer my horror not to be riddled with passages from the bible. Newquist handles the old testament themes and religious fanaticism with deft hands. I felt it was worth a mention here just in case anyone feels the same way as I do about these things. Rest assured – this is not what you think it is going to be.

While Newquist has several works of non-fiction under his belt, Behemoth is his first novel and hopefully will not be his last. I recommend checking this one out for sure!

As an aside, I received a digital copy of this title from the author in exchange for an honest review.

In A Dark Place

The “true” story behind The Haunting in Connecticut by Ray Garton

4/5 Star Review

I’m wrapping up reviews for books read in the last week of April and you know what that means – we are halfway to Halloween! Over on the Spine Breakers YouTube channel, Sue and Megan have been hosting Halfaweenathon 2020. You can find the the original video and the reading challenges here.

I read In A Dark Place for challenge #3 – Read a book that involves something supernatural.

I am endlessly fascinated with the supernatural and the paranormal. It’s something that I would like to believe in, but thus far have not experienced anything that could not be rationally explained. I love reading “true” tales of hauntings, but they are all read with a grain of salt. In A Dark Place was no exception to this. More on this in a bit.

In the 1980s, The Snedekers oldest son was undergoing daily cancer treatments and the family needed to move closer to the city in order to better care for him. With limited income, there was only one home that they found and could afford that satisfied both the needed location and space for their family of six – a former funeral home. The parents opted not to share that fact with the kids and spent their next year or so in utter denial of all of the weird goings-on around the home. Their eldest son was the most affected and often blamed for the spooky occurrences. The situation reached its boiling point once their son was no longer in the home and the Snedekers could no longer lie to themselves about the presence of evil. Enter the Warrens and eventual exorcism of the home.

This book has it all – strange sounds, disembodied voices, shadow figures, weird lights, footsteps, phantom touches, disappearing items, vibrating beds, the evil spirits of necrophiliacs, and demonic anal rape. Oh, yes – what kind of possessed house would this be if you weren’t being anally raped by a demonic presence?!

This book is an absolute blast – when you read it as fiction. It stands on its own as a pretty great haunted house novel. Ray Garton is a fantastic writer and his story shines. If you read it as a true story, well, there are many plot holes and inconsistencies to be found. Garton himself found them and questioned the Snedekers who never seemed to be able to keep their stories straight. He approached the Warrens about the questionable events and was told by Ed to, “…make it up and make it scary. That’s why we hired you.” I highly recommend reading the interview that Ray Garton did with Damned Connecticut about his experience writing this book. You can find it here.

Whether or not you believe the validity of this story or in the Warrens ability to assist in these cases – it is a fun ride. Garton wrote a wicked fun haunted house story that can be enjoyed whether it is true or not. Recommended read!

End of the Road

Essays from The Farewell (But Not Really) Tour by Brian Keene

5/5 Star Review

When my pre-ordered copy arrived in the mail, I was only going to crack it open – just to take a peek. That peek lasted the rest of the night and into the next day. In less than 24 hours, I had completely consumed the book that I was intending to savor. C’est la vie. What can you do?

End of the Road is comprised of all of the essays that Keene wrote for Cemetery Dance Online during his Farewell (But Not Really) Tour in 2016. Cemetery Dance Press has collected all of the essays, plus a few extras – including a wonderful introduction from Gabino Iglesias – into a beautiful signed and numbered hardcover. As of this posting, it’s still in stock and limited to 750 copies. It’s a steal at only $40.

These essays are raw, heart-felt, and honest. If you listen to Keene’s podcast, you’ll know that he often speaks of bleeding onto the page – and that’s exactly what he has done here. He channels Hunter S. Thompson in a whisky-fueled cross-country tour and discusses his thoughts on grief, loss, mortality, longing, familial bonds, fandom, horror, friendship, love, art, comics, the rise and fall of horror publishing, and the craft itself.

I had the pleasure of meeting Brian Keene and John Urbancik on this tour when they were in Oviedo, Florida. They were signing at the Barnes & Noble in the mall there. Kudos to Chris Kosarich for organizing this event – by the way! The signing was a blast and it was my first time meeting both of them. I picked up Stale Reality by Urbancik and the two books Brian was promoting on the tour- Pressure and The Complex. Both authors were incredibly gracious and Brian even signed all my backlist books that I brought with me. I mention this because it was a great experience and Brian was so jovial – it’s hard to imagine, looking back at that signing after reading these essays, how very much he was going through in his personal life at that time. Let it never be said Keene is not on for his fans.

I’ve enjoyed so many of Brian’s novels and this was my first foray – aside from his newsletters – into his non-fiction and I am hooked! I just bought The Triangle of Belief for my Kindle and can’t wait to get to it! A “memoir-styled treatise on faith, religion, the occult, atheism, agnosticism, science, and the supernatural…” Yes, please!!