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Book Review: Doorways to the Deadeye by Eric J. Guignard

Doorways to the Deadeye by Eric J. Guignard

JournalStone, 1919

ISBN-13: 978-1947654976

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

 

Novels about riding the rails can be exhilarating journeys in the right hands. Eric J Guignard is fresh off his first Bram Stoker win for best fiction collection, proof he has the skills to terrify his audience. Luke Thacker is a victim of the Great Depression, scraping by to survive on the dangerous rails of America. Along the way, he learns many secrets to staying alive, from a code left by other hobos, often warning them of strangers who would sooner leave them bleeding in a ditch or a friend ready to help out a guy in need through symbols carved into trees. When he discovers one odd symbol, an infinity sign, he learns that reality is a bit broken.

He meets a gangster ready and armed, John Dillinger, who had perished just months ago in a hail of bullets. Luke  has entered the Athanasia, the realm of the deadeye.

The dead don’t exactly haunt but can be dangerous. The spirits that linger are the ones who are remembered. Dillinger hires Thacker to be his driver for a bit, before being rescued by Harriet Tubman who ferries him to safety through the corridors of the deadeye. The stronger the person was in life, the longer they linger in Athanasia, where the living can see them, hear them, and be hurt by them.

Some are them are pretty angry and vicious.

Luke takes to the rails and meets up with the semi-gentle giant Zeke, and the woman who entrances his heart, Daisy. Together, they explore more of the deadeye world, encountering the Wyatt brothers, bank robberies, and the worst memory of the rails, Smith McCain, a brutal rail worker who made his living tossing hobos from moving trains. In death, his viciousness only has amplified. He tracks down riders to send them into the deadeye where most of them don’t have the strength to remain remembered. They simply fade away into nothingness. McCain is a beast straight out of the best thriller and horror movies, a former man who can never be stopped.

Fifty years later, another former hobo, King Shaw,  is keeping the stories of Luke alive as he tells them to a reporter, and hopefully keeping himself alive, too.

This novel is a stunner. Horrifying and suspenseful throughout, what makes it work is the strong writing of Guignard. Having never read any of this author before, it was shocking to see how powerful his lines were, how well-drawn the characters had become.

This guy is more than someone to watch in horror. He’ll be winning plenty more awards.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

Editor’s note: Doorways to the Deadeye was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Novel.

 

Posted on April 12, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall

Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall

Viking Books for Young Readers, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1984837011

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

 

 

The legend of Lucy Gallows says that 12 year old Lucy Callow ran into the woods after an argument with her mother, and when her brother went after her, he saw her step onto a road, and as she walked away, both she and the road vanished, never to be found.

Sara Donoghue’s sister Becca was obsessed with the legend of Lucy Gallows, going so far as to fill a notebook with thoughts, drawings, photographs, and clues that could lead her to the vanished road and find Lucy.  A year ago, on April 18, Becca disappeared, and Sara is certain her sister found her way to the road. Now everyone in her school has received a text message to find a partner and a key to find the road by midnight. Anthony, Trina, Kyle, Mel and Nick were Becca and Sara’s closest friends, and despite doubts, all of them show up to see if the road appears. The road has seven gates, and you need a partner to hold on to as you take the thirteen necessary (and disorienting) steps through each gate.  Becca’s notebook contains rules for traveling on the road:

Don’t leave the road.

When it’s dark, don’t let go.

There are other roads. Don’t follow them.

The road does appear, but since three of the friends have shown up with partners for the game, there is an odd number, meaning someone won’t have a partner. And in the dark, it’s easy to get separated and accidentally step off the road. The teens are not on a friendly stroll here; they are on a terrible road with frightening and sometimes deadly obstacles, and once they’re through the gate, they can’t turn back. But they also can’t help breaking the rules. If the reader isn’t filled with dread at the beginning of their journey, it won’t take long for that to happen.

Marshall constructs her story in a complicated way. First, we get Sara’s relatively straightforward narrative, told entirely from her point of view.  Then we move to a point past the events on the road,  with transcripts from interviews with Sara, and others who were on the journey, by Andrew Ashford, a discredited researcher of the paranormal.  There’s also documentation of what happened before the teens stepped onto the road (through text messages between Sara’s friends) and while they were on it (cell phone recordings and videos, and photographs) suggesting that maybe Sara’s story is not as straightforward or reliable as it seems to be. Marshall balances these nicely to create a cohesive, if sometimes hallucinatory, story.   The creativity of the story and the work that goes in to structuring a book like this are impressive. I wasn’t a big fan of most of the characters, but the world-building is outstanding (although I am curious as to why the author chose to ground her story in a legend from Brittany when the book is set in Massachusetts), and the suspense is terrific.

I wonder if this is meant to stand alone (it certainly can) or if it’s meant to be part of a longer series about Andrew Ashford’s investigations of the paranormal, which I would find intriguing. Either way, for those who like the puzzle of pulling a story together, it’s a compelling and worthwhile read. Recommended.

Contains: Violence, gore,  murder

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Editor’s note:  Rules for Vanishing was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel.

Posted on March 31, 2020 by , Reply

Graphic Novel Review: Neil Gaiman’s Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Colleen Doran

Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Colleen Doran

Dark Horse, 2019

ISBN-13: 9781506709796

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, comiXology

 

Adapted from Gaiman’s short story in the collection titled Smoke and Mirrors, Snow, Glass, Apples is a dark fairy tale version of Snow White. The Queen, terrified of her monstrous stepdaughter, has her heart set on saving her kingdom from a creature hell bent on devouring everyone in her path. This is not the Snow White tale we are familiar with. While the young girl appears innocent and sweet, she harbors a thirst for blood, and no one is safe from her appetite. Even her father, the King, is not safe from his own flesh and blood.

The most interesting part of Gaiman’s story is his take on who and what the Queen is and how she can scry. She is an enigma herself, but she is certainly not the evil queen we are familiar with in various media. She’s complicated, to put it mildly. As mentioned above, Snow is not the softhearted young lady depicted in stories and film. She is cold, calculating, devious. She’s also a seductress as see when the Queen asks her mirror about what is attacking the Forest Folk.

The artwork in this book is beautiful. It’s easy to get lost in the highly detailed panels. Doran’s work is reminiscent of Harry Clarke’s artwork. In fact, there is a nod to one of the artist’s famous pieces in the 1923 edition of Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. She writes about his influence in her artwork in the sketchbook included in this volume.

This is a fairy tale not meant for children. Adult themes are found throughout the story. It is heavy on sexual content, and there is implied incest between Snow and the King, her father. While it is an uncomfortable subject, it helps illustrate how hedonistic and animalistic this version of Snow White is. I would recommend this to readers who like alternative versions of fairy tales, with the understanding that, despite the bright colours Doran uses in her artwork, the content is far darker than expected. Recommended

Contains: blood, gore, implied incest, nudity, sexual content

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

Editor’s note:  Neil Gaiman’s Snow, Glass, Apples was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel.

Posted on March 23, 2020 by , Reply
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