New Arrival: We Are Monsters by Brian Kirk

Nightmares are terrifying, as well as great inspiration for horror, because a) they are a movie reel of terrifying imagery and symbolism--especially if you believe in dream analysis--and b) they unravel in a disjointed, haphazard way along with other logical aspects of the waking world, leading to c) an environment where we have little to no control. Such an environment is a breeding ground for horror, as Freddy Krueger would attest. But there's another new King of Nightmares on the horizon named Brian Kirk, who establishes his reign with his latest novel, We Are Monsters.
The story begins with psychiatrist Alex creating a chemical cure for schizophrenia. People familiar with how science works in these kinds of stories know that it's basically Murphy's Law times a million, that anything bad that can happen will and it will be catastrophic. In his rush to test this formula, he experiments first on his brother Jerry and then on a notorious killer whose mental issues are seemingly given form and substance, along with the nightmares of other hospital staff and its patients. If horror stories are thought of as roller coasters, this book is definitely a fun house where the floor moves and the walls are mirrors offering only twisted reflections. This book can be considered a metaphorical swipe at an industry and society that overly medicates, which may turn off people who like their fiction without opinions (not the best fiction), but it does so without any overt monologues.
People familiar with Brian Kirk's Will Haunt You know that Brian excels at creating an environment where the lead character, nor the reader, cannot trust anyone or anything. What they've expected about the world and its safety, in Kirk's fiction universes, should not be taken for granted. The Fun House aspect of the book mentioned before takes a bit to get there. Kirk lays the storytelling groundwork, setting up the plot and its bananas conclusion while letting the readers get to know the characters before the tentacles of this well-crafted nightmare pulls them in. Perhaps a better analogy for this book then is an elaborate domino set-up. Kirk takes his sweet time placing the dominoes, but they create quite the spectacle when they finally fall. If Brian Kirk is the new King of Nightmares, long may he reign (or at least keep writing).

Have You Read This? The Twisted Ones

Folk horror seems to be a trend right now. Whether that's a backlash to the encroachment of technological advancement, with people sacrificing traditions on the altar of Apple, or the evolution of writers who like Stephen King had found supernatural horror in a very familiar small town America, folk horror has been receiving attention in both the movies and in novels. Before continuing with this review, however, I should offer some defining characteristics of folk horror:

1. Typically a rural setting. 
2. A religion or ideology that goes beyond traditional Christianity (or completely twisting Christianity out of shape, as in "Children of the Corn"). 
3. The land or earth is involved in the religion/ideology the story references. This may also lead to a kind of ritual. 

These elements are present in T. Kingfisher's The Twisted Ones, which relies heavily on local folklore while also referencing cosmic horror.
The story focuses on Mouse, a woman who is tasked with cleaning out her grandmother's house. Joined by her dog Bongo, she encounters a house that is overflowing with clutter as well as a secret world in the woods behind her grandmother's house. With only some quirky local characters, some bizarre stones, and the words of a stepgrandfather she barely knew to guider her, Mouse is gradually pulled into this world and attracts the interest of the eponymous twisted ones.
The character of Mouse is a very sympathetic character and a humorous first person narrator. Her humor is something that doesn't distract from the creepy atmosphere of the novel but endears us to her struggles both supernatural and mundane. Another surprising positive in the book is the relationship she has with her dog Bongo. Some may find it distracting that she talks about her dog, but Kingfisher shows Mouse's obvious love for her best friend and Bongo also gets the opportunity to return that love by helping his master discover who the twisted ones and their masters are.
The twisted ones and their masters are also an appeal of the book, particularly for those who like world-building and who likes their worlds weird. The twisted ones are given names by everyone else, from effigies to poppets, but they are all unique, terrifying, and described well by Kingfisher. Made from everything from wire to bones, stones to wasps' nest, the images of these junk and corpse piles animated and full of intent provides some disturbing images that make me look forward to a graphic novel adaptation.
These two elements, the relatable Mouse and her experiences with the bizarrely unrelatable twisted ones, creates a dynamic that kept me reading until the last page. The rural setting offers an anchor for Mouse, but it's ultimately the love of her friends, both two-legged, and four that ultimately gives the book its center.

Twisted Minds: Christopher Buehlman

With my column Twisted Minds, I like to showcase artists/writers who I feel haven't been given the attention they deserve, creators that have fallen under the radar for whatever reason but are still producing quality, entertaining work. I don't measure the reviews they've gotten on Amazon or Goodreads, however. These are really authors that have slipped under my own personal radar and I am joyfully discovering their body of work. Christopher Buehlman has been publishing novels since 2011 but I have just now discovered him. I feel that readers looking for fresh and fun reinventions of classic horror tropes should discover him as well.

Christopher Buehlman

I first discovered his book The Lesser Dead and immediately fell in love with vampire vagabond Joey Peacock, a perpetually young lover of the nightlife who guides readers through late '70s New York and its nocturnal hunters of blood and good times. The book begins with a tone reminiscent of the autobiographies of bon vivants just now recovering from the hangover while knowing they had so much fun. Then the book becomes straight horror as some new, more frightening predators move in. You won't believe a phrase like "Let's make a rabbit of him" can be bone-chilling until you read this book.
I next checked out the novel's sort-of sequel The Suicide Motor Club. I say sort-of sequel because it still features vampires but many of these vampires do not invoke any sympathy, especially the leader of the eponymous club Luther Nixon. Luther is a former ridgerunner/race car driver who, along with his crew, run drivers off the road only to feast on the remains. He is crass, loud, and swimming in confidence thanks to his vampiric "charm," which mentally subjugates his victims when he needs them to forget his crew's presence or to simply humiliate and debase them before feeding. The Club soon run across mother Judith and her family, destroying her life and stealing her child. When life as a nun doesn't give Judith the peace she craves, she is recruited as a weapon by a group of vampire hunters. Think about what would happen if the paper scripts for Kill Bill and From Dusk Till Dawn fell down some stairs, were scattered, and then scooped back together into one larger movie.
I recently finished Those Across the River, Buehlman's first novel. It features Frank Nichols and his wife Eudora, a couple from Chicago who have moved down to Georgia to start a new life in a house he inherited. It sounds like the set-up to a conventional ghost story, but this is not a ghost story. It has elements of Southern Gothic, some folk horror, and a heavy dash of monster mayhem. To tell any more about the plot would reveal the twist in the book, but it does give a tragic update to a classic monster, one that's quite different from the power fantasies many paranormal romances, for example, indulge in.
These three books showcase Buehlman's talents for weaving seemingly unconnected plot threads into a rich tapestry that readers can appreciate once they reach the final page. For writers that love a good plot, these books offer an example of how to create one with multiple plot points. For writers (and readers) who love character development, these books also create three-dimensional characters that you fall in love with only to have their tragic circumstances, which are laid like landmines within the plot, break your heart. Like riding a roller coaster, you may feel a little queasy after reading them (particularly if you're squeamish, for Buehlman doesn't shy away from the violence), but the thrills will keep you coming back for more.

Have You Read This? Hex Wives

I have seen and read pieces that talk about “elevated” horror, as though implying that the genre as a whole has relied simply on the evisceration of victims and the trashing of taboos for the sake of shock. I find this critical snubbing of horror ironic considering that even gory films like Friday the 13th and its glut of sequels were analyzed for their sociopolitical commentary as Jason Voorhees killing mainly teenagers who engage in premarital sex, drug use, and other so-called deviant behavior. Perhaps the term is more in vogue now because movies like Get Out and books like Micah Dean Hicks Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones are simply deciding to forgo a lot of the subtext and firmly establish the true sources of their terrors, whether from domineering social and economic classes, race relations, or the current political climate. One such story is Ben Blacker’s graphic novel Hex Wives.

The story involves two warring factions that have been fighting for hundreds of years. On one side is a coven of witches whose dark magic allows them to reincarnate and gives them X-Men like superpowers. The other is the male hunters, known as the Architects, who have tried to subdue them. Since killing them just means they reincarnate into a different form and since they have shown they can be dangerous, the Architects somehow capture these women and brainwash them into behaving like ‘50s housewives, complete with daily regiments of cooking, cleaning, and simply taking care of their men. The story’s dramatic tension is maintained through the women slowly discovering their identities and their legacy. When they finally and emphatically embrace their supernatural powers and rise up, the moment should give the reader a little satisfaction after all the buildup.

Forcing these women to act like stereotypical ‘50s housewives automatically sets up a conflict between these women and the patriarchy represented by the Architects, which may send many who use the phrase Social Justice Warrior as a pejorative straight to their keyboards, and the art style actually leans into this. The art style of Mirka Andolfo, which is very reminiscent of housewife/assassin tale Lady Killer, lends a ‘50s art deco authenticity to the book. The art also gruesomely depicts the carnage that these women create upon realizing what was done to them. One thing that does seem odd about this story is that this first arc seemingly wraps up the main conflict, and (SPOILER ALERT! DON’T READ FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS!) that leads to a road trip narrative as these witches search for more answers that they have forgotten, but it seems like a difficult task to keep up the tension that made this initial collection such a quick read.

Have You Read This? Joe Hill: The Graphic Novel Collection

The book vs. movie debate has been around since Hollywood has been adapting books into movies (and it will likely continue as Hollywood is keen to produce anything with a built-in audience). Some may argue that movies, a visual medium, typically ignore parts of the book that made it great, but this could be due to anything from budget constraints to parts of the book not translating well to the visual medium (I’m looking at you, Ritual of Chud from IT). However, there were no doubt people who complained about plots in the Harry Potter series that the movies ignored despite seeing basilisk fight and house elves come to life on the big screen. Both movie and book can have their individual strengths and weaknesses, in other words, and the same can be said for stories adapted to a graphic novel format. Joe Hill's new Graphic Novel Collection is a great example of this.

Two stories from the collection particularly illustrate (no pun, intended. I swear) the differences between visual and verbal storytelling. “The Cape” is based on a story from Joe Hill’s collection 20th Century Ghosts. The story deals with a young man still living in his mom’s basement who discovers the cape he once wore to play superhero actually contains some magic. The comic, and its follow-up/prequel, “The Cape: 1969” give a deeper look into the protagonist’s motivations, which often takes away from a short story’s original power, but both tales still manage to tell a focused yet heartfelt narrative about resentment, love, and familial bonds and how they somehow manage to coexist in a familial dynamic. “Thumbprint” is still a story about torture and the trauma inflicted on both the person giving and receiving it, but there’s an odd sort of redemption in the graphic novel version and would make a great comparison with the short story in Hill’s latest collection Full Throttle. The collection also features “Kodiak,” a story about a bear that feels like a collaboration between Chaucer and Joe Lansdale, and The Wraith, which takes readers back to Charlie Manx’s Christmasland, first seen in N0S4A2.

Those familiar with the series Locke & Key will see that Hill is a master of the medium, even surpassing the skills of his famous dad, Stephen King, in that medium. It’s therefore always a treat to see Hill’s tales brought to life in comic panels where artwork by Nelson Daniel and Zach Howard, among others, perfectly complement Hill’s unrestrained imagination. This book is perfect for the Joe Hill completist or those that like a good scary and graphic story.