Tag: Book Reviews

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We’ll Tear Your Soul Apart—Then Spit It Out!

Book Review: Wretch: or, The Unbecoming of Porcelain Khaw by Eric LaRocca

I’ve been disappointed by new horror. I recently returned three(!) new library books I ended up DNF-ing. Now, one, I admit, was a new romantasy. I was curious about why it was so popular. After taking a dip, I still am. But the other two were recent horror releases. I got about 100 pages in on each and thought, “Since when did horror become so safe, so self-aware, so annoyingly pedantic, so—dare I say it—afraid?”

I don’t want soft cuddles when I read horror. I want high stakes, operatic peaks, hatred and self-loathing of the most abominable kind, spectacular crashes into burning pits of hell! I want blood spilling out on the page by someone who understands my suffering, who dares to go there. To quote Blanche DuBois, “I want magic!” albeit of the gruesome kind.

LaRocca brings the dark magic, and then some!

Trawling through Barnes and Noble while my car was getting serviced, I happened upon Wretch, a new release by Eric LaRocca. Now, I had read one of his books — Everything the Darkness Eats — and enjoyed its off-the-rails over-the-top goriness. It gave me old-school Edward Lee chills. Pulling up the Goodreads page now, I’m shocked, shocked! to discover the book receiving such low ratings. Even respected reviewers in the horror community failed to recognize the undeniable talent in our midst that is LaRocca. Sometimes I wish some of these influencers would influence some other genre than horror — romantasy, for example.

But, back to browsing in Barnes and Noble. I was scanning the new releases and pleased to see a horror title. I recalled I liked the author’s style and took a chance on the hardcover, which, in case you haven’t noticed, ain’t cheap anymore. The cover looked cool, the author’s Clive Barker dedication and opening quote intriguing, so I took a gamble.

Well, I wasn’t just pleasantly surprised; I was gruesomely enchanted!

Quick synopsis: Simeon (Biblical significance?) is grieving his dead spouse, Jonathan. Depressed and failing at work, he takes a leave of absence and, through a dark web chatroom, wanders into an underground society of the desperate and grief-stricken, a strange support group where members attempt to detect the images of their deceased loved one through photographs of inanimate objects and boring landscapes. Simeon attends awkward meetings with the Wretches, which is part Fight Club, part Order of the Gash—the author freely admits to these influences in the afterword—but he’s longing for something more. He wants his lover back, in the flesh, and he’ll do anything to make that happen. Be careful what you wish for, because Simeon is eventually led to a character named Porcelain Khaw, a dark entity (I kept imagining Pinhead) who promises reconnection, but at a stiff price.

Besides the general plot, which intrigued me, one thing I loved about this book was that LaRocca doesn’t play it safe with emotions. He’s honest about his main character’s shortcomings; his self-loathing in particular rings true. He doesn’t play it safe with the queerness either. Parts of this book reminded me of the shocking underground scene of downtown New York I recall reading about in The Village Voice. I tried to capture some of that underground scene that titillated and horrified my imagination in my horror thriller Fashion Victims. I still consider it one of my best novels, although tragically neglected.

But back to Wretch.

I applaud LaRocca’s brutal look at the self-hatred that can turn us into empty vessels searching for love to fill us while callously draining those who love us. There is a tragically melancholy subplot concerning Simeon’s rejected former wife and their neglected teenage son in a way that shows the selfishness of grief and obsessive love in general. The concept of “reverse haunting” could have been explored more, or perhaps I’m just unfamiliar with that sub-sub-genre. One flashback scene involving an alligator enclosure at the zoo left me baffled. If I was supposed to identify with the protagonist, that almost ruined it for me.

Yet, I couldn’t stop reading.

There are a few quick and painful “gotcha” twists at the end, reminding the reader that horror is, after all, a thrill ride, or at least it should be. I closed this book feeling very satisfied and determined to read all of LaRocca’s books. If Stephen King proclaimed Clive Barker the future of horror, LaRocca may have just picked up that mantle with Wretch. Let’s hope more writers daringly follow his lead. I certainly am inspired.

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Bring Back the Big Sexy Novel!

A good, trashy read is so satisfying…

I finally read one of my Dad’s favorite books, that 70’s pulp classic, The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon. It was one of those “dirty” paperbacks I’d find stashed under his bed next to the Qui magazines. Perhaps the “forbidden” nature of my Dad’s reading stash kept me from absconding with it then, but now, reading it decades later, I know exactly why my Dad loved it because I loved it too.

Despite the — ahem — titillating sensuality of which there is plenty, the book spans several continents against the backdrop of World War II. Again, I know why he loved it. My Dad was a decorated war hero who told his children stories about what it was like to fly in bombers and the thrill of partying in London on VJ Day. Despite dropping out of school in 8th grade, he was a self-educated man: an avid reader, not only of cheap paperbacks, but nonfiction books of all kinds, and scores of National Geographics that he’d quiz us on after giving us reading assignments. He knew more about history than my AP History teacher. Sadly, I lost my Dad many decades ago, yet after finishing this book—one of my most enjoyable summer reads—I can’t help but feel close to him.

I got the name, Big Sexy Novel, from Dean Koontz’s Writing Popular Fiction, published in 1972, where he offers advice for aspiring writers who wish to make money from their efforts. Kind of like writing-to-market advice media pre-internet days. Yes, I remember that time well. Was it better because I was young, like really young? Maybe a little bit, but to be honest, it was just better all around–a brief period of American history where freedom really did reign.

And the books were better too. Imagine reading a new book today that you literally can’t put down, even as the paperback is literally falling apart in your hands–I broke down and purchased the ebook–you don’t want to stop reading it. Eating, sleeping, working, showering–all tasks to be rushed through until you can return to the story. And what a story it is! 

Imagine a beautiful—I mean beautiful—young French woman so bent on gaining revenge against the lover who jilted her that she aborts their child in the most painful way possible (for the baby) just to get even with him. And that’s only the beginning. That her lover is an impossibly handsome psychopath with a long-suffering, sweet wife willing to follow him to the ends of the Earth (and her own doom) only adds to the dramatic possibilities. Throw in an Onassis-style billionaire, private yachts and planes, Greek islands, and a nail-biting courtroom drama, and one can see why today’s potboilers can’t compare. 

Oh, and did I mention the twists? There are many, each one more jaw-dropping than the last–right down to the very last page!

As the Garbaugust reading challenge is right around the corner, I’m filling my Kindle with more Sidney Sheldon novels, rereading Jackie Susann’s tomes, cracking the spine of The Carpet Baggers, and watching a Tyler Perry series, the closest modern thing I’ve found to the Big Sexy Novel. Tacky? Yes, but oh, so entertaining.