Joe McKinney's INHERITANCE--A Must-Read

Joe McKinney. Inheritance. Evil Jester Press, November 2012. 350 pp. $16.95, trade paperback. ISBN-10: 0615690890; ISBN-13: 978-0615690896.

 

Thinking back over the horror novels that I have particularly enjoyed, I’ve decided that they divide relatively neatly into two large categories. For lack of better terminology I’ve chosen Narrow and Broad. These are not necessarily qualitative terms; a Narrow novel may be powerful, evocative, even great. A Broad novel may be thin, superficial, formulaic. But in some senses the two words suggest my responses to the storytelling each attempts.

Narrow horror novels concentrate on the horror, the monster. They are about a creature, in some cases more than they are about the humans that interact with it. For readers intrigued by the darkness, the monstrous, these may be ideal. The story begins with intimations of evil; expands through revelations of the extent, focus, and purposes of the evil; and concludes with the destruction (permanently or temporarily) of the evil. To a degree, perhaps the most famous monster book of all, Bram Stoker’s brilliant Dracula, is a Narrow novel. Even though he does not feature in the book for some time, Dracula overshadows everything else, and when he is gone, there is nothing more to say.

Broad horror novels work in the opposite way. Their concern is primarily for the people, the individuals involved, and the ways in which they must deal with the intrusion of darkness and evil into their lives. The monster is every bit as vital, every bit as threatening, every bit as repellent (or, conversely, as seductive) as in a Narrow horror novel. But in a Broad novel, humans count for a bit more. Even without the evil, there is a story to be told, often multiple stories; and the evil may in fact link otherwise unrelated tales into a complex of narration and revelation.

To achieve this, Broad novels tend to be long, or at least longer than most Narrow novels. No one would argue that Dracula or King’s Salem’s Lot or McCammon’s Usher’s Passing are ‘short’ novels, but for me they are better considered Narrow than Broad. King’s It, The Shining, and The Stand; McCammon’s Swan Song, Stinger, and The Wolf’s Hour; Simmons’ Carrion Comfort—these and many others are Broad, in no small part because they are provided with a broad canvas upon which to trace the movements of evil through human lives.

 

Joe McKinney’s latest novel, Inheritance, is Broad horror. It extends beyond the limits of a monster or a creature to explore the world in which horror can find its place. It is a ghost story, with ghosts evil and ghosts benign ultimately contesting against each other for a human soul.

It is a story of black magic and witchcraft, in which the forces of darkness and destruction manipulate the heart of a scapegoat (literally!) to bring about a final dissolution.

It is a story of the walking dead…although not the zombies of traditional fiction but something crueler, something closer to the original conception in which the dead are controlled by the living and forced to perform acts that would have been anathema to their living selves.

It is a story of cults that reach out and, almost invisibly, trap an unknowing city, drawing it piece by piece into a whirlwind of evil.

It is a police procedural. In it readers see the inner workings of a large city police force—in this case San Antonio—as it systematically follows clues that lead to…the impossible.

It is a story of brotherhood among officers, of pranks and games that only thinly disguise the fact that any of them would sacrifice anything, up to and including their lives, for the welfare of their colleagues.

It is a story of domestic violence, in which small matters only hint at the horrendous truth behind abuse, exploitation, and perversion. It demonstrates how easily violence perpetrates itself across generations and what is required to stop its progress.

And it is ultimately a story of an Apocalypse waiting, drawing nearer, its threat gaining strength with every passing page…and a final moment of redemptive sacrifice.

In all, it is a thoroughly imagined, thoroughly developed, masterfully written novel of broad horror.

 

And one final thought.

All of these points developed gradually but inexorably through the course of the story.

They were, of course, not the first thing I noticed about the book. The first thing—and the worst thing—struck my eyes when I first opened the book.

The type face is ridiculously small. Especially when set next to unusually wide margins (the better to take notes in, my dear!).

Then I started reading, and I noticed the second thing—and the best thing—about Inheritance.

The size of the type made no difference. One I began reading, I was caught. Inheritance tells its story of ghosts and possession inordinately well, engaging readers through 350 pages (which would be perhaps double that with a larger type), never flagging, never introducing any irrelevancies or digressions.

 

Highly recommended.

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Michael R. Collings is the Senior Publications Editor for JournalStone Publishing; an Emeritus professor of English from Pepperdine University; author of the best-selling horror novels The Slab and The House Beyond the Hill, as well as other novels and collections of short fiction, poetry, and literary essays; and an inveterate fan of all things grammatical and syntactical. His writings are available here, at starshineandshadows.com, at journalstone.com, and at hellnotes.com.

New and Old Seamlessly United--Kasey Lansdale's FRESH BLOOD & OLD BONES

Kasey Lansdale, ed. Fresh Blood & Old Bones. Biting Dog Publications, 29 September 2012, 573 kb, $6.99, ebook. ASIN: B009JSACKW

 

There are monsters…and then there are monsters.

The truly fun thing about Fresh Blood & Old Bones is the sheer number of monsters captured in the eighteen tales collected by Kasey Lansdale in this offering of short fiction by established and neophyte horror writers. At one extreme, one finds multiple award-winner Joe R. Lansdale’s riff on traditional  “Black Car” lore, complete with murderous nuns (or anti-nuns) and an unstoppable monster that slaughters its way through the Halloween landscape.  At another (and there are more than two extremes in this book), the totally unexpected and wonderfully comic appearance of Wanda and Earl in Rhonda Eudaly’s initially unassuming “Crocodile Rock,” a title that must be taken in at least two ways to do justice to the outré assumptions and rough-and-tumble actions that develop.

Some of the best reading doesn’t seem to entail actual ‘monsters’—that is, until the stories begin to unfold, until characters reveal themselves more and more fully, and yet another definition of monster emerges. Perhaps the best example of this occurs in John Paul Allen’s “Little Miss.” At every key point in the story, readers must abruptly alter perceptions and understanding as what seems at first a censorious account of a metaphorical ‘monster’ mother and her long-suffering child pageant-contestant becomes increasingly pointed. Cast as an interview with the imprisoned mother (for what crime and for how long is only gradually explained), intercut with dialogues between parent and child just before various pageants, the story twists into increasingly disturbing byways as the true relationship between mother and daughter inexorably emerges.

Or, to take another example by a relative newcomer, Monica J. O’Rourke, “Celler” (an unfortunate typo there) seems in the beginning to be a straightforward tale about another kind of human ‘monster,’ an unnamed man who has abducted a child and kept her in the cellar, in a state of numbed fear and terror blended with something like perverted love. The child has no name but “Girl”; the man is simply “Him.” Nothing is said explicitly about what he has done to her, but the suggestions are manifold. Now she finds herself alone, starving, thirsting, and terrified to climb the steps to freedom. Somehow, she finds the courage to do so, and when she does…well, suffice it to say that child-abductors are not the only monsters little girls should fear.

And again, Stephen Mertz’s “The Lizard Men of Blood River” is an almost perfect pastiche of an Indiana Jones-style action-adventure romp, complete with—as the title tells us—Lizard Men…and a Lost City; a millennia-old evil magician; a swooning, scantily clad damsel in distress; and a doughty hero named, appropriately enough Speed McCoy. He works fast at resolving problems, such as a sudden attack by Amazonian headhunters, and at getting the girl. And all encapsulated into the space of a novelette.

I’m tempted to continue with an assessment of each story in Fresh Blood & Old Bones, since there is something interesting, intriguing, or just plain fascinating about each, but to do so would take too long and possibly deflate the power of the individual tales. Certainly, a piece titled “Jimmy and Me and the Nigger Man,” by Scott Cupp, or the errily haunting “Seven Devils,” by Nancy A. Collins, or the sheer insanity-in-the-making of  “If Mama Ain’t Happy,” by Sam W. Anderson richly deserve additional discussion.

Instead, however, let me simply note that one of the most conspicuous strengths of Fresh Blood & Old Bones is that in spite of the title, which indicates that the stories were written by new as well as established writers, unless one is familiar with the authors’ names, it is almost impossible to tell which is a first appearance and which comes from the imagination of someone with decades of writing experience. All of the stories are strong, all invite readers into dark worlds—literally and metaphorically—in which monsters dwell, and all are a credit to their authors and to the genre.

Highly recommended.

 

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Michael R. Collings is the Senior Publications Editor for JournalStone Publishing; an Emeritus professor of English from Pepperdine University; author of the best-selling horror novels The Slab and The House Beyond the Hill, as well as other novels and collections of short fiction, poetry, and literary essays; and an inveterate fan of all things grammatical and syntactical. His writing are available here, at starshineandshadows.com, at journalstone.com, and at hellnotes.com.