"Blake Would Say That There Are Some Places In The Universe Where The Fall Has Not Occurred, The World

OUR SHARE OF NIGHT by MARIANA ENRÍQUEZ (REVIEW)

quickly: a father tries everything in his earthly and unearthly power to prevent his son from inheriting a legacy of horror (abuse from the one who loves you most / blessed curses and buried secrets / bisexuality so powerful it’s omnisexual and omnipotent / chalk circles and pits of bones / closed doors opening / evil grandparents with old money / haunted houses with locked rooms / like father, like son / Lord of Doors, Signs, and Symbols / missing limbs and missing mothers / people lost in the darkness / something dark in the woods).

The story begins with a young Gaspar being spirited away by his migraine-stricken father Juan, and it follows him through his adolescence, as his father tries to keep him safe from their own evil family—by any means necessary. These people are not Disney© evil by the way, these families that include Juan’s in-laws, known as The Order, are vicious, kidnapping, human trafficking plutocrats. They practice a philosophy of magic where darkness begets darkness, and in that darker darkness they reign. They cage children, abduct and torture strangers, and will even spill their own blood to conjure chaos. Unfortunately for The Order however, their ability to render magic from their dark deeds is almost useless without a medium. 

★★★★★ Fantastic horror.

This was a book I read in March of 2024 after seeing it on a list from @bloodmaarked!

To Juan’s disappointment, his young son is showing signs of becoming a powerful medium at a young age, making him susceptible to the deplorable whims of The Order. To keep young Gaspar protected, he must also keep Gaspar ignorant to the powerful magic and sorcery flowing through his blood. As so often happens in families filled with trauma and secrets, the repression of Gaspar’s powers will cause him to be an overly sensitive and deeply emotionally wounded child who has a habit of walking backward into the traps his father works ceaselessly to keep him unaware of.

In time, it will be revealed to Gaspar that Juan is a Great and tortured medium; the vessel of a dark, powerful, and ruthless force known by many as The Darkness. The Darkness is an old god, often presenting itself as a massive black cloud of energy, and makes its power known through tragedy, bloodshed, foreknowledge, and the locking and unlocking of doors to other realms. This ‘demented’ and ‘savage’ force blesses whatever it curses and can mark its followers by wounding them with its golden talons. If you were to reach into this black cloud, you’d pull your arm back to find that your hand has been cleanly amputated and cauterized. Eaten. You may also wake up the next day, marked, with the ability to unlock locked things, or sense people before they appear. 

Meanwhile, until Juan’s truth is revealed to his son, Gaspar must learn to grow up with two versions of his dad. One version of Juan is the kind, serious, wise teacher. The other Juan, the dark version, is irrational, voracious, bloodthirsty, and almost evil. Though Gaspar has no knowledge of the powerful magic that flows within him and his father, he has an uncanny understanding that there is something lying beneath the surface of the waking world of reality. Sometimes he even finds himself opening doors no one else can open. No one but Juan.

By the time Gaspar reaches adulthood, he grows up to be just like his father… exceptionally powerful, stunningly beautiful, and outrageously unpredictable (maybe even a little bi too). The final phase of Juan’s elaborate plan to destroy The Order is set into motion by his death, leaving it up to fate, Gaspar, and those who love Juan and his son, to hopefully and finally, close the door to evil for good.

This is sophisticated, detailed, high-level horror, with excellent dialogue and conversation about family, community, lineage, capital, sex, grief, despair, power, and action—and by action I mean forming a well thought out plan and doing what it takes to see your plan through. 

THE BOOKS OF JACOB by OLGA TOKARCZUK (REVIEW)

quickly: it’s a jewish cult in 1700’s poland (an astral traveling matriarch accidentally floating above all of existence / a man who prides himself on being no one and knowing nothing, a simpleton, yet attracts followers from all over / prophetesses who see prophecies fulfilled / sects that are cults that are sects that are cults / a security detail made entirely of women).

this book is as long as life, and just as monotonous, which is what makes it all the more enriching. it is truly a world and a time, encapsulated in 961 pages. it is a true story, with a thin glaze of magical realism drizzled on top. it reads like the bible (or should i say the Torah), slow, dry, and impactful. it is crowded, like a city street during lunch hour, but if you follow Yente and Jacob through the story, you’ll never get lost. 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

more thoughts: SPOILERS!

Some personal context… this is the first Big Book I’ve read since reading Infinite Jest back in like 2015. I’ve read a handful of books randomly from 2016-2022, going years sometimes without reading a full book. I was gifted a set of Goosebumps books by a friend last Christmas and the nostalgia inspired me to get reading again. 

I went from Goosebumps to Fear Street to some brilliant new fiction (Sacrificio by Ernesto Mestre-Reed, The Boatman’s Daughter and The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson). THE BOOKS OF JACOB is the longest book I’ve read in years, and it was almost nothing I thought it would be. After the delicious but “short” novels I’d been reading lately, I was craving the truly immersive feeling of that could only be captured in a 900+ page book. 

The synopsis excited me immediately: JEWISH CULT IN 1700s POLAND! BASED ON A TRUE STORY!

Now by no means do I have any serious education of Jewish culture. I’ve watched movies, read some books, but I am not versed. However, with the level and detail of writing that Tokarczuk achieves in this work (much of it based on fact), it made real some of the things that only existed in my mind as fragments of information. 

The entire story is broken up into books, books are broken up into chapters, and chapters each have their own subsections. Most of these subsections are prose, some are letters, and others are ‘scraps’ or behind-the-scenes moments captured by Nahmen, Jacob’s most faithful follower. 

THE BOOK OF FOG, is the opener. It sets the scene and introduces you to a network of characters that Jacob will soon be at the center of. 

THE BOOK OF SAND, sees families start to form, and Yente turns into a goddess of the air as she astral travels through time and space. Jacob is introduced and we see his travels (culturally and geographically). His followers witness ‘the great spirit’ descending into him, causing his entire body to shed. This book is filled with miraculous stories and acts.

THE BOOK OF THE ROAD, sees Jacob leading his followers into a new land, and initiating some of his followers by secret rituals. Their practices make them enemies of local Jews and they are soon pursued by The State. Jews issue curses against them, and Jacob sends curses back. 

THE BOOK OF THE COMET, sees a comet that appears, with many seeing it as an auger of end times. More rituals. The Shekinah, feminine goddess, is witnessed descending into a gold statue, plague erupts, and Jacob and his followers are held for questioning in regards to their religious practices, eventually banishing him to prison in a monastery. This is where Jacob starts to fray.

THE BOOK OF METAL AND SULFER (my personal favorite for some reason?), sees Jacob sent to prison, yet his followers still cling to him, setting up a village around him. They all wait for the Shekinah to appear from a painting in the church monastery where he is being held. Jacob is ill, a lot, getting older and losing his glow. He is not himself sometimes. Eventually, war breaks out, giving Jacob an opportunity to negotiate his freedom. 

THE BOOK OF THE DISTANT COUNTRY, Jacob once again enters a new land, lord of a castle now, where he lives on the lower floors as an old ailing man. The toll of prison manifests in his body. His practices alarm some and enamor others. This book sees the death of Jacob. 

THE BOOK OF NAMES, is almost a denouement, biblical style, rife with anecdotes of the deaths of Jacob’s closest followers, and some of their children. Yente, the goddess, closes the story from high above us, somewhere in the afterlife.

In all, I was moved by the beautiful lacing of Jewish lore and mythology throughout the story. I found Jacob to be repulsive, arrogant, wise, contradictory, and ridiculous. Not much different from today’s cult leaders. He eventually endures that long hard ego death that only the body can devise. Throughout the story we see women who guard the knowledge of paternity, all women guards, Yente who knows all, Hayah the Prophetess who sees all, the holy trinity’s fourth part—the great divine feminine, and so on. I found the magic of the feminine, the resistance to “tradition”, and the movement of a people, to be incredible to read about. 

I understand and sympathize with those who say they couldn’t read past the first half and were confused and lost in the sea of characters, especially when the main characters decide to switch names mid-story. 

A SECRET: There are really only two names to keep up with in the story. Yente, and Jacob. Yente is easy to remember… she is Jacob’s grandmother, and she is also the sky, the wind, the air, and the ether. She is everywhere at all times, at any time, like God. So it’s hard to lose her in the story. Then there’s Jacob. The star upon which all other stars orbit and constellate. If you watch them throughout the pages, all others move around him, forming the loose, lingering, and prescient story arc that only life can form. Everyone else can be identified by their actions.

THE TROOP by NICK CUTTER (REVIEW)

quickly: a troop of young teenage boy scouts are left to their own dangerous devices after their scoutmaster is killed by a mysterious virus (boys who are just like their fathers / strange men in the night / a young devil in disguise / insatiable appetites / bad weather out at sea / guts, guts, guts, and guts / the lifecycle of worms / the stank of peer pressure and performative masculinity / the government and all of its branches).

I was expecting some unsung masterpiece of horror but came upon a campfire story instead. Not a bad campfire story! Blood, gore, sabotage, and the fleshiness of parasitic creatures… but this won’t keep me up a night. Fun though, like something caught between a Goosebumps book and a Fear Street book. I wish the writing for the kids had been better. Their vernacular seemed outdated, like kids who grew up in the 80s. (I paused reading at Chapter 10 to check the date of publication.) Also, some of their topics of discussion seemed outrageous (how often did you discuss or think about what your parenting style would be for your children, AT FOURTEEN?) Up the age of the kids from middle school to high school or college, and so much more of the story would seem fitting.

★ ★ ★

"Everyone in the world was programmed by the place they were born, hemmed in by their beliefs, but you had to at least try to grow your own brain. Otherwise, you might as well be living on a reservation, worshiping a bunch of bogus gods."

Scott Westerfeld, Pretties

DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD by OLGA TOKARCZUK (REVIEW)

quickly: the death of a woman’s neighbor reveals the fury of mother nature (a ‘crazy old woman’ with ailments and astrology / estranged neighbors / friends who make life easier / blood in the snow / small town gossip / dreams of the dead / the will of man vs. nature).

how much of the natural world can an old, country, polish woman try to save on her own? Mrs. Duszejko doesn’t eat meat and is almost at an age where she can’t survive a hard winter alone. she lives outside of town, with two other neighbors and only a handful of visitors. after one of her neighbors is found dead, she begins to see signs all around that nature is reclaiming its territory. her protests and letters to the local police about her theories often go unheeded or are discarded as the ramblings of an ‘old crone’. after many philosophical wanderings through the forests and hills, Mrs. Duszejko reveals the nature of the truth.

★ ★ ★ ★

more thoughts: SPOILERS!

Some personal context… I read Olga Tokarczuk’s THE BOOKS OF JACOB not too long ago. It was an immersively lengthy and detailed read, but worth it. Drawn to her writing style and choice of subject matter, I was curious to try something more novelistic, from her pen. I’m also back in my thriller/horror bag and was delighted to find out Olga had written something in the genre. 

I was drawn to the murder and the astrology, and I received fulfilling helpings of both.

The story opens and the action immediately begins, which I loved. We are with Olga in the middle of her astrology studies, on a dark winter evening, when her neighbor, Oddball, informs her that their other neighbor, Bigfoot, is dead in his home.On the cold walk to Bigfoot’s home, we learn that our beloved Mrs. Duszejko communes with the forest in some inner spiritual way. She believes the animals and trees and hills are just as alive as any of us, and have their rights too. This is why she believes Bigfoot died choking on a deer bone; he transgressed some law of nature by killing and eating a fawn.  

As they take the time to dress Bigfoot and contort his twisted body into something less humiliating and dishonorable, a sort of religious awakening happens for Mrs. Duszejko. She believes the woodland creatures of the dark winter night are forming a pact with her, assigning her some duty to speak for them. So begins her petitions. She visits the local police station to inform them that the animals are exacting their ‘revenge’, and it was them who were responsible for the death of Bigfoot… as a result of him killing one of their own. 

Fast forward past her being laughed out of the police station and every other public office in town. Her letters, which public officials are required to respond to within 14 days, go without an answer. She tells her theory to anyone that will listen. Including her frequent visitor Dizzy, a friend, who works at the police station and passes along gossip, but translates old poetry, by Blake, with Mrs. Duszejko in his free time. They eat lots of soups. He tells her to keep her theories to herself. Her living neighbor, Oddball, doesn’t say much at all on his infrequent visits. 

In between these visits for tea, and Mrs. Duszejko’s campaigns at public offices and letters to public officials, the bodies are piling up. The police, and the public, are concocting a grand theory of mobsters and poachers and two-timing policemen. Mrs. Duszejko points to the abundance of animal evidence found at the scenes of the crimes, and also to the climate changing, and the imbalances of nature that could cause wildlife to change. Just as importantly, don’t forget the astrology! Not only do the individual birth charts of the victims show they are destined for death caused by an animal, but the current transits of the planets confirm animal madness as well!

As more men are found dead, her fervor grows. She not only theorizes that the animals are killing people, but that we must give them their rights in order for it to cease. She cites legal cases from hundreds of years ago where insects and animals were tried in courts of law. She proclaims we must stop polluting and disturbing the natural lands. We must stop overkilling, poaching, and shooting anything that moves. Because of her proximity to some of the victims, and her reputation, she is even arrested for a day, while her home is searched.

In public, she is getting into physical altercations with soldiers disturbing the forest, and cursing priests who preach about the glories and goodness of hunting. In private, at home, she is dreaming of the dead… people, family, animals, etc. She is a caretaker of empty houses, caretaker of forested lands, caretaker of animal graves and headstones. From the time the story has opened, until the close, Mrs. Duszejko has cried liters and liters of tears. She isn’t sure if it’s her astrology, her ailments, or her nature. (Maybe some of all, if everything is connected.) 

The end of the world comes after Mrs. Duszejko’s reputation as an eco-warrior is fully established. The police return to her during their investigation, this time with cause for arrest. Gossip gets to her first and she is able to hide herself away, down in the basement boiler room with the memories of her deceased mother and grandmother and animals. 

The story ends with Mrs. Duszejko safe from harm, making it past that treacherous Saturn transit. She is ailing, but alive, safe with her astrology, and confident in her knowledge that though she hurts, she is not dying anytime soon.

There’s something about her ecological spirit, her knowledge of the earth, and her use of astrology, that reminds me of Yente (The Goddess) from The Books of Jacob. Both are strange, aged, feminine figures who resist the solar masculine order and uphold the lunar and natural feminine realm. Yente resisting death and time and space. Mrs. Duszejko resisting man and his laws.

I fluctuate between a high 4 and a 5. There were parts that lingered just a beat longer than I’d liked. I would’ve loved just a bit more suspense, but that doesn’t really seem to be Olga’s style. Her writing (of the two books I’ve read so far) lends itself to the freedom of the details of moments in time. Large parts of this book felt like I was sitting with the nice old lady in the neighborhood, talking about nothing. Tea time.

I also feel like, in time, I will re-read this book and be delighted in the little breadcrumbs and apple cores left here and there, that eventually lead up to Mrs. Dusjeko’s grand reveal as a guardian goddess of the forest, divine and unreal, unseeable by most mortals, but known well by all the other blessed creatures. 

"I am not one to linger in the mirror—I am often disappointed in what I see in the glass...”

Tim McGregor, Eynhallow

can you tell that it’s spooky season reading list:

A FAMILY OF KILLERS by BRYCE MOORE SURVIVE THE NIGHT by RILEY SAGER EYNHALLOW by TIM McGREGOR (not pictured) THESE SILENT WOODS by KIMI CUNNINGHAM GRANT YOU LIKE IT DARKER by STEPHEN KING

PIRANESI by SUSANNA CLARKE (REVIEW)

quickly: a lonely but good-hearted soul discovers his only friend is not who he thought (marble walls and endless hallways / scientist magicians / kidnapping, lies, deceit / ancient forgotten wisdom / creative divinity / finding lost things / ornithomancy (divination by birds) / enemies kept close / reverence for the dead and their bones / the writing on the wall / the ocean and its tides / the wind and the clouds it carries / the forgotten sadness of the world).

A refreshing, delightful, and unique read that took me to a place far away from this world. This story is told through the journal entries of the beloved Piranesi, who spends his time fishing, collecting seaweed, and calculating the sea’s tides. You will come to know him for his effusive spiritual bond to the workings of the strange world he inhabits. He refers to himself as “the Beloved Child of the House”. In his 30’s, he has no wife, and knows of only one other person living in this world with him, who he refers to as “The Other”. There are thirteen more, deceased, but his kind offerings of food and conversation for them at their open-air resting places create life in their absence. He talks to the towering statues that line the walls of this World, and he talks to the birds who communicate things to him that he believes the House wants him to know. 

The writing is uncomplicated, well-paced, and well-structured. Combined with the story’s setting, a surreal earth-locked landscape, I found it to be a meditative and mysterious read. I kept thinking of the video game “Pandora’s Box (1999)”… a quietly unfolding puzzle of Hellenistic proportions. For a story that is so surreal and involves so many elements (fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and a teaspoon of crime), it was incredibly realistic and recognizable. Fantasy realism? This story has a mythic, fable-like quality that I can’t fully explain. It begins with a prophecy told to Piranesi by a flock of birds, and like any true prophecy, it immediately initiates changes in Piranesi’s world. Masterfully and subtly, there are contrasts between a real world full of sorrows and tragedies, and a quiet world where life’s forgotten ideas have become immortalized in statues… there’s the forgetting of oneself for another self as a consequence of being submersed in this ‘other’ world for too long… and also the processes of fate and prophecy playing out through hidden truths and sudden revelations from the subconscious. Like a forgotten fable, I hope to revisit this book sometime far in the future.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT by RILEY SAGER (REVIEW)

quickly: unresolved childhood grief leads to irrepressible ghosts in adulthood (grief and regret / friends and foes / backyard campouts / shaken suburbs / “don’t go chasin’ waterfalls…” / strangers in the woods / kisses kept secret / occult dinner parties / marriage and miscarriages / talking ghosts).

A quiet night in the summer heat turns into a lifelong nightmare for young Ethan Marsh. After his neighbor Billy disappears into thin air, the neighborhood is left traumatized, and Ethan is left wondering what he could’ve done differently for his weird, ghost-obsessed neighbor. Now 40 and moving back into the house where Billy disappeared, Ethan is starting to see things… shadows, messages, and warnings.

An enjoyable and easy read. Great for warm weather weekends. It was like Fear Street but for grown-ups… the highly emotional and angsty decisions of teenagers and adults, the blurred lines between the horrors of human nature and the supernatural, and the well-paced page-turning thrill of discovering what truth lies at the heart of the mystery. Looking forward to more Riley Sager.

★★★★

“Oh yes, suddenly I realized what a good thing death can be, how just and fair, like a disinfectant, or a vacuum cleaner.”

Olga Tokarczuk, DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD