A ghoulish gem for those continuing—or new to—this series.
In this horror sequel, a Vermont town prepares to host a Goth festival and hopefully maintain a centuries-old secret.
It’s 1987, and 19-year-old Chris Chandler has been released from the South Portland Juvenile Detention Center in Maine. After the gruesome events in Bemishstock, ending with the death of Mallory Dahlman and others, he’s continuing as a Mortsafeman—one who defends “the departed.” A man named Bernard Monsegur has asked him to house-sit his Marymount estate in Lewis, Vermont. Chris does so readily, because the vicious ghost of Mallory has taken revenge on a fresh victim in Bemishstock and he’d like to avoid the questions of journalist Jackie Cormier. Though Lewis is a dying town, Mayor Gerald Paget sees it as a potential tourist destination that utilizes, among other attractions, the Monsegur family cemetery. Wealthy librarian Rose DuCalice, Bernard's sister, finds the enterprise grotesque and hopes to stop it. On the mayor’s side is Gilbert Burgoyne, who’s inherited the decrepit Bijou Burgoyne theater from his father and is planning to transform it into a playhouse featuring violent “Grand Guignol” performances. Gilbert also happens to finance his art by stealing and selling skeletons. When Chris gets caught among these powerful factions in Lewis, he’ll do anything to soothe Mallory’s ghost and reunite with the enchanting Gillian Willard. This second installment of Blake’s (Dead Scared, 2017) series is quite the gift, complete with a black bow, to horror fans. He juggles the Gothic New England ambiance, the parade of sleazy characters, and the occasional supernatural mauling with panache. Gilbert is misogyny incarnate, calling his girlfriend, Doloroso Morgana, Dolli, “the best sex doll in the world,” while Paget treats his daughter, Geraldine, like a nonentity. Mallory’s manifestations are uniquely chilling, as her “blue glow” becomes a “crackling and fizzing,” akin to a blown fuse. The author will also charm those who love well-researched history, working into the bedrock of his plot the Gnostic sect of European Cathars from the Middle Ages. In addition, strutting, memorable characters make this chiller unmissable.
A ghoulish gem for those continuing—or new to—this series.Pub Date: June 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77392-009-2
Page Count: 290
Publisher: MuseItUp Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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