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Book Review: The Fisherman by John Langan

The Fisherman by John Langan

Word Horde Books, 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1939905215

Availability: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Imagine, if you will, a dark tale co-written by Peter Straub and Thomas Ligotti, filtered through the whimsical sensibilities of Neil Gaiman, and spoken to a friend over beers at a campfire. If that description conjures up something tantalizing to you, John Langan’s The Fisherman might just be what you’re looking for this year. Intriguing and unique, it almost begs to be read on the porch, with feet up and a drink in hand..

 

The Fisherman is a novel about a pair of widowers attempting to find purpose in their lives. Both suffer from guilt and damaged psyches after the deaths of their wives, and each seeks a way to get back on track.

 

The pair begin fishing, a peaceful, solitary sport that allows plenty of time for introspection and bonding between them. One suggests an ideal spot– Dutchman’s Creek– a place not found on any map, and rife with local legend.  The men discover the complex story through the owner of a diner.

 

At the creek, they discover Der Fisher, also known as The Fisherman. He offers redemption to both men, but at a price. What ensues is a conflict between wits, souls, and cosmic forces, that will shake the reader free of any preconceived notion of what to expect.

 

The Fisherman is meant to be experienced as a journey, like a raft ride down a mysterious river. The story is deeply layered, and Langan keeps readers engaged while skillfully leading them through labyrinthine passages. Langan’s smart, smooth tale-spinning succeeds on all levels, and will likely find audiences in places reaching far beyond the horror crowd. Highly recommended

 

Reviewed by David Simms

 


Posted on September 13, 2016 by , Reply

Book Review: The Snake and the Ghost by Tim Jackson

The Snake and the Ghost by Tim Jackson

HaggusArts Publications, 2016

ISBN-13: 978-0-9968544-0-5

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

 

The Snake and the Ghost is a self-published picture book about Haggus, a snake who takes a bully’s dare to visit a “haunted” house. The reality is that the “ghosts” are the human residents of the house, who scream and swat at him with a broom. Looking in a mirror, he is terrified by his own reflection, realizes that the “ghosts” must be afraid of him, and decides to try talking to them. He then encounters an actual ghost– the grandmother of the little boy who lives in the house– and she can understand him, and confides in him. Haggus then slips away and paints a picture of the grandmother and the little boy, using his tail. Then he is engulfed in darkness and disappears, as the boy’s father scoops him into a sack. The author ends by reassuring the reader that Haggus does eventually return to his family.

Jackson wrote with the intent of creating a spooky tale of a snake wanting an adventure, and the atmospheric, black and white illustrations, done in charcoal, evoke the immediate reaction from the reader that this is going to be creepy (some of these unfortunately lost some of their impact for me, as Haggus is cartoonishly depicted in comparison to the otherwise muted images). However, the central and most essential part of the story is the conversation between the ghost and the snake. Despite my own quibble with the ability of a snake and a ghost to communicate with each other in spoken English, this is the most genuine and heartfelt part of the book, with the grandmother explaining the humans’ fear of both snakes and ghosts, and sharing her grief with Haggus in a way that makes him look past his own wants to help her reconnect with her grandson. While Jackson may have been aiming for a dark and spooky  adventure story, the way he portrays grief and love in this part of the story is what really touches the reader, and the darkness and shading of the images really bring that out. The adventure is incidental.

While the book has a professional look and terrific illustrations, the author really needed a copy editor. The biggest issue is that there are awkward changes in verb tense, and there are also occasional errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. While most of these won’t impair understanding for the reader, they bothered me, and the lack of copy editing in a book that otherwise was clearly designed with care is really surprising.

Jackson strikes me as an author with potential, who needs the help of an editor to tighten and present his story. If he puts as much effort into his writing as he does into design and illustration, he’ll do great things. In the meantime, The Snake and the Ghost , with its focus on grief and love, has an immediate use as bibliotherapy for older children and adults dealing with grief, particularly over the death of a family member. It very much reached my own daughter, and I highly recommend it for this purpose. Beyond this audience, at its existing price point as a hardcover (and the Kindle edition can’t possibly reproduce the illustrations with the same impact), this book will mainly have appeal to individuals and libraries in his area, as part of a collection of local authors. With Halloween approaching, local libraries in the Louisville area may want to track down the author for a reading. Appropriate for ages 9 and up.

Highly recommended for bibliotherapy collections on grief.

 

 


Posted on August 25, 2016 by , Reply

Book Review: The Outliers by Kimberly McCreight

The Outliers by Kimberly McCreight
HarperCollins, May 2016
ISBN-13: 978-0062359094
Available for pre-order: Hardcover, Audible, Audio CD, Kindle edition

 

High school junior Wylie has always had anxiety issues, but since her mother’s death four months earlier she is unable to even leave the house. Her father, a researcher in emotional intelligence, unsure of how to handle her problems, buries himself even further in his work. Cassie, her best friend for six years, has exhibited increasingly destructive behaviors, and due to an argument the previous month, they are no longer speaking to each other. Wylie is sinking further and further into isolation.

When Cassie goes missing, she breaks that isolation by texting Wylie with cryptic directions and demanding that Wylie team up with Cassie’s boyfriend, Jasper. Although Wylie dislikes and distrusts Jasper, and her friendship with Cassie has been seriously damaged,  Wylie overcomes her anxiety, agoraphobia, and suspicion of Jasper in order to track Cassie down. From then on, their journey only gets stranger and stranger; over and over, it turns out that things are not exactly what they seem. The story races along so fast, and with so many twists, that readers will find it hard to keep up, and impossible to put down. In many ways, I was reminded of Gone Girl, although the context and storyline are very different.

I found the major characters to be implausible, however. Wylie is the first person narrator, and she describes herself  believably as having an anxiety disorder and agoraphobia. Her attempts to cope with the combination of grief, anxiety, agoraphobia, and anger are the most solid, realistic, and overwhelming parts of the book. Her portrait is so well drawn that I couldn’t buy her ability to break through her anxiety and agoraphobia and put herself in an uncertain situation with an unfamiliar person she doesn’t know or trust in a short time. Central to the author’s concept for the book is that anxiety and emotional intelligence are closely tied together, but research on the topic shows that the exact opposite is true, and the actual story doesn’t really bear that out. While there are times when Wylie successfully reads someone’s emotions, there are many times when she doesn’t (in fact, many of the plot points depend on her misinterpretations). Jasper is practically a stereotype, he’s so predictable and two-dimensional. From the very beginning, Cassie does not seem like much of a friend– she’s an admitted liar, manipulative, and frequently expects Wylie to step in and “save ” her in difficult situations– and in this case, she also puts the two people who care most about her, Jasper and Wylie, in considerable danger. Wylie is not exactly a reliable narrator, and the events are so unlikely that I almost wonder if all of this is in her head.

Despite the implausibility of the characters and their motivations, and the questionable premise that anxiety is a result of emotional intelligence, if you decide to suspend your disbelief, you are in for a wild ride, and, given the adrenaline-inducing ending, should get prepared for another one.

Highly recommended for ages 10 and up.

Contains: suicide

 

 

 

Posted on April 23, 2016 by , Reply
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