A Day Late: Indy Bookstore Recommendations for Halloween

 

This post appeared on Literary Hub Monday, and it was so good that I had to share it. I don't remember reading any straight-up horror novels in the group, unless you count Oryx and Crake or The Handmaid's Tale. But we have read some spooky, ghosty stuff from time to time! These books would fit right in:

The Stars Did Wander Darkling is by Colin Meloy, who is also the lead singer and songwriter of The Decemberists. It's a kid's book, "set in a small town on the Oregon Coast with a mysterious history" Coastal Oregon? Hmm. It also made me think of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.

In The Fisherman, "two widowers try to pull themselves through grief by flyfishing in the Catskills. All the descriptions are achingly beautiful, and even the grittiest moments are tinged with beauty—until one catches something out of the corner of his eye...[Reviewer] Laird Barron...nailed it when he described the book as 'A River Runs Through It… straight to hell.' " Calling Janine...

This also appealed to me (for lots of reasons): Pallbearers Club has a "decades-spanning plot (involving) a toxic friendship, funerals, folklore, lots of punk rock references, and maaaaaaaybe psychic vampirism? Who’s to say? The story is told as a manuscript of a m̶e̶m̶o̶i̶r̶ novel written by one character (Art Barbara) and edited by another (Mercy), and this narrative device is REALLY COOL. These narrators are unreliable as hell, and to have the two of them competing for the truth is a real treat. What is fact? What is fiction? Can either of these weirdos be trusted?"

Have a wonderful day after Halloween!

~Carroll