Suzette Mayr 's masterful The Sleeping Car Porter

More Covid-recovery reading. Finally got to Suzette Mayr 's masterful The Sleeping Car Porter. It is about a queer black porter, Baxter, who aspires to be a dentist, working on a train cross-crossing Canada in 1929. 

This thing has so much going for it. There is her characterization reminiscent of Michael V. Smith 's closeted protagonist Earnest in the startling novel Cumberland; social commentary about racism and classism; allusions to exacting customer service; details about a ridiculous working climate; hallucinatory sleep deprivation description and concise landscape description. 

Aspiring writers take note-there"s much to learn, here. Mayr's descriptions of an ensemble cast would, in a less mature writer's hands, descend into caricature or pigeon-holing instead of layered complexity. 

All this, steeped in an increasingly powerful magical realism. Please note, Elliott Dunstan, if you read this. 

And my appreciation for this hypnotic and beguiling novel has no connection whatsoever to the fact I wrote Town & Train, a small-town Canadiana horror novel about ... a phantom steam engine. 

All aboard!

My Best Friend's Exorcism: Review notes from a recent case of Covid

Blogging from notes scribbled during our latest bout with Covid, acquired on a return trip with a two-hour delay at our layover at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. First up-my (non-spoilery) thoughts on Grady Hendrix's novel My Best Friend's Exorcism, both the novel and the film adaptation.

In my house, two weeks back, we were sick as dogs. with headcold symptoms (headache, fever at times, sinus infections, aching joints, exhaustion, hot and cold flashes and loss of focus at times).  

During my non-sleeping, bed-bound and deck moments, just to soak up Vitamim D and get some fresh air and space in self-isolation, I finished Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism. It's nostalgia-drenched (set in 1988), but pleasantly so. Grady's book has great summer horror-flick feel to it, with tons of heart, not to mention that the novel is plain fun.

Thank you kindly, Cole Lavergne, for recommending this yarn a ways back.

I feel an affinity for Hendrix's blend of horror, pithiness, humor and literary sensibilities. In my first novel Town & Train and my new short-story collection Fear Itself, there are often equal amounts humanity, horror ... and humor.

My Best Friend's Exorcism was also charming, as well as amusing. But I was so charmed that I almost didn't notice that Hendrix never explained the how? of the possession. Hendrix found a superb eerie setting in the blockhouse where Abby wanders, looking for Gretchen during an excellent failed-LSD-trip scene. But how the demon possessed Gretchen is never quite explained, nor where. I re-read sections, seeking answers to the where and how queries. Gretchen does explain that a man was waiting for her in the woods, "bigger than a person should be." And there  is a sort of sentient darkness in the blockhouse that Hendrix does not elaborate further on. I think that Hendrix missed an opportunity in exploring the history/mystery of the blockhouse, beyond allusions that dark rituals occurred there.

But other than that-what a superb novel. I was about the protagonists' ages in '88. There's a reason my Train book occurs in '90 (when I was seventeen).

Have you seen the film of MBFE? Ironically, in the adaptation on Prime, they expand on the blockhouse mythos, arguably improving this element of the novel, making it a derelict old house with a history.

 

Unfortunately for us readers, the screenplay stripmines much of the charm, tension, as well as set-up/build-up/payoff of the novel that Hendrix gleefully excels at, replacing this instead with a plot-by-numbers script that stumbles along with the bluntness of a two-by-four. 

Gone is Abby's Mickey Mouse ringtone, for example, or her tough-as-nails-shift-working mom or her down-on-his-luck dad, and all the great class warfare commentary about Abby's working-class family and the wealthy families of friend Margaret and, of course, Gretchen, whose parents admit they hoped the girls' friendship would raise Abby up. The luxurious homes remain set pieces only. There's some fine casting in the roles of Abby and Gretchen, but, alas, I still find myself unable to finish the flick in one sitting.

Smash-hit Fear Itself collection book launch

Had a smash-hit launch on June 28 for my Lethe Press short-story collection Fear Itself at Perfect Books in Ottawa.

Professor Sean Moreland was, as usual, a gracious, thoughtful host who asked incisive questions in the Q&A. My pal Sean McKibbon did a stellar job as Carl in our reading of "Carl and Monty's Prairie Wager". Thank you, Perfect Books manager Michael and other staff for making it all happen. 

Turnout was phenomenal, including, astonishingly, the original members of my Little Workshop of Horrors writers' group and many friends I hadn't seen in a dog's age and even work colleagues. I was often moved very close to tears at seeing everyone. I also got to answer a question about my sister Kim Moran MacIntosh, whom we lost November 17, 2021 and to whom Fear Itself is dedicated.

I discussed grief, loss and ghosts in my work; my mentor and friend Hugh DeCourcy; my influences of Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, and Clive Barker; notable queer spec-fic writers (Amber Dawn's Sodom Road Exit got a shout-out); the crucial role of queer protagonists baked into my work; the prevalence of Canadian wilderness in my work (the subconscious is the darndest thing ....); the impact of Peter Atkins and Glen Hirshberg on my vocation.

Been a long, hard road to get the book out, and way too much loss, so I am feeling very grateful for the support from everyone. Thank you so, so much.

Fear Itself Ottawa Launch June 28

I’m very excited to launch my Lethe Press collection Fear Itself at Ottawa’s Perfect Books on Wed., June 28.

Doors open, 6:00 p.m. 
Reading and Q&A, 6:30-8:00 p.m. 
Host: Dr. Sean Moreland.

Special guest: Sean McKibbon

Perfect Books. 258A Elgin St.
More accessibility via walkway from Somerset St.
Free.

Delighted to announce my host for the launch is none other than Dr. Moreland, aka Sean Moreland, my fellow co-founder of the Little Workshop of Horrors writers’ group, which we began back in fall 2012. In fact, most of the stories in Fear Itself Mr. Moreland saw in their nascent (or “drafty”, as we called them) form. I’m thrilled to reconnect with them after such a long absence of not connecting face-to-face. How I’ve missed them, and their perspectives. 

Fear Itself is a special blend of mainly horror, with a soupçon of fantasy and sci-fi with ten stories in all, which Publishers Weekly calls “unsettling”. But find out for yourself, fair reader.

Here’s Dr. Moreland’s bio.

Sean Moreland teaches at the University of Ottawa. Their essays, primarily focused on Gothic, horror and weird fiction in its literary, cinematic, and sequential art guises, have most recently appeared in Horror Literature Through History and The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe. They recently edited The Lovecraftian Poe: Essays on Influence, Reception, Interpretation and Transformation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017) and New Directions in Supernatural Horror: The Critical Legacy of H.P. Lovecraft (Palgrave, 2018). They are working on a monograph tentatively titled Repulsive Influences: 350 Years of Cosmic Horror and occasionally blog about weirdness at Postscripts to Darkness.

My Fear Itself collection on Audible

I

Thrilled to say Fear Itself, my debut collection from Lethe Press, is now available on Audible! Another first for me, as mentioned at Saints & Sinners LGBTQ Literary Festival.

Fear Itself is a special blend of mainly horror, with a soupçon of fantasy and sci-fi with ten stories in all, which Publishers Weekly calls "unsettling".

Many thanks to publisher Steve Berman for making it happen. 

Please check it out if LGBTQIA+, character-driven spec-fic with a literary bent is your thing. 

Working with narrator, industrious voice actor Gavin J. Annette was a blast. Message him on Insta and Facebook for promo codes.

"The 10 unsettling tales of Moran’s debut collection ably live up to the title ... Incorporating cosmic horror, Indigenous legend, and B-movie monsters, there’s something here to please any horror fan."

-Publishers Weekly

Quick Film review of Violent Night

Viddied the at-best questionable Christmas flick, Violent Night. 

Watching it, I was  thinking a) it's been a while since I've seen a slasher Santa flick (somehow, it7 remains a hard subgenre to succeed in) and b) dang! This movie is far more freaking fun than it  deserves to (or should) be, subverting Christmas staples and X-Mas film tropes, not to mention action-movie cliches. For good messure, it also maligns the very malignable (Editor's note: Is that even a word?) Hallmark X-Mas flicks. 

Spoiler: David Harbour's Santa Claus. John Leguizamo's the principle antagonist, looking older (Ed. note: Aren't we all?), but delivering beautifully

Utterly a pleasure, sans guilt.

Trigger warnings
The violence has violent tendencies, reaching splatter/slasher levels, although somewhat cartoony and it is played for laughs (i.e. The Evil Dead, I'm lookingatchoo) and accompanied by a rousing holiday soundtrack.
Nothing about the holiday is sacred in this flick. Every toy included in the movie either breaks, twists or subverts.
Bryan Adams' "Christmas Time" features in a scene that epitomizes, if not the spirit of Christmas, then the spirit of Violent Night.

Would watch again. But nobody's perfect.

Chaudiere Books Interviews Yours Truly

So if you are curious about how I got into writing (an early affliction) and influences and my ties to Ottawa’s CanLit and reading-series community, my pal poet/publisher/editor/writer/event organizer rob mclennan posted a Six Questions Interview: Chaudiere Books with me.

It was a long time coming. Early on in the pandemic, I wasn’t in the right headspace to do the interview, plagued by lack of focus and self-doubt and capricious mood shifts. But things shifted. I moved through many troubled times, including loss. These past three years, I moved from federal-government contract work to editing for Steve Berman of Lethe Press and, eventually, landed a day job I love involving books. I continually revised my second horror novel. Spurred on by interest from Steve, ultimately, I revised my spec-fic short-story collection, Fear Itself, now out from Lethe.

It’s been a long road, but I kept going. I was ready for the interview. I owe a thanks to rob for this piece.

And, I am grateful to Steve, hailing from the thriving metropolis of Greenfield, Massachusetts, for his interest.

Six Questions Interview: Chaudiere Books