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THERE, THERE by Tommy Orange

July 3, 2022 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

As I get older and probably more jaded, I often find myself drawn to general fiction that shows a different cultural perspective, enjoying the learning and stimulation of a different way of seeing the world. This led me to Tommy Orange’s terrific debut THERE, THERE, which I found a beautiful piece of fiction about the urban Native-American experience.

The novel is a bestseller and won all sorts of awards, but I put all that aside in my expectations and started with page one. Pretty soon, I couldn’t put it down. In THERE, THERE, Orange produces a history, point of view, and slice of life for twelve Native-Americans living in Oakland and all headed to the same pow wow ceremony, all connected in some way whether they realize it or not.

The language is powerful and puts you right in the brain of each character, while providing perspectives that place you directly in the Native-American experience. That’s pretty much the good part of my review, but it’s everything. You enjoy, you learn, you empathize, you root for, you understand someone previously alien to you. That’s great fiction. Thematically, for me, there is a strong tone of reclaiming spirit but screwing it up along the way because of problems far bigger than individuals, a theme that’s universal.

On the downside for some readers, there are a lot of characters, not only the twelve principals but their own networks, so you might find yourself skipping back to Orange’s dramatis personnae at the beginning of the book to keep track. While each character brings something new to the mix, the overall tone is fairly monotone across them all with a simmering despair, a feeling like no matter what you do, you can’t win, no matter what you achieve, something big was already taken from you that you’ll never get back. A hunger for something that can’t be satisfied.

Another downside for some readers is this is, well, a work of literary fiction. The story is far more about who these people are, where they came from, what they want to be, and where they’re going far more than this or that happens. You either appreciate the form of you don’t. Honestly, there are many times I don’t, but I found the characters and author compelling enough to love it.

The story all comes to a head at the Big Oakland Pow Wow, and while it ties the characters together, there isn’t much of a denouement where they learn or change, which would be my own personal singular criticism. It left me feeling satisfied with the journey but also a little wanting at the destination, though maybe that was the point.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story and look forward to more from Orange.

Filed Under: Books, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, The Blog

THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK Available for $2.99!

June 15, 2022 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

The Kindle edition of my cult horror novel THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK is being promoted by Hachette and Amazon with a Kindle Monthly Deal. Until June 30, you can pick up the novel for just $2.99.

They escaped the cult, but are they free?

David Young, Deacon Price, and Beth Harris live with a dark secret. They grew up in an isolated religious community in the shadow of the mountain Red Peak, and they are among the few who survived its horrific last days.

Years later, the trauma of what they experienced never feels far behind. When a fellow survivor commits suicide, they reunite to confront their past and share their memories of that final night.

But discovering the terrifying truth might put them on a path back to Red Peak, and escaping a second time may be impossible…

Click here to get it now.

Filed Under: Apocalyptic, APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, Books, CRAIG'S WORK, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, The Blog, The Children of Red Peak

LIKE RUM-DRUNK ANGELS by Tyler Enfield

June 7, 2022 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

In Tyler Enfield’s LIKE RUM-DRUNK ANGELS, a boy goes on a journey across the Old West to seek his fortune and win the girl of his dreams. Guided by his heart and the utter confidence it gives him, he becomes an outlaw, possibly guided by an ancient spirit that will give him what he desires but only if he truly grows up and earns it. I really enjoyed this book, it was quite an experience.

I used to be a very eclectic reader, though I leaned on offbeat sci-fi as a preference. When my writing career started to take off, though, something weird happened, which is I found myself constantly reading books in the same genre as I was writing in. Back when I was writing zombie books, for example, I read one zombie book after another, and when I switched to writing WW2 and horror–you can guess what happened then. Reading in the stable, so to speak, kept me in the mood, and I found it useful to see how other authors handled topics I was tackling both for inspiration and to ensure I was carving my own path through similar ground. Very useful, for sure, though also a bit of a curse, as I missed reading whatever I wanted.

Then recently, I was between writing books, and the curse lifted, at least for a time. I started to grab books off the shelf for the sole fact they looked interesting. Ending up in the Western section (the horror shelves at my local big box have shrunk so much it’s easy to move right past it and find myself facing Westerns), I figured I’d give one a read, as I’d read Westerns in the past and benefited from the experience. One book leaped out at me for its jaunty cover and title: LIKE RUM-DRUNK ANGELS.

Written by Tyler Enfield, who turns out is a neighbor of mine, living in a city in the same province a few hours north of me, it proved a quirky, fast moving, charming, and overall good fun read. The plot is a basic hero’s quest with allusions to ALADDIN, set in the West with its familiar tropes but with a few magical elements thrown in, adding a touch of fantasy to it. The voice is poetic but quick, with short chapters. The characters are all likeable, especially our protagonist Francis, who is brash and charming. The overall tone is offbeat, drawing comparisons to the Coen Brothers and Thomas Berger’s LITTLE BIG MAN. While a strength for me, this latter aspect of the book might turn off some readers looking for a traditional Western, as this ain’t 100% that.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with this one and recommend it for readers looking for something different, a Western with a likeable protagonist, an overall quirky tone, and a tale that feels traditional and modern, hinting throughout at far bigger themes.

Filed Under: Books, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, The Blog

EPISODE THIRTEEN Now Available for Pre-Order!

June 3, 2022 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

I’m excited to announce today that EPISODE THIRTEEN, my ghost novel coming out from Hachette’s Redhook imprint on January 24, 2023, is now available for pre-order at Barnes and Noble, your local bookstore, and online retailers like Amazon.com.

Fade to Black: Led by husband and wife team Matt and Claire Kirklin, it’s the new hit ghost-hunting reality TV show.

Episode 13 will take their investigative team to the former site of the Paranormal Research Foundation in Virginia. In this brooding, derelict mansion, they hope to use their scientific methods and high-tech gear to crack an infamous haunting while uncovering clues about the bizarre experiments that went on there in the 1970s.

But as Foundation House begins to unravel its mysteries, Matt and Claire discover it wants something in return…

Revealed in broken pieces, in tapes, journals, and correspondence, this is the story of Episode 13—and how an entertaining show about hunting ghosts became a documentary of obsession, madness, and human terror.

I hope you’ll check this one out! It was serious dark fun to write and, I think, it will be a blast for you to experience.

“A beautiful Russian doll of a story… EPISODE THIRTEEN hooks you, creeps you out, and then it overwhelms you. It’s HOUSE OF LEAVES meets HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, in all the best possible ways.” – Peter Clines, NYT Bestselling Author of THE BROKEN ROOM

Filed Under: APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, Books, CRAIG'S WORK, Episode Thirteen, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, The Blog

THE RETREAT #6: FORLORN HOPE Available!

May 20, 2022 by Craig DiLouie 2 Comments

Written by my writing partner Stephen Knight, THE RETREAT: FORLORN HOPE, the last episode of our brutal “zombie” series, is at long last available for Kindle at Amazon. I’ve received a lot of letters asking when it would be coming out–thank you for your patience! The book is out, it ends the series with a hell of a bang, and you’re going to love it.

Based on the classic Greek story THE ANABASIS, THE RETREAT is about a battalion of light infantry that evacuates Boston during a horrific pandemic that compels its victims to seek out inflicting or receiving pain, which delivers excruciating pleasure–and makes them laugh and laugh. As America collapses around them, the lost battalion travels south toward Florida, where the last bastion of the government is holding out. If you read them in order, they were #1 (I wrote), #2 (Stephen Knight), #3 (Joe McKinney), #4 (me), and #5 and #6 (Stephen Knight). In this last episode, we find out if they make it, and what it means for humanity.

Stephen is an ace at the military procedural, and the result in an episode packed with non-stop gritty, violent, authentic action that is not for the squeamish. Here’s the Amazon description:

The road has been punishing.

Traveling from Boston to ill-fated Fort Drum, then on to Philadelphia, and again to Mount Weather and Fort Stewart, the First Battalion, 55th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division (Light) is run out, blown out, and virtually waiting for death’s embrace. Now at the border of Georgia and Florida, the battalion receives new orders:

Encamp at Moody Air Force Base…

…and call in the Klowns.

Lieutenant Colonel Harry Lee knows this will spell the end of the battalion. But executing the mission could mean the the difference between life and death…not for the 1/55th, but for what remains of the United States of America.

Lee took an oath when he enlisted with the US Army. But he hadn’t thought it was a suicide contract…

Check it out here.

Filed Under: Apocalyptic, Books, The Blog, The Retreat Series, Zombies

ICEFIELDS by Thomas Wharton

May 14, 2022 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

Thomas Wharton’s CanLit classic ICEFIELDS recently came back to print with a new edition, leading to me discovering it for the first time. It’s quite beautiful, though more a story of a glacier located in Alberta and the park that forms around it than the thin, unrealized plot it presents. Overall, I enjoyed it, but this book is not for everyone.

In the story, the year is 1898, and Dr. Byrne is on an expedition on the Arcturus Glacier in the Canadian Rockies when he slips and falls into a crevasse. Hanging upside down, slowly freezing to death, a stray shaft of sunlight reveals a vision of horrible beauty suspended in the ice. After his rescue, he bounces back and forth between the site and England, spending more and more time alone on the ice, which he studies to determine at what year the thing in the ice will finally be exposed by its primordial flow. Whether it was real or an illusion becomes a lifelong quest and a relationship between a man and an icefield that trumps everything else.

Along the way, we are introduced to other people who live near the glacier: Trask, who after Jasper Park is formed builds a chalet there; Elspeth, who manages the chalet for him; Hal, a shy poet who works as a guide; Sara, a storyteller who nurses Byrne back to health after his fall; and Freya, a free-spirited travel writer and adventuress.

Writing style is always a matter of taste. For me, Wharton’s spare but powerful prose–with its short fragments and jumps in time–worked for me. I quite liked it. Having lived near the Rockies for nearly 20 years, I can’t put my finger on why exactly, but the CanLit style of authors like Wharton and Fred Stenson really taps into the feeling the vastness and wildness of this country can produce. The characters are all compelling and interesting, and I felt invested in Byrne’s exploration of the glacier and his lifelong quest to solve a personal mystery.

Otherwise, there isn’t much a plot, so to enjoy the read, you have to love the people and the fragmentary glimpses into their lives that follow the history of the province of Alberta from the turn of the century past the Great War, with the sprawling glacier brooding through it all. There’s a story about a British explorer told early on that seemingly promises a clue to Byrne about what he saw, but it fizzles out. Similarly, the central conflict and story kind of fizzle out as well with similar disappointment. Which is too bad, because it really could have paid off. Instead, it left me feeling somewhat dissatisfied and a little frustrated.

Overall, though, I enjoyed ICEFIELDS and recommend it for its interesting scenery, characters, writing, and love of nature, for those readers interested in something literary that’s enjoyable in the moment but doesn’t necessarily go anywhere.

Filed Under: Books, The Blog

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