Horror Author
Aardvarks are cool
when swimming the Mississippi
while reciting Red, Red Rose
running from a Rose of Sharon
Rocket Rollerblades are cool
especially with a Mohawk
except on Wall Street
but Kait and John don’t care
Pencils can be vicious
when you live in Paris, Texas
fighting Paris Hilton
with a bag of marbles
screeching from the page
words hushing reality
After a brief hiatus, we are returning to discussing supernatural fiction. Tremblay’s novel “A Head Full of Ghosts” was not what I expected. It was much better than it first sounded. It’s a kind of story where the reader isn’t sure what’s real or not. It’s open for interpretation but that was Tremblay’s purpose for the story. There are a couple of references to “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. That story is also open to a lot of interpretation. The reader will have to decide what kind of story they’re reading, and they have to decide if they want to believe the narrator.
One of my favorite things about discussing stories is deciding on the validity of the narrator. Is the narrator lying? Are they projecting their own biases on the story? Are they telling their story or someone else’s? What gives them the authority to tell this story? Consider these questions after reading Tremblay’s novel. This is the only novel I’ve read by Tremblay so I can’t speak much on his style, but he makes everything feel rooted in the real world. Even the supernatural events have a way of being explained but the reader isn’t sure which parts of the story are truth and which are fiction. One of many reasons I enjoyed this book so much.
I recommend this book to everyone.
Spooky Spider Scale (How scary was the book?): 6 spiders 🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️
Overall rating: 4 stars ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
When the lockdown and quarantine first started in the United States in March 2020, I had so much free time that I wandered parts of Tucson to take photos. I cannot remember if this was on the University of Arizona campus or if it was just south of campus. I took many photos walking to campus and then many more while I was on campus. The palm trees in Tucson all blend together after a while. Though they weren’t anywhere near each other on the ground, from my perspective looking up, all these trees looked like a group of friends meeting for lunch. They didn’t get the memo about social distancing. This was one of many gorgeous days we had during lockdown.
James Pack 