You cannot convince me otherwise that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and novelist Cormac McCarthy are the same guy. I don’t care that McCarthy’s dead. He’s alive and well and canoodling with Communist China.
Cormac McCarthy
Author Jonathan Janz Defines Horror
Today’s a big day for Samhain Horror authors Hunter Shea and Jonathan Janz, whose respective books, Hell Hole and Castle of Sorrows, hit shelves both physical and digital. I’ll be posting something with Hunter in a few weeks regarding both Hell Hole and his recent Kensington release, The Montauk Monster, which is already on my Kindle just aching to be read. Both guys have been supportive of me in my schlep toward publication come November 4, and I can’t wait to meet both at a yet-to-be-determined horror convention down the road.
But today’s post involves Jonathan Janz, which isn’t his real name and I’m still not sure how to refer to him when I write to him. But that’s another story. Isn’t this a kick-ass cover? (Yes.)
Courtesy: Amazon (Lord of Everything)
Castle of Sorrows is the sequel to Jonathan’s 2012 release, The Sorrows, which I read, and which involves the thing you see perched in the window frame on the cover. That is not a nice thing. I know, how could a monster with hooves and ram horns be anything but a cuddly Care Bear with a heart on its fluffy belly.
Courtesy: Google (the Other Lord of Everything)
Put it this way, you don’t want to be beat up or have sex with that thing above (the ram-horned monster, not the Care Bear). I’m waiting for my Castle of Sorrows trade paperback to arrive, and I’m sure I’ll dig it, as I do pretty much anything Jonathan writes. What Jonathan’s going to write about here is how he defines horror. I find it to be a difficult-to-define genre. What say you, Jonathan?
“I see horror as a very broad definition that encompasses much more territory than most people would consider horror. For instance, in addition to stories and films that deal with the fear of physical mortality, I’d expand horror’s reach to narratives that deal with psychological, emotional, or even spiritual horror. Books like King’s ‘SALEM’S LOT, Peter Straub’s GHOST STORY, and Richard Matheson’s HELL HOUSE are almost universally considered horror novels. And I, of course, would agree with that label. However, I also view Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD, Harold Pinter’s THE HOMECOMING, and Arthur Koestler’s DARKNESS AT NOON as horror stories. These stories deal with the shadowy realms of the human mind and the base viciousness of human behavior. The horror I felt during THE HOMECOMING was more powerful than the horror I experience when reading most horror novels. In THE ROAD, McCarthy demonstrates just how terrible and wonderful human beings can be. In DARKNESS AT NOON, Koestler chronicles a slowly unfolding nightmare, and while the political backdrop and social commentary matter, I just see those as further examples of the great potential the genre possesses.
“I suppose this is why I want the genre to be more inclusive rather than exclusive. No, everything is not a horror novel, but horror is far more than a vampire or a mummy or a crazed backwoods cannibal.” ###
Agreed. It’s not about the monsters, as Stephen King once tweeted (I’m sure it was in response to my blog).
Good luck to Jonathan Janz with his latest release! And, Hunter? See you in a few!
Book Review of Dust Devils by Jonathan Janz
Courtesy: Samhain Publishing
Jonathan Janz has a way with words (sometimes requiring me to grab a dictionary), but that’s okay! His story, Dust Devils, set in New Mexico in the 1880s, chronicles the journey of Cody, a vengeful young man whose wife is slaughtered by a troupe of vampires masquerading as actors.
Thank God Janz subscribes to the notion that vampires are evil creatures that torment and murder without remorse. Teenage girls looking for forlorn, pasty-skinned vampires who’ve never had a pimple and who attend high school to blend in will find no sanctuary here.
It would be simplistic and a disservice to say Dust Devils, released earlier this year by Samhain Horror, is a tale of one man seeking revenge on those who wronged him. It’s a story that touches on the definition of masculinity in a harsh world (harsh to Cody even before the vampires entered his life). It’s also a love story between father and son, husband and wife. It’s a story about loss (be it a marriage or a loved one) and how best to cope with it. This makes Cody a man with feeling, a man who tries to fight back tears but can’t–and this separates him from cookie-cutter Western heroes whose only characteristic is ruggedness and who view women merely as subordinates. Janz does a fine job creating characters you root for (many times I found myself thinking, “How the hell is Cody going to get out of this mess this time?”). Janz also writes his vampires so you root against them. By and large they’re not tragic, fallen figures (although even here Janz may surprise you a teensy bit) and will kill just as soon as look at you.
Janz cites Cormac McCarthy as an influence, and I found myself thinking of “Blood Meridian” a time or two. I enjoyed Dust Devils infinitely more, primarily because I didn’t stumble upon any unwieldy McCarthy-like sentences like this:
“The riders spurred their horses to gallop toward a merciless sun that scorched the outlaws’ grimy skin but they paid it no mind as all but the frontriding Judge inhaled the dirt kicked rearward by the horse ahead and they were fine with it because none of the filibusterers had eaten anything to nourish their bellies other than gecko skewed from mouth to anus and spit-rotated until the flesh blistered and cracked but all the men had to admit inhaling hoof-flung dirt and confused insects paled in comparison to devouring gecko meat that tasted even better with a paprika mix that Toadvine somehow conjured and the Kid rejoiced eating as it reminded him of something the obese whore Wilma cooked up for him before they slaughtered the Comanches and scalped the heads of the dead and suffering living caring not for the pain inflicted valuing only the money they would be paid for their ungodly toil.”
But I digress. Dust Devils isn’t just for fans of the vampire or Western genres, it can be read and enjoyed by fans of literary fiction who don’t mind a splash (sometimes big ones) of blood here and there.