September 2009 — Dead Teenagers at Make-out Point

Archive for the ‘Book Reviews’ Category

Reviewed by Jonathan Parrish

Pigshit.

A recurring theme, hammered into your head. You wallow in it, you might say.

I couldn’t be happier. Possibly as happy as a porcine in feces. Possibly my own.

D. Harlan Wilson’s Pekinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance is not a happy read; so (to paraphrase Gary Larson) if your fridge is covered in Family Circus cartoons, you will not like it. If, on the other hand, you thought Naked Lunch was one of the best reads you’ve had, then this book has a lot of potential for you.

The book is an homage to director Sam Pekinpah, the master of slow-motion ultraviolence — a director whose imagery persists in your memory. Single scenes stake claims in parts of your mind even when the movies as a whole fade (while Convoy has not remained intact in my memory, the cafe fight scene has).

Appropriately then, Wilson weaves words into a brutal tapestry, creating a presence that will remain with you long after you stop reading. Pekinpah is confrontational and crude, with clipped sentences and stark images. The images are gritty and the progression is erratic, a series of prose paintings.

Sky the color of uncooked fowl. Dead signage with no titles. Abandoned. Expansive gravel pit. Tread marks from pickup trucks. Tumbleweed. Skeletal trees, skeletal bushes. Telephone poles. Dead smokestacks on the outskirts. Cinderblock outhouse and concession stand in the middle of the pit, haunted by the ghosts of hotdogs, caramel corn, candy bars, Slurpees, eight lb. bowel movements… The movie screen looms over the pit. A dispossessed employee.

The chapters describe what could be perceived as a series of scenes from a hypothetical movie. As Sam Pekinpah is no longer with us, the movie would, if it was ever made, need to be directed by David Lynch and it would be more disjointed than Eraserhead. John Woo, despite taking the mantle of slow-motion ultraviolence, would make the movie too pretty.

Last line of the chapter—a quotation—a string of dialogue—a dark, gravely voice-over with a faint air of empathy and caring:… “We must first understand violence before we can control it.”

As disjointed as the individual pieces are, the chapters in Wilson’s book all come together into a melange, an existential love-letter to Sam Pekinpah. A more than fitting tribute. Strange. Erratic. Captivating.

The Demon Redcoat is the final book in C.C. Finlay’s Traitor to the Crown trilogy.  In the series Finlay addresses the scenario of what may have happened if both sides of the American Revolution used witches in the war.  Finlay stays true to the actual timeline of events without moving them around to suit his purposes and a few famous figures make appearances as the main character, Proctor Brown, works to secure America’s freedom from the British.

Proctor is a former minuteman whose life has taken unexpected turns because of the war.  Though his life hasn’t gone exactly as he imagined it would, Proctor has the two things he wanted the most — a wife and land.  Through a series of events in the first book, Proctor was sent to The Farm where he met Deborah and fell in love with her.  Deborah’s parents were part of an underground railroad for witches and owned The Farm.

At The Farm, witches practice their magic and learn how to control it.  It’s also a safe haven for witches.  Proctor’s magic originally manifested in the ability to see the future but through practice and trials experienced in the previous books, he has grown more powerful than he ever imagined.

The British have a secret society of European witches known as the Covenant helping their cause.  England recognizes the rights of blacks as free people but ironically continue to kill witches for practicing their magic.  The Covenant has inserted itself into positions of power in Europe and some of its members have lived for hundreds of years.  They would like to defeat the American rebels in order to maintain their current power.  Throughout the trilogy The Farm has received quite a bit of attention from the Covenant.  Deborah and Proctor decide the only way to save them and their loved ones is to take the fight to the Covenant.

Proctor represents the everyman and the action always focuses on him.  Once he is on his way to Europe, Finlay is able to keep the reader informed of what is happening in America without breaking in with a narrator.  These glimpses of events without full knowledge of the circumstances give the reader the same sense of confusion and dismay experienced by Proctor.  This serves the story well.

The topic of slavery comes to the forefront in both subtle and obvious ways.  Accompanying Proctor to Europe is a former slave, Lydia, who pretends he is her master.  Lydia finds her role a difficult one to return to, just as the rebels found it increasingly difficult to go along with the demands of the British.

This is a good book to turn to for some cerebral fun with some action thrown into the mix.  No zombies or animated scarecrows arrive for the action as in previous books.  As the title suggests there are plenty of demons.  One scene with King George would be laugh out loud funny if it were not for the seriousness of the situation.  Overall it’s a satisfying ending to the series and even leaves an opening for a series set during the Civil War.

Reviewed by Kari Wolfe

Andy has no idea what has just happened.  He’s in his parents’ kitchen, melted ice cream all over the floor, and his parents’ chopped up bodies in the freezer with no memory of how they got there. Oh, and did I neglect to tell you that Andy is a zombie?

In S. G. Browne’s tongue-in-cheek dark comedy, Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament, zombies are a natural phenomenon. Some come back from the dead; others don’t (such as Andy’s wife who was in the auto accident that killed them both). Zombies are treated like third-class citizens and must abide by the Ten Commandments. No, not those Ten Commandments, but the Undead Commandments:

1. You will not disturb the living.

2. You will not stay out after curfew.

3. You will not commit necrophilia.

4. You will not covet your neighbor’s flesh.

5. You will not dishonor your host guardians.

6. You will not commit acts of civil disobedience.

7. You will not develop online personalities.

8. You will not visit cemeteries during the day.

9. You will not take public transportation.

10. You will not decompose on government property.

(Commandments from the Undead Anonymous website )

As you can see, there’s not much left for a zombie to do.

Andy is relegated to his parents’ wine cellar, stuck watching bad television shows. Once a week, he goes to Undead Anonymous to learn to cope with the realities of being undead as well as to socialize with others in the same condition. But Andy is tired. Tired of watching the same ol’ T.V. night after night, tired of drinking his father’s expensive wines, tired of having to be in by curfew, tired of basically not having a, erm, life.

So he does the obvious thing: he starts his own little protest against the animalistic treatment of zombies. With phrases such as “Zombies Are People Too!” and “Is It Necrophilia If You’re Both Dead?” the zombie rights movement begins to, uh, take on a life of it’s own. Mix in some obvious mistreatment of zombies by some fraternity brothers and we, as Breathers reading this novel, can march along with Andy, protesting for zombie rights, as they did in San Fransisco not too long ago.

Andy is truly a sympathetic character. The treatment that zombies receive from humans is simply appalling. The case for zombie rights is well made, except for one thing: what’s a zombie’s favorite food? You guessed it! Human flesh. So, what’s the happy medium here?

Who gives zombies the right to decide who lives and who dies, regardless of the person being killed?

Should some humans have to give up their rights so that the zombies can have their rights?

Could a process like cloning humans to slaughter for food help enable those zombies to have rights?  Or do cloned humans have rights too?

As much as this book is a dark comedy, the philosophical aspect of zombie rights and what those rights would mean to the human race was a fascinating diversion from your average zombie horror.