Review: ’100 Unfortunate Days’, by Penelope Crowe

Another week, another review – and another chance to reflect on just how diverse a place the indie jungle can be. Last week I reviewed Peter Labrow’s The Well, a page-turner that would make such a good addition to the lists of any traditional publisher that I find it quite strange that it isn’t included in any such lists. This week’s book is something utterly, utterly different.

100 Unfortunate Days might never have been traditionally published – not because it isn’t any good (it’s very good indeed), but because, far from being horror in the usual sense of the word, it isn’t even a novel in the usual sense of the word. The story? There isn’t really a story as such; and while it is possible to discern some kind of narrative and character development here, you have to dig around a bit to find them. And that isn’t necessarily easy, as 100 Unfortunate Days takes the concept of the unreliable narrator to a whole new level.

‘This book might not be for you,’ the blurb warns us; and while the same might reasonably be said of just about any book, in the case of 100 Unfortunate Days it seems particularly apposite. The 100 days of the title refer to ‘the diary of a madwoman’, an insight into an unbalanced mind via a series of vignettes and a collection of ‘days’. These are not necessarily sequential days, just excerpts from a life – a life that is probably as outwardly banal and monotonous as anyone’s, but which is, on the inside, claustrophobic, conflicted, and frequently terrifying.

While this may be termed ‘horror’ for the sake of convenience (and to satisfy booksellers, who like to slap a convenient label on things) it is not the horror of ghosts, ghouls, monsters or murders, despite the fact that it begins with a story of demonic possession. 100 Unfortunate Days is, rather, an examination of a much more widespread, and much more frightening, horror: the horror of squandered life, of soured love and isolation. The narrator is trapped in a life she loathes: ‘There are days when I can find nothing good in the world and I hate everyone’, she says. She is emotionally estranged from her family, apparently friendless, and devoid of any sense of purpose. She talks about the common disasters and disappointments that afflict many of us: getting married in haste and repenting at leisure, being disappointed by one’s family and one’s own ability to connect with them, and getting trapped in a stifling lifestyle. ‘There will be a day when you realize you wasted your life,’ the narrator warns us; and we, reading it, believe her. And there are other, still more prosaic, pains: getting older, going grey, putting on weight. Reading about them, you may begin to think that you and the narrator have much in common.

But then, and often quite unexpectedly, you get a passage like this: ‘The devil is there at 3:00AM.’ Or this: ‘You wake up again and again and you wonder if the jail time for murder would be worth it.’

At this point the reader might begin to relax a bit. This is a madwoman, after all – or, if she’s not quite mad, she is at the very least suffering from some definite psychological disorder. The woman is disturbed, and therefore nothing like us. After all, we don’t worry about demonic possession, do we? We don’t consider killing our own children because they’re annoying, do we?

But then, on Day 29, you get this:

Here are some things I would do if I could go back to being 20 years old right now: join an art commune, write a book, kiss more men, kiss more women.

I suspect that most of us have had similar thoughts at some point in our lives. There are many such passages in the book, which begs the question: is the writer really mad, or is she as sane as anyone else? Is she psychologically disturbed, or is she just less squeamish than us when it comes to looking the unlovely truth in the eye? This is why 100 Unfortunate Days is disturbing: the madwoman whose diary you’re reading might not be so very different to you. She writes about normality, about the things that everyone does and thinks. But here normality is shot through with reflections about demons and infanticide and the Apocalypse, and with the simple horror of life itself, with its disappointments and dead ends and wasted opportunities. 100 Unfortunate Days is frequently an uncomfortable read, and it may indeed not be for everyone. But then again, it might be for you – and if so, you won’t regret reading it. Recommended.

To download 100 Unfortunate Days, visit Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

Reviewed by Mari Biella

A member of the Reading Between The Lines collective

For more reviews click here.

Review: ‘The Well’, by Peter Labrow

The Whitaker Estate, on the outskirts of the town of Bankside, is old, neglected and largely deserted, its only regular visitors wildlife and schoolkids. Like many an old and dilapidated place, it has a colourful past and has, as a result, attracted its fair share of local gossip and superstition. Reading this, you may be forgiven a certain sense of déjà vu: this is, after all, the stuff of horror. However, Peter Labrow adds an intriguing twist to the formula. The estate, it transpires, also has a disused, derelict well; and this, as schoolgirl Becca and her boyfriend Matt are about to find out, is far more dangerous.

A freak accident whilst planning an illicit tryst leaves the two teenagers trapped at the bottom of the well. Nobody knows they’re there. Their parents are away for the weekend. They were injured in the fall. They have only a little food and clean water. Their mobile phones don’t work. And, as if this weren’t enough, a local ephebophile, who has been keeping a predatory eye on Becca for some time, in on their trail. Needless to say, this on its own would have made for a tense, taut horror/thriller. However, Labrow doesn’t stop there. The well, as soon becomes clear, is the focus not just of the earthly horrors of pain and hunger and death, but also of a supernatural threat. And all of these different threats have very long tentacles indeed: they creep outwards, affecting the lives of various luckless strangers.

These different plot elements could have made for confusion, but in the hands of a skilled storyteller such as Labrow they flow together seamlessly, and apparently effortlessly. The separate but interconnected stories are told carefully and with great dexterity, and come together at the end in a very satisfying dénouement. It’s hard to write a novel with so many strands and so many characters, all with their assorted viewpoints; it requires great skill on the part of the author. What I love about The Well is just how beautifully Labrow manages it. There isn’t a single wobble, nor any of the clunkiness and slip-ups that could all too easily have crept in. The well itself is evoked in all its dank, claustrophobic nastiness, but Labrow just as easily draws us into events above ground.

Deceit is a major theme in The Well. Becca lies to her mother, and Matt lies to Becca; a mother tells white lies to protect her young child; the lies told centuries ago continue to reverberate in the present. A dangerous, predatory man lives a lie, concealing his unhealthy interest in young girls and total lack of human empathy beneath an affable, kindly façade. And yet, from the point of view of the characters, all of these lies are necessary and understandable. Reading, you ask yourself exactly how honest you would have been in similar circumstances, just as you are forced to consider the consequences of deceit. Labrow occasionally brings the darkness a little closer to home than is comfortable.

The questions you are led to ask yourself do not, however, weigh the story down. It is tightly-paced, never drags – and yes, it is often quite horrific. Yet the horror, curiously enough, owes less to the supernatural than to Labrow’s vivid and uncomfortably plausible portrayal of human nature. In this respect, the novel often put me in mind of ’Salem’s Lot, in which the supernatural is far less frightening than King’s depiction of the mindless, low-level corruption and brutality of some of the town’s inhabitants. In Labrow’s novel, too, the characters are realistic and psychologically believable, often disturbingly so. There are no heroes here, and only one real villain. For the most part, these are complex people with complex motivations, behaving as people do – and people, as we all know, do not always behave well. This is, perhaps, the ultimate source of all horror.

To download The Well, visit Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

Reviewed by Mari Biella

A member of the Reading Between The Lines collective

For more reviews click here.

Alt Lit, the internet, and the state of self-publishing: Part 2

Not many people have heard of Alt Lit as yet. At the risk of being humiliated, I’m going to stick my neck out and say that they soon will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh dear, I’ve done it now. Making predictions is one of the surest ways to incur public ridicule and utter mortification, which is perhaps why fortune-tellers are a largely nomadic bunch on the whole. Still, there is at least some evidence to back up my assertion. Tao Lin, for example, the de facto leader of the Alt Lit community, is due to have his novel Taipei published by Vintage in June. This won’t be the first time that alternative and/or online literature has been co-opted by the mainstream, of course (Fifty Shades, anyone?), but Alt Lit may prove to have a far more profound impact on both literature and self-publishing than E.L. James’s tale of handcuffs and floggers ever did.

First things first: what exactly is Alt Lit?

Straight away, things get tricky. Alt Lit is difficult, and perhaps almost impossible, to define. According to Wikipedia, Alt Lit is ‘a fairly new form of literature, centered on and/or drawing from the internet, internet culture, and “a population of people that are connected with one another through their interest in the online publishing world”.’ Rather a  vague definition, admittedly, and one that could conceivably encompass anyone with an interest or involvement in literature and some kind of online presence. Essentially, though, these are writers who belong to an online literary scene and form an online ‘community’, albeit a rather loose one.

More precise definitions can perhaps be given by those who are actually involved in Alt Lit. Stephen Tully Dierks, in this article, argues that ‘the only consistent difference between ”alt lit” … and “lit” generally seems to be a greater embrace of the Internet for promotion and release of work and for socializing.’ ‘I don’t know if you can define “alt lit”,’ Frank Hinton says, ‘because I think what people are doing right now is defining it. In the end it will be judged by what it brings into the world.’

Alt Lit seems, in essence, to be a creative community built on social media, one that harnesses the internet in order to create, publish and distribute literature. Nothing new, you might say, in these days of ebooks and self-publishing; but it seems to me that there is something new, something different, about Alt Lit. For one thing, Alt Lit doesn’t simply slot into the more conventional self-publishing model. It is more likely to be found on blogs and internet forums than on Amazon, for example (take a look at the Alt Lit Library). And while more traditional self-publishers create literature that reproduces traditional literary styles, Alt Lit makes liberal use of text speak, common internet terms and abbreviations, and stylistic choices that show the influence of Twitter, mobile phones, and instant messaging. Alt Lit often contains spelling and grammar mistakes, clunky sentences, and so on. Does this make it shoddy, or somehow more authentic – an immediate, unfiltered, as-it-happens (almost) insight into the writer’s mind?

In Alt Lit, the internet is seen not only as a means of distribution, but as both subject matter and a source of inspiration. It draws on internet memes and talks about the ways in which the internet influences our lives. It makes liberal use of cutting and pasting, to such an extent that copyright can hardly be an issue. Spelling and grammatical errors – the bête noire of more traditional self-publishers, who strive for slick presentation on a par with that championed by traditional publishing houses – are inevitable and unremarkable. Most Alt Lit is, moreover, free, and most of its practitioners’ goals are not financial. A career in literature, in the common sense of the term, is not amongst their ambitions.

Naturally, all of this has provoked controversy and, on occasion, indignation (see here for an example). Obviously, it runs contrary to the values espoused by the traditional publishing industry, where presentation is of paramount importance and little is ever available for free. But – and this, from my point of view, is much more interesting – it also cuts across the values that the self-publishing community at large has either adopted or inherited. Self-publishers often try to produce perfectly edited and proofed books and ebooks of the kind that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with anything produced by the big publishers. A noble aim; but is it really as essential as we perhaps think?

One thing above all strikes me as being worth repeating: most Alt Lit is free. It is circulated freely on the internet, and no payment is requested or received. In a world in which the self-publishing community has largely aped the financial imperatives of the traditional publishers, this is heartening. (I’m targeting myself with that criticism, lest anyone think I’m being unbearably sniffy and high-minded here.) Take a quick look at the Amazon Authors’ Forum, if you wish. Every other discussion, it seems, is about sales: how many, how few, and how to make more. Understandable, perhaps; but in a revolution in which all received wisdom should be up for questioning, it seems rather sad that so few self-publishers seem interested in questioning this particular credo.

Alt Lit, like self-publishing, is far from perfect. It involves and perhaps even encourages charlatanism, pretence and frankly bad writing. And yet it seems to me exciting in a way that conventional self-publishing often is not. If there’s one thing that we can learn from Alt Lit, it is perhaps the simple value of being ‘Alt’ – of not playing it safe, of being prepared to take chances, experiment, and fail. After all, self-publishers are not bound by considerations of financial viability. If we can’t do things differently, perhaps we need to question why we are doing anything at all.

What do people think?

Alt Lit, the internet, and the state of self-publishing: Part 1

Warning: this post contains half-baked speculation, crackpot predictions, and pretentious posturing. Oh, and links. Lots of links. You have been warned!

Thanks to the internet, we live in the interesting times of the Chinese curse. The internet is as potent as it is unpredictable. As a quick glance at the comments accompanying the average YouTube video will attest, it draws out characteristics – passion, obsession, hatred, hubris – that would probably remain safely obscured in ordinary social discourse. Being international, untrammeled, and ungovernable, it is also egalitarian: we are not just the passive users of the internet, but contributors and co-creators. We help to shape the internet – albeit in a very small way – with every blog post, comment, tweet and Facebook update. The internet is inspiring, sustaining, cruel, wonderful and awful, all at the same time.

And what of the internet’s impact on writing and publishing?

For many writers and publishers, the answer is obvious: it’s an advertising tool. A chance to get books out in front of a worldwide audience, with access to an ever-greater pool of potential readers. A chance to build a potentially huge online presence, a sort of virtual HQ from which to conduct marketing and promotional campaigns. And while writers’ forums are abuzz with advice about presenting, packaging, marketing and selling your work online, still many writers seem reluctant to engage with the internet in any more meaningful sense – as, that is, a vital aspect of the cultural environment, rather than as a means to a (usually commercial) end.

But this approach – employing the web as a business opportunity, while denying it any kind of deeper cultural significance – may be a little short-sighted. The internet’s influence upon cultural and literary life, I believe, goes far deeper than ‘txt spk’ or ever-decreasing attention spans, despite the doomsayers’ warnings to the contrary.

For one thing, the internet offers us the possibility of creating work that defies the conventional structure of the novel or short story. My online friend Paul Sutton Reeves recently acquainted me with Geoff Ryman’s 253, an online, interactive novel consisting of sketches of each of the 253 passengers on a London Underground train, each sketch consisting of 253 words. These ‘chapters’ can be read in any order, which arguably enables the reader to be not just a passive recipient but, in a sense, a co-creator.

The prospect of ‘reader as active participant’ is one of the more intriguing possibilities held out by the internet. Last year, author China Mieville spoke about the possibility of readers ‘remixing’ novels (read article here). Given the ease of file-sharing, and the universality of copying, cutting and pasting, issues of copyright may become increasingly blurred. In the not-too-distant future, the question may not be ‘Which edition?’ but ‘Which mix?’ Does this bring you out in a cold sweat? Or does it leave you unruffled, or even inspired?

Closely related to this is the issue of piracy, which is both easy and (probably) inevitable these days. It will most likely get even easier in the future. Are you worried about this? Should you be? Or is it just another example of the democratic, levelling nature of the internet?

Speaking of democratization, writers are enjoying greater freedom than ever before. Short stories and flash fiction, for example, may be enjoying something of a renaissance. Until relatively recently, the only way to get a short story published was to send it off to various publications in the hope that somebody, somewhere, would judge it worthy of being printed. Now a writer can make short stories available instantly, worldwide, whether by the usual means of uploading them to Amazon or Smashwords, submitting them to one of the many internet sites that are available for such a purpose, or just putting them up on a personal website or blog.

Noah Cicero, talking in this article about the beginnings of the Alt Lit movement, says: ‘A person could get a blog for free and write exactly what they wanted. And that was going to be the future.’ As he also says, ‘Because the Internet allows for democracy, it lets people become who they want to be without having to fit into a certain mode of operation.’

All of which brings us neatly to one of the perceived problems of self-publishing. If you leave your front door wide open, sooner or later anyone who wants to will come wandering in. As a result, the stereotypical self-published book is badly-written, poorly-formatted, and stuffed full of typos and grammatical blunders. And while I’ve read enough excellent self-published books to know that this stereotype is unfair and often false, there is also – as with many stereotypes, probably – a small kernel of truth there. Egalitarianism is an attractive idea, but the consequences may not be quite so desirable. Is this inclusivity inspiring, or horrifying? Have the lunatics taken over the asylum? (And if so, wasn’t it about bloody time?)

Phew. That’s enough for one post. In Part 2, I’ll be taking a brief look at Alt Lit, a literary movement that has grown up around the internet revolution. In the meantime, I’m off to lie down in a darkened room for a while. Leave a comment, if you wish…

Review: The Imaginings, by Paul D. Dail

First, an admission: I’m not coming at this book from the point of view of a complete stranger. Mr Dail is an occasional visitor to (and commenter on) this blog, and over the months we’ve struck up something of an online friendship. That said, I’ve tried as always not to let this stand in the way of an honest appraisal of the book.

This small caveat aside, here’s my review of The Imaginings.

‘Never disregard your imaginings’ – these words run through Dail’s novel like a dark vein. When David Blithe finds this cryptic message scrawled on a piece of paper in his brother Peter’s apartment shortly after his apparent suicide, he doubts Peter’s sanity. In fact, as shortly becomes clear, Peter was the helpless victim of a very dark force indeed – and the unfortunate David will be next.

‘Those forces roll across the land,’ Dail writes, in a particularly chilling passage, ‘and when they hit, there’s nothing you can do but ride it out.’

In an echo of the unfairness of fate, the entity that has targeted David admits, ‘You haven’t really done anything wrong.’ David cannot escape by repenting for past misdeeds or making amends (though it later transpires that the entity has a particular reason for choosing him); he is, to all intents and purposes, trapped. Interestingly, the theme of imprisonment, of one sort or another, runs through the novel: one character lives in an orphanage, and is locked in after dark; another works in a vast underground labyrinth, in which a series of locked doors lead into a succession of increasingly sinister and claustrophobic rooms.

This is a novel about demonic possession – not generally one of my favourite horror themes, but executed so well here that I was quickly drawn into the action, and kept there. Unlike other tales of possession, the demon does not restrict itself to one particular host, but can take possession of different bodies at will. This adds an additional layer of fear; how can you trust anyone, or ever feel safe, when anyone could at any moment become the conduit for a malign force? It also poses some interesting questions: is morality determined by our deeds, or by our souls? Is it possible for a soul to remain pure when the flesh becomes the instrument of evil?

This is a well-written, tightly plotted story: Dail’s prose is economical yet evocative. The characters are drawn vividly and well, with a satisfying depth and complexity, and we are made to care about them; I was genuinely upset when a genial priest fell foul of the demon.

Reading other reviews of the novel, I noticed that several readers have made a slight criticism, namely that a critical scene at the climax of the novel is repeated from the points of view of two different characters. It’s hard to say much about this without giving away certain elements of the plot, but it was felt that this slowed down the action. This is no doubt a matter of personal preference, but I didn’t find that this troubled me at all; in fact, I actually found that it rounded the action out in quite a satisfying way. Whatever your own preferences, though, this is a minor point, and shouldn’t distract anyone from Dail’s achievement in taking a plot that could easily have become immensely convoluted and bringing it tightly, carefully, cleverly to its conclusion. The steady build-up of tension keeps you hooked, and while it’s not a particularly short novel I got through it in a couple of sittings. Indeed, I almost arrived late for work one morning, when I made the mistake of reading it over breakfast. That’s the mark of a good page-turner!

To download The Imaginings, click here (Amazon.com) or here (Amazon.co.uk).

Reviewed by Mari Biella

A member of the Reading Between The Lines collective

For more reviews click here.

Get set for summer!

Sumer is icumen in, as the mediaeval English partsong has it. Well, almost. It may still be freezing cold and dark, but the days are drawing out, and the mercury is slowly creeping up. Holiday brochures are being flicked through, and beach body diets are being started (and, inevitably, abandoned). Teachers and pupils alike are counting down the days until the long summer holidays.

I’m jumping the gun, of course; Easter isn’t even upon us yet. However, I have a reason for this, as in August this year I will be taking part in the Edinburgh Ebook Festival. The festival will be held online and, despite running concurrently with the Edinburgh Book Festival, is entirely independent. Directed by the tireless Cally Phillips, the festival will hopefully help to highlight the wealth of good ebooks and indie writing out there.

My role in the festival will be to draw attention to some great indie horror. Naturally, one person can’t hope to cover everything that is out there, but with a bit of luck I’ll be able to talk up some of the really fantastic horror ebooks that are floating around in cyberspace. Of course, anyone trying to do something of that nature instantly runs into a bit of a problem: cyberspace, like real space, is vast. Not infinite, perhaps, but much more immense than one person can possibly hope to explore in a lifetime. I’m just setting out on this voyage of discovery, and already I feel in need of some pointers.

That’s where you come in. Yes, you. I’ve several ideas swirling around in my brain already, but I’d appreciate some recommendations. Do you know of any hidden indie horror gems? What’s so special about them? Are they beautifully written and full of psychological insight? Or are they the kind of edgy, experimental fare that would probably never get past an editor’s desk? Or are they just good old-fashioned page-turners? If the book in question languishes in obscurity and needs that little extra push to get it noticed, so much the better. My word doesn’t count for much, but you never know…

If you’ve any ideas, leave a comment (or send me an email if you prefer – mari.biella@gmail.com). I can’t promise to feature everything that’s recommended; in the unlikely event that I’m deluged with suggestions, I can’t even promise to read everything. I’ll do my best, though, and hopefully by the time the festival rolls around in August I’ll have plenty of excellent indie horror to highlight.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Review: That Scoundrel Emile Dubois by Lucinda Elliot

This is my first review as a member of Reading Between the Lines, a new review collective.

 

 

 

***

That Scoundrel Emile Dubois is something of a genre-bender. It is set during the Regency era (in terms of its atmosphere and background, rather than in a strictly chronological sense), and evokes a social milieu that will be familiar to readers of Jane Austen. The heroine, Sophie, is also a character that Austen might have recognised: a plucky poor relation who has to transcend social boundaries in order to find love (in this case with her distant but much more noble relative, the titular Emile Dubois). Dubois and his valet Georges are the kind of scoundrels who find a natural home in gothic romance. After escaping from Revolutionary France (where he suffered horrific personal tragedies), Emile becomes a ‘Gentleman of the Road’ – the kind of mannerly, dashing highwayman who wouldn’t be out of place in a Barbara Cartland novel. What follows, however, owes less to Mills and Boon than to the Hammer House of Horror, just as it owes less to Austen than to the sensational gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe.

This is a vampire novel, and a genuinely creepy one on occasion. Every blast of wind and flurry of snow seems to herald some stealthily-approaching menace. Dark deeds are carried out in isolated country houses, and mysterious creatures flit outside the windows; some places are so cursed, so abhorrent to nature that even the birds refuse to sing there. It is also, in part, speculative fiction, with time travel forming a significant strand of the story. Arguably, it might fall under the admittedly vague heading of ‘steampunk’, though in general steampunk is inspired by the mid- to late-Victorian period. ‘Regencypunk’, perhaps?

Sophie, at the outset, is meek, unassuming, and altogether rather unassertive (and not, therefore, the kind of feisty heroine we tend to admire these days). Gradually, however, as she finds herself fighting for both her own soul and that of Emile, she begins to draw upon inner reserves of strength; ‘I must be braver and fight harder,’ she tells her tough, sensible maid Agnes. Sophie, a good Christian girl, sees vampirism as an aberration from God’s ordained plan, a monstrosity; but to other, less devout characters it holds a distinct attraction: ‘Is it so bad a fate, mon ami, to lose the threat of the worm and the grave?’

I was impressed by the way Elliot not only reproduces the style and tone of the late eighteenth century, but maintains it throughout the novel. Admittedly, I’m by no means an expert on the period, but I couldn’t detect a single lapse or false note. The novel is also notably well-researched, to the extent that Elliot includes a glossary of terms at the end.

There is also a lovely vein of humour that runs through the novel. A few examples:

‘Mademoiselle Sophie has seen something unpleasant – do not glare at me so, it was no part of me.’

Just prior to a marriage proposal: ‘Alors, you deserve to be asked with all due punctilio, though I think I see some splinters on the floor, which I will avoid, as my springing up with a yell would detract from the gravity of the occasion.’

‘I never thought things like this would happen here in our village … Now, if it had happened down in Swansea, where folks are about All Sorts of Mischief, I would be less surprised.’

It’s difficult to point to any particular weaknesses in the novel. The only one I could honestly complain of was the ‘clunkiness’ of one or two sentence constructions: ‘Forgive my roughness, I must be careful, which also applies to what Ma Tante terms these Mischievous Experiments as much as my strength, chérie, given you have poor taste enough to fear the loss of your wicked brigand.’ I would have split that sentence up a bit, to make it read a bit more smoothly; as it is, it jolted me out of the story for a moment while I tried to understand exactly what was being said. However, this only occurs once or twice in the course of the novel, and didn’t spoil my overall enjoyment of it. If you like gothic romance, vampire fiction, humour, or indeed all three, this would be an excellent choice of reading.

To download That Scoundrel Emile Dubois, click here (Amazon.com) or here (Amazon.co.uk).

Reviewed by Mari Biella

A member of the Reading Between The Lines collective

For more reviews click here: