Today's guest review post comes from author Craig Brownlie who gives us his thoughts on novels by Paul Tremblay and Stephen Graham Jones!
Check it out below, grab a new book or two and be sure to stop by Craig's website to see his books, blog, and more!
Enjoy!
The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay
Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones
Reviewed by Craig Brownlie
So many reviewers write about new releases. They go out of their way for pre-first day reads, like stamp aficionados traveling to issuing post offices. Thank heaven for those people because writers would never survive without all the attendant publicity of the new book.
But who speaks for the backlist? Apparently, I do because my TBR pile is always way behind. I give myself credit as it shrinks. Then, I go to a gathering of the authorial tribe and walk away with a trunkful of words. Then I have to find space on the bookshelves which causes a cascade of rearrangement. So, sometimes I unearth a book much later. And I write about it here so that you can look back with envy and go out and buy the book. (The links appear below for a reason.)
And here we are again with two wonderful deep dives from Messrs. Jones and Tremblay.
Technically, these are crime novels with horror elements or possibly horror novels with mystery vibes. The Little Sleep is a detective story which ratchets up the tension. Night of the Mannequins is a serial killer story which keeps you guessing. Let me play fair here and say that most bookstores would place the former with mysteries and the latter in horror, especially if they go by a book’s cover.
Still, let’s dive a little deeper than my say-so. Imagine a book about a narcoleptic who struggles to differentiate waking life from dreams (which may strike when he sleeps or when he is trapped in a mid-slumber world). Tremblay needs you to understand the life of the severe narcoleptic. This is a world with horror baked into the simplest daily activity. Did you walk home without incident or were you, in fact, kidnapped and managed to escape? Either could be the reality with the alternative holding your certainty prisoner as the dream.
The old saw about it not being paranoia if they’re really out to get you harbors a disturbing gravitas if you have a diagnosis in hand that legitimizes your worst nightmares. Add in the occasional person misinterpreting your odd behavior as full waking while you’re off in Little Nemo’s world.
Jones’ protagonist has no easier time distinguishing reality from–fantasy is too soft a word for the stories Sawyer tells himself. We’re constantly deciphering the perspective presented by our unreliable narrator. Diagnosing Sawyer as paranoid or schizophrenic would let the story and the reader off the hook, a pitfall Jones avoids.
Not to go all meta here, but we rarely talk about pacing anymore in this critic/criticism-digester relationship. Mannequins is precision pacing and a textbook in short novel movement from alpha to omega. If you’ve sat through enough movies (or TV shows), then you know the rhythm from opening sequence to denouement like you know your own heartbeat. It can become predictable, but we can’t get enough of either. So, the artisan with the craft (Jones in this case) has to propel the tale while spreading out the surprises. I can tell by the disarrayed pile of discarded books in the corner of your bedroom that a lot of stories do not succeed at this. So, hallelujah for a good writer and a strong heart!
And yet, both books bury the story within the story because character is the plot—and how often does that happen successfully? We all like to talk about our favorite pro- and anta- gonists because they have become companions. Certainly, authors of long-running series strike back at our expectations of their most well-known creations by exploring the detective’s controlling nature or the wizard’s quirks or the popular monster’s famous failing, but that is the well-spring of concept, not the outer shell of character-driven art holding an entire story together without the clumsiness of a Simon & Simon episode.
Check the bolt on your door before reading these highly recommended books
Learn more about Craig Brownlie:
Bio: Craig believes the Baby Taj Mahal (Itmad-ud-Daula) is more fun to visit than its more famous sibling across the Yamuna River. Even so, be careful out there because every path leads in two directions, at least.
Also, being cryptic is not the same as being wise or intelligent.
Look for Craig's recent work in Demons and Death Drops, No More Resolutions, Lovecraftiana, Sci-Fi Lampoon Magazine, and Unspeakable Horrors 3.
He has three books out in his Little Books of Pain series: Hammer, Nail, Foot; Thick As A Brick; and A Book of Practical Monsters. These are in addition to the re-release of his middle-grade novel Comic Book Summer.
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