/lit/ - Literature

The Search for Joseph Tully by William Hallahan is a super-comfy, great read. Here's a review that will whet your appetite:
>http://toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.com/2010/10/search-for-joseph-tully-by-william-h.html

>Creating an inescapable mood of wintry dread hanging over a soon-to-be-demolished historical apartment building in a disused part of Brooklyn, author William H. Hallahan skillfully brings together two disparate stories in a frigid climax of suggestive '70s horror. Its use of seances, hypnosis, medieval occult thought, and Catholic heresy dates it enjoyably, its genealogical-research angle is more effective than anyone would think, and Hallahan's smooth spare style gives you just enough detail to let your imagination do some work. Sure, modern horror fiction fans might find it too spare and too tame, might find that it doesn't give the goods except in tiny measured doses at too-distant intervals; they might find it that, true, but I found it highly readable and satisfying.

>Honestly, I reveled in Tully's lonely, despairing, fatalistic tone. Chapters are short, enigmatic, vaguely existential. There are lots of people looking forlornly out of windows onto landscapes of frozen fields and streets and rundown cities trapped in snowy desolation, while the apartment building slowly empties out beneath swirling winds and high clouds moving out towards the black waters of the North Atlantic. Everywhere there is palpable cold and frost and snow and slush, and all the while terrors whisper across generations, mysterious terrors of vengeance and lost souls unmoored from justice and eternal rest, which only man can render unto man, no matter what.

The Search for Joseph Tully by William Hallahan is a super-comfy, great read. Here's a review that will whet your appetite:
>http://toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.com/2010/10/search-for-joseph-tully-by-william-h.html

>Another bestselling title unknown and forgotten to the general public today but which gets spoken of with much awe and respect by genre fans is The Search for Joseph Tully.

>Creating an inescapable mood of wintry dread hanging over a soon-to-be-demolished historical apartment building in a disused part of Brooklyn, author William H. Hallahan skillfully brings together two disparate stories in a frigid climax of suggestive '70s horror. Its use of seances, hypnosis, medieval occult thought, and Catholic heresy dates it enjoyably, its genealogical-research angle is more effective than anyone would think, and Hallahan's smooth spare style gives you just enough detail to let your imagination do some work. Sure, modern horror fiction fans might find it too spare and too tame, might find that it doesn't give the goods except in tiny measured doses at too-distant intervals; they might find it that, true, but I found it highly readable and satisfying.

>Honestly, I reveled in Tully's lonely, despairing, fatalistic tone. Chapters are short, enigmatic, vaguely existential. There are lots of people looking forlornly out of windows onto landscapes of frozen fields and streets and rundown cities trapped in snowy desolation, while the apartment building slowly empties out beneath swirling winds and high clouds moving out towards the black waters of the North Atlantic. Everywhere there is palpable cold and frost and snow and slush, and all the while terrors whisper across generations, mysterious terrors of vengeance and lost souls unmoored from justice and eternal rest, which only man can render unto man, no matter what.

1) There are some great finds on the Too Much Horror Fiction blog, and his write-ups are topnotch.

He tipped me to a couple of books I really dug, including The Search for Joseph Tully by William Hallahan, a super-comfy, great read.

>Creating an inescapable mood of wintry dread hanging over a soon-to-be-demolished historical apartment building in a disused part of Brooklyn, author William H. Hallahan skillfully brings together two disparate stories in a frigid climax of suggestive '70s horror.

>There are lots of people looking forlornly out of windows onto landscapes of frozen fields and streets and rundown cities trapped in snowy desolation, while the apartment building slowly empties out beneath swirling winds and high clouds moving out towards the black waters of the North Atlantic. Everywhere there is palpable cold and frost and snow and slush, and all the while terrors whisper across generations, mysterious terrors of vengeance and lost souls unmoored from justice and eternal rest, which only man can render unto man, no matter what.

[Tully inspired me to dig into Hallahan's oeuvre a bit. The Ross Forgery is a terrific, offbeat crime novel (it goes into deep, fascinating detail on the subject of forging antique typeset documents); Dead of Winter was kind of a meh crime novel, with a decent premise but labored and rather contrived in the execution.]

(2) The Suicide Motor Club by Christopher Buehlman. Good to very good vampire novel. Very enjoyable read. Buehlman is a top-notch prose stylist. I am currently reading an earlier vampire book by the same author, The Lesser Dead. The plot is not as engaging as Suicide Motor Club, which really rocks.

There are some great finds on the Too Much Horror Fiction blog, and his write-ups are topnotch.

He tipped me to a couple of books I really dug, including The Search for Joseph Tully by William Hallahan, a super-comfy, great read.

>Creating an inescapable mood of wintry dread hanging over a soon-to-be-demolished historical apartment building in a disused part of Brooklyn, author William H. Hallahan skillfully brings together two disparate stories in a frigid climax of suggestive '70s horror.

>There are lots of people looking forlornly out of windows onto landscapes of frozen fields and streets and rundown cities trapped in snowy desolation, while the apartment building slowly empties out beneath swirling winds and high clouds moving out towards the black waters of the North Atlantic. Everywhere there is palpable cold and frost and snow and slush, and all the while terrors whisper across generations, mysterious terrors of vengeance and lost souls unmoored from justice and eternal rest, which only man can render unto man, no matter what.

PS: Tully inspired me to dig into Hallahan's oeuvre a bit. The Ross Forgery is a terrific, offbeat crime novel (it goes into deep, fascinating detail on the subject of forging antique typeset documents); Dead of Winter was kind of a meh crime novel, with a decent premise but labored and rather contrived in the execution.