Summary: A Choir of Ill Children

A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN by Tom Piccirilli

"We move in spasms.
My brothers because they are conjoined at the frontal lobe, and me -- because for me there is no other way to continue moving."

GENRE:

Horror Fiction, Southern Gothic.

DESCRIPTORS:

Horror, Ghosts, Stream of Consciousness, Granny Witches, Conjoined Triplets, Detectives, Mills, Family, Mysterious Deaths, Relationships, Carnival, Speaking in Tongues, Superstition, Swamps, Epilepsy.



SUMMARY:

Years ago Tom's father committed suicide. Thomas inherited the Mill, making him the town patriarch, filling a role his family has always held since swamp-mired Kingdom Come was founded. It also puts him in charge of his brothers, triplets conjoined at the frontal lobe and constantly facing each other. Now dire portents of strife have appeared and Velma Coots calls upon him to do his duty to the town by providing some blood and vinegar (semen) for a spell to ward off the coming storm. Tom refuses.

Weird things begin to occur: Sebastian, one of the twins, falls in love with a film student named Sarah. A girl/woman of indefinite age is found wearing a child's dress with a lollipop and no memory of who she is. Dogs are turning up injured from severe kicking. Erie ghosts are making their presence felt. Then Tom's best friend Drabs Bibbler disappears after giving a cryptic warning about a carnival.

A terrible storm is brewing that will test Thomas and the inhabitants of Kingdom Come, those who are living and those who are dead.

APPEAL:

This book has been labeled Southern gothic. It is an odd -- almost stream of consciousness tale -- told from Tom's point of view, of his pride (refusing to give of his vinegar) and the consequences. It reminded me of William Faulkner's tales or Flannery O'Connor if they were mixing horror into their stories.

This book is not an easy read, you plunge right in and it takes a while to get your bearings. It is also difficult because of some of the subject matter, especially when it involves the triplets.

I particularly like the character of Thomas. He knows he is the town patriarch -- as his fortunes flow so do those of the town -- which is why his one act of refusal upsets Velma and the "Granny witches". Tom is also on a quest for answers, but the book does not wrap everything in a tidy bow.

Thomas must face the ghosts that come with the storm and those that come with the carnival as well.

READALIKES:

A Choir of Ill Children is off-kilter and engaging with just a touch of grotesque. If you enjoyed this novel you might want to try Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner or James Lee Burke's David Robicheaux Mystery series.

(Originally Posted in . . . With Intent to Commit Horror.)

More About Blogging for a Good Book

Previously . . .

The other day I introduced you to Blogging for a Good Book and talked about how it can help you find your next good horror novel. Today I want to talk about how it can help you find books of interest that are not in the horror genre.

--GASP!--

Has the Undead One gone over to the Bright Side?

An Ugly Truth

This really deserves a post of its own but here is the ugly truth: a steady diet of horror fiction and only horror fiction is the quickest way to burn out on the genre. It's not good for you. Not only will it stunt your literary growth but it will ruin your love of horror. Over time you'll grow to find horror boring and move on to thrillers, mysteries, fantasies or some other genre.

Occasionally cleansing the palate with a fine classic or a brooding piece of mainstream fiction not only broadens your literary horizons but refreshes you, which keeps the horror from growing stale. This is a warning: I nearly burnt out on horror until I began to vary my diet with fantasies and thrillers, sprinkled with a little bit of non-fiction and anything else that caught my fancy.

How Blogging for a Good Book Can Help

How, you ask, can I find something I want to read that isn't horror?

The answer is as simple as it is fun. Randomly or methodically stroll through the summaries of Blogging for a Good Book until you find one or two that catches your interest. You can use the category list on the left hand side to select the type of book you're looking for. You can use the archive list below that if you want to start with the first summaries and work your way up or start with the most recent summaries and work your way down. You can also drop in on a daily basis just to see what's new. I use all three methods.

The idea is to read or skim the summaries until something catches your attention and give it a closer read. Doing this today I found the next book I need to read: The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. I wasn't really looking for yet another book to read but I couldn't help myself. The summary made it sound so appealing.

The Undead Rat Shows You How it's Done

Here are links to summaries of books that while not horror, still caught my interest. I invite you to take a look at them. You just might find something you'd like to read.

Red Hourglass: The Lives of Predators by Gordon Grice

Last Season by Eric Blehm

Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss

The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade by Thomas Lynch

Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

Read On . . . Fantasy Fiction by Neil Hollands

The Triumph of the Thriller by Patrick Anderson

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Vanishing Act by Thomas Perry

Go, check out Blogging for a Good Book and then, if you have a moment, come back and tell me about your experience in the comments. Did they show you a book that caught your interest? What was it?


(Originally posted on . . . With Intent to Commit Horror)

Oops - I Missed a Few

I'm way behind on my next blog post and I'm so tired I can't spell straight. I'm pushing today's post to tomorrow. However, while I was preparing to write what will be tomorrow's post, I discovered a few summaries of books that I missed yesterday. These books aren't strictly horror but they do have elements of storytelling that you find in good horror novels. If you're looking for a book to read, check out these summaries provided by the good folks at Blogging for a Good Book.

The Missing Few

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. I love Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar.

Tenderness by Robert Cormier. Mr. Cormier's adult novel about a serial killer.

Scavenger by David Morrell. The story that takes place before this, Creepers, won the Stoker Award for Best Novel.

Fat White Vampire Blues by Andrew Fox. It has vampires; need I say more?


(Originally posted on . . . With Intent to Commit Horror)

Introducing Blogging for a Good Book

What is This Blog?

Since March 2007, the good folks at the Williamsburg Regional Library have been posting a brief book summary each weekday with few exceptions (author obituaries replaced the book summary for 4 such exceptions).

This is an impressive blog. Usually one staff member from the library takes a week and posts 5 short summaries, each about a book he or she enjoyed.

An Overview

These are not book reviews. They're short, insightful summaries that include information on why a reader would enjoy the book without spoiling the ending. I leave it thinking either 'yes, put this book on the reading list' or 'no, this is not for me'-a valuable when I'm looking for a new book to read on my tight schedule.

Quite the variety can be found here. Blogging for a Good Book provides summaries for fiction in all genres, including interesting non-fiction. Some entries cover kids and teen books that would also be good reads for adults. Once they even posted a week's worth of DVD movie recommendations.

A Closer Look

The blog is organized to easily find the kind of book you want to read. Just clicking on the horror category on the right hand margin yielded summaries of 3 books: World War Z by Max Brooks, Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris, and The Ruins by Scott Smith.

Two graphic novels with a bit of a horror bent were also included: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill which won the 2000 Stoker Award for Illustrated Narrative and Green Arrow: Sounds of Violence by Kevin Smith.

I also found a couple of additional horror title under the category, "Jessica's Picks", including Sunshine by Robin McKinley and The Stand (complete and uncut edition) by Stephen King.

In Summary

If you're looking for a good horror novel--or just a good book to read of any stripe--be sure to stop by this blog and browse to your heart's content. You're practically guaranteed to find a summary that will pique your interest.

(Originally posted on . . . With Intent to Commit Horror)

What is Genre?

I want to talk about the definitions of horror and horror fiction soon. However, before we begin that daunting enterprise, I need to take a moment and get us all on the same page with the word genre.

Some of you don't know what the term genre means. It's not a difficult word but for some reason it seems to frighten people-good people like you and me. It doesn't have to be a scary word. It's my intention that by the end of this post, genre will be your friend.

(If you're already well-versed in the language of genre, go ahead and skip this post, but for those of you who-like me-learned how to pronounce words when you read them, and learned what they mean by figuring it out in context, you might enjoy the rest of this post.)

Genre - Janra - Zah . . . Oh Forget It

Even the sound of it smacks of a language that is not English.

I tend to pronounce it: ja'n'ra. The j slides into an almost z sound, the a is a short a sound, the n is as nasally as you would expect from any French loan word and followed up with a -ra sound to beat the band.

(If you'd like true professional help in sounding out the word try MSN Encarta )

The Definition is . . .

We use the term genre in reference to art or culture. It is a grouping or classifying word. Genre Fiction encompasses all the types of popular fiction that have shared rules or goals-types such as mystery, fantasy, science fiction or horror. Thus mystery fiction is one genre. Science fiction is another genre. Horror is yet another genre and there are many more.

Each genre creates a different kind of expectation in the reader's mind. For instance, in the mystery genre, one expects a crime to be committed and for someone to solve it. This is a bare bones and inexpert description of the mystery genre and there are exceptions but it works for our purpose.

Now this definition covers a lot of ground, encompasses books that have very little similarity with each other. Because of that and because we seem to be a people who love making categories, we have subgenres.

Break it Down Again

For our discussions, categories such as romance, western, mystery and thriller are just a few of the genres that fill our bookstores and libraries. So what's a subgenre?

A subgenre breaks a genre into smaller categories. If a mystery is a story where a crime is committed and someone solves it, then a story where a crime is committed and a cynical detective - at odds with the corrupt system and mean streets, sporting his own code of honor - is duty bound to find out who did it despite the violence and the personal cost, is a hard-boiled detective story.

The hard-boiled detective story is just one of many (I mean ridiculously many) subgenres of the mystery genre. Thus all the stories within a subgenre have more in common with each other than they do with books in other subgenres.

In Summary

As I write this post, I realize that I have a lot more to say about the uses and abuses of genre but I'll save them for future posts. Right now, if the concept of genre is new to you, you'll want to start playing with the idea. When you read a book - or even just look at its cover - try to determine what genre it is. Don't worry about subgenres; we'll come back to them later. You can even play name that genre with movies and television shows.

One other note: you may encounter authors who disparage the very notion of genre. They call it a tool of the marketers. They'll say it's restrictive to the artistic endeavor. They'll say these things and more and they'll be right. But right now we are learning to crawl. Soon we'll be walking and we won't need to think so much about genres and we'll be careful not to assign them too much importance. However we must crawl before we can learn to run.

Trust me; we're going to run. And running rampant through literature you love is a wonderfully heady experience.

(Originally posted in . . . With Intent to Commit Horror)