In the case of Heather Cole, Damien’s protagonist and narrator, it’s one so desperate it could destroy her hard-earned career and her marriage if it ever comes out. Some worse than others and some so terrible they’re never shared even with our closest confidants. But it’s Damien’s book I’m here to talk about, so grab a beverage and a snack and get yourself comfy. Taff’s The Fearing and Hank Early’s Echoes of the Fall. For the sake of your edification and because you should buy them, the other two are John F.D. What I will tell you is this: I have a number of “best of year” books for 2019, but three of them are running neck and neck for first place and The Dead Girls Club is one of them. But with this new novel from Crooked Lane, Damien Angelica Walters has penned the definitive coming-of-age tale, a feminist nightmare that might be crime or it might be horror. They are, in fact, so uncommon that I can’t think of a single one off the top of my head. If there’s one type of story that is more than passing rare in the horror genre, it’s the coming-of-age tale told from a female point of view. Damien Angelica Walters is just such an artist and The Dead Girls Club is just such a book. But when shaped and handled by the hands of a true master, they become a thing of great beauty and a source of endless dread.
They’re so prevalent in life and in literature as to become nearly commonplace and boring. Sometimes such stories can fall flat with us for the very reasons I’ve listed above. That there may be some inherent flaw or thread of darkness that runs through us is a theme that writers love to write and readers love to read and it permeates our fictions. Yet, uncomfortable though they may be, we remain endlessly fascinated by the subject. Not always, but usually, they’re the spring that serves the rivers of insecurity many of us find ourselves victim to, the source of anxieties, doubts, and even fear. I think it’s a pretty safe bet the vast majority of us have secrets they share with no one those old bones that rattle around in the closets of our souls and only come out to play, to tease, to haunt after the lights go out.
0 kommentar(er)
