Carla
Contains spoilers
Extremely well-researched account by an accomplished and experienced reporter. He included several compassionate, simple moments about certain people, a couple of which we don’t even learn their name, that teared me up in their loveliness. They contrasted beautifully with the brutality—and these murders were absolutely brutal. They weren’t traditional axe murders, they were also piqueristic in nature, and that seemed to be the goal, the axe being used to subdue so that the killer could stab at will. Be warned about graphic content; the author is clinical and respectful but thorough and honest.
If reading about others’ trauma (I tried to be as helpful in the trigger warnings as I could) would be a problem for you in any way, do not read this book thinking it would be an interesting exploration of women in horror. It is an autobiography of mental illness and dysfunction, and that is putting it carefully and mildly.
I wanted to rate this one higher. At points I deeply enjoyed it; this shows at the speed at which I listened to it. But the author doesn’t do the best job of explaining why her history of mental illness, domestic violence, and childhood abuse is relevant to share within this topic of female neuroses in horror films. And does she share—to a detailed extent that could be called grotesque. I feel exhausted now, almost like I have witnessed something deeply traumatic happen. I didn’t need to know everything she has thought, felt, and experienced ever that could relate to female hysteria, abuse, and neurosis as portrayed in horror, but I received it anyway in painful, sometimes excruciating detail. There is catharsis in reading and watching horror, there was none here, and I am left feeling like I need a hug or a nap. This should not be.
Remember: I say all this as someone with advanced degrees in psychology and counseling, and post-grad work in Forensic Anthropology and Sex Crimes. So, if I am uncomfortable, it might be a warning. Just something to mull over.
I also have to mention that, a good 80-90 percent into the book, it got worse, because the author casually used the r-word, as in referring to an adult behaving like an r-word child. I should have stopped reading. I regret not doing so.
This is the second supposedly-seminal book about the horror genre that has been painful to read, the first being Carol J. Clover’s Men, Women, and Chainsaws—I DNF that one. Both this year. I’ll just reread Kim Newman’s Nightmare Movies, Alexandra West’s books on French extremity and 90’s teen horror, and Stephen King’s Danse Macabre if I feel the urge for this type of book again. No slurs, no trauma, and no misuse of Freud (Clover—trust me, it became gross).
I think I need to go outside and get some vitamin D.
Stopped reading at 13%.
The audiobook is so drily and…well, the word is aggressively narrated. Plus, the incredibly long introduction is narrated by two (uncredited) voices, the narrator and one other, so I am assuming the second voice is the author’s. It juts in unexpectedly and at odd junctures to read certain passages, no less drily or aggressively. How disappointing.
If I am to ever reapproach this work, it will have to be on paper…and I will be skipping the unnecessary detour on Freud’s work. I never thought I’d read the phrases “anal menstruation “ and “anal birth” more than once in a book on horror, and never have it refer to body horror. That section of the intro felt pretentious. I, too, read Freud in grad school—his entire oeuvre—but I don’t shoehorn his theories in where they might not belong. “Have you noticed a lot of horror fans are men? And that horror is often centered around the male gaze?…Did you know Freud had a one-sex theory about the genders?”
On second thought, I don’t think I will be returning to this book. There are so many other books, including academic studies of the horror genre, that I want to read.
I really, really wanted to like this book. But it wasn’t truly completed upon the author’s death and was left to a colleague and graduate students of his program to form the final work together and to edit it, and that process was not done well. I make this criticism as someone who has experienced the rigors of graduate school; had I turned in the introduction as a proposal, it would have been sent back to me with many, many instructions of change, as simple as subject agreeing with predicate, and as vast as my thesis being borne out by my research.
As I read, I found gaps in information (the author acknowledges women’s experiences, but then fails to address them, and not for the usual “they are beyond the scope of this book”, but just…vaguely doesn’t), and intense emphases on the psychosexual element of all types of consumption. I continued, because I so wanted to engage with the material.
I did not stop when Toni Morrison was vaguely criticized for writing the masterpiece Beloved (she shouldn’t have told those stories somehow, even though they were now being told in this book; this is mentioned more than once, and yet I still do not understand the problem). I did stop reading when this author (and others through him) accused William Styron of cannibalizing—or wanting to cannibalize—Nat Turner because he told his story in The Confessions of Nat Turner.
Finally, instead of exploring the homoerotic nature of slave masters consuming their slaves as product and actual food, this had begun to feel like a homoerotic book in many ways. Those are two different things. The first is a psychosocial, anthropological study; the second is homoerotica. There is a place for both. I had just planned on reading the former, and was disappointed.
I am a different—and better—person than I was before I read this novel.
Dark of the invisible moon. The nights now only slightly less black. By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.
Stream of consciousness dystopia, the end of the world as a flowing prose poem, sifting through the reader’s mind like the ash on the road.
I know this novel might seem unapproachable, or even painful, given the state of our world right now, but let me tell you, I feel like I have experienced a catharsis. I feel a wee bit stronger and ready to face the monsters than I did. My mind has been given a good cleanse, or a good shaking.
I read this all at once; I feel like I fell into it, and was in Louisiana for a time today. I need to get ahold of myself now before I can really talk to other people.
This novel is so beautiful in its darkness and ugliness and despair. The sycamore tree will always stand tall, the sugar cane will always be lovely and sweet, no matter how ugly and hopeless humans make each others’ lives.
A note on categorization and content: This novel is placed in the Young Adult genre on Hardcover, and I deeply disagree. This is a novel of adult subject matter, adult situations—murder, sex, alcohol abuse, intense violence, even more intense racism, classism, race relations in the South in the period after WWII, and the death penalty and how that has been used sometimes as a tool of racism in the United States. It is dark and upsetting from page one in a dark and realistic manner not seen in YA literature. This is our history, getting up in our face and daring us to make eye contact, and I think it’s a novel to grow into, to prepare for.
Contains spoilers
I continued, even after the author made some dubious claims about the field of psychology and how, exactly, the DSM is created and then used by professionals. (Source: I have a BA in psychology and an M.Ed. in counseling, so I was getting a little twitchy.) She also kept bemoaning the fact that hospital psychiatrists weren’t performing what would amount to psychotherapy sessions with the subject of the book, and with the other patients in the hospital. In a milieu like that, the psychiatrists are there to manage medication, and oversee care, and occasionally be in charge of group therapy sessions. But yes, personal one-on-one appointments will be short, because they have many patients to manage, and many nurses to oversee as well, usually. It’s a difficult role with too many moving parts.
I continued, even after the author started making excuses for the subject’s violent behavior, i.e., it was understandable that he assaulted a nurse, threatened to kill a bystander who was just trying to read on their lunch break, and tried to commit suicide by cop (his words), because he didn’t want to be hospitalized anymore. Then said subject was hypocritically appalled when a fellow hospital patient assaulted a nurse for throwing away all of their belongings. Good, good. Hanging in there. I can understand how she may have joined with him too much, countertransference.
I stopped abruptly at this sentence which began an argument that, I believe, was supposed to prove that delusions aren’t real, aren’t pathological. And I quote: “There is no clear line between hyperbole and delusions.”
No. No. There is a reason that we are precise with our language, because words have power. I am too kerfuzzled to expound any further, except to say this:
The author is not a psychologist nor a psychiatrist, nor a therapist, nor an expert on the history of or the philosophy of psychology. She is a true crime author who has spent time with prisoners teach them literature.
Edit to add: the author states in her Goodreads author bio that she is a psychoanalyst, but she has a doctorate in English Language and Literature from Oxford. I don’t see her credentials to practice listed. They weren’t on display in this book.
Edit to note: the narrator almost attempted South American and East Indian accents. It was offensive. Don’t do that.
Deleted stars for an otherwise enjoyable read—and a well-narrated one—for two reasons:
* an unbelievably too-pat and happy ending—people don’t behave that way. (Source: I have advanced degrees in psychology and counseling, with post-grad work in these subjects of grief and loss, and crime.) I was really enjoying myself until then, and the book ran off the road.
* the author thanks Ashley Flowers in the acknowledgments, an unethical podcaster and author. Many details can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CrimeJunkiePodcast/comments/rb0ihp/flowers_not_just_plagiarism/ For me at least, the professional network an author claims is important. It speaks to their work.
So I won’t be reading any more of the author’s work—there are just too many other books waiting for me.
Edit to add a third reason upon reflection:
* approaching the grande finale, I could barely tell two of the characters apart. They had extremely similar thoughts, feelings, and motivations. Despite having a different narrator for each, they might have well been the same.
Lowered my rating to two stars.
I won this book in a StoryGraph giveaway (thank you!) in exchange for an honest review.
I read this in one sitting, and I loved being immersed in its world. I feel like I just woke up from a dream I am trying to remember. I am looking forward to seeking out the source material that inspired it.
The occasional turn of phrase just knocked me out.
Demons are the mighty ribbons that will be untied at the end of the world.
I didn't like to be the only source of light in a room.
The audiobook is a must. Roger Guenveur Smith put his entire heart and soul into the narration.
I must find a way to address Louis Till in the manner in which Louis Till speaks to me. Not only with words. Words are insufficient, much too late for only words. I must respect Till's absence, his silence.
Dawson's narration felt as if something were being laboriously explained to me, rather than if I were joining with her to learn something and immerse in a subject we both enjoy.
Also, it was difficult to join with Dr. Heinrich's story. He wasn't very likable, to my mind. He seemed to see anyone else in his field as a personal foil. “Oh ho, you are testifying for the defense and I the prosecution? We are now adversaries in life forever!” “You are focusing on similar ideas? Well, of course you are wrong!” It was exhausting to get past in order to learn about the history of forensics.
Disjointed and hard to follow at times. Felt like reading an unpolished draft.
Edited to add: this book left me uncomfortable and deeply disappointed. As an autistic woman, I had been really looking forward to reading this. I feel like cringing when I think about it, and not in a shared-understanding way, but rather in a feeling of wishing I hadn't read it. I hate writing reviews like this, but it's the truth. Lowered from 2.75 to 1.75 after sitting with it.
Example: there was an entire chapter explaining how to fold a sheet (involving a ruler) and how to make hospital corners.
