Barry Brassfield
Beautifully written original fantasy story that feels at home in the late 19th early 20th century fairy story tradition that Tolkien commented on in his essay ‘On Fairy Stories.' This is my fourth Patricia McKillip novel and I look forward to reading more of this late writers exceptional work. I wish more modern fantasy followed the model of more concise single volume stories rather than the bloated fantasy model that came into vogue in the 90's and continues somewhat to this time. McKillip is writing during this period and in novels like this one, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and Solstice Wood, McKillip shows the power these stories still have to open one's imagination to new worlds of possibilities. Ombria in Shadow is my favorite of her work that I've read. I need to look to see if Le Guinn ever commented on this novel. I feel like with the presence and eventual wholeness of the shadow ‘undercity' McKillip is constructing tales on an archetypal level that would have appealed to the writer who wrote of Ged and the chaos he experiences when separate from his shadow/spirit. The Le Guin is more overtly taoist and even Jungian to a degree but I feel like the writers are operating on the same playing field.
More than just a story about crime and punishment, this novel is fundamentally about what it means to be a human being with a soul. Profoundly moving work and utterly timeless in its portrayal of humanity. That's the thing about books like this, it doesn't really matter in the end when they were written or in what cultural context the tale is set, because the reading of it applies to all human beings. Classics.
This book quite literally changed my life. I would end up writing my MA thesis on what Nature means in Walden. You should read Walden and find the answer for yourself! A valuable journey in living with purpose and intention. If I'm being fair, the opening chapter Economy is on the dry side, even for a Thoreau scholar, but the rest is very absorbing.
When I joined goodreads back in 2011, I didn't go back and record all the books I'd read previously. I started fresh, but of late I've been creating categories for old books and classics I read in college, and earlier times in my life. As a lit major through graduate school, I read a lot, but when I graduated in the 90's goodreads and sites like the storygraph didn't exist obviously, so I'm going on memory. There are many books I'm sure I will forget, but of all the fiction books I read in college, not one stayed with me more profoundly than The Brothers Karamazov. I've read it twice, in different translations, and I hope to read it once more before I leave this earth. TBK is simply not to be missed imo.
My least favorite of the Carl series so far. It's never a good sign imo when the writer feels the need to preface the book with a message about not to overly worry about the details of the complex train/station level as keeping track doesn't ultimately matter and things will become clear anyway by book's end. Matt Dinniman wasn't kidding. The entry gets bogged down in too much train! An interesting idea for a level but one that should have ended halfway through imo. Keep the Nothing but do more with stations maybe. That said, TDAC is still enjoyable (and important) owing to the presence of the Cookbook and some other key developments along the way, including an unexpected character death and some welcome fuckery by the dungeon AI, who may or may not be influenced by Quentin Tarantino. Lastly, there are more signs of Borant's corruption that point Carl in the direction of not merely surviving but destroying.
Lovely book of original verse. I used to read a lot of contemporary poetry, but I have gotten out of the habit. I recently met a coffee house barista who has an MFA in poetry and we started talking about contemporary poets and Su Cho came up. She recommended this book and I'm glad I took the time to read it. My notion of ‘contemporary' poetry is dated now, going back to the 90's. I hope this is the beginning of new discoveries in verse.
The Invited is an example of a book I gave four stars here because goodreads doesn't do halves or quarters. Also a reason for slowly migrating to the Storygraph where actual development happens on the platform and doesn't just exist to funnel you into Amazon, which like Shelob, must always feed. But I digress. The Invited reads like the other novels by Jennifer McMahon I've read and for the most part that is a good thing. I'd give this 3.5 only because there is some repetition in the middle parts that break one away from the narrative drive a bit too much imo, but the final third works really well and I enjoyed the twists and turns that get us to the conclusion. One of my favorite things about McMahon's novels are that her ghosts and supernatural hauntings are real. 100% and the skeptical characters must reckon with this fact as the plots evolve.
Harry ‘Rabbit' Angstrom makes that Dean Moriarty guy from On the Road seem like a pillar of familial responsibility by comparison. Okay, that is something of an exaggeration given Dean cycles through three wives and fathers four children between them over the course of the novel's timeline, but there is something about Harry's running at the worst possible times for him to abandon his responsibility's that feels especially egregious in the context of John Updike's second novel. I've not read much of Updike's work before so I was curious to read this near in time to Revolutionary Road and The Moviegoer, given both novels touch upon similar themes. Some of the prose I found pretty good here, especially in Chapter 3, but overall, I don't feel terribly motivated to read the subsequent three Harry ‘Rabbit' Angstrom novels. Updike wrote them all about a decade apart and the final two I believe won several awards, so maybe they get better.
My favorite character continues to be Her Royal Highness Princess Donut. Matt Dinniman clearly gets cats and I love cats, so of course I gravitate towards Donut. I'm to that point now after two novels where if anything seriously bad happened to Donut, I'd be seriously depressed as a reader. Let's hope she doesn't run out of magic missiles anytime soon.
Insightful prose that cuts like a surgical knife into the lives of April and Frank Wheeler. Unfortunately for the Wheelers and the reader, Richard Yates doesn't offer any anesthesia, and by the time the final page is read, you might wish a little lidocaine had been offered along the way, if not a full on syringe of Demerol. Revolutionary Road is at once a brilliant piece of American literature, zeroed in on a specific slice of American life in the mid 50's, and a brutal analysis of what this particular slice of life fails to provide for some. It's an American Tragedy as written by Yates rather than Theodore Dreiser. Even though it wouldn't be recorded for another five years, reading some of the dialog between the Wheelers made me think of the lyrics of Simon and Garfunkel's The Dangling Conversation. I also had the thought, I wonder if the Duffer Brothers had the Wheelers of Revolutionary Road in mind even a tiny bit when they created Mr and Mrs Wheeler for their Stranger Things series? Obviously not comparable in some key respects of Yates's novel (thankfully) but some of the ennui that is present in the relationship early on before Mrs Wheeler becomes a full on badass is reminiscent of what Frank and April suffer from early on. In some respects too, the 50's and 80's in American history are comparable. I am digressing, however, so it's time to wrap up this review. Interesting to read Walker Percy's The Moviegoer and Revolutionary Road so close in time.
I wish I could give 3.5 stars because that half star extra more accurately reflects how I feel about this novel. What is so misguided about being an observer and consumer of experiences? Walker Percy was a Catholic existentialist who was deeply influenced by the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. If you are familiar with Kierkegaard's concept of the aesthetic, then you will recognize a reflection of this in Percy's protagonist in The Moviegoer, Binx Bolling. Great name. Binx is an aesthete for most of the novel, a consumer of experiences, at the same time he has yet to accept the responsibilities expected of someone in his social circle from the Old South, especially marriage and choosing a profession like physician. The novel was published in 1961 originally and The Moviegoer won the National Book Award in ‘62 and I can understand why. The shift from being in the audience to going up on the stage of life is a journey most of us must make at some point, even if the anchor to a more physical reality and permanent choices are reflected in a philosophy outside of existentialism or Christianity. The point is not choosing one particular anchor, only that at some point there must be an anchor that roots one to this existence so that life so that it is more than just observing like a moviegoer. The novel's philosophical framework is pretty timeless, especially if you have experienced the malaise that Binx experiences as he does in his aesthetic phase. For Kierkegaard, as for Percy, the life of an aesthete often leads to this malaise, a condition that can only be described as spiritual if we keep to the Kierkegaardian context, and therefore the leap that is required to a more permanent anchor in life, although it may be grounded in physical realities like marriage or carrer, is ultimately one of religion. It requires a leap of faith, like jumping off into a void. Which is interesting, because I can think of several lifelong aesthetes who maintained their philosophical outlook on life without ever choosing to a more ‘grounded' existence. Thoreau comes to mind. It would have been interesting to see how this famous aesthete's life would have been altered had his early marriage proposal been accepted. Interestingly enough, Thoreau's intended's father rejected him because at the time he was a kind of Binx Bolling, but at least in Thoreau, I never get a sense that he experienced malaise in the existential/spiritual sense. He also lived in the 19th Century in New England rather than mid-19th Century Louisiana. On the flip side, we have Thomas Merton, and he chose the anchor of monasticism. His autobiography reads like one who comes to a crisis of spiritual malaise, but even though his anchor was decidedly religious, I don' think Merton ever lost that aesthetics's love of observing experience.
I'm getting a little far afield, but The Moviegoer makes you think. What else can I say about this nifty little novel? I wish there had been even more movie-going, but what we have is enjoyable and on point. I also love the final scene. It's moving and very effective. I think the Moviegoer remains relevant to modern readers, but you have to increasingly reach beyond the specific context of Binx Bolling as that America is now pretty dead. The search is eternal however, and maybe this explains why Percy's novel won the NBA the same year Catch-22 and Revolutionary Road were nominated? It's fun to think about how different these other great novels of the time are philosophically from Percy's novel. I wonder if the judges framed it as a battle between Kierkegaard, Sartre and Camus?
Really fun book. As someone who loves cats, of course Princess Donut, the Queen Anne Chonk, is my favorite character and she is the reason I'll keep reading these to the end no doubt. Matt Dinniman knows how to write a cat character because Donut talks just like anyone who has ever owned a cat imagines their cat might talk. She's spot on. Very clever concept overall and Dinniman knows how to balance the drama, violence and gruesome details with some laugh out loud humor. This is only the first book, but I suspect the author will deepen the meta-narratives that run behind the scenes so that this series will continue to take a critical eye to important issues the writer is calling attention to. Already in book one, Dinniman gets the reader to laugh uncomfortably at what inside we must know to be some pretty deep human flaws we all share.
Excellent fantasy novel that combines a fascinating hard magic system with elements of heist fantasy and religious empire prophecy/rebellion as the framework for the larger story. Early Sanderson has a tendency to over explain at times and repeat certain phrases, but on the whole Mistborn is an impressive piece of writing.
It's interesting reading Gone South after reading McCammon's introduction where he talks about his frustrations with the promotional efforts of his publisher for his previous novel. His feelings on the matter put the writer in a bad place mentally and he uses this as motivation in the creation of the pretty fantastic story in Gone South. This novel could be subtitled ‘To Hell and Back' because this is what happens to Vietnam veteran and all around good guy Dan Lambert as he goes about trying to keep his head above water. He's already lost his wife and is estranged from his boy, and he's been diagnosed with leukemia which is most likely the result of agent orange exposure in Vietnam. Unfortunately for Dan things go sideways at the bank in a big way after he's denied an extension on his past due truck loan. See, the truck is all he has left and how can he even get to a job if he should find work without transportation? This desperation leads to a death and Dan having to go on the run with a bounty on his head. To say the bounty hunters are memorable is an understatement. One of the guys has a third arm from a partially absorbed sibling and the second is an Elvis impersonator named Pelvis Eisley. Pelvis also doesn't go anywhere without his bulldog, Mama. Gone South takes place in Louisiana, which is home to some even more memorable characters Dan meets on the run. All of this craziness is leading up to a kind of death and resurrection for Dan, even if only briefly, as he meets a girl named Arden who was cursed with a birthmark on her face she is desperate to be rid of. She travels with Dan and tells him about her search for the Bright Girl, a supposedly eternally young girl who can heal anything with a simple touch. Dan finds this idea ridiculous and isn't shy about saying so but somehow these two end up being rather endearing travel partners as they flee the bounty hunters and Arden searches for her Bright Girl. I was worried the resolution would be a letdown of sorts after the wonderful and wacky buildup, but the ending is anything but a letdown. It's perfect and more importantly for the success of the novel, believable in a very poignant way. The term ‘gone south' is one Dan learned while serving in Vietnam, and it is slang for when a soldier loses it mentally and does something horrible. As a very real aside, it made me terribly sad to read this knowing how the war affected the lives of so many in a truly awful way. McCammon goes out of his way to highlight the different ways soliders coming back from ‘Nam were treated from the then just returning vets from Desert Storm in the early 90's.
McCammon might have been depressed about where his career was at the time of this book's writing but he uses this as motivation to write one of his best books.
Holy fuck. What do you write about your experience reading such a horror novel as BFF other than holy fuck! The horror that cuts the deepest is the horror that runs through the truth of experience, because only then do we as readers come face to face with actual, real human evil. The writer here is both a conveyor of truth and a magician. The portal he hurls the reader through here isn't served purely alongside a comforting bowl of ‘but it's fiction.' There is nothing fictional about the depths of the evil Stephen Graham Jones chronicles here in this superb book. Arthur was cold, tired, and hungry, all understandably basically human experiences. It's also understandable that he wants relief, but his actions result in an onslaught of death, an unleashing of human evil that was part of a much larger campaign of human evil. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a brutal read precisely because the horror isn't imaginary, at least not most of it. The fantastical vampire element is brilliant in this context because the author does a fine job of expanding that ancient mythology into a dinstincly modern and American context. I feel like after reading the final part of the novel, where Etsy performs the most horrific act of penance I've ever read in a novel, I need to go read some Madeline L'Engle. Holy fuck.
This book is thought provoking enough that I want to comment more about Good Stab and Arthur as moral agents but I need more time to think about and consider what I've read.
Second time through and I find Mr. Mercedes to have aged well, though having watched the television series, I read Bill Hodges as Brendan Gleeson this time around. Fun to remember the differences between the book and the first season which covers Mr. Mercedes faithfully as we meet old friends and have our introduction to King favorite Holly Gibney. I do find that I miss Hodges pet tortoise Fred from the series. Strong writing throughout. For all that Stephen King is known for horror, after having read some of his murder mysteries, he is also quite adept at turning in a tight page turner in the crime genre. The dude is just a good writer and I remember thinking about this time in 2014 (maybe as far back as 2011 when Doctor Sleep came out) that Stephen King was getting better as he ages. Both mystery fans and horror aficionados will find something in Mr. Mercedes because Brady is truly a fucking original horror. The ick factor is pretty strong with his mother as well, although King does a nice job of weaving in enough of her backstory and that of the family to understand why she might bury her conscious mind in alcohol.
Quick note for readers interested in the David E. Kelley three season television series. The series shuffles the order around after Mr. Mercedes, moving up End of Watch to season two and leaving Finders Keepers for season three. I prefer the book order, but the series is an excellent watch overall. Now on to Finders Keepers soon, after a detour into Buffalo Hunter horror.
I go back and forth between three and four stars. I read this originally back in the 90's long before Goodreads helped me keep track of books I've read. When I joined in 2011, I didn't go through and rate all of the books I read in the past, I started from scratch, and so this is my first review here on Goodreads. The re-read happened because I was so distraught at some of the nuclear holocaust material going on in Swan Song, a book I just finished. I needed a short break and decided it was time to revisit the story of Edgewater, Daily Alice and Smoky Barnacle.
From memory, the prose here is just as magical to me. Playful and intricate, appropriate for author John Crowley's Edgewater creation and all it represents, especially the Little, Big of the title. This is such a unique novel, I can't think of anything quite like unless you go back to the 19th Century. I'm thinking of something like Rosetti's Goblin Market. Like this wonderful poem, Little, Big is a doorway into another world, but it's not as simple as a house at the base of a wood inhabited by fae, which might form a more traditional story. In Little, Big, the little is actually the big. In the case of Edgewater, the house contains the big even though normally when you enter a house from the outside, you think of yourself as being in a smaller space. Crowley reverses this in his story and that key concept guides the entire framework of the novel. Anchoring this is two very memorable characters, Smoky Barnacle and Daily Alice Drinkwater. What great names! Smoky is from the City while Daily Alice and the generations of her family who have lived at Edgewater are of the fae and already part of that bigger world inside the Little (Edgewater).
I think the problem some have with Little, Big is that this is a long, generational novel, and not everyone wants to read a few hundred pages detailing past generations when they don't come directly into play with the story's climax. I'm of two minds about this myself. This time around, my reading preferences would be to streamline things a bit and root the story in Smoky, Alice and their offspring, the story of Auberon and his journey to the City being one wonderful side story that inverts Smokey's journey and indeed the title, in a meaningful way, and is essential to the overall plot and theme. Each reader will have a different preference, however. The novel could be shorter by about a third and I think you can argue it would be even more compelling, but since I'm not planning to rewrite something that is already a masterwork, this is only supposition on my part. The prose is really wonderful, so this time around could have been influenced by knowing Swan Song was waiting for me to resume.
The ending is both memorable and controversial. For much of the novel, the Drinkwater family through the generations is kind of in a holding pattern before they enter the Big world of fae, from their Little home of Edgewood. Half way through you might wonder if this will ever happen, kinda like readers of Iain M. Banks might wonder if the Culture will ever actually sublime. That question sadly will never be answered but Crowley doesn't have you read through his novel only to withhold the prize! The Drinkwaters do move into the larger space that is Big, or the Parliament of Fae which exists in the center of the house, another play on the title. Alice is of this world already by birth, but Smoky is not. He's from the City and serves as an anchor to that reality, another Little. At the end he isn't able to cross over with Alice and the rest of the family because he can't see what they see. Instead he sees basically an old ruin, something aging and worn with time, rather than the world of fae that Alice sees. Smoky dies and while the prose around all of this and his memory from Alice is quite poignant, it's still a disappointment to me that he cannot essentially become what the Drinkwaters are and crossover into the endless summer day with Alice. It's heartbreaking but it also forces the reader to re-consider what Smokey actually represents, and then, what that means for the readers. I feel like Crowley is suggesting the Big world of fae, of magic and myth, are always there, but can be difficult for us to see, at least those of us from the City. I would have liked Smoky to be able to cross with Alice.
This disappointment aside, the overall book is magical, with tarot readings, animal avatars like Grandfather Trout, which refer back to the character John Drinkwater who built Edgewater and the significance of all of this is very well thought out. Crowley builds an impressive mythology. If one is feeling a bit dry on the inside, I highly recommend taking the plunge into Little, Big, and drinking the water (Drinkwater) so that some of that fae magic might inspire. At the very least it will be refreshing as an antidote to the present. I need half stars. 3.5 here.
Last year I read Robert McCammon's Boy's Life for the first time and deeply enjoyed it. It reminds me of what I love about books like It by Stephen King and Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. Small town, young boy or groups of friends facing evil and mystery, all the while confronting the horrors of being young and growing up. Given I've read It and Summer of Night several times, I was surprised I'd never heard of Boy's Life or McCammon before, or if I had, I'd forgotten. Needless to say, I'm grateful I discovered his work. Better late than never. This year I wanted to read his novel Swan Song as it is often compared to the Stand, a towering work of early horror fiction by Stephen King. My mom gifted me that book when I was a youngling and that started me on the horror kick I've had all my life. The Stand is a classic! So shortly before reading I read some reviews of Swan Song and was deeply impressed to find some folks who actually prefer it to the Stand. Time to read then!
First off, I should say a direct comparison is hardly fair. Swan and Song are only alike in the very general sense of being post-apocalyptic fiction where an evil rises to take advantage of the remains of humanity. In practice and in writing, they are very different novels. Swan Song was published a decade after the Stand and by then, King's novel was a worldwide classic. After reading Swan Song, I can say it should be as well known among horror fans because it is an amazing distillation of evil, both human and supernatural. Swan Song was more difficult for me to get through, and I suspect that will be true for others as well. The reason behind this is that King and McCammon destroy the world very differently. In the Stand, humanity is largely wiped out due to super flu. This leaves structures and the earth itself standing as things were before the bug hit. McCammon, publishing his novel in the 80's towards the end of the Cold War, destroys the war by nuclear annihilation and because he does this, much of the novel also details the devastating effects on every living thing that the planet previously supported with life. Everything is basically dead now, except a few survivors who suffer radiation poisoning and mutations in all the grotesque ways that would happen if we nuked the entire planet. It's not easy reading for a kid raised like I was in a time where we still had nuclear attack drills in high school. I had to stop, turn to a very different kind of novel (reviewed next) and then return because I found Swan Song so unsettling.
Thankfully, the story progresses people come together and the supernatural worlds of good and evil collide in interesting ways, and the Good is truly something to root for here. I love what McCammon does with this battle. His Big Bad, going by the name of Friend, is fucking chilling and very well drawn so that it will give you the creeps in daylight. The character of Swan is the basis for renewal and life giving hope for a better future, and the novel delivers a fantastic few face offs between her and Friend that elevate this pulpy horror novel to the next level. The endings (plural, because there is more than one like Return of the King) are very satisfying to read and fulfill a promise that makes reading through all the ugliness of nuclear war and the human monsters that survive worth it. At least to this reader. McCammon plays with the idea, rather brilliantly I might add, that one of the chief mutilations suffered by survivors from the radiation poisoning results in their true selves being revealed through the slow morphing of new faces behind what the author calls a ‘Job's Mask.' A very nice touch to an excellent piece of horror fiction that doesn't end up being all that comparable to a classic like the Stand. Swan Song stands on its own and very well.
Wonderful conclusion to Philip Pullman's Book of Dust trilogy. I love the way Pullman weaves together philosophy and metaphysics in his work, and his talents as a writer shine through this farewell to Lyra's world. And what a journey it is, filled with wonder, imagination and Dust. Just how imagination and dust work together is a major theme of the series and of The Rose Field in particular. I hate to say goodbye to Lyra and her world. As a character she comes full circle into adulthood in this second trilogy and it is a joy to read if you loved His Dark Materials. Perhaps one day we will be reading works by Lyra the storyteller. One can hope!
Fun for me to revisit this after about 40 years. An older friend's brother had this Yes bio when I was in high school and as a big fan of the band I longed to read it, but the library didn't have it and so I would go over to the friend's house and read a chapter at a time as he wouldn't let it out of the house! Leap forward to 2025 and a kind Yes fan sent his copy to me after we chatted online about the band. I loved being able to read this again, reliving those early memories and the excitement that comes with being 14 and high on a band's music. Because it was published 45 years ago, Dan Hedges only covers the first 12 years or so of the band's history, going back to the 1968 founding, and then ending with the Dramatic shakeup in 1980 when co founder and lead singer Jon Anderson and iconic keyboardist Rick Wakeman left the band at the same time. I still enjoy classic Yes music from that first magical decade of their existence and reading this book served as a stark reminder of how many lineup changes have come and gone for this band since 1980. Yes still exists but with no founding members and the years in between have seen some decent music released but looking back I feel like most of the music has been lost in the Drama of lineup changes and bickering among some of the principles. So much so that I almost find myself wishing Yes had ended after the Drama experiment folded due to Trevor Horn being unable to sing the classic material live, or really even sing live at all for an extended tour, even with the songs in his native range. Drama made for a fun studio album that sounded fresh in 1980, but if things had ended there, you would still have all the classic memories and great music without much of the unfortunate drama that has followed around the band since. There is a reason that guitarist Steve Howe, who came aboard for album no. 3 and now leads a version of Yes that might kindly be referred to as a top notch cover band, focuses current Yes live shows on the classic music only. It's what sells tickets still in 2026, and has been true for many years now. Curious about Yes? 1968-1980 has you covered and this book is an excellent chronicle of those years for the most part.
As a dear friend once described Dune as that was really fucking good! I say of Joe Hill's amazing King Sorrow. King Sorrow is really fucking good! Nine years since the Fireman (also really fucking good) is a long time to wait, but this book is large and contains multitudes to reference a poem by Walt Whitman. King Sorrow is an impressive achievement in how Joe Hill weaves together the various threads all held together by the diabolical dragon. As someone who once studied medieval literature, of course my favorite character is Arthur and I loved all of the lore that Hill builds into his narrative. In a lot of respects the story itself is very medieval and not just because of the trimmings of trolls, mythical swords, and magic potions, although these elements all add to the richness of the tale. There are distinct elements that also represent a very present horror, such as the one Hill creates in his superb Heart Shaped Box and I appreciate the authors allusions to Tolkien as well as his own works and those of his father. Joe Hill manages to pull it all off here in a story I could barely put down. Seriously, the narrative flies faster than a dragon from the Long Dark pursuing a jetliner.
Fun story where we get to read about a very evil incarnation of Flagg, here as a court magician who manipulates the weak in order to bring unhappiness and ruin to a people and the Kingdom of Delain. This is my first time reading this and I'm wondering if the Dutch metal band took their name Delain from this novel. It really wasn't until this year when I read the Dark Tower series and other related King novels and stories that I began to realize just how interconnected many of King's works are. Eyes of the Dragon was published in 1987, right after one of my favorite King novels, IT, and yet I never knew until now that Flagg was a character in this fantasy work. Very fast paced prose fitting the audience that also demonstrates how flexible King's writing and genre stylings can be.
The first Stephen King collection I read many years ago, and still my overall favorite after this year of much King reading. The stories are hungry and raw! Definitely the product of a young writer. The classics like Graveyard Shift, the Mangler and Children of the Corn are still horrifying but I also appreciate their pulp quality more as an older reader. My favorite this time through is One for the Road, though Jerusalem's Lot is a close second. The latter is forms the basis for the excellent adaptation a couple of years back now starring Adrien Brody and delves into the history of the town and its vampires long before Ben Mears arrives in the Lot for his starring turn in Salem's Lot. One for the Road is a short gem that takes place after the events of Salem's Lot. It's a frightening story during a nor'easter that features a super haunting little girl. The final image stays with both the narrator and the reader.
