Brian Richards, writer

Witching Hour Theater

The following were books I finished reading during the month of July.

So there are some good titles here, and I think I really lucked out with my July reading choices. “Citizen” came as a recommendation from my friend Jenny, who I know I can count on for thoughtful, worthwhile suggestions like this. It strikes me in retrospect that I read it too quickly, capturing only the sentiment and outrage it might impart. Like many works of poetry, I would flag this one to reread, especially considerting the sense that I have that it has more to teach me than I learned the first time through.

Witching Hour Theater was just plain old fun. This was Janz's first novel, and the afterward explained how he came to write it and what it means to him. His novels are crafted in a way that makes them seem not crafted, if that makes any sense, and that creates an immersive reading experience. Plus there was some good old fashioned movie theater violence here.

Nothing to Lose is a title I read on my mother's Kindle. In the years before she passed away she and I shared book recommendations, although often it was a matter of me recommending the first title in a series I never pursued. When I inherited her Kindle I discovered that for several of the authors I recommended she collected every one of their titles, and Lee Child is an example. It's a strange kind of flattery to learn that this had happened, and so I've kept her old Kindle alive so I can keep working on the reading list she built. It's a tiny little way I stay connected to her memory.

And finally there was Survivor Song. Paul Tremblay has a terriic reputation among horror writers these days, and not the least because he's a self-deprecating, down-to-earth writer who puts a unique personality into his work. He's also a pretty creative dude, and his collection Growing Things is a solid example of this. Survivor Song is a story that at face value I didn't think I could connect with, as it featurestwo female lead characters, one of whom is pregnant. For some reason I have a mental block of disinterest around pregnancy stories, and to a lesser degree female leads. This book challenged that disinterest in all the right ways.

Survivor Song is a horror novel, no doubt, but it's also a human story that demonstrates nuances of friendship that I could certainly relate to, understand, and feel were tested by the events of the story. Not only did I enjoy every page of this novel, but I also felt every page of it, and that's not something that happens with everything I read. Highly recommended.

Paul Tremblay is fantastic, but Jonathan Janz will mess you up