Fuckin' Fantastic Fiction Follow-Up

There's been a healthy amount of interest in the previous post, so I'm following up with some related items.

These Greenhall/Hamilton novels, though not as well known as Baxter, are also must-reads. Both employ the author's patented 1st person point of view, and are written with the familiar sardonic dryness one expects after the previous two novels. 

 

As noted in correspondence from regular attendee here, Soiled Sinema, a writer of considerable note himself, Gregory A. Douglas's The Nest is cockroach heaven for those inclined towards the genre. The British Devil's Coach Horse, by Richard Lewis, also mined this terrain.

The seriously underrated Stephen Gregory delivered on the promise of The Cormorant with this '88 novel from St. Martin's Press. The Ramsey Campbell blurb is justified, as are the other reviews that hint at the book's themes of "obsession" and "breakdown". Gregory does obsession extremely well, and it's pitiful that his debut didn't earn the attention of something like Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory.

 Higgs' follow-up to The Happy Man was another grim outing with a solid thread of nihilism.

Recently, I reviewed Nathan Tyree's Mr. Overby Is Falling on this blog, and commented on the book's chilling nihilism. Higgs achieves an equal measure of nihilism here, and delivers a superb climax. 

It's a shame he abandoned the horror genre. I'd love to know why.

Fuckin' Fantastic Fiction

 

Elizabeth, one of the greatest horror novels ever written, is on nobody's '100 Best Horror Books' list, but I don't care.  I recommend it -- and all the books below -- with no reservations.

 

Don't expect lists of 'Guilty Pleasures' from me because 'Guilty Pleasures' are for withering dickweeds who spent their youth listening to priests spouting bullshit while copping illegal reach-arounds. 

 

The authors of all these books are not household names, but they're welcome in my house any time.

These authors can write. By Christ, they can write! 

 

These masterpieces explore evil and chaos and anarchy, and smell of truth. 

All these books influenced me greatly, and reminded me that the greatest storytelling comes from unique voices, voices that aren't afraid to speak, aren't afraid to tell.

 

 

I love these books. I treasure them. I'm grateful for their existence.

 They're the work of brave people, of shameless adventurers of the soul.

They push established boundaries, they shun convention. 

 

Embrace them as I have.

You won't be sorry.

The Underrated Coroner of Evil

Jessica Hamilton, who has written as Ken Greenhall in the US, has a distinct, rare voice. Virtually ignored on both sides of the Atlantic, she (or perhaps he?) has been absent from the genre for some time.

'Elizabeth' (Sphere, '76) was the first of Ms. Hamilton's slim, disturbing novels that I encountered. The second was 'Baxter' (Sphere, '77); it was titled 'Hell Hound' in the U.S. (Zebra) and attributed to Greenhall. As is Hamilton/Greenhall's style, the narrative unfolds from a taut, almost sociopathic, first person perspective. Elizabeth is a fourteen year girl who comes under the influence of a dead woman. She is encouraged to commit terrible acts of violence, beginning with the callous murder of her own parents.

The writing style is elegant and precise; the subject matter is dark and sinister.

'Baxter', like James Herbert's 'Fluke', is told from a dog's point of view -- in this case, a malevolent bull terrier. The dog kills each of his masters until he finds one who can command his respect.

The dog contemplates his future: "There must be some who see the world as I do; who know neither love nor fear.. I think I can find such a person..." When he does, death and
destruction result.

Once again, Hamilton takes firm control of the language and paints a macabre portrait of a sinister, cruel mind. The writing is tight and elegant, pretty on the surface, but swarming with rot and disease beneath the skin.

In 1989, French director Jerome Boivin adpated 'Baxter' for the silver screen. The film perfectly captured the book's tone and Hamilton's facility with language. The dog's voice-over, spoken in a throaty French baritone, added enormous weight to the dank, disturbing atmosphere.

Pocket Books, in the U.S., released 'Childgrave' ('82)


...and 'The Companion' ('88) under the Ken Greenhall moniker.

Once again, both novels are superb explorations of evil at a very intimate level. The writing is consistently powerful and disturbing.

Two additional novels, which I haven't read, exist: "Death Chain" (Pocket, '91) and the very well reviewed 'Lenoir' (Zoland Books, 2000), a non-horror effort about a black slave in Amsterdam.

In the UK, the Sunday Times called 'Elizabeth' an "elegant study of a world in which evil is total and triumphant".

Of 'Baxter', the Evening News said it is "A novel of inhuman horror".

Few modern authors have performed literary autopsies on the mechanics of evil so stylishly and as thoroughly as Jessica Hamilton/Ken Greenhall.

The mere recalling of my experiences reading these books gives me a delicious frisson of dread.

The author, a coroner of human evil, is really THAT good.

*****

fantasticfiction.com lists Greenhall's birth date as 1928