The Confabulator Cafe

Author: jcampbell

  • Stephen Graham Jones’s The Least of My Scars (Book Review)

    51FEhkZbqNL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_The horror genre has a lot of good lyrical writers and a lot of good visceral writers. Most of the time, those traits are exclusive. I don’t know why. Perhaps those who write with a more visceral style use conversational tone in order to maximize the effect. Brian Keene and Jack Ketchum are two examples. Their books are well-written, but so linguistically relaxed that the words disappear. On the other end of the spectrum, writers like Ramsey Campbell and Peter Straub write lyrically and specialize in so-called “quiet horror.” Much like the artist who works with negative space, these writers use what isn’t on the page as much as they do the written words.

    There are several writers who are exceptions to the rule, and one of the best among them is Stephen Graham Jones. His novel The Least of My Scars serves as an example of what can be done when lyrical writing meets visceral imagery. It is an exceptional example of that grey area between horror and noir fiction.

    William Colton Hughes is a serial killer. He lives in an apartment complex, supported by a mob boss. His job is simple. When the boss sends someone to the door, Hughes kills them and disposes of the body in a methodical way that has to be read to be believed. The apartment exists as Hughes’s little chunk of paradise, an island where he settles in to a homicidal dream-come-true. That dream crumbles, along with Hughes’s sanity, as the story progresses.

    The novel is told from Hughes’s perspective. Using an unreliable, unsympathetic narrator is tricky, but Jones pulls it off masterfully. Another reviewer/writer, Caleb J. Ross jokingly called the book “Native American Psycho.” Certainly, The Least of My Scars reminds you of Bret Easton Ellis’s book, as well as Joyce Carol Oates’s Zombie. You feel no empathy for Hughes. It doesn’t matter. All the other characters are just as rotten as he is, but without the excuse of insanity. (more…)

  • Are Writers Role Models?

    burroughsThe University of Kansas recently acquired several items from the estate of William S. Burroughs, including the working materials for Last Words. This is a major deal for the University. The journals will provide a great source for scholars researching Burrough’s work, and will bring attention to the university. Burroughs lived in Lawrence for the last fifteen years of his life, and this would seem like a significant local connection.

    Burroughs is a polarizing figure within literature. Some critics considered him a genius and others considered him a hack. Regardless, he influenced a variety of artists, including writers and musicians. When I read the press release, I was excited for the University. Even though Burroughs is not in my area of literary scholarship, I was excited for Lawrence.  While the attention often goes to basketball this time of year, Lawrence has a thriving arts scene that includes the literary arts. We have several writers groups while most communities are lucky to have one. Besides Burroughs, Lawrence has been home to several prominent writers, most notably Langston Hughes. I filed the news away under the “Cool…good to know” section of my brain, and didn’t think much of it until a letter to the editor in a recent edition of the local paper. (more…)

  • Old Devil Moon

    71UxQ8v6SQLPatryk Abramczyk should have been shackled to the concrete wall in his basement. Instead, he sat in the dining room of a crippled cruise ship. His wife Becky sat across from him, dressed to the nines, despite not showering for a week. Her eyes shimmered on the razor thin breaking point of tears. Patryk admired her strength. Becky’s inflexible nature tried him, at times. Today, eating peanut butter on white bread in their formal attire, it provided stability on the otherwise stormy ocean. As she had said, “The jazz combo still comes out and plays every night. They play the part. We should, too.”

    Patryk took a bite out of his sandwich. The bread tasted as dry as cured concrete. The earthy smell of peanut butter momentarily pushed aside the heady aroma of Becky’s favorite perfume. Patryk wasn’t sure if she wore a bit too much out of self-consciousness, or if the change had begun. So many of the symptoms–the heat, the skin tension, the grinding teeth–were indicators of stress. Becky was his rock. When he prepared for a particularly difficult part, she stood by him. When the change was particularly hard, Becky would sit in a chair across the room from where he convulsed in shackles, singing “The sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar–”

    “Excuse me, Mr. Abram?” (more…)

  • The Evolution of an Idea: Murph’s Law

    People often ask writers where they get their ideas. There are a lot of answers to that question. I think everyone does it a bit differently. A month ago, I published the story “Murph’s Law” on this site. You can find it here. A couple of readers wrote me and asked where it came from.

    On May 28th, 2013, I awoke with an opening line in my head. “When I pissed on Bobby Smith’s grave, I didn’t mean anything by it.” I logged in to Evernote on my phone and recorded it. For those of you who don’t know Evernote, it is a program that allows you to take notes, voice recordings, or pictures and access them from either your phone or your computer. It’s a wonderful program that I don’t use as much as I should.

    A good opening line is a baited hook for a pantser (someone who writes without any plan). I liked it, but I didn’t know what it could catch. I toyed with a couple ideas, including the vengeful spirit of Bobby Smith who wasn’t keen about getting pissed on. I tried a version of the “Resurrection Mary” story. I wrote a few opening paragraphs. It didn’t do enough for me. (more…)

  • Neil Gaiman’s Fortunately, The Milk (Book Review)

    fortunatelyI have loads of respect for Neil Gaiman. When I first started writing, I read Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury’s attitude and enthusiasm sent me straight to the keyboard stuffed full of dreams. Ray is gone, but Gaiman has positioned himself as an inspirational figure to a new generation of writers. I think most writers have read his many social media postings or have heard his “make good art” speeches. Sometimes, I wish he would spend more time writing and less time inspiring, but I appreciate what his enthusiasm has done for the art form.

    I’m not exactly the most unbiased reviewer when it comes to Gaiman. I loved The Sandman and American Gods. I adore his short fiction. He ranks among my favorite living writers. In Fortunately, The Milk, Gaiman gave me the opportunity to share his work with my six year-old son. It sounds like a simple thing. A lot of people read to their children, but it’s special to be able to share a favorite writer with my child. I can’t read Chuck Palahniuk’s transgressive fiction with my son, or Jack Ketchum’s splatterpunk, or Clive Barker’s–whatever. He wouldn’t understand Nick Hornby’s crises of male identity, and Irvine Welsh would raise a lot of questions that I hope never to answer. But a book featuring a hot air balloon piloted by a dinosaur scientist? That, we can handle. (more…)

  • Murph’s Law

    When I pissed on my best friend’s grave, I didn’t mean anything by it. I had good intentions. But what can go wrong, will go wrong. I stopped at the cemetery after the reception to pay my respects to Chuckles: the man, the myth, my friend since grade school. The bar had been packed. I devoted myself to drinking for both me and Chuckles and drank roughly the equivalent of Milwaukee’s gross domestic beer product.

    After the Sheriff threw me out of Billy’s House of Brews, I stumbled across a goddamn acre of the mayor’s snow-covered corn fields, cutting through to the cemetery on the opposite side. Chuckles had been laid to rest in the Fairfax Community Cemetery after a tragic incident involving a bottle of cheap grain alcohol, a sled, and a Ford F150.  The snow drifted in waves across the open field. Patches of bare, trampled corn stalks exchanged glances with windswept snow dunes. Each step was a leap of faith. My feet crunched through the icy crust and jarred against hard soil. Hidden corn stalk punji sticks jabbed my feet. I tugged my ankles from the sucking grip of the heavy, wet snow. I tripped. I fell. I crawled, and I stumbled. By the time I reached the cemetery, my church slacks were soaked through. (more…)

  • Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited (Book Review)

    71UxQ8v6SQLI don’t think it would be a stretch to call Cormac McCarthy one of our era’s greatest American writers. He has certainly carried the torch of a variety of writers that came before him, from Hemingway to O’Connor. McCarthy is known for his stripped down prose, and The Sunset Limited takes it even a step further.

    If you have read The Road, Child of God, or any of his other books, then you know that McCarthy works as a mechanical minimalist. He uses only the sparsest punctuation and avoids dialogue tags whenever possible. His style is gritty, realistic, and grotesque in a wonderful Southern Gothic sense.

    The Sunset Limited has the usual bleak McCarthy tone, but is written entirely in dramatic form. This is essentially a play script. However, its stage directions are more sparse than most plays. Really, the format seems to be McCarthy challenging himself. Whereas a lot of his novels force him to write so tight that there is no doubt who is speaking, regardless of notation, this seems to be an experiment in stripping a novel down to dialogue only.

    (more…)

  • Looking Forward to Next NaNoWriMo

    November has come and gone, and with it, I say goodbye to the last NaNoWriMo of my Master’s Degree. The last two have been tough for me. I’m the sort of guy that harbors some professional jealousy. Don’t worry. It is perfectly healthy. In fact, it drives me to write more and write better. The last two years have not been good for my professional jealousy. It’s hard to watch everyone else winning NaNoWriMo and not be able to do it yourself. It’s hard to watch them write thousands of words more than you.

    That being said, I’ve been fairly happy with the writing that I’ve done the last two years. This year’s project Mama’s Little Boy seems promising, aid I am hoping that Heaven’s Edge, last year’s project, will eventually become a dystopian noir trilogy.

    It’s going to be awhile before I can get around to editing. January, I have another literature class, “Classics in Detective Fiction” and my thesis as soon as I determine what it is going to entail. Hopefully, I will have some time this summer to edit and maybe finish the first draft of Heaven’s Edge. By the time all of that is done, it will be November again, and next November will be full of magic and possibilities. I am already considering the novel I will be writing, The Dreamcatcher.

    I won’t go in to the plot, right now. I don’t want to spoil it for you or for myself. That’s just not the way I work. But rest assured, it is all percolating somewhere deep in my subconscious. But next November, I will know where I am going, and I will have November to take me there.

    By the way, I would like to throw out a cheap plug for the anniversary double issue, lucky number 13, of Bete Noire Magazine. If you go buy it, you can read my story “Flute of the Dead.”

    You can find it here, and thanks for reading! https://www.createspace.com/4546097

  • December is Coming for You! NaNoWriMo Week 4

    It’s November 25th, the last week of National Novel Writing Month. Are you panicking, yet? Actually, I think the last week of NaNoWriMo is one of the easiest. A lot of people are winning, which pushes you to finish, and if you have stuck with it this long, then you are probably going to make it. As for my rebellious NaNovella, it is about where it should be. I’m only 4,500 words away from my planned 25,000.

    I’ve always been pretty good at the pacing aspect of writing. I generally have a set word count for stories, and I rarely miss it by more than a few words either way. All of the pieces have fallen into place, and we have come to the climax of my story. All the right people are dead, all the pieces, save the final one has fallen, and my protagonist has just settled down into a groove. He has made a grasp for that has handhold over the abyss his life has become, and he thinks he might be able to hold on. Now, I get to take his handhold and beat him over the head with it.

    I’m still very busy. I have a lot of projects coming due at once, but it looks like I am going to make my 25,000 words. More importantly, I think I will have something good to work with during the rewrites. I also have a little bit of pent up jealousy against the people who are doing 50,000 this year, and a bit of disappointment that I won’t “officially” win NaNoWriMo and get my winner’s badge. That being said, this was a good project, and a good learning experience for me as writer.

    But next year, I’m coming after that winner’s badge.

    NaNoWriMo Word Count: 20,500

  • NaNoWriMo Week 3: Or, Ugh.

    November means two things for me this year. NaNoWriMo is the obvious one. It’s why you are here. The second, and slightly more important, is the end of the last Fall semester of my Master’s degree. This week meant a lot of writing, just not the kind of writing that I would like to talk about here. I wrote around 6,000 words of academic writing. I read a lot. The Turn of the Screw and Frankenstein. Dracula is sitting on the coffee table in front of me, waiting to be picked up. I’ve already read over 100 pages today. I watched Jack Clayton’s Turn of the Screw adaptation, The Innocents, and analyzed it for visual symbolism. Then there was a bibliography due for the final paper in my adaptation class. Did I lose anyone in all of that? I’ll just stop there before we get into the article I had to summarize on the children in The Turn of the Screw as they relate to Gothic liminality. Don’t know what liminality is? Neither did I until this week.

    Long story not so short, this week was about a lot of things that didn’t have anything to do with NaNoWriMo. The little writing I got to do went very well, and I am sad that I got out of the habit. One of my favorite things about NaNoWriMo is the day-to-day grind. I enjoy it in some sick way. Hopefully, I will be able to clear some time to get back to it this week before I get too far behind. I’m still in good shape for my expected 25,000 words. I just can’t have any more weeks like this week.

    Be sure to check out www.ljworld.com/nanowrimo2013 to keep up on all the updates from the local newspaper coverage of the Lawrence region.

    NaNoWriMo progress: 14,346