Good Old Books

 I used to read a lot. It cracks me up, here in this graceless online age, when I hear someone say (usually on YouTube) that they're a voracious reader. Scrolling Goodreads and putting up an aspirational list doesn't count, squirt, and audiobooks are dubious at best. I was a voracious reader in an almost literal sense, like I'd eat books and would shrivel up and die without a steady intake. And I ate well, being no snob: I wasn't reading Dostoevsky all the time, it was mostly paperbacks, mass-market stuff, science fiction and horror and fantasy books with barbarians and nekkid wimmen on the cover. I'd read one and move on to the next.

What else is a sissy kid in central Texas supposed to do, back in the olden-days 80's? I lived fifteen miles north of town, surrounded by horse pasture and scrub oak and mesquite. I'd wander around and find a shady spot and eat beef jerky and read Fritz Leiber and Tolkien and Larry Niven books.

I got the book gene from my mom. She was a reader, always had a book, and she was no snob, either. She was mainly an Agatha Christie gal, with a healthy dose of Stephen King and Peter Straub thrown into the mix to keep things lively. (I never got a taste for Agatha Christie, myself; it took me about three books to realize that they were the adult equivalent of Encyclopedia Brown books: neat, predictable puzzlers, formulaic as a feature, always wrapping up into a neat package at the end. I understand the appeal, but it just never clicked with me. I like a few loose ends and unexplained corpses in my thrillers).

The horror stuff, though...now that left a mark. I read Stephen King's short story collection Night Shift when I was maybe nine years old, and that shit left scars. King has a way of sucking you in so you aren't so much suspending your disbelief, it's like he strips you of your ability to disbelieve. When he's on a roll (and no, he's not always on a roll, sometimes he falls flat as a fritter), but when he writes the ones that snag you in that first paragraph, you're as credulous as a kid sitting at a campfire. You might look back later and shoot holes in his premise or plot; but, while you're reading, you're hooked, you're along for the ride...buckle up, spud. Now try taking that particular thrill ride when you're an impressionable nine year old. Zoinks.

Now that I'm old and crusty, I try to read new things and not just wallow in nostalgia. Hell, if I'm being honest, it's an effort to just read, period. YouTube and Xbox and streaming have really driven a wedge between me and my books. I'm still pretty good, though, knocking back a book every couple of weeks or so. But, being old and crusty like I said, sometimes it feels really good to go back and read something from back in the day, to revisit that lonely little nerd sitting under a scrub oak in Salesville, Texas on a 103 degree August day in 1982.

So, with that long-winded preface, I present you with Peter Straub's Shadowland, an understated little gem from 1980. I'm going to skip the analysis and plot summary, and just leave you with this: Straub evokes a Bradbury-esque vibe with this book, but in a more sinister, menacing way. Maybe Bradbury in a Something Wicked This Way Comes vein. It's spooky, but it has a wistful, melancholy undertone that I find really satisfying. It's Peter Straub, which means it's a bit slow off the starting line, but that undertone is strong enough to keep you moving, even when things get a little off the rails. 

If you put a gun to my head and told me to describe it in a single word, I'd say it's a beautiful and sad fairy tale, wrapped up in a modern novel's packaging. And then you'd shoot me, because that's a lot more than a single word. But at least I'd go out knowing I'd been honest.

That's it. Go read it. Or don't. But if you don't, you're missing out, and probably a bad person who would shoot somebody for going over their word-count. 

listening to: Billy Squier
drinking: Coors Light (in the weird pint can-bottles)