Not much fiction read in September, and what I read was all Joe Hill. I mentioned his short story collection in August, which I liked, but the novels are even better. Wonderfully constructed with complex (often surprisingly loveable) main characters and endings that manage to slip into that narrow sliver where the circles of "didn't see it coming" and "satisfying happy ending" coincide. Heart-Shaped Box is already being adapted into a movie with Neil Jordan as director. I can't wait to see it; his gorgeous use of color and all-around visual sense with this story where reality keeps getting all nightmarish and twisty, is going to be very interesting indeed.
But Horns was the novel I liked the best of the two. The way the story unfolded, and little bits of the past coming to life in a completely organic way, I thought it was just about perfect. And I loved the ending (and the double meaning to the title).
In nonfiction, I read another by Dan Ariely, The Upside of Irrationality. His previous book was almost a downer with its arguments that as much as people would like to be, we just aren't always rational. This book makes a nice companion: yes, we're not always rational, but there are ways to make irrationality work for you. Not as meaty as his first book, but still a good read.
And still doing novel research, Anger, Madness and the Daimonic by Stephen A. Diamond turned out not to be useful at all for my current novel purposes, but very eyeopening to some of the thematic elements in my last work. Outside of my own writing, it was a very interesting book that made me want to dive back in to my Carl Jung collection, and expand it. So many books, so little time.
People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck reminded me of a certain episode of Frasier, where he is backing a political candidate he really likes, until he finds out that the man is convinced he was abducted by aliens. I felt the same disconnect here, with how much I was right there with him in the realm of psychology, and how vast the chasm between us was when he started using words like "evil" and "Satan". Such is life.
This month's quotes, all from the fiction:
If hell was anything, it was talk radio – and family. Heart-Shaped Box
Horror was rooted in sympathy, after all, in understanding what it would be like to suffer the worst. Heart-Shaped Box
Talking to her now was like flailing his hands at a storm of hornets, It did nothing, and it stung, and yet he couldn’t stop himself. - Horns
