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Book Review: Dathan Auerbach’s ‘Bad Man: A Novel’ is a Southern Gothic Treat

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There is something all together unnerving about Dathan Auerbach’s Bad Man: A Novel that is difficult to put into words.

It could be that the focus of its particular brand of evil is a small town grocery store. It could be that, especially for those of us who live in rural parts of the South, the characters are all too familiar. It could be that the central character, Ben, is not the typical heroic type of protagonist we see all too often in contemporary horror novels.

Or perhaps, it’s a combination of all these things that come together to breed terror that is so foreign to our own experience that it makes us fear those all too familiar faces and places we visit every day.

Set in the humid Florida panhandle, Bad Man, tells the story of Ben. One day Ben takes his younger brother, Eric, to the store with him to pick up a few things.

Eric is having a bad day in the way that all small children do from time to time resulting in a flare of temper and hurt feelings. And then something terrible happens.

Ben succumbs to a sudden splitting headache and closes his eyes for only a moment. When he opens them, Eric is gone, but not just gone. He has vanished completely and no one else in the store even noticed.

Flash forward five years.

Ben’s stepmother has become a recluse, unable to leave the home. His father is falling behind on the bills, and though Ben still looks for his brother every day, he needs to find a job.

The only place hiring?

You guessed it: the very store from which his brother disappeared all those years ago.

As he joins the night crew stocking shelves and straightening displays overnight, he begins to realize that his brother’s disappearance might not be the only strange occurrence in the unassuming store with a paranoid boss. No, there is a presence, a feeling, that seeps over those very same shelves and hides in the shadows just out of sight.

Auerbach’s novel is a prime and rather glorious example of contemporary Southern Gothic storytelling. His characters, as mentioned before, are all too real, and their day to day life is lived in dirt and destitution.

You can actually feel the sweat roll down your back between the shoulder blades as the heat beats down from a sun untroubled and unchallenged by the smallest errant breeze while Ben marches up and down the small town roads following leads that become more enigmatic by the day.

We feel his frustration and fear as he must face the men and women who have been beaten down by life for so long that their only form of communication emerges in violent words and actions.

We succumb to his paranoia as he stands in front of the rusting, lethal cardboard baler in the backroom of the grocery store whose shrieks and moans seem almost human.

And, at times, we even feel Ben’s palpable rage at all of these things.

And underneath it all, Auerbach slowly infuses the reader with a steady and growing terror.

This is the kind of novel that I warn people not to devour in one sitting. There are things in this book that one needs time to process before moving on to the next chapter not only to avoid being overwhelmed, but to also make sure that details have not been missed.

Secrets lie between the words and inside the thoughts of everyone in Ben’s life, and at times I, personally, felt compelled by some unknown force to help him uncover them.

Auerbach has drawn comparisons to Stephen King. In fact, more than one have compared Bad Man to The Shining, and I think that comparison rings true.

On a deeper, more subversive level, however, I would call the work and characters the spiritual descendants of Cormac McCarthy and Poppy Z. Brite, and believe me when I say I never thought I’d write those two names in the same sentence.

Bad Man: A Novel is available now via Amazon and other major book sellers in both hardback and digital formats.

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‘Alien’ is Being Made Into a Children’s ABC Book

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Alien Book

That Disney buyout of Fox is making for strange crossovers. Just look at this new children’s book that teaches children the alphabet via the 1979 Alien movie.

From the library of Penguin House’s classic Little Golden Books comes A is for Alien: An ABC Book.

Pre-Order Here

The next few years are going to be big for the space monster. First, just in time for the film’s 45th anniversary, we are getting a new franchise film called Alien: Romulus. Then Hulu, also owned by Disney is creating a television series, although they say that might not be ready until 2025.

The book is currently available for pre-order here, and is set to release on July 9, 2024. It might be fun to guess which letter will represent which part of the movie. Such as “J is for Jonesy” or “M is for Mother.”

Romulus will be released in theaters on August 16, 2024. Not since 2017 have we revisited the Alien cinematic universe in Covenant. Apparently, this next entry follows, “Young people from a distant world facing the most terrifying life form in the universe.”

Until then “A is for Anticipation” and “F is for Facehugger.”

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Holland House Ent. Announces New Book “Oh Mother, What Have You Done?”

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Screenwriter and Director Tom Holland is delighting fans with books containing scripts, visual memoirs, continuation of stories, and now behind-the-scenes books on his iconic films. These books offer a fascinating glimpse into the creative process, script revisions, continued stories and the challenges faced during production. Holland’s accounts and personal anecdotes provide a treasure trove of insights for movie enthusiasts, shedding new light on the magic of filmmaking! Check out the press release below on Hollan’s newest fascinating story of the making of his critically acclaimed horror sequel Psycho II in a brand new book!

Horror icon and filmmaker Tom Holland returns to the world he envisioned in 1983’s critically acclaimed feature film Psycho II in the all-new 176-page book Oh Mother, What Have You Done? now available from Holland House Entertainment.

‘Psycho II’ House. “Oh Mother, What Have You Done?”

Authored by Tom Holland and containing unpublished memoirs by late Psycho II director Richard Franklin and conversations with the film’s editor Andrew London, Oh Mother, What Have You Done? offers fans a unique glimpse into the continuation of the beloved Psycho film franchise, which created nightmares for millions of people showering worldwide.

Created using never-before-seen production materials and photos – many from Holland’s own personal archive – Oh Mother, What Have You Done? abounds with rare hand-written development and production notes, early budgets, personal Polaroids and more, all set against fascinating conversations with the film’s writer, director and editor which document the development, filming, and reception of the much-celebrated Psycho II.  

‘Oh Mother, What Have you Done? – The Making of Psycho II

Says author Holland of writing Oh Mother, What Have You Done? (which contains an afterward by Bates Motel producer Anthony Cipriano), I wrote Psycho II, the first sequel that began the Psycho legacy, forty years ago this past summer, and the film was a huge success in the year 1983, but who remembers? To my surprise, apparently, they do, because on the film’s fortieth anniversary love from fans began to pour in, much to my amazement and pleasure. And then (Psycho II director) Richard Franklin’s unpublished memoirs arrived unexpectedly. I’d had no idea he’d written them before he passed in 2007.”

“Reading them,” continues Holland, “was like being transported back in time, and I had to share them, along with my memories and personal archives with the fans of Psycho, the sequels, and the excellent Bates Motel. I hope they enjoy reading the book as much as I did in putting it together. My thanks to Andrew London, who edited, and to Mr. Hitchcock, without whom none of this would have existed.”

“So, step back with me forty years and let’s see how it happened.”

Anthony Perkins – Norman Bates

Oh Mother, What Have You Done? is available now in both hardback and paperback through Amazon and at Terror Time (for copies autographed by Tom Holland)

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Sequel to ‘Cujo’ Just One Offering in New Stephen King Anthology

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It’s been a minute since Stephen King put out a short story anthology. But in 2024 a new one containing some original works is getting published just in time for summer. Even the book title “You Like It Darker,” suggests the author is giving readers something more.

The anthology will also contain a sequel to King’s 1981 novel “Cujo,” about a rabid Saint Bernard that wreaks havoc on a young mother and her child trapped inside a Ford Pinto. Called “Rattlesnakes,” you can read an excerpt from that story on Ew.com.

The website also gives a synopsis of some of the other shorts in the book: “The other tales include ‘Two Talented Bastids,’ which explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills, and ‘Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,’ about a brief and unprecedented psychic flash that upends dozens of lives. In ‘The Dreamers,’ a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored while ‘The Answer Man’ asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.”

Here’s the table of contents from “You Like It Darker,”:

  • “Two Talented Bastids”
  • “The Fifth Step”
  • “Willie the Weirdo”
  • “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream”
  • “Finn”
  • “On Slide Inn Road”
  • “Red Screen”
  • “The Turbulence Expert”
  • “Laurie”
  • “Rattlesnakes”
  • “The Dreamers”
  • “The Answer Man”

Except for “The Outsider” (2018) King has been releasing crime novels and adventure books instead of true horror in the past few years. Known mostly for his terrifying early supernatural novels such as “Pet Sematary,” “It,” “The Shining” and “Christine,” the 76-year-old author has diversified from what made him famous starting with “Carrie” in 1974.

A 1986 article from Time Magazine explained that King planned on quitting horror after he wrote “It.” At the time he said there was too much competition, citing Clive Barker as “better than I am now” and “a lot more energetic.” But that was almost four decades ago. Since then he’s written some horror classics such as “The Dark Half, “Needful Things,” “Gerald’s Game,” and “Bag of Bones.”

Maybe the King of Horror is waxing nostalgic with this latest anthology by revisiting the “Cujo” universe in this latest book. We will have to find out when “You Like It Darker” hits bookshelves and digital platforms starting May 21, 2024.

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