The Deadly Silent T... or E

For a car guy, the best thing about Janis Joplin's materialistic sung prayer, was that she pronounced Porsche correctly. That might have been a happy accident owing to her use of the plural voice.

Porsche is Por-sh-eh or Portia (not Por-shhhh). It's a family name. Respect that!

One the other hand, there is a huge difference between "cache" ("cash" --a hiding place, or that which is hidden in a hiding place), and "cachet" (cash-eh) which is a quality indicating distinction.

Some TV newscasters do not know this.

Other horrible mispronunciations on TV are "perspective" for "prospective"; "prosperity" for "posterity"; gold "bouillon" (a thin French broth) for "bullion"; also in the case of criminals "perpetuated" for "perpetrated".

A slip of the tongue can be forgiven, but then there are the captions, which all too often do not reflect the spoken word... and all the while, AI is being trained on this inaccurate abuse of English.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Middle of the Night by Riley Sager by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Middle of the Night by Riley Sager

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager is his latest novel, published in June 2024. In this story, the main character Ethan Marsh is still haunted 30 years later by the disappearance of his best friend Billy from the tent in the backyard they were camping out in at the age of ten. When Ethan woke in the morning, Billy was gone, the roof of the tent slashed. Billy was never seen again. Now, as a 40 year old, Ethan returns to the New Jersey cul de sac Hemlock Circle, where it seems Billy is trying to get his attention, maybe from beyond the grave. In this place, then and now, nothing is as it seems--least of all those who populate the area. 

As usual, this novel skirts the line between horror and the supernatural, which I love in my fiction. However, all my usual complaints (when it comes to a Sager story) are here--and in ample supply. First, the book was a good 150 pages longer than I believe was actually necessary. Also, there were far too many characters to keep track of and for the author to flesh out adequately--which, I know, is what's wanted in this niche genre (made popular by Gillian Flynn, Paula Hawkins, S.J. Watson, and Sager himself, among others) where the narrator of any given story simply can't be trusted to tell his or her own story with any degree of veracity. Sager upped my stress level by telling Middle of the Night from the entire cast of characters' point of views within this book. I've read four of his eight available titles written under this pen name, and thus far he usually keeps it to a single POV within a story. So now I had to juggle a whole host of suspicious people doing disturbing things, all sporting their own nefarious motives.

Now when most people read psychological thrillers, they know to expect unreliable narrators, unexpected plot twists, and featuring characters who are not only complex but usually also liars (to themselves and everyone around them). That's the name of the game. If you like that kind of story, there's no reason you wouldn't love this book. It's got all of that and you won't ever feel entirely sure who's the culprit while reading. 

Despite that the tension was aplenty within this tale, my pet peeves about Sager's works became overkill. Even for Sager, the sheer number of characters and viewpoints, the overabundance of motives--certainty developed far more than the individual characters were--all packed into this weighty 365 page book (hardcover) left me weary. The more I read books like this, the more I don't like and trust the author. I felt overwhelmed by all the characters, all of whom seemed guilty of something, their half-truths and skewed perceptions. What really cinched it for me was that one of the characters in the book was barely mentioned the entire length of the story until the end. When he was pulled like a chicken (instead of the expected rabbit) from a hat, all my hackles rose and I cried "Unfair! Cheater!" 

For the most part, usually I believe this author has played fair with readers--if we're really paying attention from one page to the next--we can't deny that the answers were all there, buried deep in multiple levels of deceptions on everyone's parts. Here, I argue that we weren't given the information we needed to make the leap. Or maybe the book was just too long and convoluted and I missed that vital bit. Who knows? For me, neither the ghostly aspects nor the shocking, twisted denouement could save this story, let alone top his previous endeavors. Ultimately, Middle of the Night did receive more than fair reviews elsewhere, so if this is your usual type of suspense, you may end up much more satisfied by it than I ultimately was. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

What's Horror For?

As I mentioned last week, one of the speakers at this year's ICFA proposed that horror articulates feelings and experiences for which we often can't find the words. It gives concrete embodiment to metaphors for our fears.

In IT, which I still consider one of Stephen King's best novels (even though an older one), he creates a monster that incarnates fear. It appears to people in the form of whatever they're most afraid of. I always get irked when commenters reduce the eldrich cosmic entity in IT to a "monster clown." Pennywise is only one of It's many faces. As the narrator reflects at one point, It prefers to feed on the emotions of children because their fears are more concrete, raw, and primal than those of adults. Grown-ups are afraid of dull, mundane threats such as heart disease, old age, and financial ruin. In the nightmares of children, deeper horrors show up unmasked.

King's nonfiction work DANSE MACABRE suggests that ultimately the work of all horror is to portray our fear of death in shapes we can deal with. In horror fiction, the monster can frequently be destroyed. A boy character in King's vampire novel 'SALEM'S LOT declares, "Death is when the monsters get you."

At ICFA, our panel on changing concepts of monsters in popular culture discussed the phenomenon that classic folklore and literary/film monsters often serve as metaphors. Werewolves and other shapeshifters may represent the beast within, the animalistic or savage side of human nature, as the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde does. Lycanthropy can also suggest the trauma of puberty, an uncontrollable transformation of one's body accompanied by strange new impulses. Body horror in general (for example, a pair of anthologies I recently read that focus on pregnancy and childbirth), too, portrays the experience of one's physical self in an out-of-control state. Characters such as the Phantom of the Opera and Quasimodo illustrate revulsion toward deformity and disability. Vampires serve as metaphors for disease, foreign invaders, forbidden sexuality, transgressing the barrier between life and death, forced transformation, toxic power dynamics, and allegedly threatening Others of countless types. Both vampires and zombies embody the horror of a loved one changing into an unrecognizable Other. Ghosts may awaken guilt about how we treated the dead during their lifetimes and what revenge they may take on the living.

Conversely, nowadays the horror of monsters often comes from the image of an inhuman or no-longer-human creature as the persecuted outsider. In stories of this kind, ordinary humans can become the real monsters while the Other represents the oppressed and abused victim. Frankenstein's creation, of course, is a classic example of body horror and a monstrous violation of the line between life and death as well as a victim of persecution.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.