White Horse by Erika T. Wurth

"There was something strange, mysterious even, about the White Horse tonight. Normally, it was merely an Indian bar. My Indian bar. But there was a milky, dreamy quality to the red lights swinging over the pool tables, like the wind from the open doors was bringing them something new, something I’d pushed away for as long as I could remember" - Erika T Wurth, White Horse

Meet Kari James, the narrator of White Horse by Erika T Wurth.  Kari is a 35 year old Native American woman living in Denver.  She loves Steven King novels, heavy metal music and when not waitressing can be found taking care of her disabled father or at her favorite bar The White Horse.  

Kari's life is lonely but considering her younger years:  drugs, bad boys, suicidal thoughts, the overdose of her best friend, the stability that Kari has found in her 30's may be unfulfilling but it is calm which is how Kari likes it.  But then Kari's cousin Debbie walks into the White Horse with a bracelet she found that belonged to Kari's Mom: 

"My mother. The woman who had abandoned me when I was only two days old. The woman who my father had been so devastated over he began to take long drives, a bottle of Jack between his legs. The woman who had made it so that I had to care for my dad like a baby, instead of the other way around, after he’d gotten into an accident that had left his body but taken his mind"

But the moment Kari touches her mother's bracelet she feels an energy.  Her mother is trying to tell her something.   Kari starts seeing visions and worries that she is going crazy.  But the visions push her to investigate what really happened to her mother Celia.  Did she abandon Kari or was it foul play?  And if so by who and why?

Erika Wurth is a very talented writer. Kari James is tough, brave and a good person in the way she cares for her father and looks out for her cousin Debbie.  The book did drag for me though because Kari doesn't have light moments or a sense of humor which is understandable considering her past.  

But it did make it hard for me to warm up to Kari until the last part of White Horse when she finds out what really happened to her mother, Celia.  And in the end you sense that Kari may finally be able to put her demons to rest.  I would say that for me this is a 3.5 read and Erika Wurth is an author to keep an eye on.

The Southern Book Club's Guide To Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

One of the hot new authors I have been wanting to read for some time is Grady Hendrix.  And now that I have read his bestselling horror novel The Southern Book Club's Guide To Slaying Vampires (2020) I have things to say but first a summary of the plot.

 

The Southern Book Club's Guide To Slaying Vampires takes place in the 1990's and the setting is Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.  Patricia Campbell is one of the residents of Mt. Pleasant.  She is also the heroine of this story.

And when the novel begins Patricia has alot to deal with. She is a mother of two surly teenagers. Her husband Carter a busy doctor is rarely home. Patricia is also taking care of her mother-in-law Mary who lives with them and cannot take care of herself.  And in addition to all this Patricia belongs to a local book club with a few of the other neighborhood women.  

Their book group focuses on true crime.  Each month these women get together to read "the classics":  Helter Skelter, In Cold Blood, Zodiac, The Stranger Beside Me.  Patricia loves this group.  The books they discuss are fascinating and the women form a friendship and a bond.  Finally Patricia has something for herself.  

And things are going well until a stranger, James Harris, moves into the neighborhood.  James is handsome and mysterious.  Patricia is quite taken with him at first.  James listens to her, he's charming, he's attentive.   But when children in another part of town start dying Patricia begins to suspect that James isn't who he says he is and James is on to the fact that she knows.  But how can Patricia save her family, her neighbors and her book club from James when no one will believe her?  

Thoughts - I have never read a book quite like this. The Southern Book Club's Guide To Slaying Vampires is funny, tells a good story and at the center is the heroine Patricia Campbell who is sympathetic and brave.  Readers will root for her as she discovers a strength she never knew she had.

But oh boy, the last 30% of this book.  Wow!  I mean I knew The Southern Book Club's Guide To Slaying Vampires was a horror novel.  No doubt about that after chapter twelve which comes earlier in the story.   But why wasn't chapter twelve enough?  We already know what a monster James Harris is and so why not spend the final chapters of the book focusing on how Patricia and her friends try to stop him?  

And the Southern Book Club's Guide To Slaying Vampires does focus on how the book club members band together to take care of James.  But in the last third of the book Grady Hendrix also turns the horror spigot on full blast.  James is a vampire, a psycopath, a rapist, a child molester and we are spared nothing in terms of the violence he commits. And I found this over the top violence gratuitous.  And yet it's a measure of Grady Hendrix's talent that despite all this I couldn't put the book down.  I had to know how it would all end.  

And so if you still want to read The Southern Book Club's Guide To Slaying Vampires,  proceed with caution.

I Await The Devil's Coming by Mary MacLane

I am not sure how I first heard about the writer Mary MacLane but in 1902 her diary "I Await The Devil's Coming" caused quite a sensation.  People were scandalized that a nineteen year old woman living in Butte, Montana could write such a book.  Mary boldly recorded her nonconformist thoughts and opinions into her diary and her words resonated particularly with young women of that time.

"I have the personality, the nature, of a Napoleon, albeit a feminine translation. And therefore I do not conquer; I do not even fight. I manage only to exist. Poor little Mary MacLane!—what might you not be? What wonderful things might you not do? But held down, half-buried, a seed fallen in barren ground, alone, uncomprehended, obscure— Weep, world,—why don’t you?—for poor little Mary MacLane!"

I Await The Devil's Coming became an immediate bestseller but as with most books eventually fell into obscurity.  But today Mary MacLane's diary is once again available thanks to Amazon and Project Guttenberg and its author has been described as an early feminist, a bohemian free spirit, the first flapper.  And there is no doubt that if Mary were alive today she would have her own blog.

But is I Await The Devil's Calling worth reading?  I rated the book three stars on goodreads because Mary MacLane is a talented and fearless writer.  Her memoir is also interesting from a historical perspective.  What were young women like in 1902 and what were they writing in their journals?  

But as much as I appreciated Mary MacLane's candor and talent I found myself struggling to get through I Await The Devil's Coming.  Her diary is not very long and it started out great for me but the deeper I got into her book the more I wondered was I reading a diary by a bold nonconformist or a depressed young woman who lived during a time when depression was not discussed or treated: 

"Often you hear a dozen stories of how the Devil was most ready and willing to take all from some one and give him his measure of Happiness. And sometimes the person was innately virtuous and so could not take the Happiness when it was offered. But Happiness is its own justification, and it should be eagerly grasped when it comes.  A world filled with fools will never learn this. And so here I stand in the midst of Nothingness waiting and longing for the Devil, and he doesn’t come. I feel a choking, strangling, frenzied feeling awaiting—oh, why doesn’t my Happiness come! I have waited so long" 

Mary writes often in her diary about her feeling of nothingness and how she has no one to talk to including her parents and siblings.  No one understands her as she sees it and Mary's one close friend moved away.  And so as Mary tells us she awaits the devil's coming to bestow her with happiness, badness fame, anything to take away the emptiness she feels.  And its an emptiness that seems to have plaged Mary MacLane all her life even after she aquired the fame she sought.  Sadly her life was a hard one and Mary was found dead in a hotel room in 1929 at the age of 48.

I don't know that I can recommend I Await The Devil's Coming.  I struggled to get through it..  But I am glad Mary MacLane's books are available to a new generation to inspire them to say what they feel in their journals regardless of what others might think.