He's the new (for me) writer or writers....

I must say...I've read quite a few of Stephen King's books, and enjoyed them. Some I've loved to no end (The Shining, Carrie, From A Buick 8), others I've enjoyed though at times bored me if not slightly underwhelming me in their basic thrills (Cell, namely). King has a savvy humor to his writing, that blends in well with the scares and chills found within his tales. Such a unique, all-his-own voice, which I admire.

But if you know me, you know that, when it comes to my horror storytelling, I'm a-thousand-times-more partial to humorless. To the gut. Cold-blooded. Piercing. Sure, an occasional joke or whatever is allowed, but best left to character dialogue, and not writer's interjection. And yes, I fuckin' adore Shaun of the Dead, so my sense of humor does get along with my imaginary-sadist side. But that's the minority, folks.

Which all leads to this...I've found my favorite horror fiction author. Had thought it to be Mr. King, but I'm realizing now that he won such honors only because he's the author I've read the most works of, not because he's fully earned it. Make sense? It should. And that point is further smashed by the following statistical truth: I've only read two books by my new favorite horror fiction dude. But these two works alone have excited me and gripped more than any of King's. So therefore, I'm crowning Jack Ketchum as my favorite author.


[that's Ketchum....dude's hoodie says it all, huh...worth nothing here that "Jack Ketchum" is actually a pen-name; research shows me that his real name is Dallas Mayr, and he's a former music critic...I'm a hip-hop critic, from time to time...hmmmm]

Ketchum's is a name I've read about for the past year or so pretty regularly, while killing time (pun intended, get it?) on my various horror websites. The lion's share of his book-ography has either been adapted into films already or are currently in pre-production. Naturally, I was intrigued. I fancy myself a holder of a cinematic eye, so I figured, Ketchum's books must be that shit, then. Indeed, they are. The two that I've read, Red and The Lost, were fuck-I-don't-want-to-put-this-book-down-but-I-have-to-go-to-fucking-work good. Containing everything I'd want in a page-turner: great, well-drawn characters; sudden acts of stunning violence and gore; smart, fluid dialogue; and a lack of plot holes and narrative choices that, once I finish reading, ring true to what I would've done with the set-ups he presents.

His characters are priority numero uno, and given such rich and compelling back-stories, that there's hardly an unappealing, he/she-can-die-now-and-I-won't-give-two-shits one in the lot. He spends time explaining why each person does what he or she does, even when the actions aren't for the faint of heart. Internal monologues are recurrent, and no stone is left unflipped. Skeletons are injected with souls and come crackling out of closets to haunt you like that bone-twitching scene in the original House on Haunted Hill when the walking skull-and-bones dude scares the backstabbing lady to death. Which is why I'm so surprised that all of the book-to-film adaptations of Ketchum's work have been met with generally positive reviews. If there's one that books are able to do much better than movies, it's providing ocean-deep background and history for multiple figures. Movies are stricken by running times, where as books can go one for 400 pages and not feel overlong.


[now that's a book cover...]

And meticulous, dense character development is the name of the game in The Lost, which I just completed an hour or so ago. Wednesday, as I carried the 395-page book with me to the PATH train, I was somewhat intimidated by its thickness, its size. "Between the truncated train rides and everything else cluttering my weekdays, it's going to take weeks for me to finish this shit," I thought. That was, before I actually turned leftward-in Page One, jamming its hook into my brain like that I Know What You Did Last Summer fisherman out for blood. From that point forward, my workdays were progressing with, "Need to leave, need to continue The Lost." And now, a hair past two days later, shit's a Reynolds (wrap). Breezed right through it. And man, was it a scorcher.

Location: Sparta, New Jersey, an actual town in South Jerz that's pretty much the boonies, very to-itself and inconspicuous. The main character is a teenager, Ray Pye, who's basically a suave, ladies-man, wannabe-Mick Jagger bent by a real Hannibal Lecter-like fascination with inflicting pain and feeling pleasure from watching others tremble in his presence. A true scumbag. As the story opens, he's hanging out in the woods with two younger friends, the insecure and follower-type Tim Bess, and the also-insecure, from-a-broken-home, Jennifer, who is utterly infatuated with Ray. And Ray knows it, so he fucks her frequently to get his rocks off, which angers Tim because he secretly sweats Jennifer....so anyway, they're in the woods, and Ray happens across a pair of attractive female campers nearby. I won't spoil what triggers this, but in a random fit, Ray blows both girls away with a rifle he had stashed all along. And convinces a scared-and-bewildered Tim and Jennifer to keep mum. Shut the fuck up.

Fast forward four years, Lieutenant Charles Schilling is still convinced that Ray killed the two girls, but hasn't been able to pin him, and now the case has gone cold. His partner, Ed Anderson, has retired as a result of the un-solve-able case, and Ed's now in a loving relationship with Sally Richmond, an 18-or-so year old girl who's young enough to be Ed's daughter. Which means they're keeping the sex-and-dating a secret from the rest of smalltown Sparta. Also in love is Ray, now, with Katherine, a beautiful California-to-New-Jersey transplant who suffers from a mother confined to an insane asylum back in Cali.

That's the basic set-up. What transpires, though, as characters interweave with one another and emotions flare, is a total derailment. I can honestly say, I was reading with my jaw firmly slumped the floor as the climax grew and grew. Devolving into a serial killer bloodbath. Sexually sick at times. Hard to stop reading the whole time, though. The way Ketchum describes the outbursts of death-dealing always hits like a sneak attack to the sternum: [the following excerpt comes directly after a casual conversation between two friends]

"Lisa felt something strike the back of her shoulder, an acorn falling from high above, she thought, from the tree, but knowing even that something was wrong, that whatever it was had struck her too hard and then instantly heard the cracklike someone stepping on a branch in the brush out there in the dark and at first there was no pain, it was only startling, a sound out of sync with the world. But she turned at the sound and at the sudden wet feeling feeling on her shoulder.

And that was when her face exploded.

Her teeth shattered the bullet. Fragments of teeth and bullet drilled her cheekbone and poured out through her cheek.

Had her neck been turned a quarter of an inch to the right the third bullet would have severed her jugular, would have cracked her larynx a quarter inch to the left. Instead it entered and exited clean thumped into the tree beside Elise's shoulder."

Serious shit. But so well dictated.

The reason why I cited each major chaaracter above is simply to do The Lost justice. Ketchum goes to incredible lengths to flesh out each person, in typical Ketchum fashion, of course. Each chapter is distinguished by whichever character's perspective it's being told from, and they're all given equal time to shine. As a writer, this guy clearly cares about all of his creations, even the despicable ones like Ray Pye. Not once, while reading this, did I feel cheated, or disconnected from any of the central peeps when something good or bad happened. Everything registered. Everything clicked. And Ketchum's visuals are worded to extremely-detailed ends. Which plays out like a "movie for the blind," a cinematic experience that I had playing head-wise throughout the reading process.

I'll stop now, though, because, well....I'm a bit tired of typing. And hungry. And ready to watch the old-school The Day The Earth Stood Still (a sci-fi classic I've shamefully yet to see, and which has been remade into a huge December blockbuster, starring the positively-vapid Keanu Reeves, and hitting this Dec.), courtesy of Netflix....but again, The Lost is a Philadelphia Phillies-level winner.

Next week, I'll be stepping foot into a Barnes & Noble, walking around aimlessly looking for the ever-elusive "horror fiction" section (seriously, why is B&N so god-damn confusing in its layout?), and dropping dollar-bills on some more Ketchum. The plan, to read his entire catalog. I'm hooked, officially.

And here, as a lil' bonus, the trailer for The Lost's independent film version, which I hear is actually pretty damn good and faithful to this book. It's up next in my Netflix Queue (right before the film take on Ketchum's you-killed-my-dog-so-now-your-ass-is-grass revenge tale Red, actually), so I'll judge for myself shortly. Based off this trailer alone, I'm pretty optimistic. Looks about right.