The Language of Dying, by Sarah Pinborough

In a new edition of the occasional series, I want to tell you about a book that I've read and loved, which I think adds to the horror genre and that I think you'll enjoy if you're a fan.

Tonight is a special, terrible night.

A woman sits at her father’s bedside watching the clock tick away the last hours of his life. Her brothers and sisters – all traumatised in their own ways, their bonds fragile – have been there for the past week, but now she is alone.

And that’s always when it comes.

As the clock ticks in the darkness, she can only wait for it to find her…

Quite simply, this is a beautiful novella, a deeply felt and very moving exploration of family bonds and the ways they can be twisted, strained and - maybe - broken by death (even if that event hasn’t happened yet).  On a personal level, I found some of it difficult to read and I’m not certain it’s something I could re-read, but that’s not to the detriment of the craft on display.  Indeed, Sarah’s writing is so assured, the flow of the language is so right, that you read on even when you desperately want to look away or wipe at your eyes.

The unnamed narrator is the middle of five children.  Paul is feckless, a man who goes with the flow and shuts down or runs away when life turns on him and Penny is glossy and keen on appearances, someone willing to suffer just so long as she doesn’t make a scene.  The younger siblings, Simon and Davey, are twins who have taken a different path to their brother and sisters, becoming addicted to various things.  The narrator weaves amongst them - she’s telling the story to their father, who is dying of cancer - as everyone gathers at the old family home for their Dad’s last days and old bitternesses and comradeships are rekindled.  The narrator feels kinship with her Dad, a man whose life never quite worked out how he wanted it to and even though we only get to see glimpses of him pre-cancer, he’s vividly portrayed.  In fact, the characterisation is the books key strength, with even minor players - the narrators ex-husband, the various nurses - so clearly defined that they remain vivid long after their part in the story is over.  Paul is a fleeting character, present more by name and memory than physical being (as is Simon), whilst Penny is sad and funny and scared and strong.  Davey, addicted and conflicted, really comes through as the story progresses, a kid who took a wrong path and the adult who’s still trying to make better.

But the story stands and falls by its narrator and she’s a wonderful creation.  Still tortured by the abandonment of her mother when she was ten (with a childs perception of the event - “we all know in our hearts that it’s our fault for not staying little for long enough.”) she patiently awaits the return of a wild unicorn she believes she saw on that night, whose pounding hooves and breathing she keeps listening out for.  She’s also very aware that everything is in flux and that once their father goes, things will change forever and not necessarily the better -“Buried in the scent of fresh sheets and the warmth of my sister, I store each second safely away so that I can savour this time in the years to come.”

With her own life - and innerself - in a state of turmoil (her failed, abusive marriage is painfully detailed and the image of her lying, bleeding, at the bottom of the stairs is one that’ll stay with me for a long, long time), the book ratchets up the tension as the siblings leave and their father grows ever weaker.  Trying to help him as he lies in bed, the narrator moves her fathers arms under the covers and worries she’s hurting him - “Sorry, Daddy,” I whisper, “I’m sorry, Daddy.” - and that did it for me, even though it’s not the end.

Not a novel for everyone, certainly, this is poignant and raw, loving and tender, brutal and beautiful and it will reward the reader who engages with it and, I think, it’ll stay with them for a long time after they’ve put it down and cleared their throat and wiped their eyes.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.

More details here


This novella originally appeared in a  limited edition by PS Publishing in 2009 but is now being published by Jo Fletcher books (the edition I read) on 5th December, as a beautifully designed hardback.  Whilst it's presented as a horror novel (and there are elements of horror in it, but all of the real kind), this only has mild supernatural elements and is on a par with the fine work of Graham Joyce.  The only reason I mention this is that if you don't read a book because "well, it's horror", then you should really take a chance with this.

In memory of Tracy, after ten years

Ten years, in terms of anything, is a long time.  People look back over decades and think ‘wow, is that when it happened?’ and then they wonder how that time could pass by so quickly.  I think that often.

It was ten years ago that I was sitting in the canteen at work with a colleague, when the telephone rang.  It was Mum.  She told me she had bad news and I paused, expecting to hear something about my Gran having fallen over or something.  But it was much worse than that.  Mum told me that she was at Leicester hospital, walking back to the car with my Dad and that my sister Tracy was dead. She was 32.

Tracy was two years younger than me and I think we spent most of our childhood (and a good chunk of our teens) fighting like cat and dog, though we were also fiercely protective of one another.  She developed MS late, a few months into 2003 and suffered upwards of six relapses as the year wore on.

An active person - she was a riding instructress - I can’t imagine how awful the lengthy hospital stays must have been for her, but I never really heard her complain about it.  At the time, Alison & I were trying for a child and Tracy kept track of our appointments at the hospital, asking how things were going and trying to gee us up as each month passed. Visiting her at Leicester Infirmary was often a difficult experience - I loved to make her laugh and would do pretty much anything in the pursuit of that - and it was painful to see her try and do things as her body rebelled against her.

But things seemed to be improving - we saw her on the Sunday and she was sitting up in bed, bright and lucid and Mum & Dad found the same thing on the Monday evening.  We had high hopes for these signs of recovery but on the morning of November 25th, 2003 (my Dad’s 60th birthday), she collapsed beside her bed.  The cause of death was later given as a pulmonary embolism.

I left work, got Alison and we went straight to Mum & Dad’s house that day.  Our younger sister Sarah was in Derby at Uni at the time so I drove us all up there to deliver the news. We arrived just before she got home and she got out of her car and seemed excited, as if we’d all gone up to see her for Dad’s birthday. Until Dad went across the road and told her the real reason.

Tracy’s funeral service was held in the Parish church in Rothwell - I’ve never seen so many people in there - and I read the eulogy. The burial was held at the little cemetery on the edge of town and it was a cold, dank day. Afterwards, we went back to the Trinity Centre for tea and some food. Nick was with us (he and Tracy got on really well), staying overnight at ours and supervising the taped music at the service. At the wake, he busied himself making sure that everyone had a drink and something to eat, whilst the rest of us just seemed to reel around and try to connect with people.

Since then, Dad hasn’t been keen to celebrate his birthday, which is understandable and instead we have a quiet gathering of the family, which has grown in ten years - Sarah married Chris and they had Lucy & Milly, we had Dude.  A lot has happened since then but it really does seem like only yesterday.

I miss Tracy a lot, as do Mum & Dad and Sarah and Alison.  Matthew never met her but he knows who she was and what she meant to me and he keeps an eye out for Snoopy stuff because he knows she loved it.

That’s all I can do, I think - talk about her and make sure that her memory continues to burn brightly and I will try and do that forever.

Ten years and gone too soon, I miss you Tracy.

Alison, Mum, Tracy and Dad, on the London Eye, March 2003

More matte paintings

Following on from my other blogs about matte paintings (here, here (the Return of the Jedi one), here and here), I couldn't resist doing some more research and so here's another one, from the last great surge of glass and paint art, before everything went digital...

Escape From New York (1981)
artwork by James Cameron (before he became a film director).

His New York skyline was painted onto a glass panel which was set up in front of the camera so that the effect was captured live, rather than being put together (a much more costly process) in post production.

Poltergeist (1982)
artwork by Mike Pangrazio

Robocop (1987)

artwork by Rocco Gioffre

Finished plate, only the lift and surrounding concrete is real.

Predator 2 (1990)

artwork by Mark Whitlock (son of Albert)

Views of the city, all paint on glass

Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991)

artwork by Rocco Gioffre

 Rather than erect a billboard over Sunset Boulevard, the filmmakers combined an insert of two men shot against a fake sign in Arizona, actual footage of the road and this fantastic artwork.  The sun flare was created by shining a bright light directly at the camera through a small unpainted area.

Another one from the same film, this time painted by Jesse Silver, is a wonderful example of an invisible matte shot - if you didn't know it was there, you'd never notice it.

The Distinguished Gentleman (1992)
artwork by Paul Lasaine

thanks again to http://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.co.uk

ill at ease 2 - available now!

Following on from the critical success of “ill at ease” comes volume 2, featuring seven original horror short stories, all of them guaranteed to give you the chills.

Joining the original trio of Stephen Bacon, Mark West and Neil Williams this time are Shaun Hamilton, Robert Mammone, Val Walmsley and Sheri White.

You will descend into an underground train station to uncover a dreadful secret and watch in horror as a paradise holiday turns sour.  You will see a bullied boy who’s helped by local history and share the anguish of a father, losing his child in a shopping centre.  You will take a trip with a cancer sufferer and share the pain of a couple, desperate for a child.  You will discover that history needs to be kept somewhere.

Seven stories, seven writers and you.

Prepare to feel “ill at ease” all over again.

Available from Amazon - UK

in a print edition, priced £4.99

and as an ebook, priced £1.02

Available from Amazon - USA

in a print edition, priced $6.64

and as an ebook, priced $0.99

cover designed and produced by Neil Williams

ebook built by Tim C. Taylor at Greyhart Press

for more information, contact the PenMan Press site

Photo-stories (a little slice of history)

When I was a kid, it was a major ambition of mine to make a film.  I was an avid watcher of "Clapperboard", I bought books and magazines about behind the scenes stuff and I loved it when Mum & Dad let me stay up to watch Film (whatever year it was).

I grew up through the 70s and 80s, when video cameras were a pipe-dream and cine cameras were expensive (more so than my family could afford) so you can perhaps understand why this became a kind of Holy Grail for me. To try and create something visual, I ended up making various "photo-stories", which satisfied me for a while.
(for those who don't know, "photo-stories" were a staple of more modern boys and girls comics back in the day, replacing hand-drawn panels in a comic strip with posed stills.  Girls comics used them for problem pages, whilst I remember Eagle comic using them for a strip called Doomlord, amongst others.  There were also photo-novels - novelisations using film stills rather than prose - but the less said about them, probably the better).

What reminded me of all this was discovering some photographs over the weekend, of one such 'strip' I wrote.

The above picture was taken in 1981 and features my Dad, me and my school friend Geoff Burbidge. We were making a story about a bounty hunter (or in effect, a very close homage to a strip called "Man Tracker" from The Crunch comic).  I also used this image as the cover of a novel (or, as it'd be deemed now, a long-ish short story) I wrote in 1982 called Hadley Hall Comprehensive.

Left - my friend Nick walks away as Geoff (in my Dad's old trilby) threatens me.  Look at those clothes - Harrington jackets, jeans and trainers!  What a look!

Right - Nick's brother Chris (I recruited absolutely anyone who expressed an interest) takes aim at Geoff and Nick.  Not a bad shot as it goes but it's also one that inadvertently captured history.  That billboard (and the wasteground Chris and I were standing on) is long gone and standing in its stead is the new library.  Beyond the awning, there's a private house with a green lower part under the windows - that's now a Tesco Express store.

I never gained the means to make films of my own and so I never got the chance to enter the Clapperboard Young Filmmakers competition.  I did eventually make some films on VHS, with a school friend called Matt Ratcliff, but that was much later in the 80s and into the early 90s and all of them were zero-budget horror flicks.  I'll tell you about them one day.

Now I do have the means - a Sony Hi-8 video camera and an HD one on my Nikon - but I much prefer writing (though Dude & I have made several LEGO stop-motion epics).  I wonder how things would have turned out if I'd had the technology at my disposal then that I do now?

Bite, by Gardner Goldsmith

In a new edition of the occasional series, I want to tell you about a book that I've read and loved, which I think adds to the horror genre and that I think you'll enjoy if you're a fan.

What would you do if your career began with promise, if your plans for life seemed well on their way, but, due to your own mistakes, the bottom suddenly dropped out?

What if that clean, prosperous, happy family life was lost, and you were left to slide deeper and deeper into the “underground”, each strange job more obscure and bizarre than the next?

Where would you land? How long could you stomach that world?

Could you do the kind of job that others fear or don’t believe exists?

Sylvester Cole can. He has for too many years, and now he wants out. Long ago on track to become a literature professor, Sylv made one big mistake, and he’s paid for it since. Maybe he’s made himself pay. He’s not exactly sure.

But one thing is certain, now in his mid-fifties, he’s had enough. He’s saved up his cash and gold. He’s bought a plane ticket out of Vegas, and he’s ready to retire.

Silvester Cole wants one chance at life.

Because Sylvester Cole is sick of re-killing the dead.

But when Sylv wanders into his favorite watering hole to say goodbye to his friends of convenience, he’s confronted with an opportunity of a different sort: a girl, who just might give him that chance to snatch life and love out of the hands of fate – by re-killing one last time.

Sylvester Cole is a man with the kind of job that others fear or don’t believe exist.  After making a mistake that cut short his academic career, Cole became a gun for hire, terminating the undead and it’s a career he’s excelled at - but now he’s in his mid-fifties and wants a chance at life with the cash and gold he’s been saving over the years.  Going to say goodbye to old friends, he quickly becomes involved in a new job, where the girl he has to save might just be the girl who could turn his life around.

I love ‘noir’ thrillers (books and films) and I love vampire stories where the undead are nasty, venal creatures and so this book had double appeal to me.  Combine that with Goldsmith’s gutsy and assured writing style, a plethora of biting one liners and characters that leap off the page and it’s a winner.

Featuring a Las Vegas that hopefully none of us will ever see - where the dregs go to die - this is stark and dirty and unforgettable, with the desert haze and grit almost present on the page and a pace that never slackens.

Brutal, beautiful, elegant and kinetic (sometimes in the same sentence), with a real heart and soul, this is a refreshing take on a sub-genre that has been flooded with sparkly, friendly vampires of late.  But if you like your vampires and their hunters old school (as I do) I can’t recommend this highly enough - I loved it.

An Audience With Sir Roger Moore

Milton Keynes theatre, November 13th

Last night, at 7.30, Alison & I were at the Milton Keynes theatre for ‘An Audience With Sir Roger Moore’, an event that I’ve been looking forward to since I first heard about it.  In fact, it’s an event that I’ve been looking forward to for decades.

I make no secret of the fact that I’m a massive fan of Sir Roger.  Starting with “The Persuaders” - that music! - and catching up with “The Saint” (Dad was a big fan, though Ian Ogilvy was my generation’s Simon Templar), he was my James Bond.  The first Bond films I saw at the cinema (as I blogged about here) were “Live & Let Die” and “The Spy Who Loved Me” on a double bill and I’ve been a massive fan of him (and the films) ever since.

Sir Roger came onstage, ramrod straight and steady and although he looks his age (and commented that his knees aren’t working so well any more) there was still a twinkle in his eye and a zest in his delivery that kept the audience rapt and respectfully quiet.

We were in the 2nd row from the stage and so had excellent seats, though there was a large video screen on hand too - I had to keep reminding myself to watch the man, rather than his image.  Hosted - and guided - by his biographer Gareth Owen, the show highlighted Moore’s natural raconteur abilities and his astonishing memory for names and places.  I read his wonderful autobiography a couple of years ago and there were even new bits for me, as he discussed his childhood, his early career and the moves to and from Hollywood.  After an interval, he discussed “The Persuaders” and Bond (and we were treated to "My name is Bond, James Bond" which got a round of applause), took some (pretty good) questions from the audience and ended the evening talking about his work for Unicef.

An evening with a genuine Hollywood legend, filled with wonderfully told anecdotes and a wicked sense of humour, this was a real treat.  If he tours again, we’re going!


Edited to add:
He did tour again, in 2014 and I got to meet my hero.  You can read about it here.

Is This Love? by Sue Moorcroft

In a new edition of the occasional series (but in a completely different genre this time), I want to tell you about a book that I've read and loved.  Like I say, it's not horror but if you give it a chance, I think you'll enjoy it.

How many ways can one woman love?

When Tamara Rix's sister Lyddie is involved in a hit-and-run accident that leaves her in need of constant care, Tamara resolves to remain in the village she grew up in. Tamara would do anything for her sister, even sacrifice a long-term relationship.

But when Lyddie's teenage sweetheart Jed Cassius returns to Middledip, he brings news that shakes the Rix family to their core. Jed's life is shrouded in mystery, particularly his job, but despite his strange background, Tamara can't help being intrigued by him.

Can Tamara find a balance between her love for Lyddie and growing feelings for Jed, or will she discover that some kinds of love just don't mix?

Tamara Rix, a yoga instructor, has a disabled sister called Lyddie who was seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident when they were teens.  When Jed Cassius comes back into her life - Lyddie’s old boyfriend, from before her accident - and says that his father was the driver responsible, it throws everyone’s lives into chaos.  Then Tamara’s boyfriend Max leaves, just as she is approached to become a private yoga teacher for Emilia, the stay-at-home wife of a very rich businessman for whom Jed happens to be first lieutenant.

A welcome return to Middledip and Sue Moorcroft does it again, skilfully blending romance and passion (this is probably her raunchiest book yet), with a keen eye for family life and coping with disabilities and topping it all off with pacey thriller elements.

I liked Tamara a lot, she’s a strong character with real depth and her interplay with Jed is a real highlight, just as her relationship with Lyddie is moving and touching.  Great characterisation, a keen sense of location and time and a gripping pace all add up to another winner.  Highly recommended.



The book is available from Amazon here - in print - as an ebook

Sue's website can be found here

Lest We Forget

For details on the Royal British Legion poppy appeal, click here

Why having a home is handy (guest post), by Sue Moorcroft

When I began to write Is This Love? I had written a bio for my hero, Jed Cassius – because that’s where I generally start. Knowing the history of main characters provides not only character insight but gives me material to mine in terms of plot and the character’s likely emotional reaction to events.  I knew that Jed had left the village of Middledip as a teen, shortly after Lyddie, the girl he was seeing, received a head injury in a hit-and-run accident, and I knew his connection to the driver of the car that hit her. I also knew that he’d returned to live locally as part of the retinue of a millionaire who lived in a big house with big fences. In the early stages, I didn’t trouble myself too much with what had happened between those two events – it seemed to me that it would emerge as I wrote.

Soon enough, I began to see that something life changing had happened in that period. Jed’s a pretty no-nonsense guy, he can handle himself, he hasn’t had many long-term relationships, he’s got an odd but lucrative job, he consorts with some unusual people. But, behind the humour and the willingness to meet life head-on, there’s something defensive about him, as if he’s always wary of losing what he’s got.

Does it happen to other writers that a character presents himself or herself and the writer has to work out what made him/her that way? It happened to me in Love & Freedom, too, when I realised that a secondary character, Ru, acted as he did because he was being bullied. Maybe I subconsciously base my characters on real people I’ve met, and then have to deduce what makes them as they are. I can think of someone Ru may be based on but Jed … I would have remembered meeting him. Trust me! Jed’s a touch mysterious and it’s not easy to see if he’s one of the good guys – but Jed’s hot.

Hotness aside, the explanation that dawned on me for Jed’s character traits was that, at sixteen, he dropped out of society. His parents split up, he was angry, his older stepbrother Manny was living in a squat, so Jed went and joined him. I do remember it once being explained to me how incredibly difficult it can be to find a way back if a person drops out from society, stays off authority’s radar, works in the grey market or turns to crime to survive. In this age of literacy and data, most of us leave footprints in electronic records in our daily lives and when we let those trails disappear, doors close behind us.

An address provides an identity. You need one in order to claim benefits or apply for courses, so not to have one can prove isolating. If you try and leave the grey market and take a legitimate job, the taxman may want to know where you’ve been and what you’ve been living on. Fellow squatters do not appreciate the squat being brought to the notice of officialdom. Living in a squat can mean a lot more than not paying rent. Hot water, electricity and all kinds of basics can be pretty hard to come by.

But once I realised this about Jed, his personality, that balance between nature and nurture that offers writers an endless permutation of characters to work with, sprang into focus. Jed never takes a hot bath for granted, he loves his apartment to look and smell clean, he’s capable of kicking someone off a chair if he thinks it’s the fastest way to deal with a situation, he’s particular about his personal hygiene. He’s built up a stash of money to guard against unemployment. He loves women who look clean, fresh, healthy and glowing.

And, happily for him, I send him Tamara Rix. That she’s the sister of Lyddie, his teen girl, and views him with suspicion – well, he has to work his way through that for himself.

His time in the squat made him resourceful.

Is This Love? can be purchased from Amazon (ISBN 978-1781890554) and has already been nominated for the Readers’ Best Romantic Read Award at the Festival of Romance (Bedford 8^th-10^th November 2013).

Sue, who won the award in 2011 with Love & Freedom, writes contemporary romantic fiction of sizzling love affairs, vibrant heroines and hot heroes. Known for developing unusual and meaningful themes, in Is This Love? Sue’s chosen to study the different types and qualities of love and how it’s affected by the needs of pivotal character, Lyddie.

Sue Moorcroft writes romantic novels of dauntless heroines and irresistible heroes. As well as Love & Freedom winning the Best Romantic Read Award 2011, Dream a Little Dream was nominated for a RoNA in 2013. She received three nominations at the Festival of Romance 2012, and is a Katie Fforde Bursary Award winner. She’s vice chair of the RNA and editor of its two anthologies.

Sue also writes short stories, serials, articles, writing ‘how to’ and is a competition judge and creative writing tutor.

Website www.suemoorcroft.com

Blog http://suemoorcroft.wordpress.com/ 

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Twitter @suemoorcroft