Sunday Review: Two That Disturb For The Season - The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson and The Golem by Gustave Meyrink

A more disturbing book cover, or book, you will not find.

It was only a matter of time (and other cliches) before I'd throw my hat into the ring of books for the Halloween season. The horror genre is perhaps the most inconsistent genre of fiction, containing writers as brilliant and visionary as Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft in far fewer numbers than the Dean Koontz(s) of the world.

No offense Dean. Just sayin'.

For the Phoenix this week I began a two part, four-book look at some of my favorite tales of the macabre.

The Killer Inside Me (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
by Jim Thompson

In the first installment I recommend Jim Thompson's very disturbing The Killer Inside Me. Written in the "killers" first person, this book is probably the most disturbing piece of "thriller" writing every set to type. Thompson was essentially a founding father of "hard boiled" writing and though he came to rely mostly on crime genre stories to make a living, this bloody gem of a novel is perhaps his most literary.

The naive but for the time cutting-edge psychological research Thompson deploys is what clinches this book as a favorite for me. Thompson, though at times an inconsistent stylist, always manages to elevate the theory behind his practice to include psychic insight. In this case it is insight into the murderous ways of a serial killer.

Also worth noting is the fact that The Killer Inside Me is soon to be made into a movie. A rare offering from me, but I will say that this should have happened a while ago. It's a perfect book for idea-less Hollywood to borrow.

One thing I can say is that I have no idea what this cast means for the movie.

The Golem (Dedalus European Classics)
by Gustav Meyrink

The second book is Gustave Meyrink's The Golem. Translated from the German, Meyrink's novel is by far my favorite Halloween read (that isn't Lovecraft or Poe). There is something nearly insane, or perhaps magical, in his exposition of the Prague ghetto and its most dread denizen, the supernatural golem.

Meyrink only borrows from the Jewish lore and legend of the mystical clay golem, and taking what he does he applies it to a social comment on the dire lives of poor Jews in the ghetto. The crime and desperate claustrophobia of the ghetto becomes animate in Meyrink's golem.

Here's the link to the article in the Phoenix. Next week I'll offer up two more books that go bump in the night. Or other such cliches.