Customer Reviews

The Bleeding Season

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Do I have your attention yet? Once in awhile a book comes along that is so well written and so captivating that it leaves you simply breathless in it's wake, and 'The Bleeding Season' is just that book.

Using a similar theme to Stephen King's 'The Body' and Robert R. McCammon's 'Boy's Life', one of a group of boys struggling towards adulthood and beyond, 'The Bleeding Season' is no camp follower or second contender to either of the mentioned famous stories.

Told in first person by Alan Chance, one of five boys growing up in Potter's Cove, a small town on the coast of rural Massachusetts not far from New Bedford. Life was seemingly happy until their teens, when Tommy was killed by a careless driver. Only Alan, Donald, Rick, and Bernard remained, now deprived of their leader. The boys grow into men, Alan into a failed writer and menial night security job, Rick to a bouncer after a one year stint in prison, Donald into a dead end word processing job, and Bernard into a used car salesman after injuring his knee in Marine training.

And then, just shy of their fortieth birthdays, Bernard commits suicide, leaving behind only a duffle bag and a strange recorded message filled with doubts and fear for the rest. Alan cannot let go of Bernard, feeling compelled to discover the deeper meaning behind Bernard's final and lonely goodbye. What he uncovers is the stuff that nightmares are made of.

Alan, Donald, and Rick find out that Bernard was never who they had thought he was, and slowly begin to uncover a long trail of purely dark evil that had been festering underneath their very noses. From past to present, Bernard's ghosts and demons begin to haunt their sleep, spewing out bodies in their wakes and leaving behind a sense of utter darkness. Even when Alan looses first his job and then his wife Toni, he still cannot turn away from the secrets hidden inside their past.

Greg F. Gifune's writing is real and raw, deeply poignant, excessively talented, and leaves behind naked emotion painted with words. Rarely will I read a book that can't be found for less than forty dollars and tell my listeners that it is worth the cost, but 'The Bleeding Season' definitely is. Buy it, read it, then resell it if you can. But if you are like me, the impact will be too completely brutal for you to do anything other than clutch the book to your chest as you scream out, 'Why? Why? Why?'

Gifune has mastered the creeping horror and intense dread of confronting the darker side of humanity and beyond, the demons that dwell both inside and outside the human flesh, and he serves them up on a shattered platter here for our minds to devour. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, no aficionado of horror should miss it, definitely a 10 star novel. Enjoy!

This was my first experience with Gifune and I came away from this novel with ambivalent feelings, to say the least. This is truly a work of dark fiction. His writing is exceptionally intelligent and his atmospherics can give you a creepy feeling up your spine. Yet equally, I was disappointed with other elements which I shall share later.

I have seen comparisons of "The Bleeding Season" to Stephen King's "The Body" yet I find it perhaps more similar to his coming-of-age and returning to finish unfinished business portrayed in "It." Five childhood friends (Alan, Tommy, Rick, Donald, and Bernard) form a lifelong bond growing up in the small town of Potter's Cove on the rural coast of Massachusetts, although Tommy, their spiritual leader is tragically killed when hit by a car as a teenager. Unknown to the boys at the time, this sad event sets in motion a series of events that changes them and their hopes and dreams forever and culminates when they approach their forties with the suicide of Bernard.

Bernard seemingly had always been the most vulnerable of group, a notorious liar and exaggerator who was always accepted as part of the whole even though he seemed to have the least to offer. After his unexpected suicide, the three survivors receive an audio suicide/farewell note from him that is filled with philosophical accusations, painful revelations, and critical evaluations of each of them from his perspective.

As hurtful as the thoughts and comments in the audiotape are, Alan, the "conscience" of the group, cannot let Bernard's spirit and memory go without delving deeper for meaning and substance behind Bernard's death. Contributing to their need to find out "why" is the fact that each of the friends experience the same macabre dreams that contain a dead Bernard and other creepy symbolism. With very little to go on but his duffle bag, a photo of an unknown woman, and their own memories, the three surviving friends, prodded by Alan, begin an investigation that quickly reveals Bernard was never who or what they thought he was.

Indeed, a trail of mutilated bodies begins to turn up along with more clues and indications that their deceased friend was perhaps surrounded by a darkness and evil that none of them had ever suspected. A race against time ensues as the investigation risks friendships, marriages, and sanity as the three move ever closer to discovering the source of the evil that may or may not ultimately claim them also.

My problem with "The Bleeding Season" was twofold. The pacing was ponderously slow in the first half of the book. Although I felt I knew where things were headed, it took an awful long time to get there. Secondly, while the characters were fully developed by Gifune, I found myself not caring about any of them on a deeper level--I never felt invested personally in their struggle. Even Alan was unsympathetic to me as he clumsily handled his relationship with Toni and as he stubbornly stayed on task through sometimes confusing dark philosophical musings. The only compelling factor left to me as the reader was to discover the ultimate source of the evil to solve the mystery.

The Bleeding Season by Greg F. Gilune is a unique horror novel about five inseparable best friends. When one of them is struck by a car and killed, things change forever between them all. As they approach their fortieth birthday, another of the friends commits suicide. There is a string of hideous murders, and the three surviving friends must quickly solve the mystery of evil incarnate before the death toll rises to claim their own lives -- or worse! Macabre reading, The Bleeding Season is one of those horror fantasy novels which are so easy to pick up and so hard to put down.

I have seen many blurbs on other horror books likening the storytelling to "an early Stephen King". In most, if not all of those cases, I disagree wholeheartedly. Mr. Gifune does write like the early Stephen King. Group of childhood friends, one dies early on the other commits suicide (not a spoiler, you'd find this on the back of the book). Bernard is the friend who commits suicide. He leaves behind an audiotape in which he makes some startling statements and revelations. The remaining friends must piece together memories they had forgotten or purposely pushed way down into their subconscience to find out exactly what their friend Bernard was up to and in to. Then the creepiness ensues. The characters are so well developed you feel like you know them. The plot never lets up, yet is not rushed. It takes an extremely talented writer to actually make one feel uncomfortable or truly scared and Mr. Gifune delivers. The essence of suspense is palpable. No exaggeration-I literally had goosebumps reading one passage. "The Bleeding Season" is by far one the best books I have ever read. I hope many more readers discover Greg F. Gifune-they don't know what they've been missing!

Certain writers have muscle. Chandler. Hammett. Count Greg F. Gifune among them. Tough guys in old movies always carried rye in hip flasks, and they never seemed able to take a sip without killing the bottle. THE BLEEDING SEASON is like that. One slug and the reader takes this wild ride straight till the end.

The detective fiction reference is germane. THE BLEEDING SEASON may be a horror novel, but - like all of Gifune's fiction - it remains pervasively soulful, sporting an authentically gritty quality uncommon to the genre ...while also being scary as hell. Never for a moment anything other than realistic, this is the landscape of film noir, virtually subterranean. No light penetrates. There are few comforts. Sex can be cold and miserable. Marriage empty. Even friendship can inspire dread.

It's not for the fainthearted.

Even before the horror elements take hold, these characters lead sad lives. Buddies since high school, they've endured all the hard knocks life can throw at them. (A good thing really: think of it as preparation.) It doesn't take much to inspire people in a world with so little warmth. One act of kindness, a single show of loyalty. Of such frail elements are lifelong bonds forged.

And sometimes such links bind beyond the grave.

One of the friends dies in an accident that emotionally cripples them all. Or was it an accident? Years later, their lives are littered with abandoned dreams, failed relationships, ruined careers. Then one of them hangs himself in a basement. (Or does he?) In most novels, suicide would be the end of the story. The unseen presence of the dead has already isolated these friends, both from the world and from each other. And this latest blow seems like the worst thing that could happen. Then the note arrives.

The chapter where the surviving friends gather to listen to the tape-recorded suicide note proves as harrowing as anything in contemporary dark literature. This message, apparently recorded in that dank basement, addresses each of them in turn. This is no litany of sorrows and excuses. There are no accusations here. Instead, the deceased offers a cold assessment of each man's character, a catalogue of lifelong failures. It's a gauntlet thrown down. Lies hurt. But truths can be inconceivably terrifying. It starts them asking questions. And they discover things they'd rather not know. Was their friend really a ritual killer? Did he strike a bargain with forces beyond their comprehension? Is he back? Was he never gone? Guilt by association may be more than a merely abstract concept. And madness doesn't strike like a bolt of lightning ... but creeps like fog, insidiously, inexorably. And the possibility of redemption, however remote, offers only the cruelest hope.

Intelligence is an underrated quality, often in short supply within the genre. Not so with Gifune's work. Most thrillers make the mistake of slamming the reader with big cinematic scenes, but Gifune traffics in more adult fare. Deadly words twine through this mature novel like cigarette smoke, the erotic charge sometimes just as palpable. So often the antecedents of modern horror lie too obviously in the quaintly decorous supernatural romances of another time and place. This bleak vision remains quintessentially American, tough, merciless, and as original as sin.

Enough has been said about what The Bleeding Season is about. I want to make sure everyone reading this understands what a brilliant writer Greg F. Gifune is.

This was my first intro to Gifune some months back, and since then I've bought every book by him that I can get my hands on. His writing is that good. And yes, you will finish this guy's books and wonder why his name isn't more well known than it is, which is one of the reasons I'm focusing this review on the author instead of getting into specifics about the premise of the book.

Gifune writes smooth, elegant prose, that is often poetic at times. Not to say he doesn't write scary scenes, author Tom Piccirilli mentioned in a blurb that Gifune knows how to chill your blood, and I agree. But you'll find the writing so smooth that you'll want to go back and read over favorite parts-and that is when you know you're on to a writer whose every book you'll want to own and read.

Other recommended books by Gifune are, Children of Chaos, Blood In Electric Blue, Saying Uncle, Dominion, Deep Night, and Night Work which all can be bought here on Amazon.

There are a lot of great authors in the genre of dark fiction and horror who should be read by way more people than are reading them; Greg Gifune is one of them, and if you want to be a step ahead of everyone else when his name becomes huge, then do yourself a favor and start reading him now.

This book is very well written. The characters are developed and the story is solid. Fate of one of the characters is blurred in the final chapter, which is unfortunate.

However, those reviewers throwing around five star reviews obviously have not read Ghost Story, Pet Semetary or even Son of the Endless Night.

This book is good. It isn't The Shining

What can I say?Another superior book from a wonderful author.I don't usually read serial killer stuff because I find it too disturbing.This book was a little disturbing but nowhere near so as with Splatter punk works.
This really is some of the best writing out there and shouldn't be missed.The characterizations are stunning.You can really immerse your self in this book.I tend to read his books in one sitting because I find it very hard to put down once I start.I was telling another author how each book by Greg Gifunes's is like a rich confection in that there are layers and layers in each book and character.
This is a story about evil and what face it takes in our society.How we go about our day to day lives when there are people out there like this.Chilling.

the hype for this book was better than the actual book. I'm sorry that I purchased it.