Customer Reviews

Book of Souls

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

 

 

Some books on rare occasion are full of grace and contemplation and quite comfort. They are about the only important things there are. You bring yourself to them and that is a quiet place too. This book you call sacred. With gratitude.

I didn't know what this book was about when I ordered it...I just automatically read everything by Jack Ketchum as it is always very good and rarely disappointing. (Well, there were a couple...)
This book is composed of four autobiographical and biographical sketches of people who influenced the writer known as Jack Ketchum. They are wonderful, giving readers some kind of insight into him and which people in his life were most important. I was especially interested in the piece on Henry Miller, who greatly influenced Ketchum and immediately bought all of his books, which, for some reason had previously escaped me.
This book is certainly very different from anything else written by Ketchum. It is very personal, beautifully written and highly interesting. Even if you have never read one of Jack's horror novels (mostly based on true events and several of which have been made into films) this book would be a recommended read.

I am reviewing this book on the content, not that some of the stories were previously published. I know the other reviewer had a problem with that, but if the material is strong, what does it matter? Each of these books are signed by the author, but I also have no idea what the other reviewer was saying in reference to an "uninspired" autograph. A signature is a signature. I'd like for him to show me what an "inspired" one looks like. :-)

But I digress. The four main essays of this book are all very touching and give us a wonderful insight into the author's life. Jack Ketchum writes about his brief but captivating meeting with legendary author Henry Miller, his best friend's lifelong decent into mental illness and eventually AIDS, the lasting effects of a past girlfriend's drug addiction, and ending with the current love of his life in the World Trade Center on 911. These true stories cement the precious gift of life and it's sometime painful journey. Very few authors can tell them as effectively as Jack Ketchum does here. Recommended without a doubt.

This may not be the bargain of the century at $11.99 plus postage for 72 pages and an oddly uninspired signature by Dallas/Jack, but I found the stories to be somewhat compelling and, as is mostly the case with Dallas/Jack, entertaining. I was a bit disappointed (and here we go again with the "getting your value" part) that the stories had been previously published. So the question is, ultimately, why have this book? Or even, why does this book exist? So... I must conclude this is for collectors only.