The Exit at Toledo Blade Boulevard [Hardcover]

Jack Ketchum (Author), Matt Johnson (Author), Alan Clark (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Jack Ketchum (nom de plume of Dallas Mayr) is known for choosing disturbing topics, as in the subversive, even shocking, novel Off Season and the violently nasty The Girl Next Door. His penchant for in-your-face horror is tempered, though, by the underlying moral tone in his fiction.

The Exit at Toledo Blade Boulevard contains 12 short stories (six original to this volume) and a personal essay about the author's encounter with Henry Miller. "The Rifle," the best in the bunch, is a heartbreaking, provocative fable about a gun in the hands of a kid gone bad. It would serve well as a reading assignment for a group discussing the problem of shootings by school children. The other stories include one reminiscent of "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, one about random violence on a freeway, three tales in which a villain gets his or her comeuppance, a story about snake phobia, a fantasy fable set in the wintry north, and others that use paranoia, cynicism, and humor in different combinations. (Some readers may find the humor a bit lame.) Also included is a well-crafted Romero-zombie story that was apparently intended for a Skipp-and-Spector Book of the Dead anthology that never materialized.

The essay, "Henry Miller and the Push," is a brilliant finale. In the early 1980s Ketchum (Dallas Mayr) found himself in the position of representing Henry Miller for a New York literary agency. His description of the poignant encounter between the young and aspiring writer and the 85-year-old Miller is a real treat.

This edition includes several black-and-white illustrations and two beautiful color illustrations on the front and back of the dust jacket by horror artist Alan M. Clark. The introduction is by Richard Laymon and all the stories have short blurbs by Ketchum. --Fiona Webster

Product Details

• Hardcover: 220 pages
• Publisher: Obsidian Books; 1 edition (June 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1891480014
• ISBN-13: 978-1891480010
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,690,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It's a rip-off, August 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Exit at Toledo Blade Boulevard (Hardcover)

Small horror publishers frequently offer expensive limited editions by favorite authors such as Ketchum. You can pay hundreds for a leatherbound volume in a hardwood case decorated with pewter skulls, or you can lay out $45 for the "trade" version. I got one of the 500 "trade" copies of this book, and like many of these expensive editions, it was a rip-off. I'm not gonna buy this stuff any more. Why lay out so much money on a book that turns out to be very ordinary and rather dull? Because you can't find the stuff anywhere else. And because in his/her other works, the author delivered.

Ketchum has written four novels I liked a lot (Offspring, Off Season, Girl Next Door, and Road Kill), and several that I didn't (Ladies Night, Only Child, Red). This short story collection seemed like a good bet, but it turned out to be a bunch of cliches, shallow use of formulas, and "idea" stories where the author had a bright idea ("what if this psycho guy decides to drive the wrong way down the freeway at night?") and goes nowhere with it. I guess the idea itself, robed in a few expository details and some gore (not interesting enough to make the book worth buying just for the gore aspect), is supposed to wow the reader, but I find this stuff unsatisfying. After reading three or four of these in a row in a collection, I get downright pissed off and throw the thing in the trash. (I offered it to my horror-insider specialty used-book dealer, but he has three copies on hand already and didn't want mine.) The paean to Henry Miller was a nice piece of writing, but it didn't move me greatly and didn't redeem the triviality of the rest of the book. I'd say this one is for Ketchum completists only. (And I disagree with Fiona about the cover art -- I think it's ugly. This is also one of the worst-edited books I've seen, full of typos and whole lines printed twice. For the price of this book and the folderol surrounding this sort of publication, it would be nice to see a text that has had basic proofreading.)

And it sure would be nice -- and make for a wider audience for the authors -- if horror publishers would release larger, cheaper editions rather than these pricey "collector's" editions that leave you feeling like you've been had.