Customer Reviews

November Mourns

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'll admit it. I've been afraid to read Tom Piccirrilli. Whenever you pick up his books you see blurbs with quotes like 'literate sensibility', 'lyrical voice', or 'a powerful meditation on isolation'. Eek! I like my horror to be scary, fast, furious, and above all readable! I read for entertainment - not just edification.

But, I took the plunge and I'm glad I did.

November Mourns is extremely readable and entertaining. It throws you into a backwoods horrorland and doesn't let go until the very last page.

The main character, Shad Jenkins, is a dark reluctant hero and is so well developed that you share his every sorrow and triumph.

This is a great book for any fan of horror and it doesn't disappoint. Ignore all the highbrow blurbs and just sit back and enjoy a dark, spooky tale!

Shad Jenkins returns to his hometown of Moon Run Hollow (no doubt down the road a spell from Kingdom Come, the setting of Piccirilli's 2004 novel A Choir of Ill Children) after two years in jail to find out exactly what happened to his sister Maggie, who was found dead a few months prior on the Gospel Trail Road. Although the police have ruled it "death by misadventure," the fact that Maggie's ghost has haunted him ever since her death leads Shad to suspect that wasn't the case. Thus, back in his birthplace to investigate, the ex-con discovers that "You could always go home again, the trouble was getting back out." Digging into the matter, Shad traverses the town's environs, speaking with many of its most colorful citizens. Despite his persistence in his quest for the truth, Shad turns up little. Unfortunately for Shad, revelations ARE coming. When they do come, they are tragic, but not wholly unexpected.

Having previously penned straight crime novels, westerns, operatic horror, and poetry, Piccirilli has now written a book which can best be described as a hybrid of Gold Medal suspense novel and southern gothic, sort of John D. MacDonald by way of Manley Wade Wellman. Piccirilli's prose is spellbinding, creating an atmosphere of dread so thick it becomes disorienting at times, placing readers in the same position as the book's hero, Shad Jenkins; he also does a wonderful job of what science fiction aficionados would label world building, creating a town and populace so vivid you're left feeling as if you actually visited the place.

November Mourns is a book with big ambitions, most of which it achieves. Inside its pages, you'll find abundant evidence of a writer in love with the English language, successfully experimenting with its nuances and cadences to achieve the effects he desires. You'll also find evidence of a talented storyteller, one capable of entrancing his audience and taking them away from the real world for hours at a time. Keep in mind, though, that this bittersweet novel doesn't let readers off easily--the events it depicts, especially its ambiguous climax, will give them plenty to ponder for days after finishing.

Shad Jenkins is in prison and about to be let out when his father calls to let him know his sister Megan (Mags) is dead. That night Shad wakes as Mags tries to reach him through his cell door. The other prisoners are awake and watchful but no one will talk to him. The fury inside him is awake and spoiling for revenge. November Mourns starts with a question: Who killed Shad Jenkins' sister Megan? It ends leaving you with many more questions than you started with but somehow satisfied, even though the hairs on the back of your neck might not lie down for a while.

From the first page, I found myself drawn into the story. The story hangs together but it's so convoluted, twisted, and just plain weird that it's hard to sort things out. Finally, you find yourself just going with it. Shad talks to his dead mother and her various companions when he night walks. His sister, or mostly her hand, seems to be directing Shads investigations as he sees her gesturing to him out of the corner of his eye.

Shads father has never recovered from the death of Shads mother. Then Megan's mother ran away to marry her own cousin. The relationships in this book are often convoluted since everyone in town seems to be related in several degrees to everyone else in town. Moonshine running is the biggest industry and most everyone is addicted to moonshine in one way or another. Shad, after drying out in prison, can taste the moonshine on the air and understands the hunger but won't give in to the temptation because finding out what happened to Megan takes priority.

From the beginning the plot is multi-threaded and convoluted. We begin to get glimpses of the town, its people, and Shad as he searches for answers. It's a quest story but not in the usual sense. Shad is looking to find the murderer but he's also looking to find himself. Prison has changed him, but can he resist getting pulled back into this town and its own history and story. Shad has a part to play but will he discover what that part is before it takes him over.

For beating up a guy who tried to rape his sister Megan, Shad Jenkins spent two years in the pokey. Finally out and ready to start his life again, he finds out that Megan has been murdered and that their father wants him to "come back [to Moon Run Hollow] before you get on with your life." Megan's body was found with a single, tiny scratch on her cheek up on Gospel Trail Road, a place where even the hardiest residents fear to tread.

Set up in a crime/noir/murder-mystery/whodunit format with Southern Gothic overtones, Bram Stoker Award-winning author Tom Piccirilli's November Mourns is his best novel yet. Advancing on themes approached in 2003's A Choir of Ill Children (in many ways, his breakthrough novel), Piccirilli uses this familiar format as a trunk upon which to place many beautiful and disturbing branches.

Often, these come in the form of odd characters with memorable names. Zeke Hester, the wannabe rapist, still won't let go of his pride, bruised at having his tail kicked two years ago. Glide Luvell, a teenage girl a year Megan's junior, exhibits knowledge of little more than how her body, which was "designed by the Hollow to pass on the burden of her general simplemindedness," affects men.

Glide's brothers Venn and Hoober are walking examples of why, when you run moonshine for a living, you don't spend your day sampling the wares. Even the Jenkins' dogs have all carried the name Lament, showing the overwhelming sense of despair that pervades Moon Run Hollow, and that Shad would desperately like to escape, if only he could get loose. In fact, Shad's avoidance of his past is a pivotal decision to the plot. If he didn't, November Mourns would wrap itself up much too quickly.

Tom Piccirilli and Joe Lansdale both write about the dark side of the American South, the really dark side that most don't ever see -- they certainly don't admit to having family there. The major difference is that Lansdale's characters are written to be threatening, ridiculed, or merely present for shock value. But, in November Mourns, Piccirilli delves beneath the surface to focus on the tragedy. While Lansdale makes fun of married siblings, Piccirilli shows you their deformed offspring (whom he still refers to as "ill children").

Shad wants to know what happened, but nobody is talking; even his father begs him to leave it alone -- he's got other things on his mind. Meanwhile, other parts of Shad's past are creeping up on him and it's all he can do to just get through it all, especially when he keeps seeing Megan out of the corner of his eye. Piccirilli knows how to keep the suspense up, but even when the killer is finally revealed, it does not compare to the intensity of the trip we've been taken on beforehand. November Mourns wraps itself around your emotions and won't let go.

An atmospheric southern gothic tale with a heavy crime-oriented attitude makes NOVEMBER MOURNS a powerhouse read. Shad Jenkins returns home to his moonshine-running mountain town called 'The Hollow' to investigate the death of his sister. Megan died on a mountain road long-thought to be haunted, where in years past plague victims were brought to die. Many of his old friends have succumbed to poison moonshine and alcoholism and seem to be slightly crazy, to say the least. As Shad delves deeper into the mystery we learn that he too suffers from visions--whether its a natural psychic gift, a blessing from God, or brought on from moonshine we don't know--but the ghosts of his sister and his mother seem to be trying to help him. Or are they? Tom Piccirilli has written a wonderful, gripping, finely-tuned dark fantasy that draws the reader through a series of amazingly imaginative scenes. Part adventure novel, part thriller, part horror, part ghost story, part southern grit lit, and also very very funny and sweet in places. Definitely do yourself a favor and pick this one up!

Even though I used the words brilliant, moody, and unsettling in my subect here, November Mourns is all that and so much more. It's humorous, adventurous, action-packed, and profound. The story of a man released from prison to seek an answer to who killed his sister is just the very simplest synopsis of what this book is about. It's also about a man haunted by a town slowly going mad from moonshine and poisoned river waters, the idea that perhaps the land itself is in revolt, and how faith and belief can give people incredible power or cause horrendous pain.

This is Piccirilli's sharpest, tautest, and most suspenseful yet, a true masterpiece!

I'm a major fan of Piccirilli because so few other authors are capable of writing "horror" with such a human, literary flavor. his characters, no matter how weird or wild, are very authentic. They bleed and cry and rage and refuse to give up even when they know they're licked or dying. There is a lot of grace and poetry to Piccirilli's novels, and nowhere is that more true than in NOVEMBER MOURNS. A backwoods noir tale of an ex-con seeing answers to not only the death of his sister but also the dark history of his town and himself. He seeks the truth where he knows it lies, regardless of the superstition, fears, and curses of his neighbors. Love and devotion drive him as much as fear and sorrow. This is a very thoughtful book, with a lot of humor and a great amount of lyricism. I reread aloud many portions of the book because the language just sings. If Piccirilli wasn't hampered with the label of "horror writer" he'd garner a great deal more attention than he currently does, though hopefully that is changing. Do yourself a favor and read this gorgeous book. Highly recommended.

When I first started reading this book, I thought it was great, until it continued to drag on with no conclusions to Shad Jenkins questions. It was a round of a bout way of constantly questioning the town's people of Moon Run Hollow about his sister Megan's mysterious death while he was in prison for beating up her attaker Zeke Hester two years earlier.She was found dead up the hill that everyone is afraid to go up to because of the disease that had people being thrown into a canyon and murdered. People believed it to be haunted, and wondered how an innocent young 17 year old could have ended up dead up there. They wondered what she must have been doing or if it was murder. But by whom, a lover? It just seemed to never sum up to any answers until the very end. The suspense died after I was half through and the climax finally picked up at the very end. The most helpful person to Shad was the old lady that smoked marijuana, how helpful could her jibber jabber be with weird questions as his answers. Anyhow I would give this book 3 stars for the lack of suspense and conclusions.

Shad Jenkins returns from prison to his southern mountain town where the only real trade is in making and running moonshine liquor. His sister has died on an isolated back ground believed to be haunted by the superstitious townsfolk. In an effort to find out the reasons behind her death, Shad searches through the backwoods of the hollow dealing with many of the bizarre, and perhaps insane locals, including a cult of snake handlers, some freakishly abnormal folks, and an unknown enemy who seems to be some kind of supernatural entity that lives in the forest. Piccirilli has great fun here as he straddles a line between suspense, horror, and fantasy. he builds a wonderful tension as Shad explores his own hollow only to discover that either there are strange forces at work in the mountains or possibly everyone is going insane from poisoned moonshine. Moon Run Hollow and its inhabitants are classic creations in the dark fantasy field, with a beautiful but terrible back story involving a yellow fever epidemic and what happened to its victims. Piccirilli's richly textured story and wonderfully gripping narrative voice makes the story even darker and more foreboding as the mystery progresses. Moody, haunting, and memorable, November Mourns is a terrific story you won't soon forget.

Shad Jenkins returns from prison to his southern mountain town where the only real trade is in making and running moonshine liquor. His sister has died on an isolated back ground believed to be haunted by the superstitious townsfolk. In an effort to find out the reasons behind her death, Shad searches through the backwoods of the hollow dealing with many of the bizarre, and perhaps insane locals, including a cult of snake handlers, some freakishly abnormal folks, and an unknown enemy who seems to be some kind of supernatural entity that lives in the forest. Piccirilli has great fun here as he straddles a line between suspense, horror, and fantasy. he builds a wonderful tension as Shad explores his own hollow only to discover that either there are strange forces at work in the mountains or possibly everyone is going insane from poisoned moonshine. Moon Run Hollow and its inhabitants are classic creations in the dark fantasy field, with a beautiful but terrible back story involving a yellow fever epidemic and what happened to its victims. Piccirilli's richly textured story and wonderfully gripping narrative voice makes the story even darker and more foreboding as the mystery progresses. Moody, haunting, and memorable, November Mourns is a terrific story you won't soon forget.