Low Red Moon

In "Wuthering Heights," Catherine Earnshaw says she's had dreams that have gone through her like wine through water, and changed the color of her mind. Reading Caitlin R. Kiernan's "Low Red Moon" was a similar experience, only, unlike a dream, it can be repeated for enjoyment again and again. This story doesn't just stay with you, it takes up permanent residence in your head and makes you see differently. Although this book is a sequel, of sorts, to Kiernan's novel "Threshold," it's quite possible you can read and enjoy it without having heard of the earlier book. However, if you have, it's like adding another dimension on top of our mundane three; it's almost bizarrely bruising to keep running into details -- seemingly the "wrong" details -- from "Threshold" (there's that tunnel) -- a strong sense not of parallel universes, but ghostly neverworlds, paths not taken, what-could-have-been bumping up against what-is (or is it?) and even in some cases influencing it. (And then there are some dreadfully unsettling echoes, like just one phrase -- "little pig?" -- that made me a little sorry I was finishing the novel at night.) It's difficult to write specifically about the plot in a review, not just for fear of spoilers, but because the idea of what might have been and never will be has a metaphorical thrust in the book, as in "Threshold." We meet Deacon Silvey, and Chance, and Sadie, from the previous book, but although they remain the same -- or are they? -- their relationships to each other have changed to the point where Chance is eight months pregnant and Deacon has sobered up (his struggle with liquor is beautifully, nerve-wrackingly done). But just as in Threshold, they begin to be pursued by extreme, elemental, ferocious forces, only rather than coming from the depths of the earth or outer space, this dark power wells up from the human heart. The book is heartbreakingly sad, but not tragic. While I was finishing the final pages, there was a sort of tidal crash of mourning that seemed to "come out of nowhere" (but which had obviously been built up carefully throughout the first pages and first words). There are all kinds of fantastic little details about "the real world," beautifully done shards of reality you don't find in most modern "realistic" novels -- the sense you get is of a real world being created, and cherished; the making, remembering, as an act of love. And this book is really about the power of love, sort of the way Silk was, except that was nearly a negative proof -- about the loss of love, or the failure of the promise of love -- where this book is a positive one -- about what love can do. Trust me on this one-- like "King Lear," this story's really about love, and the harm, and healing, and hope, that love bears. This isn't to say the book is weepy, or dull, or slow; on the contrary, it's even more fast-paced than Threshold, filled with all kinds of funny lines and sharp observations and real people. From about abo

I just finished Low Red Moon, and all I have to say is wow! I thoroughly enjoyed Silk, and thought that this one was even better. Kiernan's command of the English language and her skill in description are amazing. I'm not sure what the writing process was like, but I can say how I felt about the reading of this book. It's like a fever dream, and there's always something coming up around the bend. With Kiernan's books, I find myself itching to read the whole thing all at once. I can't wait to see what the next work holds.

When a psychic tracks down a serial killer and saves a victim most would call it a job well done. But for Deacon Silvey it turns into a nightmare. Asked to do a favor for the Birmingham police, Deacon becomes the target of a dark hunt, facing both the revenge of the old ones and the hopes of another killer to fulfill a dream of ascension. Had he been the only target, Deacon might have been able to stand firm, but the demon with yellow eyes has a ritual to perform - on those that Deacon loves.Deacon is an ex-alcoholic, trying to start a new life with Chance, his very pregnant young wife. When he seeks help with the dark visions that have begun to plague him, death follows his trail. Chance is a practical woman and a scientist - a paleontologist. She barely believes in her husbands powers and now finds she is having visions of her own. She is torn between her own bloody nightmares and her fears that Deacon will succumb to his own demons. A deep wedge is being driven between them and only catastrophe can follow.My first encounter with Caitlen Kiernan was Silk, her freshman novel. While chilling and interesting in its own right, Silk pales beside Low Red Moon, Kiernan's third. The events of this novel would be terrifying on their own, but Kiernan has learned to blend subconscious fears and a modern mythology with echoes of Lovecraft into a concoction as suspenseful and doom-filled as anything I've read in years. Dream and reality crisscross in splashes of blood, characters refuse to follow any stereotype, and the Southern gothic horror story gets an infusion of new ideas. Kiernan displays a command of language that transcends her chosen genre. The reader, of course, is the beneficiary, nose buried in a book that is both too chilling to read and impossible to put down. If this is your introduction to Kiernan, brace yourself, you will soon be hunting up everything she has written.

The moody and impressionistic "Low Red Moon," is Caitlin R. Kiernan's third, and best novel yet. This time out she brings back many of the Southern Gothic Birmingham characters from her previous novels and introduces them to an escapee from Lovecraft country, serial killer and psychotic Narcissa Snow. She wants to please and appease folks you would definitely not want to invite to your place.But Narcissa, arrested adolescent that she is, wants to be in with this ghoulish in crowd (they apparently are headquartered in a strange house in Providence) and so she sets off Southward to Birmingham on a killing spree (all the while listening in her head to the voices of the people she killed), and an attempt to steal the baby of eight-month-pregnant Chance, from "Threshold," who's now married to recovering alcoholic Deacon Silvey. Narcissa wants to give the baby over to the in crowd as a ticket of admission. After many surprises, the chilling finale takes place back north in Lovecraft country as the sun sets and that low red moon rises on Halloween Night, 2001 a night when, as Ms. Kiernan assures us in her note in the front, the moon actually was full.The author expertly blends standard slasheriana (Don't go out for a cigarette, Alice! Why isn't there a police car at the rear entrance? Will you just hear the guy out before punching him in the nose, Deacon? A dark and stormy night? Oh oh!) with her own unique visions and her intoxicating prose style (she writes of "old-fashioned lampposts along the street, gaslights with electric hearts") and brews up something rich and strange, fresh and piquant. She knows the concoction calls for certain required elements, but her garnishments are what make the difference. Its flavor will leave you spellbound.Notes and asides: On p. 18 you'll learn why Ms. Kiernan has abandoned her trademark technique of running words together. The Low Red Moon, occurring as it does on the last day of the month, was also a blue moon. Not for children under 13.

The protagonists of Threshold return in a very different story, an original and chilling take on werewolves. Low Red Moon stands alone; you don't have to have read Threshold to understand it.It's interesting to watch an author learn and develop skills. Kiernan's writing has improved dramatically since her first published novel, Silk; there are still shiny stylistic twists, but there's also a solid, high-tension plot (better paced than Threshold) and well-realized, believable characters. Many things are well done here: the sentence-level writing, the way the dark secrets hidden at the book's center are revealed just enough to make sense, but not enough to lose their effect. Narcissa, the "villain", is a complex character in her own right. The story's resolution will not please readers who want happy endings, but I liked it.I wanted more of the paleontology, wanted it worked into the story (which it is in Threshold more than in this book) rather than just being a character trait - it's interesting, original and has lots of horror potential.It's really good to know that someone is writing intelligent, stylish New Horror. I recommend this book.