Rachmaninoff's Ghost

Facing the Music A Review of M. F. Korn's Early Work, Rachmaninoff's Ghost By Jim Reyome Korn, M. F., Rachmaninoff's Ghost. Lansdowne, PA: Silver Lake Press, 2002. 146p. As a (frustrated) writer myself, long at work on the Great American Novel--and who among us isn't--it's always fascinating to look at the early work of an established author. Kinda like looking at one of Van Gogh's finger paintings. Not that I belong in the same league, but I could do the same sort of with my own work. I save pretty much everything I write, and that's stacks and stacks of notebooks and furiously typed pages, most of which are in envelopes which have been sealed, opened briefly, and resealed dozens of times. These envelopes invariably have warning labels of some sort on them reading TOXIC! or BIOHAZARD! or NOT SAFE FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. Often I wonder what manner of pharmaceuticals I was on when I spewed some of that crap. Mind you, that was back in the 80s, so it could have been just about anything. So, I can still read my early works. I just choose not to do so very often--it's far too wince provoking. Joe Lansdale couldn't elicit more sincere (unintentional) retches, and as such I would not recommend it to anyone without a stout constitution. That anyone would allow folks to read their early works is, to me, surprising at the least, and that they would actually publish such a work is positively shocking. Thus, I must conclude that Michael Korn is a far, far better man than I. Or at least he has a stronger stomach, for with the publication of Rachmaninoff's Ghost he has put an early (vintage 1984) work out for public display. Onward, then: a shambling, disheveled man staggers down the sidewalks of New York City, near death. Taken for a drunk, he's eventually removed to a hospital to be treated for his maladies, one of which is apparently mental: he insists his name is Sergei Rachmaninoff. Flashback to six months prior and we meet the principal character, one Mark Conner, a former engineering student at Louisiana State University who transfers to a smaller school to study music, an opportunity he likely wouldn't have qualified for at LSU. He is a talented piano player, but not extraordinarily so, and on his first audition at Southeastern it's suggested he major in something other than piano. Mark is, needless to say, devastated, and goes to extreme measures to improve himself. No self-help course will do, no Roy Clark's Big Note Songbook for him; no, Mark Conner turns to another, more sinister book: the Necronomicon. It seems he has experience with this sort of thing; his mother turned him on to the Occult as a child and with Lovecraft's volume and others obtained at a local used bookstore (great atmosphere there, by the way) he pays a visit to a local bone orchard to summon Rachmaninoff his own self. The summoning works swimmingly, if painfully. Presto gooey gumbo, Mark Conner can play. So much for bad auditions. Unfortunately, things don't exactly

------------------------------------------------------- About THE AUTHOR of twelve novels and 240 published stories: Three of MF Korn's books, CONFESSIONS OF A GHOUL AND OTHER STORIES, and ALIENS, MINIBIKES AND OTHER STAPLES OF SUBURBIA, and also SKIMMING THE GUMBO NUCLEAR were mentioned in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection. CONFESSIONS OF A GHOUL AND OTHER STORIES was mentioned in The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror edited by Stephen Jones. RACHMANINOFF'S GHOST was also mentioned in The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror edited the following year. ---------------------------------------------------------- ACTUAL REVIEW BELOW: -------------------------------------------------- A reviewer, June 26, 2003, Review in Baton Rouge ADVOCATE Newspaper Rachmaninoff's Ghost. M. F. Korn. Sliver Lake Publishing, 2003. 146 p. Local author and pianist M. F. Korn combines two things he loves--classical music and horror--in his most recently published novel. Rachmaninoff's Ghost is a story of possession which is set mostly in Hammond, Louisiana, on the campus of Southeastern University. In this tale, Mark Connor forgoes his parents' dream that he study engineering at Louisiana State University to pursue his own of studying the piano. But alas, while Mark plays well enough, his talents only earn him conditional acceptance to a program at Southeastern. While finding his way around the university, Mark indulges in another passion of his, looking for obscure books on the occult in used book stores. He hits pay dirt when he finds a copy of the Necronomicon, the allegedly fictitious book of the dead mentioned in the writing of H. P. Lovecraft. Later he uses one of the spells found in the book to conjure the spirit of Sergei Rachmaninoff. The problem is that Rachmaninoff doesn't just appear to Mark; he takes possession of him. Suddenly Mark's playing becomes inspired, and someone from Time magazine comes to hear him play. But doom ultimately awaits the person who believes he can channel the dead and emerge unscathed: when Mark conjured the spirit of his favorite composer in order to take advantage of his talent, he did not realize that there is a terrible price to pay, as a living body cannot successfully host two spirits at once. Ultimately Mark collapses into a shambling lunatic, thus ending his piano career. Rachmaninoff's Ghost is Korn's first novel, written in 1984, soon after the author graduated from college with a degree in piano, but it was not published until 2003. The influence of the classic ghost story on his early writing is evident, and people wishing to read a relatively gentle tale of possession will be pleased. As a whole, this novel isn't very gory when compared with other works in the horror genre, and Rachmaninoff's Ghost is less subtle and atmospheric, more plot-driven, than Korn's later work. Unfortunately, anyone looking for local color will be disappointed, as Rachmaninoff's Ghost doesn't evoke a specific