Threshold

It's always good to see that an author I adore hasn't lost his or her touch. Threshold is proof that Caitlin Kiernan is only getting better, honing her already-considerable talents to a fine edge. I absolutely loved Silk and her short fiction, but Threshold goes one or two steps further in almost every respect. The characters are more sharply drawn, the prose is more accomplished, and the plotting is impeccable. Not to mention that this is a very, very scary book! This time out, Kiernan draws on her background as a paleontologist to weave a tale of timeless horrors that might lurk at the edges of what we believe to be a comprehensible universe, all the while keeping her characters front and center. This is not a book about monsters. It's a book about the effect that monsters might have upon the people who come into contact with them. If you still think Anne Rice, Stephen King, or Clive Barker are the masters of horror, you haven't read Caitlin Kiernan.

This autumn has given us two spectacular horror novels. First Stephen King and Peter Straub's BLACK HOUSE and now, THRESHOLD by Caitlin R. Kiernan. As a devotee to both the genre and to Miss Kiernan's work (and to literature in general), I recommend THRESHOLD to anyone looking for a novel that's both frightening and intelligent. As she did in her first novel, SILK, Kiernan combines a stunning prose style with keen characterization, for a tale of creepy intensity. Unlike SILK, however, which was primarily concerned with inner demons, THRESHOLD turns its gaze outward and deals with horrors of a more cosmic scale. This novel will keep you turning pages and leave you wanting more.

As a longtime resident of Birmingham, AL, the setting of Caitlin Kiernan's new novel, I was delighted to visit, though her text, many places so familiar too me. Kiernan has a knack for taking the familiar (a park, a book, a street) and casting it in a new and sinister light. Fans of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Ramsey Campbell, and Clive Barker should give the book a try. Those of us who have been following her work since she first appeared in the early '90s are already familiar with her breathtaking prose and deft characterization, her plots that flow like poisonous honey, but Threshold is a marvelous opportunity for new readers to discover Kiernan's powerful, terrifying writing. This book is truly something wonderful.

Caitlin R. Kiernan returns with a second novel that should erase anyone's doubts as to whether she "can do it again." If anything, Threshold is indicative of a significant maturation of Kiernan as an artist. Readers who weren't so keen on Kiernan's examination of Gen X subculture in Silk may find Threshold more to their liking, as the characters are generally more accessible to mainstream readers, though still quirky enough to evoke past masters of the Southern Gothic and grotesque (Faulkner, O'Connor, Tennessee Williams, etc.). This time out, Kiernan delves deeper into the tradition of "weird fiction," the territory of Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood, only hinted at in Silk. The title is the key, as Threshold drags us along with its characters across the barriers of worlds that divide the present from the past, and sanity from chaos. Terrible, fantastic, ancient things lurk beneath a mountain, things that must be faced. But this isn't merely a spook story. Kiernan's dabbling in the stuff of heroic fantasy here as well, drawing on the AngloSaxon poem "Beowulf," for example, to give the book a deeper level of meaning. Threshold is about the lengths we go to to save, or lose, ourselves. It's truly terrifying and the author's poetic voice continues to amaze!

I always worry that a writer's second novel won't be up to the standards he or she set the first time out. With Threshold, Caitlin Kiernan puts my fears to rest, by delivering a second novel that is in fact far better than her exquisite, award-winning first novel Silk. In many ways, Threshold is a much more traditional horror novel, alluding to the works of such past masters as H. P. Lovecraft and Ramsey Campbell, yet the book stays true to Kiernan's affection for characterization and stunning prose. This book is a triumph and a must read for any horror fan!