Escape Hatch 054: The Year-End Wrap-Up

Faun for the whole family; some 2023 cultural highpoints; last call for signed books; mailbag

Faun for the Whole Family

Conversation Tree Press is about ready to ship their limited of “Faun” and the book they’ve put together is so lovely it’s unreal. Their handbound, letterpress edition is choked with some of François Vaillancourt most chilling and cinematic art ever… it’s the next best thing to seeing “Faun” adapted for the big screen. I’m honored that they’d give my short story such a high level treatment and hope readers will love it as much as I do.

Just The Good Stuff, Please

This time of year, I always try to pass along a few recommendations, let you know what I saw or read in the last 12 months that I think might be worth your while. Keep in mind, as you graze through my picks, that my tastes reflect the preferences of a 51-year-old Dad who likes Dad things (WWII films, The Rolling Stones, The New York Times crossword, fisherman sweaters, beef stews, happy kids). What works for me might not work for you. But hopefully you’ll find something below that gives you a couple hours, or days, or weeks of happiness.

The Books

Chain-Gang All-Stars wiped me out: it has a little bit of a Hunger Games quality to it, but it’s so much funnier, and rawer, and rougher, and although it’s set in a dystopic future, it’s also secretly about our dystopic now.

I fell hard for Willy Vlautin last year, when I discovered his meth-noir masterpiece, The Night Always Comes. Lean on Pete is just as good—a violent heart-breaker about an orphaned child living a desperate life among horse-track grifters. Our kid makes a decision, about a third of the way through the novel, that caught me like a sucker punch, square on the chin. And at that moment, a narrative that was nicely humming along at 70 MPH suddenly accelerates to a dizzying 110. Vlautin reads like Raymond Carver but plots like Raymond Chandler and I can’t get enough.

Tell Me I’m Worthless is the most demented, go-for-the-throat, uber-violent, uber-shocking work of horror I’ve read since Clive Barker’s earliest stuff. I loved it. And was charmed by the way it managed to be in conversation with every major ghost story written in the last 150 years (Allison Rumfitt is obviously the student who wildly overstudied for the final exam). Come for the splatter, stay for the gripping meditations on social media and gender politics, and delight in the book’s casual meta-analysis of the ghost story form itself.

Speaking of major ghost stories, Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory was the best thing I read this year—I think it’ll go down as a lasting masterpiece of the uncanny. This is a book with powerful, moving things to say about some of the worst parts of American history. But as dreadful as things get for The Reformatory’s child-heroes, the author’s generosity of spirit is there on every page, a candle to light the way through some very dark territory. I can’t imagine anyone who loves ghost stories not loving this one.

The Movies

Targets (‘68) was Peter Bogdonavich’s debut film. I only saw it for the first time this year and have been wondering ever since if it isn’t his best work. Tell you what… he nailed America right from the start, because this is a movie about cars and guns and more cars and more guns. It runs as fast as a ‘68 Cobra Mustang and is about as sleek as a bullet fired from a high caliber rifle.

The first twenty minutes of Dial of Destiny is a small kind of miracle—like footage from a lost Indiana Jones film made around 1984. The movie that follows those twenty minutes, though, is even better, a witty, melancholy examination of an adventurer who has lived too long, long enough to see all the old evils rising again. Nazis—I hate these guys. Won’t we ever be rid of ‘em?

Talk to Me grabbed me like a hand reaching out of the dark for my throat. It just feels true. I watched it thinking, yes, this is right, if we found a way to speak with ghosts, and if they found a way to speak to us, this is exactly how those conversations would go. I liked the suggestion that being a haunt is not unlike being insanely drunk… drunk on the memory of life. There were a lot of good fright films this year (Thanksgiving, A Haunting in Venice, The Blackening, M3GAN, Evil Dead Rise) but this was a particular favorite.

I had such a blast at Dungeons & Dragons—it made me laugh so hard. Also it was the first film my wife and I got to see together in the theaters in six months, an actual date night, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s right there in the pantheon with Citizen Kane and The Godfather. So. Much. Fun. I hope there’s more.

The Shows

Two seasons in, The Bear is already dangerously close to joining a list of the all-time finest TV dramas: Breaking Bad, The Americans, The Sopranos. At its best it makes me think of the great naturalistic films of the 1970s: Dog Day Afternoon, Rocky, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Also, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who was Vic McQueen’s dad in NOS4A2, is in the role of his lifetime and smashing it. I love to see it.

Arnold answered many of my questions about one of the most iconic action stars in film history… many but not all. I’m still wondering if Dutch Schaefer from Predator could fight off the T-1 from Terminator. I have been wondering about this since I was 14.

The Diplomat feels more up-to-date than your Twitter feed, but fortunately is less like eating a plate of hot burning garbage. It’s brilliant about the hard, sticky work of defusing a geopolitical crisis in our hyper-politicized times—it reminds me of Graham Greene’s political thrillers, novels like The Quiet American. But it’s also a hella lot sexier than anything Graham Greene ever did. Plus, I just love watching two actors like Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell—actors who radiate charm and humor and who can do just about anything—working from scripts of such high quality.

The Duffer Brothers might have saved the best for last: Season 4 of Stranger Things was my favorite yet and I’m holding my breath to see how they wrap it all up. Not since the best years of the X-Files has there been a supernatural show on television that so beautifully zings the nerve-endings.

The Play

I’d be remiss if I didn’t say anything about The Shark is Broken, which I was lucky to catch in NYC on my way to Florida to do an event in Jacksonville. It’s all over now; The Shark is Broken finished its run and only lives now in the memories of the people who got to see it. Shark is about the three stars of Jaws—Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider, and above all, the towering, abrasive, erudite Robert Shaw—passing the hours together during the long stretches of downtime on the film. Ian Shaw plays his own father; he also co-wrote the script, which is a hard but compassionate look at a brilliant artist being pulled out to sea by the undertow of alcoholism.

There’s a moment when Shaw stands on top of the Orca in a summer thunderstorm, reeling and swaying in the gusts, always-on-the-edge-but-never-quite-losing-his balance. I watched, my skin roughed up with gooseflesh, my breath caught in my throat. It was majestic and terrifying, without a word being spoken, and was probably my most powerful encounter with capital-A Art all year long. If I knew where to send the flowers, I’d send flowers to all three of the men who stood on the stage and dreamed us back in time, just for an hour and a half. Take a bow, guys.

Bonus Round: The Music

Here are the songs iTunes says I listened to the most this year. The new Beatles track would be on there, I’m sure, if it hadn’t only just come out. I’m digging a lot of stuff off the new Stones, too. It’s an improbably great late career record.

No apologies for the Disney song, I have 19-month-old twins, and they love it.

I listened to the hell out of that Inhalers album. It just made me feel so good.

The Mailbag

Over in Substack’s chat feature, I opened a thread where readers can ask questions. I’ll try to answer one or two every issue of Escape Hatch. If there’s something you’re wondering—about books or film, about writing or balancing a creative life with parenting, or whatever—go ahead and drop your question there. I can’t promise to answer everything, only that I’ll get to what I can.

Sherry Lipp asks if I’ve ever considered revisiting a character from one of my novels in a future book.

Yes, all the time. I’ve had a rough idea for another story about Ig Perrish for over a decade—but I had such a miserable g*****n time writing Horns it’s hard to imagine ever doing it. I have revisited characters and locations from NOS4A2 on several occasions… in the Wraith graphic novel, and more recently, in a teeny short story that accompanied The Key to the Graveyard of What Might Be. I’ve thought about writing a sequel to The Fireman, but I think I need a few of the characters to grow up a little before I’ll be ready to visit them again.

I almost certainly will write more stories about Palinode (which appeared in “Faun”), the sci-fi future imagined in “All I Care About is You” (which appeared in Full Throttle), and Hobomeck, Maine (which appeared in “The Pram.”) But those aren’t characters, they’re settings.

Thanks for the question, Sherry.

Last Call for Scribbles

If you wanted to grab a signed copy of Heart-Shaped Box, Strange Weather, Locke & Key: The Golden Age, or any of my other books in time for Christmas, it’s not too late to order from Water Street Books. But it will be soon. The holiday cut-off is December 10th.

Water Street has everything I’ve done, just about—novels, collections, and graphic novels—and they have a dedicated page for people who were hoping to get something autographed. If you decide to order, thanks so much, and breathe easy, knowing you bought a loved one the best possible of all holiday presents: something by meeeeeeee!!!

Best Wishes from New Hampshire

Here in New Hampshire, I saw the first flakes of snow whirling into the windscreen as I drove to the supermarket for milk and eggs. It’s been dreary and clammy and cold, which I love—the perfect weather to sit inside with a cup of tea and a book.

And now I’ve taken up enough of your time. You’ve other things to do. I’m going to go quiet, I think, until late January—look for another Escape Hatch around then. Wishing you all the best, however you celebrate the holidays. Stay safe, have fun, and happy reading. —Joe