McDowell is an author I'm planning on reading for the first time this year. I have Cold Moon Over Babylon so I'll start there. Really interested in Blackwater as well though, and that edition looks great.
Last year I was lucky enough to find this whole series in two volumes at a thrift store for just a couple bucks each. Picked them up on a whim and now you're making me excited to read them sooner rather than later
Last night I finished the saga! Wow, what a trip to 20th century Alabama. I really enjoyed it. SPOILER AHEAD. . . . . . I found the saga very interesting and distinctive. Its scent of Garcia Marquez-style magic realism, soiled with Southern Gothic is original and captivating. I don't think it can be called Horror because the elements are sprinkled throughout the saga, which lasts more than 50 years, without ever lapsing into crude violence, except perhaps for the death of one of the main characters at the end of the story. All of them are devoid of explanation, which can actually be almost annoying in today's need for ‘big explanations’ about anything. I appreciated this choice because in the end it leaves us exactly like Billy: we know something is there but we will never understand what. Because that's what the supernatural is: it's there, it exists, but nobody knows for sure, nobody knows what it really is, and I think that's the gist of it all. We are like Perdido: we spend half a century in the company of Elinor but we don't know her; we don't really know where she comes from (yes, from Perdido, but in what sense?); we know she is powerful but we don't understand why; we are Perdido, the little town, she is Perdido, the River. And like the little town we begin to exist when she appears and cease to exist when she disappears. The characters are interesting, all well structured, many of them with very unexpected evolutions; I think it is easy to become attached to a large number of them, but also to hate them, often the two together. Who did not enjoy Mary-Love's death, only to miss her later, since the conflict with Elinor was a mainstay of the first part of the cycle? And the choice of no longer giving a real antagonist is narratively an interesting gamble, because Miriam is not really an enemy, quite the contrary. From that moment the power of the Caskey matriarchy explodes. They are unstoppable. And this deification of the female figure occurs in an extremely natural way, a manifesto of a pure feminism, not aimed at the prevarication of the opposite sex, but a strong narrative of the real power of women. So strong, in Caskey, that even outside the home they manage to make their way in the world. The theme of homosexuality is treated with gentleness and delicacy, from James, branded with the stigma of effeminacy, to his daughter Grace who creates a homosexual couple with a girl who was not one, but falls in love with a person of the same sex anyway, and the child of violence becomes a child of love of the two women. They are so overprotective of him that they give him one of the most disturbed personalities of the extended family, a subtle criticism of certain parents who, under the glass bell jar, do not allow a healthy development to their son, who, in fact, in order to redeem himself, will have to leave the nest, to go and look after his grandmother, becoming in fact a real man who looks after a woman. It opens and closes with water. Water that can give life, water that can take it away. A game of narrative symmetries that masterfully closes the circle. A sad tale, as it could only be a story that takes so many lives and brings them to their conclusion, as sad as the life of a family that, after reaching its splendour, fades away. More people die than are born, and there are no more offspring to steal among the household. Elinor's house, which for a decade fed a dozen people every day, is reduced to the ghost of itself: there are two people, two ghosts and Elinor. By now the living are outnumbered. They can only leave. Diaspora is now a reality. Goodbye says Elinor. Goodbye we say to her. . . . . . . . What kind of creature was it? A frog of Lovecraftian memory?? Why did he have to kill someone from time to time to feel good? Why did some of those he killed come back as ghosts? Why was that room in the house magically evil? What the fuck did the jewels falling from the ceiling of the front room have to do with anything? How did Elinor's powers work? How did she do that job with Genevieve? And then she never did anything like that again...? Why did she behave like that with Frances? Why didn't she explain anything to her? What was the point of keeping what they were from her daughter, because in my opinion that's what fucked Frances's brain: she blurted out and left, dumping that poor Billy like a poor prick and her other daughter to brood over. What a bitch! Had she told her who they were and what they were maybe they wouldn't have done that. And why one did and the other didn't. And also Frances had to kill people to be OK or she just needed to be in the river. And was salt water or fresh water the same thing? So it wasn't the Perdido that was the focus, but water in general? Why did she know about the oil? She says MaryLove was right about her being at Osceola to snag Oscar, but because they know the future or because she wanted Oscar? Bho... These are the first unresolved things that come to mind. I've certainly wondered many more while reading this saga. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. While I have always had a very strong fascination for the South, after this epic I have an urge to go and see the water oaks and the kudzo and all that that part of the world has to show that never ends.
Love...love...love this series: was already a minor McDowell fan (was always looking for someone Straub-esque, he fit that bill) when i found out there'd be a monthly series, starting in Jan '83...that wait was every bit as bad as waiting for each part of The Green Mile 🙂 ...enjoy !
Great book. I would kind of forget i was reading a horror story and just enjoy the family stuff. All of a sudden, oh yeah this is a horror story. Bittersweet southern gothic.
Blackwater is great. Like Horror? Like drama? Like either/or? You'll love this!
McDowell is an author I'm planning on reading for the first time this year. I have Cold Moon Over Babylon so I'll start there.
Really interested in Blackwater as well though, and that edition looks great.
Seems very interesting, maybe I will try it soon. Keep postponing because it's six books.
Thanks for these mini-discussions.
Last year I was lucky enough to find this whole series in two volumes at a thrift store for just a couple bucks each. Picked them up on a whim and now you're making me excited to read them sooner rather than later
Man that is such a good book. I loved the audiobook.
Last night I finished the saga! Wow, what a trip to 20th century Alabama. I really enjoyed it.
SPOILER AHEAD.
.
.
.
.
.
I found the saga very interesting and distinctive. Its scent of Garcia Marquez-style magic realism, soiled with Southern Gothic is original and captivating. I don't think it can be called Horror because the elements are sprinkled throughout the saga, which lasts more than 50 years, without ever lapsing into crude violence, except perhaps for the death of one of the main characters at the end of the story. All of them are devoid of explanation, which can actually be almost annoying in today's need for ‘big explanations’ about anything. I appreciated this choice because in the end it leaves us exactly like Billy: we know something is there but we will never understand what. Because that's what the supernatural is: it's there, it exists, but nobody knows for sure, nobody knows what it really is, and I think that's the gist of it all. We are like Perdido: we spend half a century in the company of Elinor but we don't know her; we don't really know where she comes from (yes, from Perdido, but in what sense?); we know she is powerful but we don't understand why; we are Perdido, the little town, she is Perdido, the River. And like the little town we begin to exist when she appears and cease to exist when she disappears.
The characters are interesting, all well structured, many of them with very unexpected evolutions; I think it is easy to become attached to a large number of them, but also to hate them, often the two together. Who did not enjoy Mary-Love's death, only to miss her later, since the conflict with Elinor was a mainstay of the first part of the cycle? And the choice of no longer giving a real antagonist is narratively an interesting gamble, because Miriam is not really an enemy, quite the contrary. From that moment the power of the Caskey matriarchy explodes. They are unstoppable. And this deification of the female figure occurs in an extremely natural way, a manifesto of a pure feminism, not aimed at the prevarication of the opposite sex, but a strong narrative of the real power of women. So strong, in Caskey, that even outside the home they manage to make their way in the world.
The theme of homosexuality is treated with gentleness and delicacy, from James, branded with the stigma of effeminacy, to his daughter Grace who creates a homosexual couple with a girl who was not one, but falls in love with a person of the same sex anyway, and the child of violence becomes a child of love of the two women. They are so overprotective of him that they give him one of the most disturbed personalities of the extended family, a subtle criticism of certain parents who, under the glass bell jar, do not allow a healthy development to their son, who, in fact, in order to redeem himself, will have to leave the nest, to go and look after his grandmother, becoming in fact a real man who looks after a woman.
It opens and closes with water. Water that can give life, water that can take it away. A game of narrative symmetries that masterfully closes the circle. A sad tale, as it could only be a story that takes so many lives and brings them to their conclusion, as sad as the life of a family that, after reaching its splendour, fades away. More people die than are born, and there are no more offspring to steal among the household. Elinor's house, which for a decade fed a dozen people every day, is reduced to the ghost of itself: there are two people, two ghosts and Elinor. By now the living are outnumbered. They can only leave. Diaspora is now a reality. Goodbye says Elinor. Goodbye we say to her.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
What kind of creature was it? A frog of Lovecraftian memory?? Why did he have to kill someone from time to time to feel good? Why did some of those he killed come back as ghosts? Why was that room in the house magically evil? What the fuck did the jewels falling from the ceiling of the front room have to do with anything? How did Elinor's powers work? How did she do that job with Genevieve? And then she never did anything like that again...? Why did she behave like that with Frances? Why didn't she explain anything to her? What was the point of keeping what they were from her daughter, because in my opinion that's what fucked Frances's brain: she blurted out and left, dumping that poor Billy like a poor prick and her other daughter to brood over. What a bitch! Had she told her who they were and what they were maybe they wouldn't have done that. And why one did and the other didn't. And also Frances had to kill people to be OK or she just needed to be in the river. And was salt water or fresh water the same thing? So it wasn't the Perdido that was the focus, but water in general? Why did she know about the oil? She says MaryLove was right about her being at Osceola to snag Oscar, but because they know the future or because she wanted Oscar? Bho... These are the first unresolved things that come to mind. I've certainly wondered many more while reading this saga.
Anyway, I really enjoyed it. While I have always had a very strong fascination for the South, after this epic I have an urge to go and see the water oaks and the kudzo and all that that part of the world has to show that never ends.
I loved this series.
Been wanting to read this for a while.
Love...love...love this series: was already a minor McDowell fan (was always looking for someone Straub-esque, he fit that bill) when i found out there'd be a monthly series, starting in Jan '83...that wait was every bit as bad as waiting for each part of The Green Mile 🙂 ...enjoy !
I just bought this. It's next after Speaks the Nightbird.
Damn. You have about 1,800 pages of stellar fiction lined up!
I finished Queen of Bedlam recently. Matthew Corbett stays just as good!
Great book. I would kind of forget i was reading a horror story and just enjoy the family stuff. All of a sudden, oh yeah this is a horror story. Bittersweet southern gothic.
Hacing it on my radar some years now. Should I read it?
Just finished reading The Wind Through The Keyhole bout to start Cell
I say it's like King and Faulkner had a novel (baby.) Both Stephen and Tabitha King were/are huge fans of McDowell