I must plead ignorance in the case of John Skipp. I’ve never read a novel from him before, but apparently he used to be quite a force in horror fiction. THE LONG LAST CALL is his first book in, like, forever, and judging from the highly effusive introduction by Brian Keene, it’s going to rock your world.
Or not. Why all the fuss?
As CALL gets going, a young man named Hank is driving aimlessly in his pickup at 1 a.m., drinking beers in quick succession. Then he spots just the thing he needs for what ails his broken heart: your basic white-trash strip club, called Sweet Thangs.
It’s a great way for him to burn through some George Washingtons, but the real party doesn’t get started until “the dark stranger” with fire in his eyes arrives in a limo, wearing an expensive suit and carrying a briefcase and a crapload of cash. He weaves some sort of hypnotic spell over the place, paying hundreds of dollars for dances, so the drug-addled whores fight over him and flock to him like, well, drug-addled whores.
It all results in an extended private party where the stranger increasingly makes the bar patrons do things they might not otherwise do, strictly for his own enjoyment: you know, engage in live lesbian sex shows, maybe bite off someone else’s nose. If that reads like an exercise in excess – “unleashed a stream of steaming slime-piss” is a tip-off – you’re exactly right, and other than to engage in gory shenanigans, I don’t see the point.
Skipp never met a set of ellipsis he didn’t overuse, and he has a tendency to suddenly capitalize a bunch of letters to drive home an obvious point: “… but her EYES HAD GONE BLACK …” All this makes me rule Keene’s intro far more polished and entertaining.
But here’s the strange thing: About 185 pages into it, THE LONG LAST CALL ends. It’s just a novella, see, and we’re still left with another one called CONSCIENCE. And that one is a major, major improvement.
CONSCIENCE is a first-person confessional from a hitman named Charley who works for a firm called Zero P – as in “privacy” – which specializes in recording footage of famous folks engaged in all sorts of salacious acts. As the story opens, Charley is busy traversing the western half of the United States by train, offing several guys who once kicked his ass and beat his dog in a never-forgotten childhood incident.
Then Charley’s boss offers him a big-money gig to kill his rival, and Charley gets right on it. Halfway through it, when he’s holed up in a cheap motel and itching for a hot shower and a blowjob, Skipp pulls a nifty trick that shouldn’t work as well as it does.
Now, this is the kind of punk-rock prose that I can see Keene getting all squishy for. CONSCIENCE redeems CALL’s inferior start, so ultimately, a purchase is in order, horror fans. –Rod Lott
…and the dark stranger picked up a pair of delicate, discarded panties, brought them up to his nose, and sniffed. “Mmmm,” he said, clearly liking the smell. The dark stranger snuffled the panties. Wrapped them all around his face. “Ooooh, yeah …” he cooed.
“That’s good shit, ain’t it?” Darnell blurted out.
To his relief, the dark stranger laughed. “Those crazy girls. I just love what they do.”
“You gotta love the bitches,” Darnell agreed.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Maybe you’ll remember the name if you hear him and his writing partner’s names together. John Skipp and Craig Spector. And the writing style sounds like it’s stayed the same.
Nope. Never read them, together or separately. Keene’s intro raves about both, though.
I read a couple of their books way back in my junior high school days and I liked them quite a bit. I stumbled across THE LIGHT AT THE END – a punk vampire novel – at a used book store and picked it up. Unfortunately, it didn’t really hold up all that well in my opinion. What was “gritty” in the late 80s just doesn’t cut it today.