This, as far as I'm concerned, was the novel Laymon was born to write. I'm going to gush, I'm going to be heartily driven by rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, I'm going to acknowledge the book has faults but I simply don't care. This is, I'm unashamed to say, my favorite book of Laymon's. I hate when reviewers quote huge swaths of text in their reviews, but I'm about to do that 'exception proving the rule' here, because Night in the Lonesome October deserves it, and you deserve to understand how readily Laymon snatches the reader in this work, catching them up in the atmosphere, in the setting. Five words on the cover, and Laymon's already got his hooks into your imagination.Ī little musical background for reading, if you like. October pushes most of them either inside or into smaller clusters around fires. Being an introvert, it's my favorite time of year. It's possible to stare up into a clear, moon-lit October sky and question, honestly question, whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow even though you know, rationally, it'll continue to rise and set long after you're dead and gone. People no longer pack the parks, and night falls with a creeping sense of finality. Summer's gone, it's given way to crisp fall evenings, withered leaves fallen from skeletal trees, and days that get shorter thanks to both earthly rotation and an infernal invention known as 'Daylight Saving Time'. For even the most extroverted among us, there's something intrinsically lonesome about October (at least here in the northern hemisphere.I can't speak for any Aussies in this regard). Reading that line can't help but conjure up some memory.

With this one, the title tells us more than we might think.

Yes, it's adolescent, it's immature, but much like the obligatory topless scene or two in a slasher flick, Laymon's playing along with audience expectations, not using it to cover up cluelessness when it comes to storytelling, scene setting, or any other necessary authorial talent. His female narrators are always painfully aware of what their boobs are doing at any given moment.

His male narrators take a very active interest in the fairer sex. To his dying day in 2001, Laymon loved tapping into that immature vein that runs through much of the horror genre like a couple of giggling teenagers taking a shortcut through the cemetery. One common criticism I've read online in numerous reviews is that Laymon never grew as a writer, and to a certain extent I understand that.

I don't intend to retread old territory, so if you want to read my thoughts on Laymon as an author, click on that link above which serves as both that and a review of his first novel, The Cellar. People who love him love him, and people who hate him can't understand all the gushing. As I've pointed out before, Laymon was one of the most polarizing authors of mainstream contemporary horror.

Night in the lonesome october laymon