I've always had tons of books around.  For years, too many.  A few years ago I came to the painful realization that I had to change. I took count and realized that I had over a hundred books on the shelf that I hadn't even read yet. This is just fiction I'm talking about, too…

I starting reading hard, forcing myself to pitch things that I wasn't getting to, and using the library more.  The other day I went up to my study, looked around, and realized that I didn't have a whole lot to read.  I took stock and discovered that I only own a total of twelve books—again, just counting fiction at this point—I haven't read. 

My immediate goal is to break into single digits by Halloween and get down to zero sometime early next year.  Wish me luck!

            Fear is a fundamental human reaction, a biophysical response way beyond logic.  It has considerable power to shape human behavior--it's on the short list of motivators, right up there with things like hunger, thirst, and sex.

            Dread is fear at a slow boil. 

            The Dred survey question for our October issue is simple: what do you dread most?  Drop me an e-mail at deardreditor@hotmail.com, or just post replies here—I'll assemble the results and share them with readers this fall www.dredtales.com.

            As always, thanks for participating.

            Bill

Now, with all due respect to Donald Ray Pollack and Knockemstiff, if you want to read a book that presents a more rounded portrait of small town life, the good along with the bad, then here it is.  Pollack's book is (as I indicated before) very good, but it doesn't hold a candle to Russo's Bridge of Sighs (or his previous one, Empire Falls, for that matter).  No shame in that, of course.  After all, Russo may be the best American novelist working today.    No one, I think, carries the torch of American Realism quite so well as Russo does. This may sound quirky and antiqued, but he reminds me of William Dean Howells, with his focus on the small, day to day things (otherwise known as life) that so many writers today seem to think are beneath notice.  If you haven't read his stuff, take some time and enjoy. 

Knockemstiff is a wide spot in the road in the central part of southern Ohio.  My old buddy D.A. Kellough, Dred's associate editor, is a native of Knockemstiff.  So is Donald Ray Pollock, who makes his hometown the setting for this collection of short stories.  

In reality, Knockemstiff doesn't have a lot to it.   Like many in the area, Knockemstiffers (just try to top that) have seen most of their jobs disappear over the last couple decades--either gone elsewhere entirely or transubstantiated into service sector shitwork in nearby Chilicothe.  The violence and drug problems that have accompanied rural rot throughout much of the Midwest are certainly no strangers there.

Still, I couldn't help feeling Pollack laid it on a bit thick at times.

Don't get me wrong…most of the stories ring true.  But if Knockemstiff is intended as a well-rounded portrait of the town, as the title implies, it fails to make the full circuit.  Dope.  Booze.  Fights.  Shacking up.  Perverts and nut jobs and child abusers.   I kept expecting to get a new wrinkle, some other aspect of the town, but it never materialized.  Pollack finds the dark side of town and stays there.      

But wtf, right?  After all, I like the dark side of town.  I like bleak.  And I like the stories in this book.  At his worst Pollock is a sight better than most, and when he's good he's damn near breathtaking.  The stories "Knockemstiff" and "Blessed" are two of the best short stories I've read in years.   A couple didn't seem to be hitting on all cylinders ("Dynamite Hole," "I Start Over") but even those were better than average.    This collection throws off enough sparks to keep your double-wide warm through an Ohio February.   Read it, and then keep an eye on Pollack to see what he does next

            Back in the days before Viagra, they had goat glands to help a fellow out.  Dr. John R. Brinkley, the subject of this fascinating book by Pope Brock, was the King of goat glands.  Brinkley hit the big time and made millions in the 1920s and 30s with goat testicle implants.

            He wasn't a real doctor, of course.  Brinkley was a world-class con man whose Midland, Kansas hospital made him, for a time, the best known (and probably best paid) medical man in the U.S. 

            Brinkley emerges from these pages as a callous, greedy man who cared very little for his patients, many of whom died as a result of this "treatments."   But Brinkley's story is also as all-American as apple pie: he's the self-made innovator who started poor and made his own way to riches, using his own creativity and the credulity of others to get over.   

Brinkley was a promotional genius who hitched his enterprises to the newfangled technology of radio and practically invented radio advertising.  And musical programming.  And Sunday sermons on the air.  When FCC yanked his license, he struck a deal with the Mexican government, moved across the river, and built transmitters so powerful that folks could hear him all the way up in Alaska. 

The FCC wasn't the doc's biggest problem, though.  For twenty years, Morris Fishbein of the AMA sought to put Brinkley out of business.  He wrote articles debunking the "medicine" of Brinkley and other quacks for the JAMA and other publications.  He battled before state boards to have Brinkley's licenses revoked.  It was a long battle, and Brinkley had a knack for coughing up a new blockbuster idea every time Fishbein won a skirmish. 

At least until . . .

Well, I don't want to spoil the fun.  Brock's book is informative and vastly entertaining.  It's  a dynamite, well-written book, and a hell of a story. 

Good morning everyone!

I'm pleased to announce that the June issue of Dred is now available at www.dredtales.com

This issue's fiction line up is headed by Caroline Hooton and her disturbing tale "The Delivery Boy."   We also have stories from Krishan Coupland, Richard Cain, and Walter Jarvis.  Don't miss these stories: you'll find plenty of dreadful things to keep you chilled through the hot summer.

This issue also includes several new features:

--our new profiles page where you can read brief Q &A with cool, dredful people: stop by and hook up with Stoker-award winner Brett Alexander Savory, author and market guru Ralan Conley, and writer Michael Stone. 

--the results of our new Dred survey, which so many of you took the time to participate in last month (thanks!!)   Find out what readers around the web selected as their favorite dark writing.  And be sure to check out the survey question for the October issue.

--a long-overdue revival of our Dredful links page. 

This time out we also have the final installment of our long-running serial "The Landlord of Walnut Fork."  Stop by the most haunted house in southern Ohio for one last visit and see what happens to Jeremiah Wolfe.

And of course we've got the usual assortment of goodies as well.  Daniel I. Russell has advice for writers finishing their stories;  D.A. Kellough travels down to Portsmouth, Ohio, to unearth the tale of the coffin with the plate glass front; Christopher Stires cooks up a new batch of movie reviews, including one on the newest film version of that Richard Matheson classic; meanwhile, I'm over in the library dissecting the latest novel from Greg F. Gifine, Blood in Electric Blue.

I hope everyone has a chance to browse the issue.  Enjoy! 

--Bill

Please take a moment to swing by and read "The Man Upstairs" by yours truly in the newest issue of GlassFire http://www.peglegpublishing.com/glassfire9/fiction.htm

Been enliving my drive-time lately with an old favorite--picked up a copy of James Ellroy's  The Black Dahlia in book on CD form at the local library.  I haven't read any Ellroy in a few years.  The Dahlia was the first book I read by him, back about 20 years ago, and it blew me away.  Listening to it again now I can see why.  It's fast, furious, disgusting and fascinating.   Hypeviolent and kinetic and yet he still manages to create characters you give a crap about.   I hear he has a new book coming out before the end of the year, too... I used to think he was the best thing since Jim Thompson.  Now I suspect he might be better than Thompson. 

Wish I had enjoyed Jon Clinch's Finn one tenth as much.  He takes Huck Finn and retells it as Pap Finn's story.  Interesting potential...too bad it's so damn dull.  The writing is erudite without being insightful.  In other words, ponderous and pretentious.   Twain would have cut this chump to ribbons in a 2 page parody and left it at that.   Avoid it.

New issue of dred coming June 1!

The May release for the Dred serial, The Landlord of Walnut Fork, has just been posted.  The long-running feature is winding down, and the final post will be in June.  All the back postings are still on the site, too, so if you've never checked it out you can still view the whole tale.  Catch the May update, then be sure to stop by in June and see whether or Jeremiah Wolfe gets his just desserts in the end . . .