I'm just discovering Michael McDowell. He wrote many books, mostly horror novels, but was also the brains behind Beetlejuice and Nightmare Before Christmas. Apparently this Blackwater series is considered his magnum opus. This first book was certainly captivating enough for me to continue on to Book 2. Initially my reaction wasn't so positive, however. After an eerie, supernatural opening, the story steers into seemingly ordinary domestic squabbles. It actually reminded me a lot of Sinclair Lewis' Main Street, or maybe Steinbeck's Cannary Row. Certainly not the in-your-face frights that the cover implied.

About halfway through, I stopped worrying about when the beasties would show up and savored the uniqueness. This isn't your typical horror novel, and that's what makes it satisfying. The ending shocker firmly establishes what I suspect will be the central conflict moving forward--matriarchal power.

any good creepy tale, the fear and surprise works best when it's rooted in realism. The large cast of characters are vivid and recognizable, and even Eleanor--with all her mystery--seems someone real. Maybe even someone I know. I don't know how "scary" this series will end up being, but even if it is a magical realism remix on Cannery Row, I have a feeling it's going to be good.

130 s Jeffrey KeetenAuthor 6 books250k

”The town rotted beneath a wide sheet of stinking, still black water, which only now was beginning to recede. The pediments and gables and chimneys of houses that had not been broken up and washed away jutted up through the black shining surface of the flood, stone and brick and wooden emblems of distress. But no assistance came to their silent summonses, and driftwood and unidentifiable detritus and scraps of clothing and household furnishings swept against them and were caught and formed reeking nests around those upraised fingers.”



Elinor Dammert arrives with the flood.

No one is sure how she survived the flood in that room in the Hotel Osceola. Bray Sugarwhite, the black man accompanying Oscar Caskey in a boat when they liberate Elinor through the window of that hotel room, might have said it best. ”He stared at the back of the young woman who had had no business at all being found where she was found.”

The waterline on the wall paper in that room is higher than what she could have survived.

Maybe she has gills and webbed feet.

That is a knee slapper of a thought.

The arrival of a new woman, a teacher, is an exhilarating occurance in a town where, ”the most exciting thing to do in Perdido is sit on the bank of the river and count the dead possums floating by!”

She moves in with Oscar’s Uncle James, who needs someone to help him with his daughter Grace after his wife Genevieve went on an extended holiday to Nashville and never came back. She s to drink and have a good time. James ”despite the possession of that wife and daughter---had the reputation of being marked with ‘the stamp of femininity.’”

That “stamp” keeps the town from whispering too much about a single, lovely, redheaded woman living in the house of a married man while the wife is on “holiday.”

Now Mary-Love Caskey, mother of Oscar and sister of James, doesn’t Elinor, not one bit. It doesn’t help her not to her, knowing how much James appreciates her or having to watch Oscar looking at her with doe eyes, a moon sick calf. She doesn’t the fact that Elinor is odd by nature and that she doesn’t know her people.



Strange, unusual things start happening beyond the normal strange things that seem to be a hallmark of Southern living. Those peculiar things about the South that so inspired William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, and Pat Conroy to capture those essences on paper. Jewelry buried with a corpse suddenly reappears, and people go missing; there are strange noises, bumps and bangs, and doors shimmy and shake in ways they shouldn’t. ”’Oh, Mama,’ she pleaded in a whisper, ‘don’t open that door.’”

Of course, Mama hasn’t watched the movies that I’ve watched over the years. The golden rule of horror cinema is...never...open...the...door.

The novel spirals more and more out of control as Elinor and Mary-Love become more creative in their battles to control each other.

Michael McDowell wrote this six part series in the 1980s. It was the first serialized horror novel that I had ever encountered. The mass market originals were published by Avon books and have these distinctive creepy black covers. Copies in very good to fine condition are becoming quite collectible. I had many, many copies goes through my hands over the years of working in the used book business. This serialization actually inspired Stephen King, who is a big fan of McDowell’s writing, to serialize The Green Mile in 1996.


Did you hear something, Michael McDowell?

McDowell was a collector of death memorabilia, which might account for some of the disturbing descriptions that he uses in his writing. He was born in Alabama and died in Massachusetts, unfortunately, at the tender age of 49. Yet another creative person lost to the AIDS epidemic. He knew the South intimately. I could tell by the descriptions of these colorful characters that he created them in similar fashion to how Frankenstein assembled his monster, with pieces and parts of numerous people.

As you can tell by the opening quote I started this review with, his books ooze with gothic nuances. The novel on the surface feels so normal, but underlying the words is this feeling of impending doom and the sizzling hum of menacing danger. The reader knows things aren’t quite right, but we don’t know exactly why.

So get your feet wet ”in the churning water dyed the color of the clay beneath---dyed red, Perdido red” and swelter a while with the people of Alabama as they clean up their water swollen hymnals, bump the alligators off their front porch, and try to restore their town to dryland. Rest assured, I’ll be reading the rest.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie , visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeetengothic horror southern128 s Char1,746 1,615


This book has it all for any horror fan!

Creepy creature masquerading as human? Check!

Southern gothic style tale set in a small town? Check!

Horrible happenings surrounded in mystery? Check!

Vivid characters and scenes that are easily and perfectly rendered in your mind? Check!

All the small town, gossipy mean-ness and the grit of day to day life? Check!

Combine all that yumminess with a writer possessing a mastery of the language, without being too cheesy, without being pretentious, and with an eye towards FUN. You can't go wrong!

This is a novella, so it doesn't take long to whip through. It's also a cliffhanger. I normally hate that, but in this case I knew that it was a serial novel so I expected and embraced that ending, secure in the knowledge that I have book 2 ready to go. What I have right here is the literary equivalent of binge watching. Right on!80-s-horror southern-gothic106 s erigibbi948 694

[4.5]

Una saga familiare, elementi oscuri, gotici e soprannaturali. UN CONNUBIO PERFETTO.
Sono stata rapita fin da subito perché – anche se in questo primo volume sembra succedere ben poco (e comunque due morti già ci stanno eh quindi insomma, proprio poco poco non succede) – si comincia con due fiumi che sono esondati, città nel caos, una donna che salta fuori dal nulla, la matriarca della famiglia (nonché una delle donne più importanti del paese per via della famiglia di appartenenza) che fin da subito non è convinta della tipa saltata fuori all’improvviso, e sembra l’unica (o quasi) che si rende conto che qualcosa non torna, e via coi pettegolezzi, e via con la famiglia che battibecca e via con i cittadini che chiacchierano e additano e sogghignano CIOÈ DAI COME FACCIO A NON AMARE UNA COSA DEL GENERE.
Poi mi chiedo una cosa: sono io troppo naïve o effettivamente il personaggio di Elinor sembra costruito molto bene? Mi spiego. Elinor è chiaramente quella cattiva; non tanto perché è misteriosa e mezzo mostro marino, ma proprio perché due morti ci stanno e tutti e due sono morti per mano sua (e se di un personaggio si può pensare: “be’ se l’è meritato”, dell’altro proprio non possiamo pensare una cosa del genere). Però io ogni tanto ho anche pensato: “ma è davvero così cattiva? Perché mi sembra che voglia bene a questa bambina qua, che voglia proteggere quest’altra bambina qua” e via dicendo. Certo, poi m’ammazza questo e quest’altro, però a volte sembra un personaggio più grigio che nero. Come se l’autore ci volesse far pensare che sia facile giudicare da quel poco che sappiamo e leggiamo, ma in realtà è ben altra la verità. E forse non esistono personaggi completamente buoni e quelli completamente cattivi. O forse sono io che voglio trovar del buono in chiunque. Immagino lo scoprirò con i prossimi volumi.
Comunque bello, a me questo volume è piaciuto proprio tanto e non vedo l’ora di continuare con i seguiti.92 s Mª Carmen691

4,5?
Me ha encantado. Una saga que promete.

Dice la sinopsis:
Las gélidas y oscuras aguas del río Blackwater inundan Perdido, un pequeño pueblo al sur de Alabama. Allí, los Caskey, un gran clan de ricos terratenientes, intentan hacer frente a los daños causados por la riada. Liderados por Mary-Love, la incontestable matriarca, y Óscar, su obediente hijo, los Caskey trabajan por recomponerse y salvaguardar su fortuna. Pero no cuentan con la aparición de la misteriosa Elinor Dammert. Una joven hermosa pero parca en palabras con un único objetivo: acercarse a los Caskey cueste lo que cueste.

Mis impresiones:

Primera entrega de las seis que componen esta saga. Adictiva desde el minuto uno y con el estilo inconfundible de Michael McDowell. Prosa directa, ritmo muy ágil, diálogos atractivos y la maestría que le caracteriza a la hora de dosificar información e intriga.

En este primer volumen, McDowell nos pone en contexto. La acción se sitúa en 1919 en Perdido, un pueblo pequeño de Alabama en el que confluyen dos ríos, el Perdido y el Blackwater. Allí viven los Caskey, una de las principales familias de la zona, dueña de un aserradero. Mary Love, la matriarca, gobierna a su familia con mano de hierro, hasta que llega Elinor Dammert, una enigmática mujer salida de no se sabe dónde, que va a trastocar ese orden de cosas. A partir de su llegada, una serie de hechos inexplicables, algunos de los cuales ponen los pelos de punta.

McDowell tiene la virtud de ambientar sin parar la acción. La atmósfera que genera es de nota. He llegado a mascar el lodo, sentir la omnipresente humedad, oler el limo de la riada, visualizar las aguas rojas del Perdido, las negras del Blackwater, los robles de agua y hasta las camelias que separan las casas de Mary Love y James Caskey.

Los personajes quedan bien trazados. Los miembros de la familia Caskey no tienen desperdicio, no se salva ni uno. No digo más, es mejor conocerlos con la lectura. Elinor Dammert, de la que no sabemos ni quién es ni qué es ni por qué se acerca a los Caskey, es más siniestra que todos ellos juntos. McDowell nos permite conocer datos que desconocen los habitantes del pueblo, pero nos deja sin respuestas sobre su procedencia, naturaleza y motivaciones. La intriga no es poca. Habrá que esperar a las siguientes de la saga.

El final a cuchillo. Nos deja con la miel en los labios. No vamos a encontrar respuestas aquí, solo preguntas, intriga y ganas de saber. Recordemos que son seis libros y que afortunadamente se van a publicar con intervalos de quince días. Deseando el siguiente. Recomendable.66 s24 comments Karl3,258 316

Michael Mcdowell (June 1, 1950 – December 27, 1999) was a talented writer who is perhaps best known for his work on the screenplay for the Tim Burton film "Beetlejuice".

His final, unfinished novel "Candles Burning" was completed by novelist Tabitha King and published in 2006.

McDowell wrote fiction at night while supporting himself through teaching and secretarial work. Six early novels with titles "Venus Restored" and "Blood and Glitter" went unpublished and are still unpublished.

His publishing debut came in 1979 with the publication of "The Amulet", which he had begun writing as a screenplay. From there to around 1987, McDowell would publish over 30 novels, 16 of them under his own name. Some were purely contractual, including a series of light "Nick and Nora" type mysteries written for Ballantine Books called "Jack and Susan", and a novelization of the movie "Clue".

He wrote two novels as Axel Young, four novels as Nathan Aldyne, three novels as Preston Macadam, and one more under the name of Mike McCray as well as seventeen books under his own name. In the forward of the first volume in this book Poppy Z. Bright states there is still one more pseudo name that has not been revealed as of yet, and also states that Mcdowell wrote over 40 books.

“I do feel that the universe is a joke,” McDowell said. “And that we are the butt of that joke. And horror is one of the best ways of saying that, of saying that there are things out there and forces and vibrations that are simply malevolent.”

This is Southern Gothic smoothly written with style and we follow the rise and deterioration of family and fortune.

This set (originally published in 1983) consists of the six books in the series.

Book 1: The Flood
Book 2: The Levee
Book 3: The House
Book 4: The War
Book 5: The Torture
Book 6: The Rain

All beautifully illustrated and in a slipcase, this signed and numbered is set 199 of 250.2015-02-books-bought centipede-milipede-own44 s La loca de los libros 345 219

"Aquello que esperaba a los desprevenidos nadadores en el turbio lecho del río, aquello que se arrastraba por las densas orillas en las noches oscuras, fuera lo que fuera, ya estaba allí antes de la fundación de Perdido y seguiría allí cuando Perdido dejara de existir."

Hoy les traigo el primer volumen de la esperada saga de Michael McDowell; Blackwater. Unas novelas originalmente publicadas en 1983 también en seis entregas pero publicadas mensualmente. En nuestro país la editorial Blackie Books sacará cada entrega cada quince días.
Ha sido también mi primer acercamiento a la obra del autor y he quedado maravillada con su estilo, con toda la historia y ambientación que rodea tanto al pueblo de Perdido y sus singulares habitantes como a sus ríos; BlackWater y Perdido.
Y qué decir de la cautivadora edición
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