I’m very sorry to hear that Peter Mayer has passed away at the age of 82. His family was close with my family, and he was my very first boss in publishing when I worked for the Overlook Press right out of college. I learned so much in that job, and was happy to help publish authors like Mervyn Peake, Joseph Roth, Rachel Pollack, and Tanith Lee. I remember many parties at his NYC and Woodstock homes in the early 1990s, and I’m grateful for all the doors that opened for me because of his generosity.
I will be teaching a writing class in September! Stay tuned for further details, including how you can enroll!
I Am Providence by Nick Mamatas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Mamatas’s mystery novel takes place amid a convention of fans and authors inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, reminding this reader pleasantly of Sharyn McCrumb’s 1988 murder-at-an-SF-convention mystery BIMBOS OF THE DEATH SUN. (Mamatas seems well aware of the comparison, going so far as to reference McCrumb’s novel with a similar fictional book title within the narrative.) The characters are colorful and interesting, the murder is suitably grotesque, and the events in and around the convention are outlandish enough to keep your attention. Mamatas knows the subject matter inside and out, and his talent for pacing and detail continues to impress.
However, there’s a lot of inside baseball here, and if you’re not familiar with Lovecraft or convention culture this novel might not be for you. It is claustrophobic and air-tight in its humor and observations, and casual mystery readers may find themselves feeling like the one person at a party who doesn’t understand the joke everyone else is laughing at. While the prose is good and the novel is a fast, enjoyable read, its reliance on in-jokes and its willingness to sacrifice emotional involvement in favor of archness prevents it from being as memorable, to this reader at least, as it ought to be.
Black Static #63, which includes my story “The Fire and the Stag,” is now available! My name is even on the magazine’s cover, which is a first for me, and I couldn’t be more thrilled!
You can find Black Static #63 wherever you buy magazines, or you can purchase it directly from TTA Press. (The price is listed in British pounds, but there’s a button on the side of the page that will allow you to change the currency to US dollars or Euros.)
I hope you enjoy “The Fire and the Stag.” I think it’s one of my best stories, and I can’t wait for people to read it!
