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The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O’Meara
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I found this biography of Milicent Patrick to be highly readable, and O’Meara’s authorial voice to be quite charming as she crafts a sympathetic portrait of an artist and designer who was more important to 1950s science fiction filmmaking than people remember. Patrick’s makeup design work can be seen in CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, of course, but also IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, and THIS ISLAND EARTH, and her animation work can be seen in the “Night on Bald Mountain” segment of Disney’s FANTASIA, which as we all know is the best segment. (She worked on a number of non-genre movies as well, but obviously these are the ones I’m most excited about, as is O’Meara.). Patrick was a groundbreaking professional, a pathfinder whose legacy was nearly squashed by a jealous male department head who took credit for her work and lobbied the studio heads to fire her. O’Meara rights this historical wrong with THE LADY FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, introducing Milicent Patrick to a whole new generation and ensuring that her hard-earned legacy remains intact. Highly recommended!

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Presenting a list of all the books I read in 2019! This year the number totals 24. I used the same rules for this list that I always do: I count collections and anthologies, but not individual stories; I count graphic novels and trade comics collections, but not individual comic book issues; and I don’t count magazines, only books. So here are the books I read this year, presented in the order in which I read them:

The Isle by John Foster
Rat Queens, Vol. 2: The Far-Reaching Tentacles of N’rygoth by Kurtis J. Wiebe
Rat Queens, Vol. 3: Demons by Kurtis J. Wiebe
Rat Queens, Vol. 4: High Fantasies by Kurtis J. Wiebe
Rat Queens, Vol. 5: The Colossal Magic Nothing by Kurtis J. Wiebe
Nothing is Everything by Simon Strantzas
Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
Lovecraft: Four Classic Horror Stories by I.N.J. Culbard
The Twilight Pariah by Jeffrey Ford
The Migration by Helen Marshall
Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle
The Clockworm and Other Strange Stories by Karen Heuler
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
X’s For Eyes by Laird Barron
Rat Queens, Vol. 6: The Infernal Path by Kurtis J. Wiebe
My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
The Last Astronaut by David Wellington
Growing Things and Other Stories by Paul Tremblay
The Glittering World by Robert Levy
A Hawk in the Woods by Carrie Laben
The Stand by Stephen King
Home for the Holidays by Randee Dawn

There you have it, the books I read in 2019! Here’s looking forward to another book-filled year in 2020!

Home for the Holidays by Randee Dawn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This slim volume acts as a highly enjoyable sampler of author and journalist Randee Dawn’s prose and poetry. There’s something for everyone in the six stories in HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, which run the gamut from horror to a Jane Austenish comedy of manners to a deeply emotional autobiographical vignette. My favorite story in the bunch is “Trap Doors,” a somewhat surreal, Robert Aickmanesque “strange story” about the holes in our lives, some left behind by absent friends, some offering a place to hide, and some as invasive as surgery. I was also fond of the title story, a tale of ironic comeuppance right out of EC Comics in which two neighbors angrily and obsessively try to outdo each other’s Christmas decorations every year. Dawn’s poetry is accomplished as well, with eight selections rounding out the volume. HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS is recommended for anyone looking for a new and versatile author to read. Meanwhile, I eagerly await Dawn’s next publication.

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The Stand by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What an incredible achievement! I can see why THE STAND is a favorite for many Stephen King fans. As with his other lengthy masterpiece IT, the strength here is in the characters as much as anything else. There are many, many characters in THE STAND, some more memorable than others, but all of them interesting. I think the two I was most fascinated by were Harold Lauder and Nadine Cross. I don’t want to spoil anything for those of you who might not have read THE STAND yet, but these two characters have such memorably tragic arcs, half due to their own bad decisions and half due to simple, ugly destiny, that they really stuck out for me. Of course, I loved Stu and Glen and Frannie, too! (My feelings about Larry Underwood are more complicated, although he certainly proved himself to be a better person by the end.)

I even had some sympathy for poor old Trashcan Man, and that’s something that speaks to the strength of King’s abilities as a writer. He populates Randall Flagg’s Las Vegas not just with madmen and criminals, as you might imagine a stronghold of evil to be, but with lots of characters who are worthy of sympathy, even more than Trashcan Man is. King seems to be saying that even decent people can make the wrong choice or be caught up in the grinding wheels of fate. If there’s one sin the denizens of Las Vegas might share, however, it’s cowardice, as even those who have a moral compass and know Flagg is a monster are too scared to do anything about it, and so they blindly follow his orders, swallowing their consciences one bit at a time.

As riveted as I was by the novel in general, a section in the middle dragged for me, the part when Stu and the others are setting up committees and a rudimentary governmental system for the Free Zone. But even that has an important role to play later, and one could say THE STAND is really far more about the journey than the destination.

The edition I read was the original Signet paperback from 1980, so old and well-loved that its cover is held together with Scotch tape at this point, but I loved the novel enough that I think someday I might check out the “complete and uncut” edition that came out in 1990. I certainly wouldn’t mind spending time with these characters again.

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