Tony Burgess (1) (1959–)

This book was a bit like if American Psycho was a gas jockey in rural Ontario.

It's written in a first-person POV from Bob Clark (whose real name is Cliff Klyder), a gas jockey who goes on an unaliving spree. It also has a true crime vibe to it. There were crime scene photos and some headlines which made the plot immersive, but I didn't like the fact they were randomly placed in the middle of the book since it made the flow seem a little disjointed.

I don't really know how to describe the book other than the fact that it was weird, silly, incredibly gory, and insanely hard to put down. I had a lot of fun reading this short book, and I recommend checking this out if you're in the mood for a slasher for spooky season… (mehr)

Brian Evenson vient de rencontrer Chuck Palhaniuk. C'est aussi brillant que ça. Même si on peut s'attendre à ce type de moyenne pour un ouvrage décrit comme un roman post-apo (un de plus), mais ici rien ne vous aura préparé à ça.

Que se passerait-il si notre image habituelle des zombies était changée, le temps d'un roman, pour ces êtres ambulants tristes, et vides, et morts, qui ne seraient absolument pas dangereux... juste dégoûtants, itinérants, des monticules de sexe en puissance... et si nous décidions ensuite que la seule façon de prendre soin des hordes errantes (des êtres debout par millions, partout, tout le temps, autour de nous, et inertes) est de les envoyer en orbite proche de la Terre.

L'écriture est prodigieuse, on a plus à faire à un long poème en prose, mais dont rien, absolument RIEN à ce sujet n'est facile ou confortable ou particulièrement sain. Un long poème noir sur la survie dans un monde composé de cadavres incassables jetés dans des trésors de monticules tremblants et léchant. Les images sont parmi les plus horribles que vous lirez jamais. Évocateur, puissant, horrible, et très bon.

Bienvenue dans l'estomac du diable.… (mehr)

What a memorable, frustrating book. I love the idea of a mind-destroying experience spread through words. I love the prose. The sense of place is vivid and not overdone. The characters, though we barely get to know most of them, are a good assortment. And Burgess's voice in describing atrocity and despair (which there's a lot of— seriously, this is not for the faint of heart) is unlike any horror writer I've read: there's a calm, detached quality that would seem totally nihilistic if it weren't also somehow compassionate and wistfully funny, going out of its way to grant moments of peace and beauty to the doomed characters even if that means digressing from reality; the effect is sort of as if a William Burroughs nightmare were rewritten by Kurt Vonnegut.

But it's incoherent in so many ways— not a consistent or developing incoherence that would fit with the theme, but just a general pattern of not following through on anything— that I felt like the author was mostly playing with ideas and style, without much notion of what he wanted to do with them. In his afterword to the current edition, written after the making of the considerably different Pontypool movie (which I love), Burgess basically says that's what happened; he literally apologizes for the book. I don't need an apology, I'm still glad I read it, even if I could only really enjoy it by looking at it as a series of tiny sketches.… (mehr)

Dear Mrs. Burgess,

As much as it pains me to write this letter, I feel I must. My son, Tobin, has now tried to play with Tony in Pontypool on two occasions, and each time, he came home much earlier than expected because...and these are his words, he "just couldn't stand to be subjected to that stuff anymore."

Now, I'm sure your Tony is a wonderful person, and seems to do very well with other kids, so I'm sure it's more something to do with my son than it is Tony. I have, in fact, had to write similar missives to the mothers of [author:Tom Clancy|3892], [author:Chuck Palahniuk|2546], and most recently, [author:Nick Cutter|6984661] (who is, by the way, the nicest person, but my son simply cannot bear to have a play date with him anymore).

You may be wondering why my son is acting like this. He said he spent about 15 pages with Tony this morning, and in that time, he said, while some interesting stuff happened, for the most part, he claimed that Tony just seemed to go on and on with a lot of "flowery, overblown description" and seemed to refuse to get to the point of anything. I believe his specific term was, "Mom, there was a whole lotta feathers, and not much chicken."

My son always did like Kim Mitchell, though, he hasn't seem much of him lately. Still quotes him occasionally, though.

Anyway, my impression--reading between the lines, you might say--of my son's issue is that he believes Tony is highly intelligent, and quite good at what he does, but what he does is simply not for my son. I know Tobin was supposed to give Tony somewhere between one and five stars after the play date, but because it was aborted, he's decided to not give Tony any stars at all. I hope you understand.

As I said, we'd scheduled a several hours long play date for Tobin and Tony, and, both times, Tobin left within minutes. No hard feelings, but Tobin will not be having any more play dates with Tony.

Signed,

Tobin's mother.… (mehr)