Number 18 - Ghoul N the Cape - Josh Malerman

 

This is possibly the single most expensive book I've ever bought.  It's certainly the heaviest. It's also the only book that came with it's own themed shot glass.

This limited edition from Earthling Press is a thing of beauty and arrived in the best packaging I've ever received a book in.

There are 7 full page full colour illustrations inside the book as well. With a word count equaling that of the original version of the Stand, you get an awful lot of book for the money.

I'm used to Josh Malerman writing in a spare, pared back and atmospheric prose. This is almost a direct opposite. It almost doesn't read like a Malerman book. Characters monologue regularly (can you use monologued  as a verb?) for a couple of pages at a time.

We're treated to a continent wide story of a road trip from a dive bar in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty to the westernmost point of Alaska, via Hawaii.

It all starts when a guy walks into a bar. The bar is Logan's (as immortalised on the shot glass)  The guy is the Cape.  He enlists Ghoul, a regular customer in the bar, drinking his life away, to join him on his journey across the States, trying to outrun the Ghost Star aka the Naught as it descends and starts eating the country from east coast to west. They're chased across country by agents of the naught, including a man whose face drips shadows and who carries a long sharp blade that reflects the stars even in daytime, and a man made of blood.

A quest is a trip to accomplish a task.  An adventure is a trip without a destination.  A journey is when the trip is more important than the destination.  This book manages to be all three. They run into an assortment of weird and wonderful characters on their trip. I don't want to say too much about them as it would spoil some great surprises.

This is probably the least scary book Josh has written so far.  Other than the guy with the knife, the threats to life are more metaphysical in nature and I was reminded of themes he explored in Carpenters farm back in 2020.  As a Brit sat watching news from the good ol' USA, I have to say that this book provides as good an explanation as any for the history of the USA in the last 5 years or so.

The writing is as brilliant as it is expansive.  The monologuing I mentioned earlier is no bad thing.  The philosophising that happens is quite fascinating in its own right. There are many laugh out loud moments, and despite me saying it's the least scary book he's written, it still has its moments.

There were a few times reading this where I totally lost track of time.  I'd pick the book up, and what I thought was 5 minutes later I was 50 pages further through and an hour had vanished. It takes good writing to do that. This isn't a book that kills time.  it dissolves it and eats it as surely as the Naught chomped its way through the Midwest and spews you out the other side a changed person.  

The only issue I have with this book is that I've now got to completely rearrange my shelves to find a space for it.

It might still be available from Earthling Press, but it's a limited edition of 1000 copies so you may have to try the second hand markets to see if anyone is fool enough to get rid of their copy. My copy is number 861, so it was selling fast.