Darkness on the Edge of Town by Brian Keene

The beauty of Where We Live and Die is in its perfect balance between ugliness and beauty, triumph and failure, fame and isolation. Throughout all of it, the author offers a generous glimpse into a live authors think they want but probably have no idea how it really works. It is followed by some undead mayhem, a poem that encapsulates the history of the horror genre, a list of lessons and truths about writing, and a (semi)autobiographical narrative in which the live of a writer takes center stage.

What if everything we know, every person we’ve loved, every kiss we’ve shared, every tear we’ve shed, fight we’ve had, breath we’ve taken, every laugh and shout and orgasm and idea and everything else that constitutes life just doesn’t fucking matter the moment our heart stops beating and our brainwaves go flat?”īeautiful and touching as it is, The Girl on the Glider is just the start of the collection. “Is there a Heaven or a Hell, and if so, where would I go? I don’t know which scares me more - that there is an afterlife and I might end up in the bad part of town, or that there’s nothing after this and that all of life’s struggles are ultimately pointless. Most importantly, it shows the successful author as a worried family man with universal anxieties:

Not much can be said about this one without giving it away, but it should be mentioned that the framework of that ghost story serves as the perfect background for a piece of writing that is straightforward, creepy, and profound in equal measure.

After one of the many fatal accidents that happen on a treacherous road near his house, Keene and family (pets included) start experiencing strange things that only add to the turmoil of financial pressure, a baby at home, and looming deadlines. This metafictional spin on the traditional ghost story takes place during a tough time in the author’s life. The crowning jewel of this collection is the novella The Girl on the Glider. While this is somewhat surprising given that none of that translates into money for a man who has to keep putting words on the page to pay the bills and stay relevant, Where We Live and Die offers a candid look at the things that keep Keene going after so long and why he still cares for literature after so many ups and downs. An avid blogger and seemingly tireless podcast host, columnist, and social media personality/pot stirrer, he somehow also finds time to take unscrupulous publishers and editors to task and to serve as mentor to more than one generation of horror and bizarro authors. While some authors retreat from public life once they have reached a certain level of notoriety, Keene has chosen the opposite path.

Darkness on the Edge of Town by Brian Keene