#joan samson

[0utlaw-t0rn]

From The Auctioneer by Joan Samson

[cowboyhatesithere]

The Auctioneer book review

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[ninisbrain]

The Auctioneer - Joan Samson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I am so glad to have picked up this book. This is not my usual style, but I ended loving this twisted tale with a disgusting antagonist who embodies everything that I hate in humanity.

If you love thriller-like book into small setting I'm sure you'll like it !

[onebluebookworm]

April 2024 Book Club

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi: In 1979, Marjane Satrapi turned ten years old, living in Tehran. The same year, the Iranian revolution swept through the country, installing a new ultra-conservative government that clashed with Satrapi's loving, progressive family. As Satrapi chafed under the regime, her parents realized that the country was no longer safe for her and send her to Austria, where she must deal with the culture shock and the trauma of what she experienced on her own.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo: Edward Tulane is a china rabbit, of fine craftsmanship and quality, and he knows it. There's not much Edward loves than himself, not even his loving owner. But when Edward is separated from her during a family trip, he's taken on a whirlwind adventure to understand what love really means.

The Auctioneer by Joan Samson: Harlowe, New Hampshire is a town that seems forgotten by the ever-changing world around it, and its residents like that just fine. After all, the world outside Harlowe is dangerous and cruel. Not like the wholesome peace they have. So when a smooth-talking auctioneer named Perly Dinsmore proposes an auction to benefit the police force that keep Harlowe safe from that dangerous outside world, they're more than happy to contribute. But then Perly asks for more. Each week, Perly comes by again to solicit donations, and things slowly and insidiously begin to change. And when the citizens of Harlowe have nothing material left to give, Perly will find other things they can contribute. "Whatever I've done, you let me do."

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote: On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. Hundreds of miles away, recently paroled convicts Dick Hickock and Perry Smith made their way towards Mexico, certain that the terrible crime they committed would never be linked to them. As evidence comes to light and the police start closing in, Capote chronicles the details of the lives of the victims, their murderers, and their neighbors as the quintessential story of American violence unfolds and comes to a stormy head.

Praisesong for the Widow by Paula Marshall: In the dead of night Avey Johnson - a black, middle-aged widow given to hats, gloves, and pearls - leaves a cruise she was on with two friends, determined to get home again after a troubling dream. She's left her childhood of Harlem and Gullah songs behind her, and she longs to get back to the world that makes her feel secure. But when she disembarks on the island of Grenada, she finds herself swept up in a homecoming festival for the people of Curacao, where she will discover what coming home really means.

[very-grownup]

Book 27, 2023

I'm easily scared (I watched the original INVASION OF THE BODY-SNATCHERS as a teenager at my mommo's house and was so scared that night my mum had to sleep with me), so horror is a genre I approach with care. I might grab a random fantasy or science fiction novel, but horror is another thing entirely.

Joan Samson's "The Auctioneer" is perfect horror for me.

I went through a period of a few years ago where I slammed back as much Shirley Jackson as I could, fulling submersing myself in horror so quiet you can feel it in your stomach from the beginning, long before anything happens (if anything explicitly happens). "The Auctioneer" is like that. It's not even rural idyll, but rural mundane, rural simplicity, quiet and slow and dusty when it starts. Things are imperfect, the main family is imperfect, with the implication of a complicated history, a sometimes bumpy marriage, a difficulty conceiving their single child.

When things start to change, with the arrival of a helpful auctioneer who is ready to help you clear our your barn and your attic of all that old, broken junk you've been meaning to get rid of, you know this is the start of something really wrong. But it's slow, the actual horror creeping in on the characters and town, frog in boiling water where you can understand how things escalate and darken even as the reader has been feeling that sense of horror from the beginning, so you understand our protagonists' inaction.

A point is hit where the implicit becomes explicit and perhaps when the novel was originally published an audience might say 'that's a bit much' but in 2023 you find yourself going 'yes, I can see someone saying that, and if they said it while wearing a nice suit and with confidence in a private-ish gathering, everyone present would probably agree that the antecedents of an adopted child, including racially, are important'.

Samson puts together a horror novel about an outsider coming to an insular community where the outsider is bringing dark things in, but the titular auctioneer is only able to get as far as he does because of self-sufficient rural virtues. It's not 'this pastoral life is hiding a dark secret' and it's not 'behold the dark underbelly of this slice of America', it's something more complicated and somber, asking for reflection on community and the individual in conjunction with one another.

This is the good, haunting stuff.

[ginosorcinelli]

We let society’s norms dictate life to us, and we suffer for it. But we don’t want to be rude and be the person who doesn’t go along to get along, so we keep our mouths shut.

toomuchhorrorfiction

Read the whole interview here. 

[ginosorcinelli]

My Interview with Will Errickson of Too Much Horror Fiction

“Subtle, quiet horror insinuates, and implies no end in sight for the emotions it engenders. It’s like a state of being. That feeling of anxiety and unease lingers long after the wounds of violence have healed.”- toomuchhorrorfiction 

Will Errickson and I discuss why quiet horror works so darn well.  Click the link below to read our full interview about Joan Samson’s “The Auctioneer”.

http://tinyurl.com/orda4b5

[jelimarco]

The Auctioneer

Joan Samson

The fire rose in a perfect cone as if suspended by the wisp of smoke that ascended in a straight line to the high spring sky. Mim and John dragged whole dry saplings from the brush pile by the stone wall and heaved them into the flames, stepping back quickly as the dead leaves caught with a hiss.

Halloweek