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Horror/Thriller Book Club April Pick: Memorials by Richard Chizmar

14 May
Book cover of Memorials by Richard Chizmar. The background shows a dark, wooded roadside, with a narrow road curving. In the foreground is a small roadside memorial with a wooden cross, a teddy bear, flowers, and lit candles. The title “memorials” appears in lowercase across the center, and Richard Chizmar is shown all capital letters at the top.

We’ve all seen them, those crosses along the roadside, perhaps a few dead flowers around them, or the painted white bicycle, and then we think, ‘How so very tragic. Someone’s life ended right here.’ That’s the thinking that propels Billy, Melody, and Troy to hop in their van to create a documentary for their American Studies project – who builds them and what they mean. But also, what secrets linger around that tarnished ground?

April’s read for the Hoboken Public Library’s Horror/Thriller book club was a slow-burn suburban horror with childhood nostalgia and cultish dread. Chizmar follows the Stephen King style: Quiet, character-driven, and with heart at the center of the dread. Memorials (in my humble opinion) is almost 500 pages straight out of King’s playbook.

Go into Memorials expecting the pacing and inching creepiness of The Blair Witch Project.

The first stop: Billy’s hometown, and the first memorial marks the spot of his parents’ death. The project is personal. They continue through the Appalachian backwoods in search of more stories.

Things do eventually get weird. Memorials show up with a strange symbol. Eyes are cast on the three children. Mysterious figures appear in video footage. The same people are seen miles apart, etc.

But the deeper they go, the more they don’t realize the strangeness they’re entering – a hitchhiker appears and disappears, locals treat them with uneasy hostility, and their van is tampered with.  

Do the local communities (or the three young students) know the web spinning around them?

Memorials is a step down from Chizmar’s Boogeyman series, but I did like (and I kept this in the back of my mind during the read) that I felt for Troy, Billy, and Melody. At times Memorials is too slow, but if you enjoy small-town horror, a good 80’s setting, slow-burn suspense, and find yourself getting a little uncomfortable itch every time you see a roadside memorial then Memorials could be a good choice for your next read.

Interested in the Horror/Thriller Book Club? Please email reference@hobokenlibrary.org, or register for our next meeting by searching under Events on our website.

Have you read Memorials? What did you think? Comment below.

You can reserve it in the BCCLS system here.

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Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

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Film Adaptation: Stephen King’s Needful Things (1993)

7 May

You can have whatever you want and favors mean more than cash at Needful Things. Everyone finds what they can’t lie without here or what they’ve regrettably let behind in a past life. 

Cover for Needful Things (MGM). Ed Harris and Bonnie Bedelia appear in the foreground looking alarmed, while Max Von Sydow's face looms large in the background. The tagline reads: "The town of Castle Rock just made a deal with the Devil...Now it's time to pay."

The movie adaptation of Stephen King’s Needful Things does a good job bringing to life one of King’s most underrated villains, Leland Gaunt. For those not familiar with the story, Mr. Gaunt (Max Von Sydow) is the Devil in human form, and he comes to Castle Rock, Maine to open a collectibles and antiques shop. Ed Harris plays the town’s sheriff, who has his suspicions after just his first meeting with the store owner and serves as the rational anchor as the town unravels.

Of course, die-hards will point out the movie’s derailment in many areas from the book, but let’s be realistic that it’s impossible to fit all the details of a 700 page book into two hours. The movie brings forth the mainstream style of a big studio while preserving King’s spiderweb design of greed and seduction’s hold on us. It teeters into dark comedy at times, showing the town as ugly from the beginning, with grudges festering around every corner. Yep, perfect pickings for the Devil to exploit.

The pranks each customer plays on each other to “pay off their debt” leads to murderous consequences, and all the while Mr. Gaunt revels in it. Max Von Sydow was a perfect pick for this role.

This movie won’t scare you or make you keep the lights on until the very last second before bed. Instead, it will, at least it did for me, cast gloom over the power that possessions and the want for prestige can hold over us. The more we want, the more the Devil entangles our minds to do his will. And what this story makes chillingly clear is that his will isn’t to destroy the world. No, it’s to watch it torture itself into madness.

As Mr. Gaunt says at the end, “This town wasn’t my best work, but it was fun.” Then he drives away.

Have you seen Needful Things (or read the book)? What did you think? Comment below.

You can reserve the movie here and the book here,

Horror fan and interested in the Hoboken Library’s Horror/Thriller Book Club? Please email reference@hobokenlibrary.org, or register for our next meeting by searching under Events on our website.

Hit subscribe to get more Hoboken Public Library Staff Picks delivered to your inbox!

Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

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