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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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A Lost Tale from Stephen King: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

30 Apr
Cover of the novel The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King. The design is a misty forest scene with a young girl wearing a baseball cap and backpack, walking alone. The title appears in white handwritten-style text. Stephen King's name is at the top in large gold lettering.

Stephen King is at his best when he keeps it simple, in my humble opinion: a rabid dog terrorizes a family, a bullied girl uses her telekinetic powers to terrorize a school, the Devil turns residents against each other, a psychopath traps an author in her house, a hotel drives a man to madness. There’s also getting lost alone in the woods, and that’s The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

And at just over 300 pages, it’s pleasant deviation from King’s normal marathon 700+ page reads.

Tricia McFarland strays off the Appalachian Trail in Maine and finds herself in a world of shifting shadows, buzzing insects, mysterious cabins, and a stalker.

Her solace is Boston Red Sox games on her Walkman and the hope that her favorite player, Tom Gordon, will make an appearance.

She grows desperate in her survival, and the only one who can bring her comfort is the love of her life. She adores Tom, and has faith that with every relief appearance he makes, she draws closer to escaping the jam she’s in, just as Tom does for her favorite baseball team nearly every night.

(Yankees fans, don’t worry. This isn’t a literary love letter to the Red Sox. More so, a fun project from King, who is a lifelong Sox fan.)

Told in innings rather than chapters, King plays off the slow-burn, rising tension of America’s pastime, which happens to be his bread-and-butter way of storytelling as well.

This book is far less supernatural than the classics that made King famous, and perhaps that’s why it flies under the radar. I found it an enjoyable detour into a world where our primal fears, in a situation very much possible, take over when survival instincts go haywire. 

It’s 9 days and 9 innings against nature, where the monsters of our imagination lurk so naturally.

Have you read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon? What did you think? Comment below.

You can reserve it in the BCCLS system here, or access the audiobook on Hoopla.

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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