BOOK REVIEW: CORPSEMOUTH AND OTHER AUTOBIOGRAPHIES BY JOHN LANGAN

6/9/2022

Langan is a fantastic author, and one who knows just how to squeeze your heart enough to make you feel it but keep you alive for the next book he offers.

Corpsemouth And other Autobiographies by John Langan
Publisher: Word Horde (May 31, 2022)
Language: English
Paperback: 304 pages
ISBN:978-1-956252-01-9

A book review by John Boden

First, I'd like to say that it's been quite some time since I've tackled writing a review and I want to thank Jim and my GNoH family for keeping the fire going so I can sit these old bones down beside it and feel like I've never wandered away.

John Langan's most recent collection is, as usual, cause for celebration. Langan has a magical way of maintaining a theme with his collection, be it intentional or not. With this one the threading theme seems to be one that is bolstered by the Autobiographies mentioned in the title. Every tale included here involves some degree of recollection. Some sad or remorseful revisitations to past evens and people and often the echoes and ripple effects they have left on current lives and events.

The collection opens with the story, “Kore” which details a family hosting a Halloween haunted house tour for neighborhood children, one that allows them to create their own haunted legend to build the walk around. But what happens when the build is too sturdy. I actually first read this story years ago when it was part of Shock Totem's Halloween special issue. It was my first encounter with Langan's work and the one that kept me buying his books ever since.

“Homemade Monsters” is a story of wanting and making due, of bravery and bullying, and maybe, a monster. Absolutely brilliant.

“The Open Mouth Of Charybdis” concerns a small family with a missing child. And through recollection, we find out the strange details behind his excision from the family's memory.

The title story is an invigorating tale of lore and magic, of duty and lineage and of God-eating giants. A masterwork painted in tears and pride for family and the love and oft time resentment that goes with it.

“Anchor” is splendid and powerful. I can't even begin to dissect this for you. Just trust me, this might be the best and most important tale in the book. And that is saying a lot.

“The Supplement” deals with the cannibalistic consequences of grief and regret and pining for what is gone. Starkly beautiful and heart-wrenching.

“Mirror Fishing” is a strange and surreal story about a young fellow introduced to the titular activity and the dark motive behind that introduction. Ancient entities and self-serving trickery. This is a Bradbury tale with brass knuckles.

To say I enjoyed this collection would be an understatement. I adored it. I loved it. And as a writer myself I was inspired by it. I think that is maybe the highest praise I can give something. It made me want to write better.

Langan is a fantastic author, and one who knows just how to squeeze your heart enough to make you feel it but keep you alive for the next book he offers.

Corpsemouth And other Autobiographies by John Langan

A family's Halloween haunted house becomes a conduit to something ancient and uncanny; a young man's effigy of a movie monster becomes instrumental in his defense against a bully; a family diminishes while visiting a seaside town, leaving only one to remember what changed; a father explores a mysterious tower, and the monster imprisoned within; a man mourning the death of his father travels to his father's hometown, seeking closure, but finds himself beset by dreams of mythic bargains and a primeval, corpse-eating titan.

John Langan, author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning novel The Fisherman, returns with ten new tales of cosmic horror in Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies. In these stories, he continues to chart the course of 21st century weird fiction, from the unfamiliar to the familial, the unfathomably distant to the intimate.

Includes extensive story notes and an introduction by Sarah Langan.

John Boden

John Boden lives with his beautiful wife and two sons, in a house sweetly haunted by the ghost of a beautician named, Darlene..

He likes collecting lots of things and won't usually shut up about it.

His writing is fairly well received and has been called unique of style.

His work has been published in the form of stories in several anthologies and as novellas.

He plays well with others as is evidenced by collaborative works with Mercedes M. Yardley, Bracken MacLeod, Kurt Newton, Brian Rosenberger, Chad Lutzke and Robert Ford.

He's easy to track down either on Facebook or Twitter (JohnBoden1970)