Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Fiction Tuesday - One Bloody Thing After Another

If you are missing some surreal fiction in your life, you just might want to take a look at Joey Cameau's One Bloody Thing After Another.

Its a little on the strange. But he guides you in three different storylines and how they mesh together by the end. Of course, for a while, you might wonder. But he has a way of making the character feel very individualistic and the idea that no one really believes the truth they are living through.

Perhaps its the story of how Jackie and Ann could not fall in love. Jackie might be just a little sick in the head. Possibly it has to do with her mother's ghost, who surprisingly can turn her invisible when things get really bad. And things really get bad for Jackie who goes to school with Ann.



Having a crush on Ann just isn't enough. Especially, when Jackie finds out one of her trees is cut down. It was the tree where she got her first kiss. Of course, she didn't really like it much, but still..it was a first. She even has it pin-pointed on a map in her room. But things go off the deep end. She is fierce, even when she is arrested.

I’m okay. Tell her I’m okay and that I miss her too. If I had just listened to her, I would be alive. If I had just been a better daughter.
Joey Comeau

Ann has her own problems at home. Something is wrong with her mother. She and her younger sister learn that her mom needs live things to eat if she's going to live. They know there is a monster in the basement, but they love their mother and end up making sacrifices.

At times its the dog that steals the story. (credit)

There is the old man and  his dog, Mitchie, who still sees a ghost at the retirement home. Unfortunately, there isn't much communication between them, but the ghost keeps him awake at night. So he takes long walks with his dog.



Unfortunately, these stories soon collide. And yes, there is horror. But later, some of the chapters are more or less little alternatives of what might really happen if Jackie and Ann were together.

Joey Comeau’s prose is smart and wry. It’s sparse in the way classic horror cinema is. Nothing jumps out and shouts BOO. As the title indicates, things just keep getting worse. It’s like life in that way, only with more kitten-eating monsters and headless ghosts.  -W

He wrote the novel in a very original style following a unique story that I became really invested in.  It’s considered a horror novel, but there are also elements of humor found within the pages.  Each character’s story is told in a wonderful fashion that really kept me guessing on how it was going to end.-O


It is definitely awkward. Clumsy at times. Still this surreal feel gives it such a literary sense, and I can't deny that.

But even crazy people can be heroes.
Jackie (One Bloody Thing After Another)


I do love Joey Comeau's work. He's a linguist from Canada.

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3 comments:

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