Things change depending on my mood and the 'theme' of my life at any current moment, and I don't feel like this is a sophie's choice deciding because - well, if it changes later, what does it matter to me (or you all, for that matter
)
I have three that change, but anyone who has read my wafflings here over the years know there is a special place in my heart for Michael McDowell's
The Elementals.
I've loved Stephen King's stories since I was 9 but it was Michael McDowell's story of Southern Gothic 80's horror that really made me want to write. It's a mass-produced pulp novel and only around 270 pages long but seems to cram in a much larger playworld. I know people who have said it "terrified" them, some who never finished it for that reason, and then people like me who love the humour, the incredibly witty and authentically reproduced Southern Condition, and think the horror element is 'cool' rather than scary (mind you, reading horror since age 9 has probably inured me to being scared).
Super-original idea, super-atmospheric, it's a study in effect use of Omniscient POV, and the inspiration for my own ten-years-in-the-making WIP. I'd label it Saga Horror, as opposed to gothic horror if that didn't evoke a mental image of geriatric holidays from hell.
@TheDustyZebra mentioned
Beach Music as her favourite and I have an anecdote about that. A few years Christmases ago, she kindly sent me Pat Conroy's
Beach Music (and
Prince of Tides) because of my love of the Southern Way (I'm using that as if it's even a term, so I hope it makes sense). The family in
Beach Music really reminds me of this family saga ambience that
The Elementals has. Even though I'm only halfway through
Beach Music it's made me wish I had more personal experience of the South so I could write my own
The Elementals.
So yeah, read it: What
Jaws did for water,
The Elementals will do for sand.
pH