Laird Barron's Blog

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A little something I wrote for the reissue of David Nickle’s wonderful collection, Monstrous Affections.

Dispel

by Laird Barron

Who the hell is Len?

In the dream I’m trapped in a David N story. “Looker” got reprinted in a year’s best anthology and I read it and said to myself, damn. Which is absurdly prophetic. In the dream, and maybe the original story, there’s a beach house and a party thrown by some dick, Leo or Larry, or something. The guests are glamorous, disaffected young nobles who’ve fled the air raids to the countryside and I meet a beguiling woman who leads me to the beach to blaze and go skinny dipping after; something about her skin suggests unearthliness and then I wake up in the car back in the USA but that doesn’t dispel the ominous nature of the dream; it wildly intensifies my anxiety. The dream is wrong—in the real story there is a house and an odd woman who frolics on the beach while I dive into the ocean and I think the other hosers are disaffected and doomed. Something-something about eyes. And the host, Larry or Leo; who can say? The host is always the key to beach party phantasms. But I’m already forgetting how the nightmare went and am flying into the next.

###

It’s midafternoon but growing darker and darker. Purplish black. I can’t tell where it’s coming from, the dark light.

Awake and driving back from Canada and David N’s house. I haven’t drunk much since Athena died, since the novel manuscript first crept into the category of “late,” or since my stomach percolated dread and acid every day; but this weekend I have been drinking, haven’t I? Good throat-searing stuff from an iron flask stoppered by a pickled thumb. David N unearths the flask with an entrenching tool, its blade stained with old dirt. The shovel makes a ker-chunk! ker-chunk! sound as it chops through rocky soil. The thumb is merely a gag, he’s quick to assure us. We chill in his half-dug basement writing cave and then get crocked while the stuffed elk head stares us down.

John thinks that’s where we went wrong. The basement. I see it differently. He and I quarrel; out of fear, one hundred percent.

“He’s a journalist, Laird,” John says. “A fucking journalist.”

“A Canadian wouldn’t do this to us,” I say.

“A fucking journalist might. What was it you said? About his writing?”

“It’s awesome?”

“No, no—the other thing,” John said. “The hagiographical thing.”

“That he’d have to be a wizard to pen such baroquely magnificent passages of new weirdness?”

“Yes! That. A wizard. You may as well have said black magician. Because, hand to God, I’m pretty sure he’s a black magician.”

“What were we talking about in the den? Politics? Mass disappearances? A dude named Len.”

“Who’s Len?”

“Probably some asshole,” I say. Then to myself, “Don’t drink Len’s wine or smoke his pot. Don’t drink David’s liquor. Don’t read his books? Don’t lick eyeballs. It’s gross and they won’t like it.”

“What?”

###

We aren’t talking now. I’m drunk and hungover, or drunkover. Landscape inside and outside the car glows monochrome. John concentrates on the dark road. His glasses are shimmering circles of cold white fire. David N’s collection, Knife Fight and Other Struggles, lies on the floorboard where it slipped from my fingers when I traveled into the other twilit place. Earlier before we’d driven so long, I walked in a field of squelching mud, searching for a likely spot to piss, and now my muddy boot-tread has besmirched the paperback cover—a gorgeous stylized painting of a hand and a knife improbably balanced on its palm, ready to close and to fight. More a shiv than a knife.

If you were to ask me to name a handful of the best living prose stylists in weird fiction, in horror, in dark fantasy, David N would be on the ballot. Not because saying so might curry favor, nor rescue me, although, hey. David N. has a power that manifests when he channels through a digital cathode or through a hunk of dead pulped wood, such as his collection mashed beneath my boot. Lucky, lucky it’s not one of his other books, especially that it’s not the earlier collection, Monstrous Affections. The affably terrifying man on the cover haunts me—shut eyes, over-over-sized mouth clamped down hard, savoring the crunch and the scream. What if I’d stamped upon his face?

Fuck me, Monstrous Affections IS down there on the floor, albeit in a newer, sexier format, and so is Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism, among the muck of wet, dead earth, rusty nails, shattered bottles, and decomposing children on a soggy milk carton flap. A man, a critic, a colleague from a foreign land, gets ensnared by the stories, the collections, the political reporting, and very nearly neglects to acknowledge David N writes excellent novels. He writes anything he wants. He’s a wizard, after all. Possibly a black magician, of which John claims there are five. Three living and two who wish they weren’t.

###

Yeah, John says our world unraveled in David N’s literal man-cave, but I say it was the chance meeting at the Kremlin Bar in New York City this autumn that’s to blame. Which means I’m to blame. David N and Madeline Ashby had edited an anthology called Licence Expired, about a world-famous literary spy whose copyright in Canada lapsed for a brief period. As fate would have it, I sell a story to them for that anthology. Alas, the tale may never be reprinted outside of Canada; hell, folks are paranoid about shipping the book through customs. So, when David and I cross paths at the Kremlin, I innocently blurt that I’ve read excerpts from my spy story at various appearances. He’s a handsome, handsome man. Chiseled features, trimmed beard, and impeccable attire. A warm, erudite man. The warmth drains as I blather on, glorifying my faux pas. His erudition and Canadian forbearance go bye-bye by the time I trail off midsentence.

“Why would you do that?” he says. “Didn’t I warn you? Didn’t I say, for the love of everything holy, no live performances in the United States? Didn’t I promise there’d be consequences?”

I buy him a drink and he calms down. Becomes his genial self again.

“You and John will be at the symposium next month in Toronto? Come out to the house. I’ll whip up some poutine. We’ll have a time.”

And we do, gods help us.

###

Thirty-six hours on the highway and it’s only 4pm. We’ve made it a few miles. Very few. The light is greasy and failing. There’s maybe six or seven stars circling the drain. I don’t recognize any of them.

“It’s impossible to decide what he does best,” I say, scratching the stubble on my jaw. “Short fiction, novels, journalism, or his editorial work. He’s a renaissance man!”

“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Praying will do you no good.” John’s a lapsed Catholic, so he would be the expert in the car.

“The booze we drank,” I say. “Who knows what that shit was? He dug it out of a hole and we guzzled it down like a couple of rubes. Maybe it was tainted. Maybe we’re tripping balls.”

“David wasn’t digging up that flask,” John says. “He was burying something.”

“Burying what?”

 “I couldn’t see past where he crouched. He looked over his shoulder and grinned, finger to his lips.”

“Where was I?”

“Wherever the hell you were.”

Because the gloom reaches through glass and bulbs and wires, our headlights are pale as smoke. The cab is almost blacked out. John’s glasses have gone cold; they catch the dying light of the dashboard and that is all. A handful of pebbles plink against the windshield. Then larger pebbles and mud and the first of the rocks. John sighs an accusatory sigh.

If I could only figure out the riddle of Len, this might be okay.

I sense, rather than see, the figure in the back seat heave up. A splayed hand engulfs the top of my head. I’m sure another has John, but I can’t turn to look. The car is motionless as a lunar capsule rocketing against a backdrop of velvet black. The void swallows all light and sound except for David N’s entrenching tool. The shovel is so loud it has to be hacking away in the back with our bookbags and jackets and the small pile of David’s work—magazines, newspapers, ARCs, hardcover and trade paperbacks. Signed and personalized. Intimately personalized.

Ker-chunk! Ker-chunk! goes that fucking spade; digging a hole into the outer darkness big enough for two.

(You Won’t Be) Saved by the Ghost of Your Old Dog

by Laird Barron

The man dreamed of his gray, rheumy-eyed dog, lost for many years now.

“I always loved you!” the dog said. “Even when I did wrong!” The dog did not speak as men speak, of course. His notched ears crumpled and he howled. But it meant the same thing.

“I always loved you as well, you incorrigible asshole,” the man tried to answer. He could not speak because it was a dream.

The man awoke and waited a while for the strength to rise. No more water, no more hardtack or jerky. His snowshoes had gone up as kindling smoke. He leaned his pack and rifle against a tree. He buttoned his coat and tightened the laces of his boots. He kicked dirt over the ashes of the fire.

Sky and the earth were the same deep matte. Cold as the metal of his broadhead axe. Icicles snapped from his beard. Tiny icicle tears snapped from his lashes when he blinked.

The man was no tracker, although he’d lived in the woods and knew how to survive. He limped in ever widening circles along the slope of the mountain and eventually cut across the dog’s trail. Blood glittered in the paw prints. North.

As always, he’d followed the tracks for a short time when it began to snow.

Been working on this one for a while.

A long time ago, I was up in the mountains of Western Montana walking with my dog and my brother. There’d been a huge fire the previous year. It left behind ankle-deep ash and copses of trees–dead and green mixed.

An elk emerged from the underbrush. My dog, Athena, lost her mind. The elk dismissed our presence. She found a break in the cattle fencing that crisscrosses the wilderness in that part of the world. She took off through the trees. I haven’t forgotten her.

Helena Obit

by Laird Barron

1.



As a man and his dog traveled a

Dirt road in the mountains

An elk lurched, flop-eared, from the briars

Among the ponderosa pine.

Muzzle scarred; gray flanks claw-lashed

Mother of many calves

She’d waded creeks and snowdrifts

And kicked free of wolfpacks.

Her elk eyes were black as river stones.

The dog strained against the leash

Primitive blood recalling the drone of horns

A savage chase and then hurled spears.

The elk regarded them.

Fearless and innocent

Her blood recalled nothing of the spear.

She ambled along barbwire, hooves kicking up the soot

Of last summer’s fire

Until she found a gap and darted into the pines.

Fleeting shadow, always west.

2.

Years grind the mountains to the pitted edge of a flint ax.

The man leaves his dog in an alpine field to rest.

He covers his face in ash.

The uncharred half of his wife’s photograph

Reminds him of the inferno

That licked the cliffs of the valley.

Blackness yet curls in its wake, seeking vengeance.

Dust lays upon roots of shelled giants.

Many topple when the wind howls

Out of the north in October.

The dust will remain for generations in the mouth and lungs.

He dreams in a fever

That his lover sings with the voice of water crashing upon rock

The dreadful moan of wind tearing down trees.

She beckons like a torch at the mouth of a cavern.

The endless kind, bottomless as any human heart.

Reunion means crossing scorched earth

Into darkness.

The truth of it is, the hell of it

Bitterness is green sap flowing to an open wound

That never heals.

Sometimes he dreams he is the elk.

Thunder outside his tent

Booms the report of an old god’s rifle.

He shambles, then lopes, flying

Euphoric with terror and hope

Past a savage dog and a man struck dumb

With longing.

Beyond the break in the barbed fence

Pastures and hills and sky keep raveling

Farther than he’ll ever have or know.

Thank you to Lou Pendergrast for the interview.

We talk about the Isaiah Coleridge series, influences old and new, and a few other things.

We laid Athena to rest early this evening in the shade of the big sycamores and pines in our yard. I have done hard things in my life, but nothing as hard as this. Thank you to DG Brown, Jessica M., and Mr. Gaunt for helping send my good girl across the twilight divide.

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Athena Barron, 11/10/02; 7/30/18

Never in a million years could I have deserved your devotion. You were a pure light and I will always love you. See you around, pup.

I wrote an “Athena” post in 2011 shortly after my divorce and just prior to my subsequent move to Montana and then NY State. Nothing has changed except that the hourglass is trickling down. I’ve decided to post this update today while I am in my right mind.

Athena loved Montana. We stayed at my brother’s house up in the mountains near an old logging road. She ran free and chased (unsuccessfully) deer and rabbits from spring into fall. Later, I rented a room with John Langan and his family in Rifton, NY. Athena flourished there with Langans’ big dog Piper and several acres to roam. She enjoyed greeting the many household visitors, especially the kids. Hustle and bustle suited her well. Athena loved everyone and everyone loved her.

In 2015, Jessica M and I moved into our current house, a tranquil place a few miles from the Catskills. Another rescue pup entered our lives the following year. Athena had slowed down and wasn’t particularly enamored of the little terror who delighted in tormenting her 24/7. But she bore it cheerfully. And that’s Athena, a sweet and cheerful soul.

Last year, Athena nearly died from a sudden onset of grand mal seizures. She endured a medically induced coma to reset her brain and three more weeks of semi-consciousness (via heavy medication). I bargained with the death gods for just a little more time. They granted us another year and change.

As I type this, Athena is lying in  her favorite spot in the yard very near where we will, barring a miracle, bury her tomorrow at sunset. Her snowy muzzle is pressed against the grass. She is gray and tired and the look in her eyes communicates to me a depth of love and sadness that is difficult to bear. We have been inseparable for a long time. Now, she needs to go on ahead and I have to figure out how to do all this without her.

Over the past decade and a half, many colleagues and readers have expressed love and affection for Athena. Her veterinarian, Dr. Banister, and his compassionate staff, have seen her through cancer operations and other maladies. I know she would hug and kiss you all if she could.

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Athena

(2011)

Athena is special.

Erin and I were working at a highschool. I rode the bus every day twice a day with a special needs student with heart problems. The bus driver told me her sister’s pit bull had a brand new litter of ten pups, an accidental breeding, and matters were desperate. I declined the offer to take one after sounding Erin out about the breed–pits have such a terrible reputation, the vicious dog of the month, succeeding Rotweilers. The driver worked on me. She was relentless. She knew we wanted a dog in the worst way, so every day on the bus she talked about the puppies who were living in a barn and described their puppy antics in excruciating detail. Finally, I whimpered and gave in. I didn’t have a car at the time and couldn’t sneak off without Erin discovering my treachery, so I told the driver to pick out the alpha female when the time came. Somehow I kept my big mouth shut and maintained the secret.

When the pups were six weeks old, the driver went to the barn and whistled and of course the pack came flying, alpha male in the lead, Athena on his heels. She was knocked flat and trampled by several other big males as they galloped by, but she bounced up and kept coming, and so it came to be she went home with the driver. Three days before Christmas I took Erin to a coffee shop in downtown Olympia where I’d arranged to meet my friend. When I saw the driver with the puppy across the street in the park, I innocently said, hey, isn’t that…? And we went and talked to her. The puppy fit in the palm of my hand and she immediately went crazy kissing Erin’s nose and of course Erin fell in love with her on the spot. I asked if she liked the puppy. She said yes! and I said good, because she’s yours.

We named her Athena. God damn, that dog was a trial. She piddled everywhere all the time. She chewed everything. I came home and crashed one day and woke to find she’d crawled atop my chest and eaten my school ID card attached to a cord around my neck. I’ll never forget my eye popping open a couple of inches from hers, the plastic card, what was left anyway, wedged in her jaws. She paused to stare at me for a few moments, then returned to gnawing with an expression of puppy ecstacy. She slept in the bed, under the covers, usually in my armpit or near Erin’s neck. We did try to acclimate her to a basket on the floor. Neither one of us were strong enough to endure the mournful cries, and in any event she ate the basket, so that was that.

Athena is loyal and true. She would give her life for ours without hesitation, accept any hardship without rebuke or recrimination. I stopped thinking of her as merely a dog long, long ago. Athena is my friend and I love her as I love the moon and the stars. She cleaned the half dead kitten we brought home and fretted over her, still frets over her when she gets a hairball and starts coughing. She’s been with me for every story since The Imago Sequence that I wrote in 2002, curled under this rolltop desk, biding her time. She’s eight now, the grand dame of the household.

As I count up everything I’ve done in my life–the good, the bad, the wins and losses, what was important and what turned out not to be, saying yes to allowing Athena into our home looms large. I don’t really have the words to express what her presence has meant to me, what it continues to mean.[image error]photo by Jessica M

(8)

by Laird Barron

I

We held a séance.

Our voices floated past the bloody curtain

Where the forest of night is veins and nerves repeating

Where thought is a lash.

Jack pecked (flinty beak) against the shell of the great dark

To let in starlight cancelled and a kaleidoscope

Ran thick as black yolk behind his fractured skull

Behind everything.

II

To be born:

Jack tapped against absolute zero adamantium

A shiver pierced the void. An ululation.

Blackbirds rose en masse staining

The battle standard

The six hundred sixty-six circles.

He tore through the membrane

First his misshapen skull

Then his shoulders a thousand cuts cracked spine

Split into an abyss spanning waves of darkness

A span of waves of not-light.

He was out. Out. So were the blackbirds.

III

Some fucker always shouts Free Bird

Jack will slay them with a word (parenthetical).

In other tales Jack is heroic and kind

But I prefer him at his worst.

IV

Twice

Jack swam with the Father of Leeches.

The river stank and (s)wallowed between flyblown

Mud banks gray as shit as the eyes of a lamb

In a blackbird nest.

The second time Jack survived

And so he posed his question.

The Father of Leeches said, Anticoagulant.

V

Jack the Nimble Jack the Quick.

Jack Sprat Formula One Champion.

Jack Who Captured Death in a Burlap Bag.

Jack and the Beanstalk.

Jack the Giant Killer.

Jack the Lady Killer Who Died in the Sack.

Jack red-eyed Jack in spring-heels at the dance.

Jack the Claims Adjustor.

Jack highball in hand after a hard day.

Jack in Tokyo to rematch the radioactive god-lizard.

Jack with a scepter his left profile boiled away by acid.

Jack Lone Survivor of Tokyo Irradiated for All Time.

Jack is gone baby gone here’s Jack

VI

Jacks says reality is a frequency on a band

Cats and dogs perceive frequencies humans cannot.

My favorite band is Blue Oyster Cult.

When I was a kid

The pale Christian clerk who sold me a cassette

Of Mirrors said if you play this tape you’ve joined them.

Jack says Buck Dharma is an average guitarist

Who will die a week before my father does.

BD & JB were born in the same month of the same year

Granddad returned from the Second Great War and got busy.

Dad returned from a Police Action in 1969 and made me.

I say fuck you Jack

Buck Dharma is an excellent guitarist

May he live forever.

VII

Staff & Young & Cernan warned Collins

To toe the company line there’s no alien music in space.

Aldrin & Armstrong planted a US flag as the shadow

Of the hand of god bowed their heads.

Meanwhile a millionth iteration of Jack gasps his last

His first:

An ice-encrusted antenna array tumbles seventeen

Kilometers per second while Sol shrinks to a pinhole.

All that is out there is dust and cold

A radio signal plunging like a dart into the fat endless

Curve of interstellar waste.

VIII

Space-proof batteries are failing. Black holes are opening.

A transmission from Earth trails as a whisper

Like nails on dark matter.

Fifty. Seventy. One-hundred-and-fifty years

Reversing to the origin point (beak)

The crack.

“Jack? Are you reading? Jack? Jack…?”

Means nothing when the life capsule

Dissolves into nothingness.

With today’s release of Blood Standard, ex-hitter Isaiah Coleridge is loosed upon the scene. Michael Harvey, author of Brighton; and The Chicago Way, put it like this:

“Rendered in icy strokes of prose, Laird Barron’s Blood Standard is a remarkably self-assured crime novel—at once explosive and intimate, with a tightly wound plot and wonderfully realized characters. And then there’s Barron’s hero, Isaiah Coleridge. He’s got a dead dog named Achilles and bits of Beowulf on his breath and in his teeth. Needless to say, there’s not too many like him.”

Thank you to my agent, Janet Reid; my editor, Sara Minnich; publicists Karen Fink, Carolyn Darr, and Stephanie Hargadon; and the entire Putnam team. As always, a special thanks to Jessica M for her love and support, and to my readers–you folks make it possible.

I’ll leave you with an essay that I wrote for CrimeReads. 

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I’ll be doing a small tour for BLOOD STANDARD this spring. Many thanks to the Putnam team and to the hosting bookstores. More local dates to come.

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