Of course, Mama hasn’t watched the movies that I’ve watched over the years. The golden rule of horror cinema is ...never...open...the...door. So get your feet wet ”in the churning water dyed the color of the clay beneath---dyed red, Perdido red” and swelter a while with the people of Alabama as they clean up their water swollen hymnals, bump the alligators off their front porch, and try to restore their town to dryland. Rest assured, I’ll be reading the rest. That’s not river water, that’s groundwater, Oscar pointed out. You could get down on your hands and knees like a dog and lap it. He stiffened suddenly, with the fear that this had perhaps been an impolite suggestion. To cover up the possible awkwardness, he turned to Miss Elinor and asked, What did you drink in the Osceola? I believe, Miss Elinor, that it’s just not possible to drink flood­water without dying on the spot.

Oscar Caskey didn’t answer Bray, but he stood up, and, grasping the frame of the tattered awning of the next window, he pulled the boat toward the corner of the hotel. Madness is central to McDowell's Toplin, which details the vile imaginings of a man who suffers from mental illness but nonetheless determines to conduct himself within society. D'Ammassa praised Toplin as "perhaps the best novel ever written from the point of view of a schizophrenic." Oscar would have followed her inside, but his mother touched his arm, saying, You cain’t go in there, Oscar. Caroline and Manda are still in their nightclothes! I've always loved that show, even though I wasn't exactly around when it originally aired. Every episode had deliciously cheesy dialogue and I think the series had some great storylines, with the best of course being Barnabas's first shows. Bray, you are gone do it, said Oscar Caskey, not even turning around, so don’t bother telling me you’re not. Just go up to that corner window.While arguably best known for his works of Southern Gothic horror, McDowell was an accomplished stylist who wrote several series with marked differences in tone, character, and subject matter. His period novels are praised for their intricate eye for historical research and accurate details, and range from Gilded Age New York City to wiregrass Alabama in the depths of the Great Depression. Bray is a colored gentleman with a large bump of responsibility, said Oscar, touching his forehead as if to point out where that bump might have raised itself upon Bray’s head. As a younger man, he was apt to shirk his duties, but I beat him over the head with a two-by-four, raised a welt in the proper place, and he’s never failed me since. As he spoke these words Oscar suddenly decided, in another part of his brain, that he might charitably and conveniently attribute all Miss Elinor’s mysteriousness to mental confusion brought on by four days spent alone in a flooded hotel. "But I still don’t understand why you came to Perdido," he persisted. Oscar had turned to speak these last words to Bray, who shook his head and again indicated his wish to be well away from this half-submerged building. He was afraid Oscar would want to circle the hotel and look in every last window. The series had some ebbs and flows for me. Book one was a very strong start, and through book three, the family story was quite interesting. Of course, the most interesting thing was the anticipation of how this was all going to pan out. Which is why this didn't maintain the 5 star status I had going for the first half of the series.

I believe this book is now my favorite book. Originally written as a series, I read the edition with all the smaller books combined into one. I'd heard it was magnificent and didn't want to have to be continuously buying each new one. Michael McDowell created an epic story of multiple generations in a small Alabama town. There is an element of underlying creatures that bump in the night but it is so small that it really just blends in to the beautiful whole. This is the only book I've read by McDowell and I plan to read the rest of what he has left for us. McDowell wrote the screenplays for Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas if that gives you any idea of his brilliance. I can't really put into words what is so amazing about this book but it was fabulous enough that I had to take extended breaks away from it because I was so distressed to see it end and to lose these characters. Such a sadness to know that McDowell (lost to AIDS-related illness in 1999) is not around writing any longer. You won't regret reading this book. Cobalt (1982): A leisurely summer getaway for Daniel and Clarisse is interrupted when the body of a handsome local playboy is discovered on the beach, and there's far too many people who wanted him dead.

About the Author

Cold Moon Over Babylon (1980), reissued in 2015 by Valancourt Books, with a new introduction by Douglas E. Winter. A young girl's mysterious disappearance in quiet Babylon, Florida, awakens a horror in the Styx River that draws the Larkin, Redfield and Hale families into a supernatural web of murder and madness. Nothing, said Sister, realizing in a sudden moment of shame that she had failed in what these three women evidently considered to be her duty. I told her about the school and about Perdido. She was asking about the flood, you know, and the mills, and who everybody was and so forth. The cast is richly developed and I unexpectedly started caring a little too much for this rich Southern family and their lumber business. The twists kept me thinking about the book when I wasn't reading it. The deaths were pretty sad, even Mary-Love's, even though she'd had it coming for a couple decades at that point.