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billymac1962's review against another edition
4.0
The Bleeding Season has a very enticing premise:
In the small town of Potter's Cove, five boys are best buddies. One day, young Tommy is struck by a car and killed. Fast forward to present day where the four men are pushing forty, and Bernard has committed suicide.
Now some weird shit is happening to the remaining three men, and revelations have come to light that Bernard had some very dark secrets.
Yeah. I am fully on board.
The first half or so of this novel had me very tightly in its grip. Gifune kept the pacing at a steady rate, drawing out the sense of mystery and dread to where I couldn't get through the pages fast enough.
This looked like a five star read for sure.
I had to dock about half a star for the pacing stutter-steps. Alan, our
protagonist, waxed philosophic just a bit too much, and I felt that towards the later part of the novel the story flow suffered for it.
These philosophic instances were warranted, sure. Early on they were present, but they seemed to support the flow of the narrative much better than in the second half of the novel, where they felt a little forced on me.
This is a very minor quibble in the grand scheme of things. The only reason I bring it up was because of the difference I noticed through the storyline.
This is the biggest problem I had with the book:
I wish there was a lot more time spent with when the men were kids, as
this laid the groundwork for what would happen later, and unfortunately this content was either edited out or he simply decided that this was the way it would be.
He could have easily fleshed this period out another hundred pages or so and the book would have been awesome.
And Tommy, we barely knew ye, it seemed that you would have been the most interesting character of the bunch.
So, four stars because it is a good story with some very fine parts. I will definitely read him again.
In the small town of Potter's Cove, five boys are best buddies. One day, young Tommy is struck by a car and killed. Fast forward to present day where the four men are pushing forty, and Bernard has committed suicide.
Now some weird shit is happening to the remaining three men, and revelations have come to light that Bernard had some very dark secrets.
Yeah. I am fully on board.
The first half or so of this novel had me very tightly in its grip. Gifune kept the pacing at a steady rate, drawing out the sense of mystery and dread to where I couldn't get through the pages fast enough.
This looked like a five star read for sure.
I had to dock about half a star for the pacing stutter-steps. Alan, our
protagonist, waxed philosophic just a bit too much, and I felt that towards the later part of the novel the story flow suffered for it.
These philosophic instances were warranted, sure. Early on they were present, but they seemed to support the flow of the narrative much better than in the second half of the novel, where they felt a little forced on me.
This is a very minor quibble in the grand scheme of things. The only reason I bring it up was because of the difference I noticed through the storyline.
This is the biggest problem I had with the book:
I wish there was a lot more time spent with when the men were kids, as
this laid the groundwork for what would happen later, and unfortunately this content was either edited out or he simply decided that this was the way it would be.
He could have easily fleshed this period out another hundred pages or so and the book would have been awesome.
And Tommy, we barely knew ye, it seemed that you would have been the most interesting character of the bunch.
So, four stars because it is a good story with some very fine parts. I will definitely read him again.
culottes's review against another edition
3.0
This book kept getting recommended on r/horrorlit, so I was excited to read it.
My takeaway: meh.
The writing style is fine. I wouldn't call Gifune "one of the best writers of his generation" (as written in the About the Author section), I think that's overselling him. Yes, he paints a disturbing picture, but his writing was so... basic? It didn't really do much for me. I was hoping I would be scared, maybe disturbed, by what I read, but the book never really crossed that bridge for me. Mostly I think he could've taken everything a step further, you know? I feel like the pieces were there, but the puzzle was half-finished. Perhaps I would've felt differently if I felt more emotionally connected to the book, which does segue into my next point.
The characters also felt extremely one dimensional. I feel like I didn't get to know any of them very well. Remember that old saying, "Show, don't tell?" I feel like Gifune told us about his characters' traits and attributes, without actually showing those traits and attributes in question. The main character was so bland. I felt of all the characters, I knew the least about him, which is disappointing considering the story is told from his perspective. I also didn't really find any of the characters particularly likeable or interesting. They weren't bad characters, I just wish there was more here. I felt like Gifune was merely explaining things to me. To be frank, I just didn't care about any of them. I think if one of the main characters had died, I would've forgotten about all of it by the next page. I don't think Gifune explored the psyches of his characters to the extent I would've liked. Part of what helps me enjoy a story is connecting with the characters' thoughts and feelings. I didn't feel that way about any of them. They just kind of felt like paper dolls acting out the scenes, instead of flesh-and-blood people.
The plot overall was engaging enough. I wanted to see what would happen next and how it would all end. I'm a true crime buff so I liked the idea of a best-friend-turned-serial-killer, and I was interested to see how the characters would react to the revelation that their childhood friend was ~evil~. I think the effort to tell a story about how evil can manifest and fester after significant trauma was, generally, a good one. This isn't really a story about the Devil and demons in the literal sense, but in the metaphorical sense, and how that darkness born from trauma can affect a person differently. In that sense, I enjoyed the book for what it was: an exploration of the darkness of both human nature, and the forces that can impact it. Sometimes I felt it got too vague -- for example, was Bernard molested by his mother, or was the main character? Why wasn't this clarified more? It would've explained more stuff. Maybe I'm an idiot and I just didn't get it?
Speaking of which, my biggest question upon finishing the book is WHY DIDN'T THEY GO TO AUTHORITIES??? I could understand it from the beginning, especially with Rick being an ex-con, but even after they had "defeated" the evil and started to move on, the main character didn't bring what he knew to authorities, writing it off as a futile effort because Bernard was dead and there would never be any evidence. But like, how do they actually know that nothing would come of it? They literally had a taped confession, that has to count for something. Why not give witness statements? Why keep the families of the murdered victims in the dark and allow them to continue suffering? I found this so frustrating and I can't make sense of it.
Overall, I'd give this book one big shrug emoji. It is what it is, and what it is isn't necessarily BAD, but I wouldn't say it's good either. The story itself was engaging enough to keep me reading, but that's about all I can say about it. I probably would not recommend this to my friends or family -- or at least, I wouldn't hype it up as being a genuinely scary read. Mostly I just wanted to finish it so I could brag about finishing a single book this year (I'm bad at reading). 3/5 because despite my harshness, it did keep me entertained while I stayed in a cabin without internet for a few days.
My takeaway: meh.
The writing style is fine. I wouldn't call Gifune "one of the best writers of his generation" (as written in the About the Author section), I think that's overselling him. Yes, he paints a disturbing picture, but his writing was so... basic? It didn't really do much for me. I was hoping I would be scared, maybe disturbed, by what I read, but the book never really crossed that bridge for me. Mostly I think he could've taken everything a step further, you know? I feel like the pieces were there, but the puzzle was half-finished. Perhaps I would've felt differently if I felt more emotionally connected to the book, which does segue into my next point.
The characters also felt extremely one dimensional. I feel like I didn't get to know any of them very well. Remember that old saying, "Show, don't tell?" I feel like Gifune told us about his characters' traits and attributes, without actually showing those traits and attributes in question. The main character was so bland. I felt of all the characters, I knew the least about him, which is disappointing considering the story is told from his perspective. I also didn't really find any of the characters particularly likeable or interesting. They weren't bad characters, I just wish there was more here. I felt like Gifune was merely explaining things to me. To be frank, I just didn't care about any of them. I think if one of the main characters had died, I would've forgotten about all of it by the next page. I don't think Gifune explored the psyches of his characters to the extent I would've liked. Part of what helps me enjoy a story is connecting with the characters' thoughts and feelings. I didn't feel that way about any of them. They just kind of felt like paper dolls acting out the scenes, instead of flesh-and-blood people.
The plot overall was engaging enough. I wanted to see what would happen next and how it would all end. I'm a true crime buff so I liked the idea of a best-friend-turned-serial-killer, and I was interested to see how the characters would react to the revelation that their childhood friend was ~evil~. I think the effort to tell a story about how evil can manifest and fester after significant trauma was, generally, a good one. This isn't really a story about the Devil and demons in the literal sense, but in the metaphorical sense, and how that darkness born from trauma can affect a person differently. In that sense, I enjoyed the book for what it was: an exploration of the darkness of both human nature, and the forces that can impact it. Sometimes I felt it got too vague -- for example, was Bernard molested by his mother, or was the main character? Why wasn't this clarified more? It would've explained more stuff. Maybe I'm an idiot and I just didn't get it?
Speaking of which, my biggest question upon finishing the book is WHY DIDN'T THEY GO TO AUTHORITIES??? I could understand it from the beginning, especially with Rick being an ex-con, but even after they had "defeated" the evil and started to move on, the main character didn't bring what he knew to authorities, writing it off as a futile effort because Bernard was dead and there would never be any evidence. But like, how do they actually know that nothing would come of it? They literally had a taped confession, that has to count for something. Why not give witness statements? Why keep the families of the murdered victims in the dark and allow them to continue suffering? I found this so frustrating and I can't make sense of it.
Overall, I'd give this book one big shrug emoji. It is what it is, and what it is isn't necessarily BAD, but I wouldn't say it's good either. The story itself was engaging enough to keep me reading, but that's about all I can say about it. I probably would not recommend this to my friends or family -- or at least, I wouldn't hype it up as being a genuinely scary read. Mostly I just wanted to finish it so I could brag about finishing a single book this year (I'm bad at reading). 3/5 because despite my harshness, it did keep me entertained while I stayed in a cabin without internet for a few days.
mandarinkata's review against another edition
4.0
Fantastic book, although I was a little bid confused about its ending. It has everything I want of a book - interesting and chilling story, short and meaningful descriptions, smart dialogs. It kept me reading from the beginning to the end without pausing to take a breathe.
Definitely will read more books from this author.
Definitely will read more books from this author.
carnal_butterfly's review against another edition
5.0
I loved, loved, loved this book, but the ending left me a little confused. This is so different than anything I've read recently. I have another book by this author on the way and am excited to have found his books!
chimps's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
jfischthecat's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars
I enjoyed the book up until a point when I all the run around Alan kept getting from these people in what seems like a record use of the word "dark"
And then the ending really didn't satisfy anything
This hate monster was just beat by a wooden board and some defiance?
It felt like softer ending than was intended.
I enjoyed the book up until a point when I all the run around Alan kept getting from these people in what seems like a record use of the word "dark"
And then the ending really didn't satisfy anything
This hate monster was just beat by a wooden board and some defiance?
It felt like softer ending than was intended.
macbean221b's review
3.0
Overall, I enjoyed this book, but I have two major complaints. The first one is completely a personal thing. When I read horror fiction, a strong religious/supernatural element can annoy me if I'm not expecting it. This book had that element, and the summaries I read beforehand didn't prepare me. Nevertheless, I still liked it.
Until the end.
That's my second complaint. The ending seemed sort of pasted on. In the first three quarters of the book, things are evenly paced, questions are posed and then answered after a proper amount of suspense, secrets are revealed, interesting characters cross paths with each other, things are a mystery but still generally make sense. And then all of the sudden there's this info half-dump, where things happen "off-screen" and are explained later in dialogue, or not really at all, and it doesn't quite all fit together. It ends in a strangely ambiguous way, for a book that had been so clear up until that point.
Until the end.
That's my second complaint. The ending seemed sort of pasted on. In the first three quarters of the book, things are evenly paced, questions are posed and then answered after a proper amount of suspense, secrets are revealed, interesting characters cross paths with each other, things are a mystery but still generally make sense. And then all of the sudden there's this info half-dump, where things happen "off-screen" and are explained later in dialogue, or not really at all, and it doesn't quite all fit together. It ends in a strangely ambiguous way, for a book that had been so clear up until that point.
lmt01's review against another edition
4.0
I didn’t know it then, but it was impossible to survive the darkest corners of his mind without first surviving the darkest corners of my own. I was headed for the same depths of Hell he had descended to, and though we passed through those flames for different reasons, our journeys are forever entwined. His story cannot be told Without also telling mine, and maybe that’s the way it should be. After all, Goodness is a state of grace.
Evil, is a state of mind.
What would you say makes a form of entertainment, be that a film or a book, worthy of being called a “cult classic”? I mean, when I hear that term, I think of films like Pulp Fiction or The Rocky Horror Picture Show, maybe books like GOOD OMENS or HOUSE OF LEAVES. Is something a cult classic only if the number if people who like it—be they few or many—don’t just like it, but absolutely bloody-well LOVE it? I’ve never been to sure how to approach “cult classic” novels, not knowing whether such a label means that my tastes may make me absolutely loathe the medium of entertainment, but that’s just me. Why am I asking about this? Well, because the cover of the third, fifteenth-anniversary edition, published by Journalstone, of Greg F. Gifune’s 2003 horror novel THE BLEEDING SEASON features a bloodied cassette with THE CULT CLASSIC written on it in black marker, and below the blurb is the following statement: …has been hailed as a classic in the horror genre and is considered to be one of the best horror/thriller novels of the decade. So, what qualities make something a cult classic, and do these qualities apply to Gifune’s most revered (or, at least, most acknowledged) novel? I’ll leave that for you to decide, but before I yack on about my opinions, how about we get into the review?
When they were still children, adolescence approaching, they were a five-strong group of friends in the Massachusetts town of Potter’s Grove. Then, in an act of random violence, one of their members was struck by a car. Things were never the same after that, and despite keeping in touch, the remaining four slowly drifted apart after leaving high school.
Years later, Alan lives with his wife and feels a bit discontent with his life, the implied lack of meaning that it possesses, when he gets a phone call from one of his friends. The group has now been narrowed to three members: the fourth, Bernard, has committed suicide. Gathering together to mourn their friend’s death, Alan, Donald and Rick visit the building in which Bernard lived out his last days with his cousin. They ask the cousin if Bernard had anything that they would be able to take as sort of souvenirs, objects to remember their friend by. The cousin leads the three into the dark, uncomfortable cellar of the building, where Bernard lived and died, and offers them the dead man’s duffel bag to look through. While Rick gets an old sports card and Donald gets photos, Alan—desperate to leave the cellar—grabs the closest thing to him, a planner. However, the uncomfortable atmosphere of the basement seems to follow them as increasingly eerie occurrences begin, a notable example being the shared nightmare that the three experience, one that carries with it a feeling of inexplicable dread.
“There was a darkness to it, a sense of—I know this sounds silly, but—a sense of evil to it. It was like Bernard was going to Hell.”
Then comes the cassette tape, Bernard’s version of a suicide note, on which their deceased friend reveals terrifying truths about who—and what—he may have actually been; that instead of being the kindhearted man they knew, he might have been a ruthless killer whose mind was wracked with insanity, his soul by rage, and his motive as unknown as his true personality. The three friends deal with this in their own ways, though when spring arrives, none can deny the fact that the discovery of a woman’s horribly mutilated body seems to be eerily similar to Bernard’s claims, and as more bodies are discovered, the fact that Bernard was more than just different seems undeniable, inescapable. After suffering from a strange hallucination—or was it a vision?—Alan drags the other two on an investigation into the evils that drove Bernard to murder. However, as they delve deeper into the dark psychology of their friend, Alan, Donald and Rick soon make a series of unsettling discoveries regarding the nature of evil that will rock the concept of what they believe in.
On our way down the hallway, Tomi promised everything would be all right.
She lied.
THE BLEEDING SEASON is a dark novel, perhaps even bleak. What makes it even darker is our narrator, Alan, and his hope for a purpose in the abyss of chaos that is life, which is best demonstrated in this passage:
That was true, of course, but I’d come to believe Death had his favorites. In my thirty-seven years, Death had not only visited my life far too frequently, it had been there from the very start, as if gleefully lying in wait for the carnage to begin, when my father, a mason, was killed in a construction accident only weeks after I was born. While still in high school, Tommy had been struck by a negligent driver and killed right before my eyes. Toni’s parents had both died while still in their fifties, her father from a sudden heart attack and her mother from the same only a year later. My mother had suffered a series of strokes and died in my arms not long after. And now Bernard had taken Death’s hand and stepped off the edge as well. It all seemed so pointless—arbitrary, as Donald had called it—yet I had to believe that somewhere a cogent reason, a plan of sorts, did exist amidst the mayhem.
I personally believe that this kind of thinking, this element of hopeful optimism, is what makes THE BLEEDING SEASON so dark, so pessimistic. If that doesn’t make sense, then I’ll try to make it a bit easier to understand. If you’ve seen The Dark Knight Rises, then you may remember Bane’s philosophy that hope is worse than despair, as it makes defeat all the more devastating. I can’t really find the right way in which to apply this to Alan’s hope that there is purpose in the chaos, but I’m sure that you at least understand the gist of what I’m talking about. Perhaps feeling a kind of sympathy for Alan is what makes his story all the more depressing for me, considering the themes of nihilism throughout. When I am going through stages in which I feel like there’d be nothing better to do than to simply End Things, only three things stop me: my arrogance/fear of death, the thought of what would happen to my mother, and God—because, you see, for me, God isn’t the answer of creation, but of purpose; to me, he represents hope and meaning in a universe that is seemingly without such things. Perhaps this makes me a bit like Alan, hoping for some kind of order when, in reality, this may just be an illusion.
However, is that what makes THE BLEEDING SEASON so dark? Alan’s hope? Well, no; in fact, Gifune’s novel is rendered almost bleak not just by the absence of a light at the end of the tunnel, but by the complete destruction of such a notion. In his novel, Gifune doesn’t just create a pessimistic mood by ignoring hope; he does so by destroying it. He makes his characters realise how uneventful and meaningless they have let their lives become, that no matter how hard they fight to convince themselves of their own worth, the truth will never leave them. I suppose that, in this sense, THE BLEEDING SEASON follows a form of existential horror, though not by presenting larger entities but by showing the smallness of life. Gifune also exposes the dark heart of humanity, as Peter Straub did in KOKO, only this novel, the evil within us isn’t let out by a catalyst like war, but is instead let out by our own hands. A character towards the middle of the book even has a philosophy that, whether the supernatural does or doesn’t exist, evil is already within us, just waiting for an excuse to be released, to fill its vile maw with the blood and suffering of others. Even during the nostalgic reflections on childhood does Alan manage to find some purposeless act of violence, from bullying to the occurrences of the “adult world”.
Small windows along the foundation of the house reminded me of the cellar in New Bedford where he had hanged himself. But this was his home, a place of history, so what had Bernard conjured here, in this house where he’d once claimed the Devil sometimes spoke to him? What demons had he summoned and brought to life here? And why? Why had he done it in the first place? Why had he listened when evil beckoned—even if it had come from within him—why had he chosen to embrace it?
Something that I think makes THE BLEEDING SEASON worth reading is Gifune’s writing style. He writes in a way that is poetic without being overly metaphorical, using a poet’s hand to pen an easy-to-read journal of nihilism disguised as a horror novel. He is pretty good at writing “horror” scenes and on Stephen King’s level when it comes to describing a setting, but it’s through his characters’ reflections and their applications of what exists in the mind upon the real world that Gifune’s prose gets most of its powers from. Take this as an example:
I stared at the house, called on all the recollections and mysteries it held within its slowly dying walls, summoned them from its bowels to the light of day, to the sidewalk where I now stood. And like the slow rise of blood from an exceptionally deep wound, they came. Slow and seeping at first, and then, as I held the wound open wider still, it gushed, this blood of memories and secrets, leaking from the windows, dripping across the walls, bubbling from cracks in the foundation, frothing and swelling free like waves crashing shoreline, determined to knock me over and drag me under.
Gifune takes the concept of memories—what exists in the mind—and applies it to a house—what exists in the real world—to create a blend of language devices, these metaphors and similes stringing together a beautiful yet comprehensible passage. Such a style is not only suited to a horror novel, but also to a bleak one. Of course, Gifune also uses street-like language to make THE BLEEDING SEASON easy to access without dragging the quality and emotional punch away, like this line: We were so vulnerable, all of us so ripe for the picking without realising it, and there wasn’t a fucking thing we could do about it.
I think that it’s an appropriate time to discuss the horror elements of THE BLEEDING SEASON, as isn’t that what one is wont to do when reviewing a horror novel? Now, I think that it would be more accurate to class this novel as a psychological thriller; think Paul Tremblay’s DISAPPEARANCE AT DEVIL’S ROCK in the sense that you are constantly wondering whether there are supernatural forces at play or not. I think that THE BLEEDING SEASON is considered to be horror due to how horrific Bernard’s deeds are, though the real terror mainly comes from your constant uncertainty of whether the Devil is present, or if Bernard was just bat-crazy. If you are yet to read THE BLEEDING SEASON and are considering to do so, then be warned: it is a slow-burn story that is, to be honest, more of a crime story with possible dashes of the supernatural in it. It is not a horror novel like Stephen King’s IT, being more like the forementioned Tremblay novel or, say, one of John Connolly’s Charlie Parker thrillers.
“If you take the Devil’s hand, it’s still your fault, it’s still your choice, and you’re still to blame for whatever happens, for whatever you do, for whatever that evil causes in you.” Julie moved closer, as if she wanted to be certain I heard what she was going to say next. “But just because you’re to blame doesn’t mean the Devil was never there.”
Now, while there are a few violent parts—very violent parts, you could say—Gifune never forsakes genuine chills for gore. He creates a brooding atmosphere with three-dimensional characters to wade through the eerie setting that he has created. Sure, he uses gore, but he doesn’t make THE BLEEDING SEASON revolve around it. As impressive as it is for a horror author to not use gore at all, it is even more impressive for one to use it right.
I think that the only problem I really have with THE BLEEDING SEASON is its “cult classic” status that is even boasted by my edition’s cover. I was expecting something really, really outlandish, something so uniquely weird that only a certain group of people can get it. However, Gifune’s novel—no matter how good it may be—isn’t that kind of book. It is unique, sure, but not outlandishly so; it provides grim looks into the human mind, but so does Straub’s KOKO in an arguably better way (that’s just my opinion); there are odd scenes, but they aren’t really the omigod-wtf-that’s-so-damn-WEIRD! type of odd. I think that THE BLEEDING SEASON would have been a five-star read for me if not for the cover of my edition, which does sound pretty stupid, but I am what I am, and this book is what it is: not cult classic material (in my eyes, anyway).
Would I consider THE BLEEDING SEASON an important part of horror? Maybe not an important part of the genre, but I do think that it may be a good example of what the genre can spawn. It’s a bit like a hidden treasure, something lurking in the corners and accessible to only those who are interested in seeing what forms horror can take. While I don’t think that Gifune’s novel is important to horror, I do think that those who like horror should give THE BLEEDING SEASON a try. It may not be required reading for one who is interested in the genre, but it is something that you will probably enjoy nonetheless. I did enjoy THE BLEEDING SEASON, and I think that if you’re interested it reading it, clean your mind of expectations except for those that prepare you for a character-driven horror/mystery hybrid, and go for it!
Evil, is a state of mind.
What would you say makes a form of entertainment, be that a film or a book, worthy of being called a “cult classic”? I mean, when I hear that term, I think of films like Pulp Fiction or The Rocky Horror Picture Show, maybe books like GOOD OMENS or HOUSE OF LEAVES. Is something a cult classic only if the number if people who like it—be they few or many—don’t just like it, but absolutely bloody-well LOVE it? I’ve never been to sure how to approach “cult classic” novels, not knowing whether such a label means that my tastes may make me absolutely loathe the medium of entertainment, but that’s just me. Why am I asking about this? Well, because the cover of the third, fifteenth-anniversary edition, published by Journalstone, of Greg F. Gifune’s 2003 horror novel THE BLEEDING SEASON features a bloodied cassette with THE CULT CLASSIC written on it in black marker, and below the blurb is the following statement: …has been hailed as a classic in the horror genre and is considered to be one of the best horror/thriller novels of the decade. So, what qualities make something a cult classic, and do these qualities apply to Gifune’s most revered (or, at least, most acknowledged) novel? I’ll leave that for you to decide, but before I yack on about my opinions, how about we get into the review?
When they were still children, adolescence approaching, they were a five-strong group of friends in the Massachusetts town of Potter’s Grove. Then, in an act of random violence, one of their members was struck by a car. Things were never the same after that, and despite keeping in touch, the remaining four slowly drifted apart after leaving high school.
Years later, Alan lives with his wife and feels a bit discontent with his life, the implied lack of meaning that it possesses, when he gets a phone call from one of his friends. The group has now been narrowed to three members: the fourth, Bernard, has committed suicide. Gathering together to mourn their friend’s death, Alan, Donald and Rick visit the building in which Bernard lived out his last days with his cousin. They ask the cousin if Bernard had anything that they would be able to take as sort of souvenirs, objects to remember their friend by. The cousin leads the three into the dark, uncomfortable cellar of the building, where Bernard lived and died, and offers them the dead man’s duffel bag to look through. While Rick gets an old sports card and Donald gets photos, Alan—desperate to leave the cellar—grabs the closest thing to him, a planner. However, the uncomfortable atmosphere of the basement seems to follow them as increasingly eerie occurrences begin, a notable example being the shared nightmare that the three experience, one that carries with it a feeling of inexplicable dread.
“There was a darkness to it, a sense of—I know this sounds silly, but—a sense of evil to it. It was like Bernard was going to Hell.”
Then comes the cassette tape, Bernard’s version of a suicide note, on which their deceased friend reveals terrifying truths about who—and what—he may have actually been; that instead of being the kindhearted man they knew, he might have been a ruthless killer whose mind was wracked with insanity, his soul by rage, and his motive as unknown as his true personality. The three friends deal with this in their own ways, though when spring arrives, none can deny the fact that the discovery of a woman’s horribly mutilated body seems to be eerily similar to Bernard’s claims, and as more bodies are discovered, the fact that Bernard was more than just different seems undeniable, inescapable. After suffering from a strange hallucination—or was it a vision?—Alan drags the other two on an investigation into the evils that drove Bernard to murder. However, as they delve deeper into the dark psychology of their friend, Alan, Donald and Rick soon make a series of unsettling discoveries regarding the nature of evil that will rock the concept of what they believe in.
On our way down the hallway, Tomi promised everything would be all right.
She lied.
THE BLEEDING SEASON is a dark novel, perhaps even bleak. What makes it even darker is our narrator, Alan, and his hope for a purpose in the abyss of chaos that is life, which is best demonstrated in this passage:
That was true, of course, but I’d come to believe Death had his favorites. In my thirty-seven years, Death had not only visited my life far too frequently, it had been there from the very start, as if gleefully lying in wait for the carnage to begin, when my father, a mason, was killed in a construction accident only weeks after I was born. While still in high school, Tommy had been struck by a negligent driver and killed right before my eyes. Toni’s parents had both died while still in their fifties, her father from a sudden heart attack and her mother from the same only a year later. My mother had suffered a series of strokes and died in my arms not long after. And now Bernard had taken Death’s hand and stepped off the edge as well. It all seemed so pointless—arbitrary, as Donald had called it—yet I had to believe that somewhere a cogent reason, a plan of sorts, did exist amidst the mayhem.
I personally believe that this kind of thinking, this element of hopeful optimism, is what makes THE BLEEDING SEASON so dark, so pessimistic. If that doesn’t make sense, then I’ll try to make it a bit easier to understand. If you’ve seen The Dark Knight Rises, then you may remember Bane’s philosophy that hope is worse than despair, as it makes defeat all the more devastating. I can’t really find the right way in which to apply this to Alan’s hope that there is purpose in the chaos, but I’m sure that you at least understand the gist of what I’m talking about. Perhaps feeling a kind of sympathy for Alan is what makes his story all the more depressing for me, considering the themes of nihilism throughout. When I am going through stages in which I feel like there’d be nothing better to do than to simply End Things, only three things stop me: my arrogance/fear of death, the thought of what would happen to my mother, and God—because, you see, for me, God isn’t the answer of creation, but of purpose; to me, he represents hope and meaning in a universe that is seemingly without such things. Perhaps this makes me a bit like Alan, hoping for some kind of order when, in reality, this may just be an illusion.
However, is that what makes THE BLEEDING SEASON so dark? Alan’s hope? Well, no; in fact, Gifune’s novel is rendered almost bleak not just by the absence of a light at the end of the tunnel, but by the complete destruction of such a notion. In his novel, Gifune doesn’t just create a pessimistic mood by ignoring hope; he does so by destroying it. He makes his characters realise how uneventful and meaningless they have let their lives become, that no matter how hard they fight to convince themselves of their own worth, the truth will never leave them. I suppose that, in this sense, THE BLEEDING SEASON follows a form of existential horror, though not by presenting larger entities but by showing the smallness of life. Gifune also exposes the dark heart of humanity, as Peter Straub did in KOKO, only this novel, the evil within us isn’t let out by a catalyst like war, but is instead let out by our own hands. A character towards the middle of the book even has a philosophy that, whether the supernatural does or doesn’t exist, evil is already within us, just waiting for an excuse to be released, to fill its vile maw with the blood and suffering of others. Even during the nostalgic reflections on childhood does Alan manage to find some purposeless act of violence, from bullying to the occurrences of the “adult world”.
Small windows along the foundation of the house reminded me of the cellar in New Bedford where he had hanged himself. But this was his home, a place of history, so what had Bernard conjured here, in this house where he’d once claimed the Devil sometimes spoke to him? What demons had he summoned and brought to life here? And why? Why had he done it in the first place? Why had he listened when evil beckoned—even if it had come from within him—why had he chosen to embrace it?
Something that I think makes THE BLEEDING SEASON worth reading is Gifune’s writing style. He writes in a way that is poetic without being overly metaphorical, using a poet’s hand to pen an easy-to-read journal of nihilism disguised as a horror novel. He is pretty good at writing “horror” scenes and on Stephen King’s level when it comes to describing a setting, but it’s through his characters’ reflections and their applications of what exists in the mind upon the real world that Gifune’s prose gets most of its powers from. Take this as an example:
I stared at the house, called on all the recollections and mysteries it held within its slowly dying walls, summoned them from its bowels to the light of day, to the sidewalk where I now stood. And like the slow rise of blood from an exceptionally deep wound, they came. Slow and seeping at first, and then, as I held the wound open wider still, it gushed, this blood of memories and secrets, leaking from the windows, dripping across the walls, bubbling from cracks in the foundation, frothing and swelling free like waves crashing shoreline, determined to knock me over and drag me under.
Gifune takes the concept of memories—what exists in the mind—and applies it to a house—what exists in the real world—to create a blend of language devices, these metaphors and similes stringing together a beautiful yet comprehensible passage. Such a style is not only suited to a horror novel, but also to a bleak one. Of course, Gifune also uses street-like language to make THE BLEEDING SEASON easy to access without dragging the quality and emotional punch away, like this line: We were so vulnerable, all of us so ripe for the picking without realising it, and there wasn’t a fucking thing we could do about it.
I think that it’s an appropriate time to discuss the horror elements of THE BLEEDING SEASON, as isn’t that what one is wont to do when reviewing a horror novel? Now, I think that it would be more accurate to class this novel as a psychological thriller; think Paul Tremblay’s DISAPPEARANCE AT DEVIL’S ROCK in the sense that you are constantly wondering whether there are supernatural forces at play or not. I think that THE BLEEDING SEASON is considered to be horror due to how horrific Bernard’s deeds are, though the real terror mainly comes from your constant uncertainty of whether the Devil is present, or if Bernard was just bat-crazy. If you are yet to read THE BLEEDING SEASON and are considering to do so, then be warned: it is a slow-burn story that is, to be honest, more of a crime story with possible dashes of the supernatural in it. It is not a horror novel like Stephen King’s IT, being more like the forementioned Tremblay novel or, say, one of John Connolly’s Charlie Parker thrillers.
“If you take the Devil’s hand, it’s still your fault, it’s still your choice, and you’re still to blame for whatever happens, for whatever you do, for whatever that evil causes in you.” Julie moved closer, as if she wanted to be certain I heard what she was going to say next. “But just because you’re to blame doesn’t mean the Devil was never there.”
Now, while there are a few violent parts—very violent parts, you could say—Gifune never forsakes genuine chills for gore. He creates a brooding atmosphere with three-dimensional characters to wade through the eerie setting that he has created. Sure, he uses gore, but he doesn’t make THE BLEEDING SEASON revolve around it. As impressive as it is for a horror author to not use gore at all, it is even more impressive for one to use it right.
I think that the only problem I really have with THE BLEEDING SEASON is its “cult classic” status that is even boasted by my edition’s cover. I was expecting something really, really outlandish, something so uniquely weird that only a certain group of people can get it. However, Gifune’s novel—no matter how good it may be—isn’t that kind of book. It is unique, sure, but not outlandishly so; it provides grim looks into the human mind, but so does Straub’s KOKO in an arguably better way (that’s just my opinion); there are odd scenes, but they aren’t really the omigod-wtf-that’s-so-damn-WEIRD! type of odd. I think that THE BLEEDING SEASON would have been a five-star read for me if not for the cover of my edition, which does sound pretty stupid, but I am what I am, and this book is what it is: not cult classic material (in my eyes, anyway).
Would I consider THE BLEEDING SEASON an important part of horror? Maybe not an important part of the genre, but I do think that it may be a good example of what the genre can spawn. It’s a bit like a hidden treasure, something lurking in the corners and accessible to only those who are interested in seeing what forms horror can take. While I don’t think that Gifune’s novel is important to horror, I do think that those who like horror should give THE BLEEDING SEASON a try. It may not be required reading for one who is interested in the genre, but it is something that you will probably enjoy nonetheless. I did enjoy THE BLEEDING SEASON, and I think that if you’re interested it reading it, clean your mind of expectations except for those that prepare you for a character-driven horror/mystery hybrid, and go for it!