From Publishers Weekly
The investigation of a young girl's apparent murder takes a sharp turn into
Twilight Zone territory in Piccirilli's moody follow-up to
A Choir of Ill Children (a Stoker finalist). Shad Jenkins is serving out the final days of his two-year prison sentence when he's briefly visited by the ghost of his beloved little sister, Megan, who has just been found dead on a mountain road outside Moon Run Hollow, without a mark on her body. He returns home bent on bringing those responsible to justice, but all potential suspects have solid alibis. Ignoring warnings about the legendary miseries that haunt the mountains where Megan died, Shad takes to the hills to look for clues. His adventures among Tobacco Road moonshiners, snake-handling cultists, interbred grotesques and Bible-thumping fanatics interconnect for a sustained and unnerving evocation of the dark side of Appalachia. Piccirilli successfully blends character and incidents to conjure a spirit of the strange that plays a key role in the tale's surprising but fitting finale. In lieu of a tidy conclusion, this loose and episodic horror novel tantalizes with hints of awesome mysteries that defy complete understanding.
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Review
“There are plenty of horror writers who can effectively conjure spooks and evoke squalor and desperation, but few can match Piccirilli's skill with words….One of the great strengths in the book is its supporting cast, deftly drawn individuals with their own histories, fears, and motivations…. .NOVEMBER MOURNS is dark, ambiguous, strange, and sometimes surprisingly sweet. The horror here is as much about lost opportunities and failed attempts at salvation as it is about monsters and killers. If EudoraWelty had written about wraiths and haunted hills, it might have sounded like this. The taint in the land brings William Faulkner to mind, while the taint in the people is pure Flannery O'Connor. Piccirilli has taken Southern Gothic imagery and woven it with his own poetry to create something uniquely his own, a book of terrible beauty and beautiful terrors.”—
Locus"Brilliant and deeply unsettling."--Poppy Z. Brite, author of
Liquor and
Prime“No one writes like Tom Piccirilli. He has the lyrical soul of a poet and the narrative talents of a man channeling Poe, William Faulkner, and Shirley Jackson....As terrifyingly surreal as an evening alone on the razor-thin boundary between reality and nightmare.”
–T. M. Wright, author of
A Manhattan Ghost Story“Piccirilli creates a geography of pain and wonder, tenderness and savageness. There is as much poet as popular entertainer in Piccirilli’s approach.”–
Cemetery Dance“A novel of supreme and mesmerizing power that reads like a head-on collision between Flannery O’Connor and M. R. James...A masterpiece.”–Gary A. Braunbeck, author of
In Silent Graves
