David Byrne might have called it a shotgun shack. It was a little house in Hampton, Virginia. A cheaply made, drafty, rundown little hovel, but I called it home. My memories of the place are mostly wonderful. It's where I found my true calling as a horror fan. I watched thousands of movies and read hundreds of books.
Sometimes I think about how it would be to go back for one more night. My old friends (some of whom are dead), a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon in the refrigerator, a videotape of Joe Bob Briggs' Drive-In Theater, and a roaring night of movies and laughter. But would it bring me satisfaction or unhappiness?
The stakes in Chet Williamson's Second Chance are far higher.
Woody Robinson, an ex-hippie and successful musician, examines his life and finds it lacking. His music, while technically proficient, has become soulless. He's mostly alone, and looks back longingly to the days when he had ideals and dreams. Like many, Woody's defining years were his college days in the sixties.
The dreams were shattered when the woman Woody loved and an anarchic friend die while trying to blow up the campus ROTC building. Nothing has felt right or made sense since the tragedy.
Woody has an idea: Get the surviving friends together, rent out the old apartment, and have a reunion. Maybe he can reignite the passion and magic he once felt.
The Doors on the turntable, counterculture posters on the wall, a bag of good weed, and the old gang are back. They join hands and return to an era long dead.
It works and they are able to retrieve the lost souls who foolishly perished. Only the anarchist has other ideas. With the help of a white supremacist group who are attempting to develop a germ to eradicate non-white people, he has a scheme to destroy the human race altogether so Mother Gaia can heal herself.
Chet Williamson was unique among the Golden Age horror writers. Some of his books, like Soulstorm and Ash Wednesday, fit comfortably in the Charles L. Grant quiet horror mold. Lowland Rider, on the other hand, is like a Skipp-Spector-Schow splatterpunk novel. Second Chance fits somewhere in the middle.
Second Chance was the second small press hardcover I ever bought. Both were from Cemetery Dance in the infancy of their publishing empire. The first was Lansdale's Writer of the Purple Rage.
Second Chance came out in 1994 and I read it in the house I described earlier. I loved that time and I loved this book. Not just Chet's exquisite writing, but the cover art and even the blurbs by Joe R. Lansdale and F. Paul Wilson. This was my time and my passion for horror was at its peak.
I miss those those days in the same way Woody Robinson missed his halcyon hippie years. My revolution didn't involve anti-war demonstrations and protests. It was a personal evolution where I discovered my real soul and learned to co-exist with the darkness of the world and within my own heart. I found my salvation in horror.
As much as I miss the time that shaped my life in sweetly irreparable ways, I don't wish to go back. The world is the same as it ever was, with pratfalls and seemingly insurmountable hurdles to navigate. The details change, but the struggle remains.
I've come to peace with my demons and I relish my memories of horrors gone past. I still experience the new books and movies, but where I no longer have the fresh enthusiasm of youth, I have a lifetime of experience in my heart to savor it.
And every new day is a second chance to redefine myself.
Written by Mark Sieber
Sometimes I think about how it would be to go back for one more night. My old friends (some of whom are dead), a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon in the refrigerator, a videotape of Joe Bob Briggs' Drive-In Theater, and a roaring night of movies and laughter. But would it bring me satisfaction or unhappiness?
The stakes in Chet Williamson's Second Chance are far higher.
Woody Robinson, an ex-hippie and successful musician, examines his life and finds it lacking. His music, while technically proficient, has become soulless. He's mostly alone, and looks back longingly to the days when he had ideals and dreams. Like many, Woody's defining years were his college days in the sixties.
The dreams were shattered when the woman Woody loved and an anarchic friend die while trying to blow up the campus ROTC building. Nothing has felt right or made sense since the tragedy.
Woody has an idea: Get the surviving friends together, rent out the old apartment, and have a reunion. Maybe he can reignite the passion and magic he once felt.
The Doors on the turntable, counterculture posters on the wall, a bag of good weed, and the old gang are back. They join hands and return to an era long dead.
It works and they are able to retrieve the lost souls who foolishly perished. Only the anarchist has other ideas. With the help of a white supremacist group who are attempting to develop a germ to eradicate non-white people, he has a scheme to destroy the human race altogether so Mother Gaia can heal herself.
Chet Williamson was unique among the Golden Age horror writers. Some of his books, like Soulstorm and Ash Wednesday, fit comfortably in the Charles L. Grant quiet horror mold. Lowland Rider, on the other hand, is like a Skipp-Spector-Schow splatterpunk novel. Second Chance fits somewhere in the middle.
Second Chance was the second small press hardcover I ever bought. Both were from Cemetery Dance in the infancy of their publishing empire. The first was Lansdale's Writer of the Purple Rage.
Second Chance came out in 1994 and I read it in the house I described earlier. I loved that time and I loved this book. Not just Chet's exquisite writing, but the cover art and even the blurbs by Joe R. Lansdale and F. Paul Wilson. This was my time and my passion for horror was at its peak.
I miss those those days in the same way Woody Robinson missed his halcyon hippie years. My revolution didn't involve anti-war demonstrations and protests. It was a personal evolution where I discovered my real soul and learned to co-exist with the darkness of the world and within my own heart. I found my salvation in horror.
As much as I miss the time that shaped my life in sweetly irreparable ways, I don't wish to go back. The world is the same as it ever was, with pratfalls and seemingly insurmountable hurdles to navigate. The details change, but the struggle remains.
I've come to peace with my demons and I relish my memories of horrors gone past. I still experience the new books and movies, but where I no longer have the fresh enthusiasm of youth, I have a lifetime of experience in my heart to savor it.
And every new day is a second chance to redefine myself.
Written by Mark Sieber
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