The end of the year is drawing near, and this is roughly the time that I make my annual entry about my life as a reader. What can I say except that this year has been another mixed bag? Let me lay out what has gone on during this time:

The entire year has been stressful work wise, partly because I’m still learning my new job and partly because I’m a neurotic who is constantly afraid of losing the job. Most of the time, I tend to second-guess myself, sometimes rightly, sometimes when it’s unnecessary. I’m still learning to adjust my expectations.

The year started okay despite some hiccups at work. February ended joyfully with the birth of my fourth son. We also got a generous tax refund that would have made things easier for us had we not discovered that our kitchen flooded due to a broken dishwasher. A portion of the refund went to paying the deductible and eating out while the floor was getting repaired. We also stayed in a hotel for a week, which was kind of fun and kind of stressful. We had a crisis in July which we are still working through, but we’re doing all right. We had a few opportunities to promote our small publishing company MonteHouse Books at Westercon in Utah, but it was a bust. The people who sold us on becoming vendors there anticipated that there would be about 400 attendees when there was only a quarter of that. I thought we would do better at FanX, Utah’s equivalent of ComicCon where we would have over 100,000 attendees, but we didn’t. Too many vendors, too many attractions, not enough people interested in our books.

I have also had some great times with my family and my wife is an ever-present comfort for the rough moments. We’re hoping that our circumstances will improve next year.

In terms of reading, it’s been on an ongoing odyssey. I came across the short stories of horror writer Frederick Cowles and reviewed his book The Horror at Abbot’s Grange. While I can’t call him a unique voice in the field, it is a strong one and pretty gruesome and bleak for his time. Some people compare him to his contemporary M.R. James, but I think that the same comparisons can be made between him and A.M. Burrage. Personally, I like him and Burrage better than James (not to knock on James.)

I also delved into mystery and crime stories quite a bit. I got more exposure to Chester Himes, a unique voice in the crime/noir field, partly because he drew on his personal experiences as a black man and one-time criminal in the first half of 20th century. Out of his books that I’ve read this year, Cotton Comes to Harlem and Run, Man, Run, are standout books. Other excellent mystery novels that I read this year that involve racial themes include In the Heat of the Night by John Ball (the movie is good too, but the book is better) and Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (both the movie and book are equally excellent).

I also got into police procedurals thanks to the work of Ed McBain. He Who Hesitates, is a noir crime story from his 87th Precinct books, but this one is told mostly through the perspective of the criminal. Actual details of his crime are concealed until the very end as he spends much of the book trying to decide whether or not to confess. I followed this up with Doll, which includes one the series heroes Steve Carella being kidnapped his death being faked. I recommend this book without hesitation. The Pusher and The Mugger are early novels, one involves Carella’s life being put in danger while working on a homicide/drug case, and another introduces us to another series hero Bert Kling. Other excellent and highly entertaining titles include Give the Boys a Great Big Hand, Fuzz, King’s Ransom, and Sadie When She Died (this last one was especially dark, and it is an excellent mystery). McBain is now officially one of my favorite writers.

During the summer, I read a lot of pulp fiction, including novels of The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Spider, G-8 and His Battle Aces, and Captain Future. I’ve gone into some detail about these characters before, so I won’t take up too much time. They provided the escapism that I needed for a difficult time in my life. Captain Future got my attention, and I ended up reading most of the contemporary novels/novellas written by Allen Steele. I also became a fan of Edmond Hamilton in the process. While the original Captain Future novels are not the best-written, they are still important books to me, maybe because I need tales of old-fashioned heroism. When it comes to pulp fiction, there didn’t need to be a big rationale for why these characters were heroic, they simply were. Any reasons for their heroism tended to be the right ones. I’m afraid that Hollywood and the comic book industry have become too preoccupied with chronicling the hero’s motives and their origin story than with them acting like heroes.

I also had a resurgence with reading Harlan Ellison and even read Michael J. Straczynski’s exegesis that intimately chronicled Ellison’s struggles and the state of his mental health without excusing his faults. The piece was written with love and no small amount of heartbreak. I also read books on the lighter side of things like Aaron Blabey’s The Bad Guys graphic novel series. The books are hilarious and so is the movie (it kind of gives me a Donald Westlake vibe but with anthropomorphic animals as the criminals). Lately I’ve also gotten back into reading John Bellairs’ juvenile gothic/occult mysteries, but I would like to devote an entire article to those.

Probably one of the biggest things that happened this year aside from additions to my family and growing pains in my business: I finally realized what my voice is as a writer. I even found a writer who seems to be a match for what I go for style-wise, although he is better than me, and that man is Stanley Ellin. His book Quiet Horror highlights his talents as a short story writer (the book was published long before Charles Grant entered the publishing field). Horror stories of most stripes get my attention, but the “Quiet” aspect appeals to me because I like subtlety in my reading, and I finally realized that my voice as a horror writer is predominantly in the “quiet” territory. I tend to do really well when I leave some details ambiguous, leave resolutions in the air, and imply violence. I learned these tricks from the likes of Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, and Cornell Woolrich. Little did I know that Ellin was down my alley, and I envy this man for his ability to do what I struggled to learn for over a decade. When I articulated my style to my wife she wholeheartedly agreed.

Ellin got his start in his early thirties, making a massive splash with his short story “Specialty of the House” in 1948 (most of his short stories were published with Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.) “Specialty of the House” is a sardonic gem of a gourmet who is introduced to an unusual restaurant that offers sumptuous meals, including a specialty rarely offered made from a source better left unknown. This was adapted effectively for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. We are offered other tales in Quiet Horror that match my aesthetic, like “The Moment of Decision” which ends with a lady-or-the-tiger scenario that starts with a feud between neighbors and ends with us wondering if one the neighbors dies. “The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby” involves a shopkeeper who kills his henpecking wife for her insurance money to keep his business afloat. He hopes to continue funding his failing business by marrying a rich widow only to find himself trapped by his own scheming. “Fool’s Mate” is one of the cleverest depictions of a man’s personality splitting apart when he invents a new persona of himself to play chess with. “The House Party” is about a man doomed to relive the most angst-ridden hour of his life. I found another writing role model in Ellin and his skills as a storyteller gives me something else to shoot for.

That is 2024 in an expansive nutshell. Things are a bit rough at the moment, but I also feel a lot of hope for the future. My family and I will overcome our current struggles, face new ones, and overcome those too. It also helps to have books along the way. They are companions that never let me down.


Written by Nicholas Montelongo

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