"The Wrong Jason Brown"

I read a lot of essays. Books of essays from authors I like, the Best American Series every year, and recently the Best of the 20th Century. Read The New Yorker, Esquire, The Believer, Harper's, The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, so forth. I read hundreds of essays a year, minimum. 

“The Wrong Jason Brown” is one of the best.  By a guy named Jason Brown, obviously. He won a Stegner fellowship, the prestigious two-year writing program at Stanford. He is the author of three books of short stories—Driving the Heart and Other Stories, Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work: Stories, and A Faithful But Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed: A Novel in Stories. 

“The Wrong Jason Brown” stands out as being one of the most memorable things I’ve read. Probably my favorite essay of all time, honestly. It blew my mind. Reminded me of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son. 

Incredible work. That’s said, if I knew what it was about, I wouldnt have read it. Masterfully done to ease you into this world. Not gonna spoil it. Just gonna encourage you to read it.  

The Presidents: 250 Years of American Political Leadership – Iain Dale

For Presidents' Day, figured I'd get to writing about the book on the gentlemen who have held the office I read earlier this month. I read about each of them, even the completely forgotten and/or terrible ones. Super interesting. All of them. Also, most of them were real pricks. 

Format of the book is each president gets an essay. Writers are academics, historians, journalists, and politicians. They were all carefully chosen based on expert knowledge of their subjects. The book goes through each of the presidents' achievements, influence, their lasting legacy, and how they were perceived in their own lifetimes. 

I am trying to put my political biases aside when looking at those I think are underrated, overrated, and those I think are truly great.

First off, the ranking systems I am looking at are the Siena Presidential Expert Poll and the C-Span Survey of Presidential Leadership. There are lots of others out there, but none of those get the respect or publicity of these two. 

Siena's been putting it's survey out since 1982. In total, they've published seven. Each has come out during the second year of the first term of each president since Ronald Reagan – 1982, 1990, 1994, 2002, 2010, 2018, and 2022. The rankings are based on surveys collected from historians, political scientists, and presidential scholars. The surveys judge the Presidents on attributes, abilities, and accomplishments. The Siena poll is more along with my rankings. 

The most recent C-Span survey, published in 2021, questioned 142 presidential historians and biographers. The questions consist of rankings based on effectiveness for ten categories. They are Public Persuasion, Crisis Leadership, Economic Management, Moral Authority, International Relations, Administrative Skills, Relations with Congress, Vision/Setting An Agenda, Pursued Equal Justice for All, and Performance Within the Context of His Times. 

In the 2022 Siena survey, the top five, which are unchanged from the 2018 version, were FDR, Lincoln, Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, and Jefferson. According to the C-SPAN survey, the five highest rated presidents are Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Rounding out the top ten are Eisenhower, Truman, LBJ, Kennedy, and Madison. This is the first time LBJ has entered the top ten, very much deserved by the by. 

Of the Presidents in my lifetime, from most recent. Biden ranks 19. Trump 43. Obama 11, up from 17. I think that will be much higher in the future. W comes in at 35. He has been all over the place but always in the bottom half. Started at 23 just a year after 9/11. Went down to 39 in 2010 whilst we were still in the financial crisis him, and the Republicans caused and with Katrina still fresh in everyone's minds, before moving up to 33 in 2018. Clinton, who has always been in the teens, comes in at 14. H.W. at 20. And Reagan dropped from 13 to 18. Still way too overrated.

The worst five, also unchanged from the 2018 survey, are Andrew Johnson, Buchanan, Trump, Harding, and Pierce. Those seem about right.

For C-Span, the top ten are Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Teddy, Eisenhower, Truman, Jeffereson, JFK, Reagan, and Obama. The bottom five are William Henry Harrison, Donald Trump, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan.

My top four are pretty firm. That list is FDR, Lincoln, Washington, and Truman. Fifth would probably be Obama or LBJ, though Teddy, Wilson, and both the Adamses were pretty strong as well. If I really had to choose though, I'd go with Obama as he didn't have something he really screwed up with like the others. But LBJ is easily the most underrated President. If we are just looking at the good, I'm putting him at fourth.

Each of my presidents in the top four faced significant existential challenges related to the nation’s survival. One and two are Lincoln and FDR. No question. The three defining crises for American were the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II. These two knocked that shit out of the park. Lincoln kept the country from breaking apart. He also ended slavery. Dude is practically a saint. 

FDR did more for economic justice than any other president. The only one that comes close is LBJ, one of the reasons why he ranks so highly on my list. Came in at the worst of the Great Depression, telling Americans "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Then he made lasting policy that dug us out of the shit. And Republicans still try to dismantle his legacy. 

This is why I think the C-Span poll is shit. Any poll that doesn't have Lincoln or FDR at the top is a masturbatory. Also, having Reagan in the top ten is a complete joke. 

Conservative "greatness"

Which brings me to the overrated. First up, Reagan. The Gipper. Revered by Republicans as all except Ike and H.W. in their lifetimes have been complete shit shows. He gets undeserved credit for ending the Cold War and jumpstarting the economy. His major achievement was trickle-down which is bullshit that didn't work, and Republicans are still grifting us on. Meanwhile, dude repeatedly caved to terrorist and fucking supplied them, i.e. our enemies, with weapons, and supported the violent overthrow of the democratically elected Nicaraguan government by supporting “freedom fighters,” i.e. Contras. His administration was the most corrupt in U.S. history up until Trump with well over 100 administration officials, including several cabinet members, being investigated, indicted, or convicted of crimes. Many of them were pardoned by Reagan or Bush before they could even stand trial, which was a hell of president. He tripled the national debt in his eight years, making him third worst. The two ahead of him, FDR and Wilson, had world wars that drove their totals up. Reagan had peace. He also completely ignored the AIDS epidemic, continued to give Saddam fucking Hussein weapons despite his many atrocities like using chemical weapons to kill 5,000 plus Kurdish civilians, and vetoed the Comprehensive Apartheid Act against South African in 1986 that would have levied economic sanctions. This is just some of his bullshit. Fuck that guy.

Second, JFK. Rates high for his public speaking skills and vision. Masturbatory bullshit. He did defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis and promise to put a man on the moon. But the Cold War raged on and the most the moon stuff happened under LBJ and Nixon. These are the big two. 

Now underrated. Gonna start with Obama. He not only provided the country with an incredibly important health care initiative—something that presidents have been trying to do for almost 100 years—he also got us out of a crisis that was deeper than the Great Depression when the stock market crashed in 1929. What we were experiencing right before he took office was worse than what FDR had to deal with, and he pulled us the fuck out. How the fuck is he so tremendously underrated? I guess that is what he gets for pointing out that Republican economic policies are shit and being black. Thanks Obama! 

Second, LBJ, mostly for his pursuit of equal justice for all Americans. Took office after JFK was assassinated and greatly surpassed his predecessor. He enacted the landmark Civil Rights Act. He urged the country "to build a Great Society, a place where the meaning of man's life matches the marvels of man's labor," which became his agenda. This resulted in Medicare for the elderly, increased aid for education, and anti-poverty programs. Dude was a legend. 

This guy has been around

But then he also gave us Vietnam. He was also pretty disgusting. Made cabinet members take meetings with him while he was on the shitter, and he was fond of taking dudes who tested him to the bathroom while he pissed and turning to zip up to show off his apparently massive unit. 

But let's look at the good. Born legit poor, he started out teaching at an extremely poor, segregated Mexican-American high school, which he took pride in and made him sympathetic to racial issues. 

In 1965, after signing the Higher Education Act of 1965, Johnson said:

“I shall never forget the faces of the boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American.”

After teaching for a little while, in 1931 he was appointed to legislative secretary for one Richard M. Kleberg after winning a special election to represent Texas in the United States House of Representatives. A staunch supporter of the New Deal, he was bounced around to various positions culminating in an appointment to head the Texas National Youth Administration in 1935. This enabled him to use the government to create education and job opportunities for young people. 

This eventually led to him getting elected to the House in 1937, where he served until 1949, even taking on active military service during WWII. From there he went to the Senate from 1949 to 1961. While there he became Majority Whip, then Chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus, Minority Leader, Majority Leader, Vice President, and finally President. Incredible. 

One anecdote I loved that was not in the book that I heard about him was immediately after he left office he began smoking to everyone around him's shock. He suffered a near fatal heart attack at age 47. He was a heavy drinker, smoked 60 cigarettes a day, and never worked out. He quit for the next 15 years. Once he lit up that first time, his wife and daughter were like, what the fuck. He said something along the lines of, “I've given my life to my family and public service. The rest of my life is mine to do with as I want.” Now chain-smoking again, he said "I'm an old man, so what's the difference? I've been to the Mayo Clinic twice and the doctors tell me there is nothing they can do for me. My body is just aging in its own way. That's it. And I always loved cigarettes, missed them every day since I quit. Anyway, I don't want to linger the way Eisenhower did. When I go, I want to go fast." Right on. You can read about that time of his life in this Atlantic article from 1973. 

Next we have the Adamses. The elder, the nation's second president, known for his integrity; he deftly dealt with growing hostilities with France. We never went to war because he negotiated a peace deal. He was also opposed to slavery, as was his son, who had the misfortune of the first great recession. He His served during a time with a contentious Congress with great division. However, he fought for civil liberties and the unification of the country. But ended up losing to that fucker Jackson. 

Lastly, I'm going to mention Wilson. Dude had a strong vision for the country and moved many pieces of important legislation through Congress. He also convinced Congress in 1917 that America could no longer remain neutral in World War I. However, like Teddy Roosevelt, dude was incredibly racist and made the lives of black people much worse, basically turning a blind eye to lynching and watching Birth of a Nation in the White House. 

Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor

While I've read and loved every word of Flannery O'Connor's short fiction, I have yet to tackle either of her novels. About time I changed that. Loved it, but maybe less than her short stories (she is one of my three favorite short story writers with Hemingway and George Saunders). Hard to say as she knocks everything out of the park. Crazy about her work. 

Gist is protagonist Hazel Motes returns home to a fictionalized southern city following World War II with an unspecified war wound that has left him disabled. The grandson of a preacher, he never bought into salvation and has some theories on original sin. An avowed atheist living off his pension, Motes spreads a gospel of anti-religion. His ministry, the product of a life-long crisis of faith and the potential horrors he experienced in war, is based on his knowledge of theological issues. It forms a compelling argument, but dude has no charisma and finds it difficult to convert any would-be disciples. 

Favorite scene is when the character Enoch shakes hands with a “gorilla” to get free entry into the theater. It is obviously a guy in a gorilla suit, but dude thinks it is real and starts talking to him, telling him how he enjoys his monkey business or whatever. Finally, the guy tells him to fuck himself. 

I love O’Connor’s ironic humor and meditations on religion. As a devout catholic, O'Connor isn't afraid to be critical of faith in the South. 

For example, though he is a committed atheist, Motes sees his becoming a traveling preacher like his grandfather as unavoidable, part of his destiny. “There was already a deep black wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin,” O'Connor writes. “He knew by the time he was twelve years old that he was going to be a preacher.”

With his unconventional doctrine, that there is no truth to be found through faith, there is only what can be seen. “'There’s only one truth and that is that there’s no truth,’ he called. ‘No truth behind all truths is what I and this church preach! Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place.'”

However, he uses a conventional religious format to preach against the bullshit that people are “unclean” and can only be redeemed through Jesus. In the end, though, he sees himself as being “unclean” and blinds himself as a type of penance. In my interpretation, this is for giving in to his destiny and being an utter failure, unable to make others see the truth. Worse, the characters Asa Hawks and Hoover Shoats use his religion of truth to grift the people Hazel is trying to reach. His blinding suggests that this is also bullshit. There is no truth. 

Unappreciated when it was published in the 1950s, it definitely deserved its place on The Guardian's list of 100 greatest novels. Should be required reading for students of English lit. It's shameful it never crossed my path as a student. She and Faulkner are the undisputed masters of Southern literature, IMO.

Wait, Elon Musk really Tweeted that?

First time I've accidentally been on Twitter in close to 10 years. I see this immediately. I checked it like 7 times to ensure it wasn’t a spoof account or something. It’s legit.  

While this is an absolutely stellar one-of-one tweet, I’m gonna call this take an unforced error. The dude who owns the hot takes company put that hot take out into the world.  

I really dislike that he’s taking up brain space. I feel like we shouldn’t even know who this guy is.

I don't how Elon Musk is considered a genius. Dude is basically smart enough to be born white and rich in apartheid South Africa and make money off of established companies by throwing money at them (PayPal, Tesla). 

Fingers crossed that that shit stops here as it looks like it might. But rich guys like this never really go away without major scandle. Now, maybe not even that. 

Real great checking in. Adios, muchacho. See you in another decade if we’re both still around. What a time to be alive 

Shallow Grave - Danny Boyle - 1994

★★★ - Another dar comedy crime flick. This one British. Directed by Danny Boyle, of Trainspotting fame, in his debut. Stars a young Ewan McGregor, a guy I don't recognize named Christopher Eccleston, and a mom type, probably in her late 20s, named Kerry Fox. 

Gist is a group of three roomies (flatmates) in Edinburgh look for a fourth, eventually finding some guy cool enough for them who's got cash. On his first night in the house, the mysterious new tenant dies. The group finds a suitcase full of money and decide not to call the police, opting to dismember and bury him in the woods instead. This sets off this whole chain of events that leads to a lot of death and suffering. 

I liked it alright even though I thought the characters were pretty obnoxious. While they are interviewing potential roommates, they laugh in one guy's face and ask him if he really thought they would hang out with a boring loser like him. When he shows up later, waiting on them at a black-tie function, they recognize him and treat like shit. It's bad enough that he and the other waiters end up beating Ewan McGregor's character. When they get what's coming to them, you really don't mind, is what I'm trying to say. 

Film is really a contemporary morality tale. It reminds me of “The Pardoner's Tale” from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, easily my favorite tale. If you're interested, the Pardoner sets the tale up by talking about how he sells indulgences for the Catholic Church and how it's all bullshit. He then tries to sell them pardons, which pisses everyone off, then proceeds to tell the most overtly moral tale of them all. 

Spoilers for this 600 year old plus tale. The tale involves three dudes who want to kill Death. They find an old guy under a tree who says he saw Death over by a tree. At the tree they find a treasure. They are going to carry out in the middle of the night, so no one sees them. But they don't want to go hungry or be sober, so they send one to bring back provisions. While that dude is gone, they decide to kill him as soon as he gets back. After they do the deed, they now only have to split it two ways and, hell, with all this food and wine, might as celebrate. That shit is poisoned. So, in the end, they all find Death. While this movie isn't all that bleak, it is pretty fucking bleak. Also, the theme, not exactly a new one, is “Radix malorum est cupiditas,” Latin for “The love of money is the root of all evil”—from the Book of Timothy.

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway's first novel from 1926. Meh. Expats living in Paris who go to Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and then later their slaughter. Bullfighting is, of course, the worst “sport” of all time (maybe except for gladiator fighting or American football). 

A modernist staple, I read this in high school. Hated it then. Hate it now. Based on people in Hemingway's "friends" going to Spain in 1925. Recounts their drinking, fighting, fucking. Shallow bullshit. The book is too long for such vapid dick-tickling. 

I vaguely remember talk of the whole point of the book being that these are young people of a "lost generation” not really knowing what to do with their lives. The novel then recounts something of a diversion for these moody, aimless sorts. Having reread it as an adult who has critically read a thousand or so books, I feel that is a cop-out. This was what he knew and fell into. The whole man-coming-home-from-war to a peaceful life with all the shit bubbling under the surface. These themes are better developed in his shorter work, in my opinion. So is his style, for that matter. 

I know the meditations on life and death are extremely moving and thought-provoking to some. However, it didn't move shit for me. "The few unsad young men of this lost generation will have to look for another way of finding themselves than the one indicated here," John Dos Passos said. That was a friend of Hemingway's. I'd rather read Camus, Joyce, or Kafka from that period. 

I find Hemingway to be the idol of masculine males I strongly dislike. Hunting, bullfighting, racist, antisemitic, meat-obsessed, sloppy drunk. What's not to love, am-I-right? Personally, I hate all of those things and anyone who imitates Hemingway in those beliefs. He is an embarrassing cliché of a dead white male firmly on the losing side of history.

All that said, there are things I really dig about Hemingway and his writing. He was a dog and cat lover. He wrote standing up and fucking lived. I believe his short stories are some of the best ever (though I may need to revisit them). “50 Grand” is probably my favorite. About a washed-up boxer who puts everything on his opponent. Gets punched in the balls. If he goes down, he wins the fight but loses everything. Stays up and nails the other guy in the nuts, giving the guy the win. I can think of no more appropriate metaphor for Papa's bullshit than this. It is fantastic. Plus, he is 100% my style icon. 

The most interesting part to me is the relationship between Jake and Brett. She should just be with him and have sex with dudes on the side, letting him perform cunnilingus so they can share some sexual intimacy. But Jake is Hemingway's stand-in, so I'm sure it wouldn't have worked out. 

In addition to the glorification of animal cruelty and what have you, there are a couple other things that make me hate the guy that pop up in the novel. When we read this in high school, I remember one of my classmates saying that Hemingway was obviously racist/antisemitic. Throwing the N-word and the K-word around (but also the treatment of black and Jewish people). Someone asked if that was the way it was back then. The answer is no. Yes, if you were a racist antisemite, yeah, which was more socially acceptable, but this was more than problematic even back then. 

The Robert Cohn character, who, with Bill, is probably the only person in the novel I'd hang out with. Cohn is pretty much always condescendingly called “a Jew,” save for when he's being called a “rich Jew” or “kike”. He is ostracized for being different, and we never forget that he is Jewish. “'Brett's got a bullfighter,'” the character Mike, Brett's fiance, says at one point. “'But her Jew has gone away .... Damned good thing.'” That seems to be the only real problem anyone has with him. They are annoyed by his presence. What is fucked is the character is based on a guy that Hemingway hung out with who thought of himself as Hemingway's friend. A guy named Harold Loeb, also a writer, was Hemingway's rival for the inspiration for Brett – Lady Duff Twysden.

While I'm not a Hemingway fanboy, there is greatness there. However, this is a "first novel" that's meh though it does put forth essential themes that he continues to explore. Come home from the brutality of war and keep on keeping on with your traumatized peeps. 

State of the Union - Joe Biden - 2023

Rooting against Biden tonight, was rooting against America. I know, I know. Politics are pretty much just a team sport. You’re all in for your team.

But if you’re rooting for the guys against compromise or taxing billionaires, but for eliminating Social Security, then you’re team sucks. Are you so for lower taxes for some rich asshole who wouldn’t give you the time of day that you’re willing to live in The Handmaid’s Tale? Is that what passes for smaller government these days?

Obviously, times are insane. In 2009, when that congressman yelled “you lie“ at Obama, he was officially reprimanded. Now, Marjorie Taylor Greene can just scream whatever she wants whenever she wants and no one bats an eye.

The Sarah Huckabee Sanders angry rebuttal was choice. Talking about “failed policies” while advocating for trickledown. Only fiscally conservative when a Dem is in office. Then it’s cut taxes and wait for the economy to explode. Also, “the woke left” is the new “socialist”. Basically, “don’t aspire toward education, you dumb fuck.”

Gist of the speech: Don’t fuck with entitlements that we pay into that will make our lives better, work toward comprise, cap prices on life-saving drugs, end BS fees, and give people more money for doing shit jobs. Biden basically asked Republicans to stop being assholes and they double downed on asshole.

LeBron James is the NBA's all-time leading scorer

Incredible. Everyone who has a passing interest in the NBA knows this record. LeBron, while maybe not the GOAT, is in the conversation. And this is a huge point in his favor.

Spectacularly good for so long. It’s unbelievable. Only Tom Brady compares.

All those points and his best play of all-time was a blocked shot. Just thought I’d point that out for anyone hating.

Great moment when Kareem handed the ball off to LBJ. I never thought anyone would ever break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record. No one has been close for almost 40 years. And here we are. Do not take this level of greatness for granted.

Also, what a speech. “Fuck man, thank you guys.”

One last, after killing it in his State of the Union, Biden congratulated LeBron in a sweet/endearing message. What a day to be an American.

Dark Places - Gilles Paquet-Brenner - 2015

★★★ - Picked this movie at random from the crime section of HBO Max. Forgot that I read the novel it was based on a decade or so ago. Written by Gillian Flynn, liked it less than Gone Girl and Sharp Objects (still need to read The Grownup; she has some talent, this Flynn, and I'll keep reading as she keeps writing), but still liked alright. Early on, I kept thinking it seemed familiar, realizing maybe 20 minutes in that I read it and hated the ending. Similarly, thought it was good enough to finish but needed to be better to be remembered. I'm sure I'll forget I watched this in six months. 

Gist is one Libby Day is forced to confront childhood trauma. When she was eight, her mother and two sisters were brutally murdered in their rural Kansas farmhouse. Now, 30 years later, broke, she is contacted by a group of true crime enthusiasts. Sort of the type that tries to solve old cold cases and work to bring justice to cases they feel got it wrong. Such is the circumstance with her family's murder. They believe her brother, who was convicted of the crime, is innocent. Desperate for cash, she reluctantly agrees to open the dark door of her painful past, uncovering truths about the tragic night she was unwilling to contemplate. 

In addition to themes of trauma and violence, the movie touches on issues of rural American poverty, and the 1980s Satanic panic. Director Gilles Paquet-Brenner does a good job of packing it all in. He has made a career of taking dark novels to the screen with a style that is recognizably his. What he did with the Agatha Christie mystery Crooked House, which is crazy dark, and a French movie I saw 20 years ago called Pretty Things. Pretty Things was pretty fucked. Starred Marion Cotillard from Inception and The Dark Knight Rises. It's been forgotten though I remember it fondly. 

The movie stars Charlize Theron as Libby, the lovely Christina Hendricks as the murdered mother, and Nicholas Hoult (Beast in the newer X-Men movies) as the true crime obsessive. Cast also includes Chloë Grace Moretz (the little badass girl in Kick-Ass), Corey Stoll (the bald guy from Ant-Man), and Tye Sheridan (he played Scott Summers X-Men reboots as well and was the lead in Ready Player One and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse). Stoll and Sheridan play the Ben Day part. Stoll as the older version. Sheridan as the teenaged one. 

The approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes is an abysmal 23%, firmly putting it in rotten territory. I didn't think it was that bad, though. The consensus calls it “a mediocre thriller that gets tripped up on its own twists,” which is pretty fair. However, I thought Theron was stellar, and her character was complex and interesting. While she plays the part of a victim, she doesn't fall into the tropes. 

Overall, I'd call it average. I am a sucker for the people-going-from-place-to-place-to-solve-a-mystery format, as run-of-the-mill as that is. Where the film falls apart is the ending, which feels rushed and too convenient. Gets tripped up in its own bullshit, which is what I thought of the book's conclusion, too.  

Desperate Mavs win overrated, walking distraction Kyrie Irving in trade war

Who in their right mind trades for Kyrie Irving? The Mavericks had a really good thing going, and went to desperate measures to get this guy? Things turned out great for the Cavs, Celtics, and Nets, after all. 

Obviously, dude completely torpedoed the Nets’ season with his trade request. Plus this is the type of thing that would discourage me as a GM from trading for him in the first place.

Winning basketball games isn’t exactly the only thing on his mind. He’s a clown who doesn’t help any team win and can’t keep his mouth shut about “the Jews” or the earth being flat.

With this guy, crazy things are normal; normal things are crazy. I bet he signs with someone else next season.

The Terror - Dan Simmons

Could hardly think of a book that is more my brand. Historical arctic adventuring goes horribly awry in the bleak landscape when they get stuck in the ice. They then experience starvation, scurvy, extreme temperatures, mutiny, cannibalism, and slow death. While dealing with all this, there is also a terrifying supernatural creature that stalks and kills them horribly. This is my perfect winter read.

The Terror is a 2007 novel by American author Dan Simmons that tells a fictionalized version of Captain Sir John Franklin's lost expedition, on HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, to the Arctic. The real expedition, to attempt to locate the Northwest Passage began in 1845.

There comes a point in the expedition when the water freezes around them and they have to wait to go on. Once they realize their ships aren’t going to get free from the ice in the summer of 1847, things turn extremely dark. "There would be no release from this belly of the Leviathan winter this summer. No escape from the cold belly of this ice this year."

That is when the real evil shows itself--a stalking, snow monster they call “the thing on the ice” that picks them off one by one. "To go out on the frozen sea in the dark now with that … thing … waiting in the jumble of pressure ridges and tall sastrugi was certain death.”

Historically, none of the 100-plus men survived. Not much is known about how they died. Probably a combination of starvation, hypothermia, sickness, and cannibalism. Also, research suggests that their food was improperly canned by a dishonest contractor that made it toxic from both lead poisoning and bacteria. However it went down, the Franklin expedition was one of slow death in the bleakest of landscapes.

Most of the characters were actually members of Franklin's crew. Over the years, the group’s unexplained disappearance has been the subject of a great deal of speculation. Main characters include Captain Sir John Franklin, commander of the expedition and captain of Erebus; Captain Francis Crozier, captain of Terror; Dr. Harry D. S. Goodsir; and Commander James Fitzjames.

Some of my favorite works of horror fiction either take place on an immobilized ship or in the inhospitable arctic. Works like Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket”, and Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, which all just off the top of my mind. I also read a lot of exploration/adventure books, most recently To the Edges of the Earth by Edward J. Larson about the race to the so-called three poles in 1909.

Like all of those works I mentioned The Terror is not an easy read. The copy I read was nearly 800 pages. But, like the best adventure novels, it is horrible/rewarding. As an arctic-adventure-obsessive, I love reading about this shit, though it is always difficult and traumatizing. Highly recommend if you are into that sort of thing.