American Monsters (2011)
Before I start talking about AMERICAN MONSTERS I’d like to give you a statement of full-disclosure: Author Sezin Koehler is a friend of both AnythingHorror.com and a friend of mine personally. No we’ve never met or even been on the same continent since we’ve met online, but Koehler has been very supportive of AnythingHorror.com and of me starting up my writing career and has even contributed to my website (she wrote a fantastic article on the FRIDAY THE 13TH franchise and on Jason Voorhees. See them here and here). I wanted to get this outta the way up front because I didn’t want you to read my review of AMERICAN MONSTERS and then discover that Koehler was a guest writer on this site, thereby minimizing my review to simple nepotism and dismissing my review altogether. That would be a shame; Koehler’s AMERICAN MONSTERS is an extremely important work in … wait for it … feminism and the horror genre. Wait, what? Has Anything Horror Scott lost his ever-loving, fucking mind? Nope. Read on.
Koehler’s book is divided into two sections. A fiction and a nonfiction section. This is a pretty daring and, let’s face it, ballsy thing to do. Within the fiction section we get some chapters written in traditional narrative and some written in script format. Sure maybe someone like Stephen King could get away with this, but a new author? Reading the first part of the book, the ‘fiction’ part, was an odd experience. We get a lot of colourful and bizarre characters (a lot), but the action of the story seems … well, it seems rather violent and nasty, and not in a fun way. There’s a lot of rape and viciousness in Koehler’s fiction, but it feels as though it’s not coming from a “good place.” It felt like it was coming from a very dark and overly aggressive place on the part of the author. This was not the Koehler I knew. Some parts of the fiction are tough to read and you can feel a depth of hatred and violence and aggression that makes you very uncomfortable reading it.
And then you get to the nonfiction part of the book and start reading her essay, “The Night the Sky Opened Up: The Murder of Wendy Soltero,” and everything suddenly makes sense. When Koehler was attending university in Los Angeles, she experienced a life-altering, near-death experience that forever changed her. Her best friend, Wendy Soltero, was shot and killed inches away from her during a car-jacking. The experience left Koehler scared, depressed, shell-shocked, and at times unconsolable. This essay was Koehler describing that incident and how it impacted her life since. I’ve never read such a brutally honest, soul-exposing essay. Koehler completely bares herself and let’s us, the reader, into some very personal and private places. “The Night the Sky Opened Up” is a beautifully written essay that will have you tearing up and going through the same emotional ride Koehler went through.
Author Sezin Koehler
It’s in this essay that we learn she wrote the fiction (found in the first part of AMERICAN MONSTERS) during this very emotional and difficult time in her life. Now we’re getting somewhere. She was lashing out at the real life violence she experienced by writing some uber-violent fiction. Part One of AMERICAN MONSTERS is essentially experiencing Koehler’s coming to grips with that violent act she was witness too. “The Succubi Sideshow” and “The Phantastic Carnival” served as a cathartic effect for Koehler.
After we get through this haunting and emotional essay we then get to a few really amazing essays. “The Compiler: On Truth and Synchronicity” Koehler asks the question, “How does a woman write horror?” Koehler has some incredible insights and opens a wonderful dialogue on the role of women in the horror genre. Her analysis of bleeding as perceived by the genders is amazing. To sum up, to a man, bleeding is the result of some kind of violent intrusion against the body that causes pain and possibly death. To a woman bleeding is something that affirms her life as a life-giver and which happens naturally every month.
Then in “What Horror Means – An Essay,” Koehler examines Stephen King’s THE SHINING to argue
“[T]hat horror is gendered, and the horrific is gendered female. It is representative of the misogyny of American culture that exploits, abuses, disrespects, and as both cause and result, fears women and their bodies.”
This is pretty deep stuff and since I completed my degree in philosophy I haven’t read anything like this in a long time. But it’s also pretty damn entertaining. She references current horror films and TV shows to make her points (although I disagree with her summary of TWIN PEAKS), and she definitely makes her mark in the canon of feminist thinking. There were times I thought I was reading Camile Pagila, and I mean that in the best possible way!!
Koehler’s AMERICAN MONSTERS is a unique book that is more of an exploration of the author than anything else. To be honest, her fiction didn’t grab me on it’s own, but putting it in the bigger context of it being a therapeutical, cathartic exercise makes it an interesting read. Koehler’s strength lies in her essays and her exploration of both herself and her feminist thinking. Ultimately AMERICAN MONSTERS is a testament to her strength and shows what a strong woman she is to overcome such a horrible event in her life. Check out AMERICAN MONSTERS and see where women fit into the horror genre.
You can check out AMERICAN MONSTERS at Koehler’s website, http://www.americanmonsters.org.
My Summary:
Author: Sezin Koehler
Plot: 4 out of 5 stars for the nonfiction; 2 out of 5 stars for the fiction
Gore: 5.5 out of 10 skulls (lots of violence)
Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains
Reviewed by Scott Shoyer
Scott!
Wow! Thank you so much for this very thoughtful review of American Monsters! Indeed this book was more of a trauma purging than a novel…but I do promise that its sequel will be a far more traditional narrative. Looking back I should have started out that way, but hey I was never one to take the easy route.
I’m also glad that we are mostly in agreement about my theories of women and horror…I’d love to hear more on your thoughts about Twin Peaks and where you and I diverge!
If people are interested in the novel they can check out our new website at http://www.AmericanMonsters.org and actually I hope that the print version will be available sometime before Christmas. I’ll keep you posted!
Thanks again, Scott! I really enjoyed reading this review!
Cheers,
Sezin
Please do keep us posted!! About TWIN PEAKS (spoiler alert ahead): it seems that most people leave out an important fact about Laura Palmer’s murderer. Yes it was her father who was raping her & ultimately killed her, BUT Leland was possessed by an evil spirit from the Black Lodge. It was Leland’s body, but he wasn’t in control when “Bob” had control of him. Leland was aware of what was happening but couldn’t control Bob anymore than Regan could control the demon in her in THE EXORCIST.
I will indeed! Thanks, Scott!
That’s a good point about Twin Peaks. However, if you “read” the show the way I have, as a metaphor for American society and women’s place within it, then it becomes a convenient excuse to say that a father abusing his child was merely possessed and thus not responsible for his actions. As we hear weekly, sexual abuse, in and outside the home, happens in America and taking the Joe Paterno scandal as an example, people like to find all kinds of excuses to let the perpetrators get away with it.
That said, within the fictional narrative of Twin Peaks you are right, it was “BOB” doing the abusing, not Leland. To this day I cannot see Ray Wise without shuddering and getting a sick feeling in my stomach. Now that is some powerful filmmaking!
I’m the same way about seeing Ray Wise!! LOL But I’m always hesitant to read too much into a film (or even a book for that matter). TWIN PEAKS is first and foremost a fictional work that was made for TV (translation: for the masses) and was meant to entertain. I totally see where you’re going with your interpretation, but TWIN PEAKS was also meant to have that supernatural, Lynch-ian dimension to it.
That’s my 2 cents!! Lol