A New Favorite Author and "Shadow Tag"

I read some of Louise Erdrich's work in college and really liked her, so when I saw one of her novels at a used book store, it seemed logical to pick it up. Erdrich is part Native American, and her narratives always somehow involved the culture, whether it's a main focus or just subtly woven into the text as background. Her writing is beautiful, like poetry, her characters are hauntingly real, and the story is absolutely alluring, laced with humor and tragedy.
     Readers get a shockingly authentic view into a marriage that's clearly over, but Irene (the model wife) and Gil (the famous artist husband) aren't able to accept or confront what's right in front of them, using their obsession with each other as a form of denial. Irene ignores her husband's abuse-- towards her and towards their three children-- partly because of her dependence on alcohol. But the misery is countered by endearing moments that are falsely optimistic. Throughout the narrative, the children's disconnect with their parents and the traumatic effects of their parents' ruthless battles become more and more evident, and Irene's blindness to it just furthers a poignant insight that the daughter leaves readers with at the end (but I can't give away those words, because they'd give away too much of the ending).
Through the writer's tight focus on the family's grim drama, the doom and humor is conveyed in a way that make this novel completely tragic and beautiful, and easily made Erdrich one of my favorite writers.

Terrifying fiction: "The Shining" by Stephen King

This is another one of those novels that's also an iconic movie, so most people are already aware of it in one form or another. But it's also the typical case of the book being even better than the movie, if you can believe that. There are things that happen in the book that really wouldn't translate well into film, so those things are totally absent from the film adaptation. Don't get me wrong, I love the movie and I've watched it about a thousand times, but the book is even more chilling, more exciting, and more suspenseful. We get a little more background information on the family so it's easy to get invested, and even creepier to watch the father's descent into murderous insanity. We're also given a bit extra insight and detail about Danny's telepathic abilities, so it makes sense in a whole different way and plays a more significant role than the movie portrays.
     Before I read this, I didn't think it was really possible for a book to be scary. It's just a book, right? No big deal. But this one had me jumping at every little noise, locking the front door, and leaving the lights on all night. It's not just good because it's scary, it's good because the writing is good, the characters are genuine, and the story is a nuanced ghost story/ tale of insanity that readers had never seen until King released his third book to the world.