A review by litwrite
A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli
4.0
If you had sunstroke and were laid up in a makeshift shack in the middle of the steamy, Louisiana swamp, I would imagine that the nightmarish dreams of your fevered mind would take form similar to the plotline of Tom Piccirilli's A Choir of Ill Children. This is not your Mother's 'Southern Gothic' tale - this is definitely dark, and horrific, but still poetic and beautiful in its own right.
You can definitely see the roots of his work here in William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor - two of the Southern Gothic greats, but I see the most similarity here with the earlier works of another great dark Southern Gothic practitioner, the great Cormac McCarthy. I was especially reminded of [b:Child of God|293625|Child of God|Cormac McCarthy|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320509467s/293625.jpg|389945], and to some extent, [b:Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West|394535|Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West|Cormac McCarthy|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1335231647s/394535.jpg|1065465], two very dark books that cross that line between horror genre and that elusive label of 'literary fiction'.
Piccirilli really pulls out all the stops here of the Southern Gothic horror tropes - inbred, deformed family members (in the form of conjoined triplets that are attached together by the same frontal lobe), underaged nymphets, and dark family secrets. There is definitely a dreamlike quality to the language and the book that draws you in and makes you feel somewhat suffocated at the same time which I think really worked for the story and the subject matter. While I usually complain about loose ends in a novel, I think in this one the (few) loose ends that were not completely tied up felt somewhat justified in the book and didn't leave me feel lacking. This was a strong, amazing book to start out my yearly October Halloween Spookathon, I'd easily recommend it to those who enjoy horror and are looking for something more challenging and different.
You can definitely see the roots of his work here in William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor - two of the Southern Gothic greats, but I see the most similarity here with the earlier works of another great dark Southern Gothic practitioner, the great Cormac McCarthy. I was especially reminded of [b:Child of God|293625|Child of God|Cormac McCarthy|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320509467s/293625.jpg|389945], and to some extent, [b:Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West|394535|Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West|Cormac McCarthy|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1335231647s/394535.jpg|1065465], two very dark books that cross that line between horror genre and that elusive label of 'literary fiction'.
Piccirilli really pulls out all the stops here of the Southern Gothic horror tropes - inbred, deformed family members (in the form of conjoined triplets that are attached together by the same frontal lobe), underaged nymphets, and dark family secrets. There is definitely a dreamlike quality to the language and the book that draws you in and makes you feel somewhat suffocated at the same time which I think really worked for the story and the subject matter. While I usually complain about loose ends in a novel, I think in this one the (few) loose ends that were not completely tied up felt somewhat justified in the book and didn't leave me feel lacking. This was a strong, amazing book to start out my yearly October Halloween Spookathon, I'd easily recommend it to those who enjoy horror and are looking for something more challenging and different.