A very cool, very creepy book. More unsettling than scary with a lot of story crammed into the less than two hundred and fifty pages. I read The Light is the Darkness years ago and loved it so i don't know why it has taken me so long to get into something else of his. Look, I was confused as hell in the beginning and actually thought it was kind of boring until the veil was parted and the author gave me glimpses of what was "really" happening. As with most of the cosmically themed horror novels

Don Miller has been married to his wife Michelle for 60 years and has been in the dark as to what goes on on her mysterious trips most of the time, beginning with a trip of theirs to Mexico decades ago that saw him beaten, scared, and out of his mind. What has she really been up to all these years and will Don survive the knowledge if he ever uncovers it?Benoit Lelièvre of Dead End Follies has been singing the praises of Laird Barron for the last couple years. When this popped up on the cheap, I...

WOW! Review to follow, after I can get my thoughts straight.....In the meantime, READ THIS BOOK. :)Okay....THE CRONING, by Laird Barron is quite possibly the most hauntingly, beautiful novel I have read all year. I would consider this work "literary-horror" at its absolute finest.We begin Chapter One with a "different" version of the Rumpilstiltskin fairy tale that we learned as children.The adult version, undiluted. ". . . There are frightful things, Groom. Time is a ring . . . We who crawl

I thought if I waited a few days, I would have the time to give this book the review it deserves, but I was wrong. It deserves something though, so here it is: I think this book was outstanding. The prose, the imagery, even the vivid retelling of an old fairy tale-all converged to produce this "out of this world" novel.It's literary, it's scary, it's darkly beautiful. You should read it. That is all.

Laird Barron made me gain five pounds.No, he didn’t hold me down and shovel deep fried butter wedges into my gaping yapper (although, dare to dream). What he did was write a colossal piece of fiction that was nearly impossible to put down, even at the gym, where I do much of my reading every morning. As I hazily recall, just before cracking open Barron’s debut novel The Croning some weeks back, I marched my happy ass off to the local garishly lit LA Fitness, eager to absorb a few pages in betwee...

"But I'll tell you something right now. I know Edgar and that wasn't Edgar. It's like something was wearing Edgar. Like a... like a suit. An Edgar suit."Ah, obviously that wasn't from the book. It's MEN IN BLACK. But I thought it was rather appropriate. So, I friend-read this with Dan 2.0. We are trying to read spooky books for October. Previously we had read Bone White together with Erin. Yay!So... this book. Don Miller might be (view spoiler)[married to a Satanist. Or perhaps to a demon itself...

Okayyy. *deep breath* This could be a bumpy ride ...A number of people whose opinions I greatly respect loved The Croning. They point to its impeccable prose, its incredible imagery, and the darkness that readily gets under the reader's skin. Which is to say, they summarise The Croning as true literary horror. And I agree with them. Precisely 25% of the way.The first 15% of Laird Barron's first full novel drew me in expertly. Starting with the "true" version of an old fairy tale, it then moved o...

Having finally sat down to write this review of The Croning by Laird Barron, I find myself still with something of a conundrum. Having spent a couple of weeks mulling over what rating to award this novel, I'm still currently struggling to reach a decision.Here's the thing: The Croning is a very good book. A very, very good book...but still, it isn't without problems.Don and Michelle (Mock) Miller are educated professional types now headed towards the twilight (no, thankfully not that twilight!)

Updated review after a re-read in March 2020.--“The deepest cavern in the world is the human heart.”Don Miller is missing some memories. Now that he is about to celebrate his sixtieth wedding anniversary, people shrug it off as an early onset of senility, but these blanks started a long time ago, before old age could be considered a factor of memory loss. It doesn’t bother his beloved wife Michelle, but then, she is pretty unflappable: a world-famous anthropologist, she still travels the world t...

". . . all serve the Great Dark, each in his or her own way; some with enthusiasm, some with reluctance; but completely and without mercy. Our cult is monolithic with tentacles in every human enterprise throughout history, into prehistory."Well . . . okay, then.Laird Barron knows what scares you: dark cellars, scratching sounds from under the bed, and nervous dogs growling at unseen things. This one made the hairs stand up on my forearms, even though I was reading it in the daytime. I'll be divi...

Note: I received an ARC copy of The Croning. It’s rare that I read a book and think to myself, I could never have written this. Call it hubris, pride if you will. It just doesn’t happen.I could never have written Laird Barron’s The Croning, and I consider that the ultimate compliment. I’m a naturally optimistic guy, and it shows in my writing. I like keeping hope alive, and so even when I write horror, it tends to have a hopeful tone. The Croning is not hopeful. It is not sunny. It’s dark man,

This is my first Laird Barron and it will not be my last. In fact, I'm very excited to grab anything else he's written for all kinds of reasons: beautiful prose, a creepy old-school horror mastery that straddles the lines between haunting images, idyllic life, and mind-destroying terror.Indeed, I fell down the rabbit hole of this fantastic exploration of an *obviously* wrong interpretation of the Hollow Earth theory. I got caught up trying to piece together the many different time periods, the c...

The Croning, aka How I learned to Stop Worrying and Accept that My Wife was Worshiping An Eldritch Abomination

As a caveat to this overly long review... full disclosure...I have an odd aversion to horror fiction in the long form. Hard to say why, but my preference in my weird fiction is for the short form, and to say that Laird Barron excels at this length is mildly understating it... the man is a modern master of the cosmic horror short story. Not to prattle on too much, but while I was of course very excited to hear about Barron's debut release of his first novel, my initial thoughts were: NOOOOOO!!! D...

Initial Review Before I Was Able To Gather My Thoughts:This is the best book I've read in years. I'm in awe of Laird Barron. My friends who have this marked as to-read, move it up your list for lord's sake. I'll try to write a more comprehensive review at a later time but for now I'm just going to let it all sink in.REAL Review: I finished The Croning two days ago and I am still thinking about the epic scope and terror this novel is packing. Cosmic horror never has really scared me. Lovecraft ne...

Like straw into gold, Barron spins words into a palpable darkness, weaving a tapestry of old gods and modern madness in this masterful work of literary horror. From it's horrific re-imagining of Rumpelstiltskin that out-grims the Brothers Grimm, the story unravels with the logic of a nightmare, as a forgotten evil reaches out from the dim past into the present day. Barron brings an unspeakable allure to horror, creating a beautiful dark gem, it's facets beckoning us with the cold caress of fear

My first read of Laird Barron, and I can guarantee I'll be lining up more. What seems to be a popular motif at the moment (until the bandwagon tips over), Barron gives his take on a classic fairly tale, modernizes it, and makes it oh-so-enjoyably full of dread.I am convinced this story was inspired by the poet and apparent knight, Sir Mix-A-Lot, when he opined: "ooh, rumple smooth skin. You say you wanna get in my Benz?" Yes, Rumplesmooth... ahem... Rumpelstiltskin provides little more than an a...

The Croning is a perfectly horrible book, and I mean that in high compliment. It's rare that a horror story actually scares me these days (and more's the pity), but Barron's first novel is wrong in all the right ways, leaving behind a caul of unease, and a wicked dose of the cosmic heebie-jeebies. (I'm thrilled to admit that when I finished it last night, I left the lights on.) Also? Un-put-downable. The Croning sustains the poisonous adrenaline level of one of Barron's short stories over almost...

Book Info: Genre: Horror Reading Level: Adult Read: started 5/17/12; re-started 5/20/12 and finished 5/21/12Disclosure: I received a free eGalley (eBook ARC) from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.Oops, forgot to rate this!Synopsis: Strange things exist on the periphery of our existence, haunting us from the darkness looming beyond our firelight. Black magic, weird cults and worse things loom in the shadows. The Children of Old Leech have been with us from time immemorial. And they love...

I am literally counting the days until this comes out; Laird Barron is easily the greatest US writer of weird fiction since Ligotti and his first novel is a cause for celebration. I haven't been this excited about a book in a long time.