Book Review: Man on the Ceiling

Man on the Ceiling, The (Discoveries) by Steve Rasnic Tem
Surreal to the point of near trippy-ness and yet very realistic, this fictionalized account of real events ("everything we're telling you here is true") grips the reader at a gut level. Any person who can even imagine having children will find this horrifying novel difficult to set aside. “The Man on the Ceiling” is the story of parents who having lost a child (exact reasons unknown) struggle to deal with the aftermath of emotions and delusions that flow from the sudden and horrible loss of a loved one. While, to some, the effects they use may seem overdone and overwrought, for anyone who has suffered a loss like this it will all seem oh so real. The pain from this sort of death can cause those left behind to not exactly lose touch with reality, but rather to find the “real” less tangible than desolation of their own emotional landscape… one becomes lost in an internal war zone of obvious and hidden dangers. For most people this “other” world can take a long time to (mostly) escape from, others may never even make the beginning steps to heal this tragedy. “The Man on the Ceiling” is labeled as a horror novel and it is in the sense that it attempts to capture one of life’s most horrifying events, the loss of a person one loves deeply.

Jane Austen was Never Funnier

Northanger Abby by Jane Austen
Northanger Abby is my favorite Austen novel. It’s possible that I feel such affection for it because it was my first Austen novel, but I don’t believe that is the case. I love it because it not only has Austen’s trade mark satire of society and manners, it also contains some of the most lighthearted characters of all of her books. Catherine (the main character) is a very silly young lady with a ridiculously over blown imagination and her love of Gothic novels fuels her dramatic fantasies. (As I read this book I couldn’t help but think of comparisons between the idea that these Gothic novels caused young ladies to have overwrought imaginations and the perception that television is corrupting our youth. It seems the concept of media as corrupting just keeps coming back.)

In the end however, Catherine’s daydreams aren’t all a mistake. She is sought after by a man with less than good intentions (her brother receives the same treatment from a woman) and the man she loves does have what seems a dark secret.

All in all I found this the funniest and most directly enjoyable of all of Austen’s novels. I also consider this one of my all time favorite books.