American Mythology by Giano Cromley

Published by Doubleday on July 15, 2025

There have been many Bigfoot novels, primarily in the horror genre. Some are blended with comedy. At least a couple combine Bigfoot with zombies because what’s a horror novel without a zombie?  I don’t know of any Bigfoot novels that are particularly noteworthy. Devolution by Max Brooks (better known for World War Z) is reportedly the best of them. Perhaps it will be supplanted by American Mythology, a novel that doesn’t inspire much fear but at least tells an entertaining story. And the story is zombie-free, which I mark as a plus.

A book with a green leather cover holds the story together. It first appears in a Montana trapping camp in the 1850s. One by one, the campers disappear. Their disappearances are recorded in the same notebook used to record the pelts of animals the men have captured. One of the men reports seeing a creature that is “large, hair-covered, walking upright like a man.”

The book is left behind, where it is discovered by miners in 1911 and again at a logging camp in the 1930s. In both cases, people record their own impressions in the book. In both cases, people in the camp begin to disappear.

The various camps were located near Ramsey Lake, named after a cartographer who insisted that the lake should be omitted from all maps of the area. One of the cartographer’s descendants came across the book while taking his son Jute to visit the lake. Jute’s father tells him that the lake is a “thin place,” where the boundary between dimensions can be crossed. Jute thinks he sees Bigfoot on that trip, then discovers that his dad has written I hear the voice. It’s beginning. Can’t fight it anymore. in the book. His dad became crankier and disappeared when Jute was sixteen.

Jute is now an adult. Jute and his best friend, Vergil Barnes, are the only members of the Basic Bigfoot Society. They differ in their belief about the nature of Bigfoot. Vergil is an aper who subscribed to the relict hominoid theory (Bigfoot evolved as something between an ape and human) while Jute belongs to the Woo camp (Bigfoot is an interdimensional being). They have occasionally undertaken local expeditions in search of Bigfoot, but mostly they conduct meetings in the local bar. Vergil has an uncurable disease that will soon kill him, although he has concealed that truth from Jute.

Dr. Marcus Bernard is a professor of evolutionary biology who has earned modest fame by arguing for the existence of Bigfoot. For reasons involving a reduced need for extra income and a desire to retore his academic integrity, he renounces his former view that Bigfoot is an actual creature. His conversion to reality-based thinking doesn’t sit well when he announces it at a Bigfoot conference. As he explains, “Bigfoot people don’t like being confronted with reality.”

In a scene marked by remarkable and unlikely coincidence, Bernard stumbles upon the bar where Vergil and Jute are meeting while he’s searching for a hospital to treat his bleeding foot. For reasons of his own, Bernard agrees to join a new expedition in search of Jute’s dimly recalled Ramsey Lake as Bigfoot’s possible home. The location is marked on a hand-drawn map that Jute finds in his mailbox. Who drew and delivered the map? That question is part of the mystery.

Vicky Xu, a film student, wants to make a documentary as a college project. She worms her way into the expedition after finding the leatherbound book in Jute’s collection of Bigfoot evidence. Vergil’s daughter Rye rounds out the group.

The main plot concerns the expedition, peppered with disclosures about Vergil’s illness that manage not to be melodramatic. Giano Cromley draws out the suspense for so long that a reader might wonder if the Bigfoot mystery will ever be solved. The first four-fifths tease the reader with improbable occurrences — a character sees an unusually large man with antlers growing from his head; a character hears her dead mother calling to her — in addition to various animalistic howls and roars, campsite disturbances, a watchful crow, little stick men left for the characters to find, and other horror movie staples.

When the reveal finally arrives — well, I won’t spoil it. Like many quest stories, the reader will realize that it's more about the journey than the destination. Maybe there’s a Bigfoot, maybe there’s not. Cromley comes up with something that approaches a happy ending, again under circumstances so improbable that my willingness to suspend disbelief was tested, but the characters probably deserve a happy ending, so who am I to begrudge them one?

On a more positive note, the characters are all reasonably likable and the story moves quickly. Cromley is a capable storyteller. American Mythology makes good points about the ease with which people latch onto fanciful notions (mythical creatures in this case, but conspiracy theories are another example) when reason and evidence might lead them in a more rational direction. I appreciated the recognition that academics sometimes sacrifice their honor for the dollars that come from being a contrarian pundit. Still, the story’s purpose is to entertain rather than to lecture, and it achieves that goal by asking readers to set aside reason for the sake of being entertained by the possibility that myths might be real after all.

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Ushers by Joe Hill

Published by Amazon Original Stories on November 1, 2024

“Ushers” is a short story that Amazon is marketing to Kindle users. Non-Kindle readers might find it in an anthology at some point. With its supernatural focus, the story might fit broadly into the horror genre, although by that standard, the same might be said of the Bible. Unlike horror fiction of the slasher/monster variety, the story sends a message about life rather than encouraging readers to be frightened of death.

Martin Lorenson doesn’t see dead people, but his parents ran a hospice so he has seen many people die. Just before they die, he sees something else. The clue to what he sees is in the story’s title.

Marin has been fortunate to avoid his own death. In high school, he was home with diarrhea when a school shooter killed his classmates. At least, that’s the story he tells.

As the story begins, two police detectives want to know why Martin purchased a ticket for a passenger train that he didn’t board. The train derailed and killed a bunch of people. The detectives (Duvall and Oates, not to be confused with the 1970s singing duo who gained fame by performing insipid music) think Martin’s avoidance of death is suspicious, so they interview him.

Although the story is too short to permit much character development, Duvall is more interesting than your average fictional police detective. He has an adult daughter who, in the age of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, feels conflicted about being a Black woman whose father works in law enforcement. Duvall’s position is that cops can’t all be white or the nation would descend into apartheid. God knows there are Americans who would welcome that outcome.

Anyway, how is Martin so lucky that he twice avoided catastrophe? Joe Hill channels the creepy gene that he must have inherited from his father to provide an explanation that will appeal to fans of the supernatural.

The story’s ending has an unexpected twist, although its message — appreciate being alive while you still can — is far from original. As a short story (and this one is shorter than most of those in the Amazon Original Stories series), the story’s focus is tight, but Hill balances its focus on death with moments of humor and a message suggesting that something better awaits us on the other side. Religious readers (or those who believe in an afterlife for nonreligious reasons) might find the story comforting. I found it entertaining.

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The Unlikely Affair of the Crawling Razor by Joe R. Lansdale

Published by Subterranean Press on April 1, 2024

Edgar Allen Poe is credited with creating the first fictional detective. Some years ago, Joe Lansdale contributed to a collection of new stories about Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin. Lansdale brings Dupin back in the novella-length The Unlikely Affair of the Crawling Razor.

A young man named Julien has been investigating the catacombs in Paris. A series of gruesome murders has coincided with his investigation. Pieces of one victim’s body were scattered in the catacombs. A disemboweled victim was found on the doorstep of Julien’s sister Aline. Fortunately for Aline, Julien has paid a tavern owner to lock her inside her room at night. Unfortunately for Aline, Julien has disappeared. She visits Dupin in the hope that the famous solver of mysteries can find her brother.

The story takes on an air of the macabre when the tavern owner explains how he was chased by a demonic entity on his last visit to lock Aline’s door. Julien has a collection of books that describe portals to supernatural dimensions. He seems to have made a particular study of the Lord of the Razor (who happens to be an early Lansdale creation). If one of the Razor’s sharp instruments causes someone to bleed, the Lord of the Razor enters that person’s soul.

Dupin and his assistant (the story’s nameless narrator) embark on a search for Julien that takes them on a couple of trips to the catacombs. Bones and skulls and rats provide an appropriate setting for a confrontation with a demon.

Lansdale is a versatile writer. He dabbles in crime, humor, science fiction, and westerns, often mixing genres in original ways, but he is also one of the better horror storytellers in the business. The Bottoms is one of the most frightening books I’ve read. This novella is a bit too conventional to be truly scary, but the Lord of the Razor is sufficiently creepy to inspire a few chills.

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The Militia House by John Milas

Published by Henry Holt and Co. on July 11, 2023

The Militia House combines the story of a Marine deployed to Afghanistan with a horror story. War is horror even without a supernatural element, which might be the story’s point.

The novel begins as a conventional story of a soldier in Afghanistan. It has the uncertain feel of many debut war novels told by veterans who want to write about their military experience but aren’t sure what they want to say.

Alex Loyette is a corporal who leads three other Marines in the routine tasks associated with establishing landing zones for helicopters. Alex joined the Marines because he was failing in college. He wanted to make people think he was doing something important, but he didn’t care about military service. His brother was the war hero, someone who died after stepping on an IED, whose sacrifice meant more to others than to Alex. Alex knows he will never be a hero, will never be perceived in the same light as his brother.

Alex has given up on everything. He doesn’t want to try to live up to a potential that he can’t recognize. He doesn’t want to do good things or be a good person or please people who cared about him. He just wants to be left alone. He comes to realize that by joining the Marines, he ran away from one lost cause to join another.

The novel’s hook is a building just outside the wire called the Militia House. British soldiers claim that the Militia House is haunted. It was at one point occupied as barracks by Soviet soldiers who fought their last battle against the Taliban in its confines. Bullet holes riddle the interior walls.

Creepy events occur before Alex visits the Militia House. He sees a dog with porcupine quills stuck in its nose. Quills eventually turn up at other locations. Drawings pinned to the walls seem to change, as if they are being redrawn. A notebook in which Alex scribbles his thoughts reappears every time he burns it. One of Alex’s men talks in his sleep and appears to be sleepwalking.

The creepiest events occur in the Militia House, where time is distorted and a stairway to a basement appears and disappears. Alex should know better than to return to a haunted house, but when one of his team disappears, he leads the rest on a rescue mission. It doesn’t end well.

The novel captures the frustration of miliary life. John Milas establishes Alex’s backstory and insecurities effectively. Unfortunately, there isn’t much else to the novel. Perhaps Alex is under the influence of the supernatural. Perhaps he’s gone off his nut. Whether the supernatural threats are meant to be taken seriously or are the product of Alex’s disturbed mind is never clear, although the reader sees little to suggest that Alex has any reason to be haunted by war. For that reason, the story feels insubstantial, even a bit pointless, despite some vivid images.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Insatiable Volt Sisters by Rachel Eve Moulton

Published by MCD x FSG Originals on April 4, 2023

The Insatiable Volt Sisters is a literary horror story. Unless the author is Mary Shelley, I’m not sure that “literary” and “horror” belong in the same sentence. Stephen King (to whom Rachel Eve Moulton seems to pay homage by naming a character Carrie) once argued that writers either create genre fiction or literature but not both. In later years, after sharpening his writing talent, King backed away from that position, but there is some truth to the suggestion that plot-focused genre fiction isn’t easily blended with literary fiction’s focus on character and setting and deep themes. Some writers perform that trick, but Moulton sacrifices the storytelling that horror fiction demands by focusing on her literary aspirations. In the end, Moulton uses the trappings of horror fiction to dress up a domestic drama that explores feminist themes. She never manages to create the buildup of dread that is essential to a good horror story.

The plot cycles between 2000 and 1989, although the reader learns much (maybe too much) about the early history of Fowler Island in Lake Erie. We are told at least twice that Eileen and Elizabeth Fowler, sisters who developed the power to communicate with each other without speaking, built the island’s downtown and roads, as well as the Island Museum. Elizabeth married Seth Volt, who dug a quarry and built a Victorian house that islanders call Quarry Hollow. Legend has it that Seth imprisoned Elizabeth in the house, separating her from her sister. They learned to communicate by telepathy to overcome their separation.

The half-sisters Henrietta (Henri) and Beatrice (B.B.) are descendants of Seth Volt. They were born two years apart to different mothers but were often mistaken for twins, perhaps because their mothers looked so much alike. Their father James, a reclusive poet who somehow made a living, apparently had a type. After Olivia Rose vanished, James knocked up Carrie and brought her to the island as his new wife. The sisters grew up in Quarry Hollow and know it to be haunted, perhaps by Oliva Rose, but not by her alone.

Fowler Island is where depressed women go to die. “The island feasts on female sadness. It licks it up like ice cream.” Women visit the island and disappear, perhaps by jumping (voluntarily or otherwise) into the quarry, which is now filled with water. The quarry is known to the Volt sisters as the Killing Pond. Nobody seems to care about the missing women. Their bodies are never recovered so they are quickly forgotten. Moulton seems to be making a heavy-handed argument that society in general doesn’t care about women, although in most places, when someone comes across a female foot that has been detached from its body, the police at least investigate. Not on Fowler Island.

The island devil, a “great big and dripping thing with leathery fins,” lives in the Killing Pond. Perhaps bodies never surface because they are consumed by the monster, apart from the stray foot. When, on occasion, “the essential part” of the monster walks on land, it can change its shape to suit its whims. The monster’s true identity is a barely concealed secret until Moulton decides to state the obvious.

The other key character is Sonia, the curator of the island museum who helps mop up the blood and feet when women disappear. Sonia helped James raise B.B. after Olivia Rose disappeared.

For reasons that are revealed near the novel’s end, Carrie separated from James without warning, leaving the girls to fear that she had disappeared like Olivia Rose. After she returned, the girls sensed that Carrie would leave James and made drama because they feared she would only take her biological daughter with her. Their scheme to remain inseparable ends with a transformative experience for Henri. The island is indifferent to the scheme because it has plans for the Volt sisters.

Early in the novel, in a chapter that takes place in 2000, B.B. finds her father’s body, minus a part he seems to have shed. B.B. calls Henri to deliver the news. When Henri tells her mother that she will return for the funeral because B.B. needs her, Carrie reminds Henri that the island is “a magnet for trouble” and a “lighthouse for disaster.” Carrie eventually agrees to join Henri although she vows not to enter Quarry Hollow. Really, she should have known better. In any event, the Volt sisters are together once more.

The plot is all over the place. It combines a haunted house story with one of demonic possession while exploring sisterly relationships under extreme circumstances, failed marriages under extreme circumstances, and the disappearances of women who fled extreme circumstances. Themes of female despair and empowerment drive the novel. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to note that the ghosts who haunt the house are the residue of the women who died on the island. In death as in life, they are enslaved by toxic masculinity. Exactly why that is true is never addressed. It seems to be assumed that male demons feed on women because that's what men do.

The eventual show of strength displayed by the Volt sisters is a stretch, if only because their acquisition of girl power is unconvincing, even in a horror novel that demands suspension of disbelief. A late scene in which Carrie and Sonia overcome adversity by battling a devil while they’re underwater is just silly. So is the thought that ghosts of dead women urge a living woman who allies with them to “be strong” and “not to quit” until they transform the woman into “a lightning bolt of a girl.” You go, sisters! This is the kind of plot I might expect from a comic book. I just couldn’t take it seriously.

Because the novel is literary, Moulton devotes great attention to character development. Carrie and Sonia are collateral characters but they relate their thoughts in detail — Carrie’s thoughts of how it feels to be a disappearing mother, her changing feelings about James and the plan she made to escape from the island, her fear of the house and of James’ potential responsibility for the vanishing women; Sonia’s thoughts of being a maternal stand-in and the custodian of island lore. The detail slows the pace, inhibiting the fear that the novel never conjures.

Descriptions of the island monster crawling out of the goop are a bit chilling, until we realize that it’s a standard lizard monster with changeling powers. Moulton’s failure to enliven a horror story with original ideas leaves a shell that she fills with striking sentences and an ode to sisterhood that, while well-intentioned, falls short of being compelling.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS