Letters From Hades
by Jeffrey Thomas
Art by Erik Wilson
Publisher: Bedlam Press

“On my fifth day in Hell, I found a praying mantis.” So starts this short, imaginative novel from Jeffrey Thomas who’s work includes Boneland, Punktown and Everybody Scream. A book that starts like this begs to be read and Thomas delivers a nifty little first person tale of one unnamed man’s journey and his bizarre encounters with the damned and includes a 'mouse pulling a thorn-from a lion’s paw' type love affair with a beautiful yet savage and remorseless winged demon.

Our narrator, amid a rainstorm of blood and entrails, first draws us into a graduation of sorts from the “Avernus University” where the damned are taught the art of self-loathing. Each student was given a notebook, which sports a cover with a live, human eye sewn in; the remains of a cursed writer who managed to piss off the Creator. From here it’s “all bets off” time as he takes to wandering and here’s where the book hits its stride.

Reading this reminded me of The Painted Bird; a road trip through unimaginable suffering yet, in Kosinski’s tale, all the nastiness comes from man dishing out the hellish horrors where Thomas guzzles right from the tap.

Our guide wanders, discovering new awfulness and in a pivotal scene reminiscent of Dante and Matheson (only worse, if that’s imaginable), he sees a volcano in the distance and, before it, a field of Hell’s citizens buried up to their necks in hardened lava. They spot him and let loose with wailing and teeth gnashing while crawling around them are carnivorous crab-like creatures nibbling and picking at their heads. A statement to the wondrous writing, I was constantly itching phantom…things, from my face while reading this. A trapped soul informs our traveler of a monstrous city named Oblivion where people can live in relative peace for fear of being picked up by demons and (insert torture devise here), and where a damned could actually work, get paid and carve out an existence, albeit a flamedark one.

Peopled with soul-cleaved humans, demons and even marauding angels from Heaven who come down and hunt the damned for sport, it’s hard to imagine Thomas able to impart a certain beauty to this tale but it’s told with such sincerity coupled addictive prose it’s quite easy - like a daisy struggling skyward through that greasy concrete in Ward 4, Houston.

At its heart, a haunting tale of love found in the most ghastly of all places, I found myself shamefully aroused during lovemaking scenes, yet oddly moved. The protagonist bought his ticket to this fate from a shotgun suicide because of his perceived failures and lack of love. A poignant tale in Hell? Throw it at us, big guy!

An expansion of Thomas’s earlier short story “Coffee Break” (which is included in this Bedlam edition), Letters From Hades tears along at a nice pace and ends with a brutal bang.

Now, someone get a hold of Thomas please and ask for a “Part II” because Letters From Hades has the potential for being a slick little series.

Highly recommended, folks.

City of the Dead (1976)
by Herbert Lieberman

Welcome to the world of Paul Konig, Chief Medical Examiner, New York City, widower, father and practitioner of the dead. For 30 years, and through three administrations, Konig’s been down in his own forensic sinkhole performing his gruesome magic for police and relatives of the dead. A dinosaur of integrity and self-assuredness, this world-renowned pathologist’s life has come to a head in a multi-layered nightmare: Someone’s been selling unclaimed corpses; his number two man has fudged a report on the death of a Tombs prisoner; Detective Flynn’s called and insists he come to the river where a jogger’s dog has pawed through a potpourri of body parts that need reconstruction and, lastly, his estranged daughter has been seduced and kidnapped by her revolutionary/terrorist boyfriend and his gang of bomb throwing extortionists.

You think you have problems?

Leiberman juggles plotting like the master he is, creating one of the finest characters in modern fiction. Lieberman’s NY, as seen through Konig’s sleep-deprived, red-rimmed eyes, is so well written one can reach into the pages and get filthy. Scenes crackle with realism and gallows humor -- a reader will laugh while cringing.

There are several of the most moving and powerful pages ever run across in modern fiction lurking here. One is when Konig’s friend in missing persons reveals his daughter has become a fine painter and the ensuing scene played out in a gallery where our hero buys up every painting she’s done, hauling them out in tears. I defy anyone reading this not to come away with a lump caught in his or her throat.

Another is, while Konig meticulously re-assembles a corpse -- a marriage of bone and cartilage -- he replays the conversation he’d had with his little girl explaining why mom and dad are going to be separating. Brilliant. This kind of writing all but seems to have disappeared.

For the hardcore horror fan that needs a gore fix now and then, not to fear. City of the Dead can read like a menu in a zombie eatery. Blood and body parts abound and Lieberman doesn’t have a problem with trying to make you toss your crumpets.

Not a false note is hit and for those who missed this in its initial debut, I highly recommend a fast scurry to the local used bookstore. But be warned: Lieberman’s book will not cheer you up, put a spring in your step or offer warm fuzzies but it will take you for a drive into hell. Stark and bleak, City of the Dead pushes you into a world you would rather not visit but, once there, the door slams home and you're trapped till the bitter, inevitable conclusion -- the only way, as in a real life nightmare, something like this could end.

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