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People Live Still in Cashtown Corners

by Tony Burgess

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
474536,670 (3.21)3
"It is what it is. That's her car out there and, well, that's her right there." Jeremy looks at the woman again. There's a few flies dipping in and out of the back of her skull. "What happened to her?" I feel a little uncomfortable. I wasn't really planning to lay it all out like this. "Well, I hate to say this but I killed her." Jeremy nods slowly. He's starting to take this in and I'm relieved. "Don't ask me why. Anything I say is just gonna sound ridiculous." I rub my hand in my hair. I want to appear frustrated. "Things just got out of control." Bob Clark owns the Self Serve in Cashtown Corners. It's the only business there and Bob is the only resident. He's never been comfortable around other people. Until he starts to kill them. And murder, Bob soon discovers, is magic. People Live Still in Cashtown Corners is Bob's account of a tragedy we all thought was senseless.… (more)
  1. 10
    Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates (ShelfMonkey)
  2. 00
    American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (ShelfMonkey)
  3. 00
    The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (ShelfMonkey)
  4. 00
    The Seven Days of Peter Crumb: A Novel (P.S.) by Jonny Glynn (crazybatcow)
    crazybatcow: Both are glimpses into the head of a psychopath. Cashtown's crazyman is a bit more "realistic" while Crumb is way more psychotic. Both are gory and disturbing.
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Showing 4 of 4
This book was a bit like if American Psycho was a gas jockey in rural Ontario.

It's written in a first-person POV from Bob Clark (whose real name is Cliff Klyder), a gas jockey who goes on an unaliving spree. It also has a true crime vibe to it. There were crime scene photos and some headlines which made the plot immersive, but I didn't like the fact they were randomly placed in the middle of the book since it made the flow seem a little disjointed.

I don't really know how to describe the book other than the fact that it was weird, silly, incredibly gory, and insanely hard to put down. I had a lot of fun reading this short book, and I recommend checking this out if you're in the mood for a slasher for spooky season ( )
  hisghoulfriday | Dec 20, 2023 |
People Live Still in Cashtown Corners is essentially lite horror. It’s a quick, fun, read that doesn’t invoke any difficult emotions or inspire much afterthought. The narrator’s discomfort with human interaction was vaguely charming, in addition to being the only aspect of the story with depth beyond that of a slasher flick. Styled like a true-crime diary, including photos for interest.
As a horror fan I greatly enjoyed this book despite its simplicity. ( )
1 vote hexagram | Sep 29, 2015 |
I'm not entirely sure what the point of this was, unless it was just "here's someone with very little connection to reality and a whole lot of bodies." Not my favorite kind of story. The true-crime-style photo section in the middle did add an interesting layer of creepiness, but that's not enough to make it interesting. ( )
  jen.e.moore | Nov 8, 2014 |
I read this immediately after The Seven Days of Peter Crumb. Both books have a similar "plot" (yes, that is using the word "plot" VERY loosely), but Cashtown is much more "sensible"; the main character is more believable and his actions, while extreme, *could* have happened the way they are described (not so with Crumb).

The book starts off with the attitude that murder is just another activity in the day... pump gas, buy groceries, murder someone, watch TV... ho-hum...

The tone does change around the midway point - and becomes more chaotic, gory and extreme. It almost has a feel of a true crime story (and the pictures in the middle of the book encourage this conclusion)... which I think makes the story especially disturbing.

I guess it could be thought of as a glimpse inside the head of a psychopath, complete with his own reasonings as to why he's psycho. While it is kind of similar to American Psycho, this one is more chaotic, and the crimes more... err.. aggressive and extreme. ( )
  crazybatcow | Sep 24, 2011 |
Showing 4 of 4
As with his 1998 zombie novel, Pontypool Changes Everything, Burgess turns small-town Ontario into a horror show, his use of real places and people blurring the line between fact and fiction. Such blurring, as well as the book’s gory details, makes for a most disturbing read, but moments of dark humour serve to lighten the mood.

In addition to the small-town satire, Burgess has endowed Clark with a hilarious penchant for understatement, with him at one point admitting: “I used to have trouble around people.”

One really can’t deny that Bob sums himself up just right. But just as in the bucolic locales depicted in its pages, nothing in People Live Still In Cashtown Corners is as simple it seems.
 
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"It is what it is. That's her car out there and, well, that's her right there." Jeremy looks at the woman again. There's a few flies dipping in and out of the back of her skull. "What happened to her?" I feel a little uncomfortable. I wasn't really planning to lay it all out like this. "Well, I hate to say this but I killed her." Jeremy nods slowly. He's starting to take this in and I'm relieved. "Don't ask me why. Anything I say is just gonna sound ridiculous." I rub my hand in my hair. I want to appear frustrated. "Things just got out of control." Bob Clark owns the Self Serve in Cashtown Corners. It's the only business there and Bob is the only resident. He's never been comfortable around other people. Until he starts to kill them. And murder, Bob soon discovers, is magic. People Live Still in Cashtown Corners is Bob's account of a tragedy we all thought was senseless.

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Bob Clark owns the Self Serve in Cashtown Corners. It's the only business there and Bob is the only resident. He's never been comfortable around other people. Until he starts to kill them. And murder, Bob soon discovers, is magic. People Live Still in Cashtown Corners is Bob's account of a tragedy we all thought was senseless.
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