Melanie Tem (1949–2015)

I can see why Stephen King praised Melanie Tem's first (1991) novel. Tem does for the working class family under pressure what King did for the ideal of the American small town - exploring its anxieties through cosmic horror that erupts from within and against which there seems to be no recourse.

Tem draws on her own experience as a social worker. The dark implication of her story is that social work itself can hide the monstrous and that monsters can exploit the imbalance of power between show more the State and the family within its institutional structures.

She shows courage in opening this up to scrutiny. Given the time when it was written before much had been exposed to view about child abuse as far as the public was concerned, her story is very much grounded in the business of grooming children by vampiric paedophiles sucking out their life force.

The 'horror' is far from gross despite the descriptions of bodily matters but is rather an exercise in deep unease as (given the time) the reader is introduced to the trialectic of child, institutional and family impotence before institutions unwittingly sanctioning predatory hunger.

However, Tem, in order perhaps to be authentic, makes a narrative error in deciding to see everything through the eyes of an eleven year old victim on two grounds - the sterling attempt to do so results in the prose becoming a little plodding and she cannot sustain belief in that intended authenticity.

Tem (this is a first novel) is not yet so accomplished that she can get away with this. The adult trying to get inside the head of a groomed child in fact creates a dark fantasy version of her condition in order to match the darker fantasy of the predator.

Where we needed a credible reality to contrast with the cosmic darkness that envelops children from a hollowed out predator and some stronger sense of a process by which the predator seduces a child into false belief, we get a child who is already interpreting the world like an adult being a child.

The net result is that this is a very interesting and worthwhile novel of unease and disturbance but it is not a 'classic' nor, because of the slow build-up to its dramatic ending, a true 'entertainment' but , instead, falls somewhere between the two, yet remains a serious attempt to say something important.

Having said that, the descriptions of family interactions from the perspective of a child are finely done. This is a good family of many children that finds it hard to control their condition in the face of economic reality, social pressures and, finally, manipulative exploitation.

King (he is not the only significant admirer of Tem) is quite right to praise this application of horror tropes to social problems and to introduce the genre as metaphor in dealing with difficult issues that perhaps only later could be spoken of more openly. show less

A weird sort of vampire novel written from the perspective of a 12 year old girl. As such, the prose is very spare and juvenile and there just aren't a lot of strong metaphors or similes. This is always an issue for me when the protagonist is a child and the narration is from the child's perspective. When this is handled as a flashback or memory from an adult, the author has more latitude in the prose.

At first you think the bad guy is a child peeper and diddler (and of course a murderer) but show more he ends up as something equally sinister but much different. A body violation is still a body violation. If pedophilia is not to your fictional taste then this is probably not for you.

A decent read that I just had trouble getting into for the reasons above. Tem also did not get me to feel the sense of dread and suspense for Lucy's fate. Tem makes all the brats pretty unlikeable and although we get into Lucy's head, and understand her turmoil, I just didn't care what happened in the end.

Three solid stars, no more. show less

Flashes of brilliance are overwhelmed by a wandering plot and too much repeated existential musing by pretty much everyone. I kept getting the impression that Tem had a really good story about familial angst and abuse that, for whatever reason, she forced into a werewolf trope that detracted from the psychologically and sociologically profound topics she was dealing with. I kept thinking, “now just pull out the werewolf bit here.”

There’s also an unnecessary flashback final chapter show more that tells us all this stuff we don’t need to know. show less

The Man on the Ceiling, written by the married team of Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem, is an extension of the award-winning novella by the same name. As of 2008, the novella was the only work to win all three major dark fantasy and horror awards: the World Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the International Horror Guild Award. I haven't read the original The Man on the Ceiling, but if it is anything near the caliber of the book, it well deserves the accolades.

The Man on the Ceiling show more is a difficult book for me to describe, so instead I'll quote the text itself as it will do a better job than I could ever manage:

"This memoir--or testament, if you will--is as much a biography of one family's imagination as chronicle of real life events. It is about both our love and our fear, about what we know and what we cannot know but can imagine. And although what happens in the imagination may be real in a different way than the apparent history of waking events, it is real just the same."

Even before the book begins, the authors affirm that "Everything we're about to tell you here is true," a sentiment that is continually repeated throughout the text--a gentle but terrifying reminder that just because something is categorized as fiction doesn't mean that it false. The Man on the Ceiling is brutally honest, and demands the head-on confrontation and acceptance of our fears. The book is indeed True.

The Tem's are both award-winning authors of horror and dark fantasy in their own right and are incredibly imaginative. Their roles as storytellers permeate the book and their lives. The basis for much of The Man on the Ceiling draws on the Tem's experiences as the adoptive parents of troubled children. A particular touchstone is the tragic death of one of their children when he was only nine years old. The intense emotions of love, joy, grief, and despair are intertwined to create a marvelous and profoundly genuine work.

One of the reasons I find the book so hard to describe is because it is so utterly surreal; I have never read anything like it before. It is visceral, gut-wrenching, and horrifying. But at the same time, while it is disquieting, I found it oddly comforting. There's no real plot to speak of--it's more like a drifting exploration of feelings, life, and death. The stories told and the moments depicted are intricately related and it is surprising how cohesive the book is despite its dark kaleidoscopic nature. It's difficult to tell what is real and what is not, but in the end it doesn't really matter because it's all true.

I came across The Man on the Ceiling mostly by accident and decided to pick up the book more on a whim than anything else. I am so glad that I did. First, I checked it out from my local library (there was a waiting list), but it wasn't long until I knew I needed my own copy of the book. While it is often described as horror, that characterization only begins to touch on the depth and complexity of the work. The Man on the Ceiling, and especially its style, is not something that everyone will appreciate. However, it is absolutely one of the best books I've read. The Man on the Ceiling is an extraordinarily evocative book, and I know it is one I'll come back to again.

Experiments in Reading show less