Greg F. Gifune

Certain writers have muscle. Chandler. Hammett. Count Greg F. Gifune among them. Tough guys in old movies always carried rye in hip flasks, and they never seemed able to take a sip without killing the bottle. THE BLEEDING SEASON is like that. One slug and the reader takes this wild ride straight till the end.

The detective fiction reference is germane. THE BLEEDING SEASON may be a horror novel, but – like all of Gifune’s fiction – it remains pervasively soulful, sporting an show more authentically gritty quality uncommon to the genre …while also being scary as hell. Never for a moment anything other than realistic, this is the landscape of film noir, virtually subterranean. No light penetrates. There are few comforts. Sex can be cold and miserable. Marriage empty. Even friendship can inspire dread.

It's not for the fainthearted.

Even before the horror elements take hold, these characters lead sad lives. Buddies since high school, they’ve endured all the hard knocks life can throw at them. (A good thing really: think of it as preparation.) It doesn't take much to inspire people in a world with so little warmth. One act of kindness, a single show of loyalty. Of such frail elements are lifelong bonds forged.

And sometimes such links bind beyond the grave.

One of the friends dies in an accident that emotionally cripples them all. Or was it an accident? Years later, their lives are littered with abandoned dreams, failed relationships, ruined careers. Then one of them hangs himself in a basement. (Or does he?) In most novels, suicide would be the end of the story. The unseen presence of the dead has already isolated these friends, both from the world and from each other. And this latest blow seems like the worst thing that could happen. Then the note arrives.

The chapter where the surviving friends gather to listen to the tape-recorded suicide note proves as harrowing as anything in contemporary dark literature. This message, apparently recorded in that dank basement, addresses each of them in turn. This is no litany of sorrows and excuses. There are no accusations here. Instead, the deceased offers a cold assessment of each man’s character, a catalogue of lifelong failures. It’s a gauntlet thrown down. Lies hurt. But truths can be inconceivably terrifying. It starts them asking questions. And they discover things they'd rather not know. Was their friend really a ritual killer? Did he strike a bargain with forces beyond their comprehension? Is he back? Was he never gone? Guilt by association may be more than a merely abstract concept. And madness doesn't strike like a bolt of lightning … but creeps like fog, insidiously, inexorably. And the possibility of redemption, however remote, offers only the cruelest hope.

Intelligence is an underrated quality, often in short supply within the genre. Not so with Gifune’s work. Most thrillers make the mistake of slamming the reader with big cinematic scenes, but Gifune traffics in more adult fare. Deadly words twine through this mature novel like cigarette smoke, the erotic charge sometimes just as palpable. So often the antecedents of modern horror lie too obviously in the quaintly decorous supernatural romances of another time and place. This bleak vision remains quintessentially American, tough, merciless, and as original as sin. show less

“I have to get them out. It’s the only way I know how to do it. Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve written things down. Thoughts, dreams, stories, poems, all of it written down, pounded out on old typewriters or scribbled here or there on pads and scraps of paper, like once I’d written it down I’d be free of it somehow.”
~ “A View from the Lake”
by Greg F. Gifune

No one writes like this.

No one. Not now.

But there was a time when all American horror literature was an show more exploration of metaphysical terrors. “Varney the Vampire” and “Wagner the Werwulf” – with their attendant tidal explosions of gore – represented an exclusively European manifestation of the genre, but here higher levels of sophistication held sway. And though horror traditions may have originated in the Old World, New World writers refined the concept. Henry James’ atmospheric nuances and subtlety of expression elevated it to an art form, while William Sloane explored apocalyptic levels of existential evil. Shirley Jackson helmed a new breed of writers who applied the burgeoning science of psychology to Gothic situations with shattering results. Their ghosts – demons of the mind all – were empowered by guilty memories and repressed yearnings. In short, they were lethal. These authors terrorized with nothing so quaint as monsters but with a pervasive sense of another reality, a realm moving near to this world and sometimes intruding: not so much the fear of the unknown as an apprehension of the unimaginable.

Few writers create works like this now. Greg Gifune is a notable exception.

The complete writers’ writer, crafting novels and stories with an elegance almost unheard of within the contemporary genre, Gifune reveals roots in the noir wordsmiths of another, more cultured era. His characters tend to be articulate, intelligent, aware, which renders their predicaments all the more disturbing. An author whose core popularity has always been among the literati (Brian Keene referred to him as the genre’s “best-kept secret”), Gifune has only recently begun to attract media attention, but even after many published novels and two collections of short stories his work remains amazingly little-known by the general public. Why the relative obscurity? Some authors possess such high standards of integrity that they resist all impulses toward self-promotion, and – though admirable – this stance can render a disservice to readers frequently reduced to perusing overrated efforts by those who are simply tiresomely adept at marketing. When press attention has focused upon Gifune, however, the excitement of discovery rings loud and clear. The Rosewell Literary Review recently called him “one of the best writers of his generation.” What tedious self-marketer wouldn’t kill for copy like that?

Gifune’s A VIEW FROM THE LAKE represents a near-perfect distillation of his oeuvre. Trapped by a blizzard in a holiday cottage, a young widow must contend with the phantoms of drowned children who slowly emerge from the frozen lake, as well as with a husband who may not be dead so much as transmuted into something infinitely more shocking than a mere ghost. The setting alone proves chillingly well realized. Nor is this an ordinary blizzard. An expression of the paralyzing emotional frigidity of the characters, this snowfall blanks out the world with surreal intensity, reducing it to a blank page, an empty stage on which the terrible inevitability of the plot must play itself out. In this accomplished and mature work, a permeating dread suggests the underlying fears that fuel all superstitions, all nightmares. Make no mistake – this is a devastating novel, vastly superior to the usual genre fare, as intellectually stimulating as it is viscerally frightening. And the horror lurking at its heart may well be the ultimate supernatural manifestation.

Some quotes leap with meaningless monotony from the covers of paperback books, words like “terrifying, blood-curdling, a new voice in horror fiction.” How predictable. How empty. A truly new voice must evoke a new lexicon, rife with words like uncanny … hypnotic … profound … show less

Greg Gifune is the master of atmosphere. I don't care where the story takes place, you can be guaranteed of a dark, shadowy atmosphere where nothing is at it seems. This book is no exception.

This is the story of Charlie and his marriage. A long lasting one...until it isn't. Jenna, Charlie's wife, is caught talking on the phone late at night and suddenly his life is turned upside down.

There is a Dickensian quality to this story, and Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" does play a part, but only the show more skeletal bones of the tale. Mr. Gifune has taken this well known book and twisted things until he made it his own.

This novella really spoke to me. Having been married for many years and having been through some tough times during those years, I could identify with the characters. My strings were pulled-because Mr. Gifune is a masterful puppeteer. Recommended! show less

4.5

“I’ve spent my entire life looking over my shoulder. It ruined us, that night. It destroyed all three of us.”

Children of Chaos was my introduction to Greg Gifune's writing. After this book, I'm already ready for more of the author's work. With a writing style that is poetic and haunting, I loved how the backward glances to the past mixed in so effortlessly with the disaster of the present. The flashbacks to what happened on ""that night"" that changed their lives forever was show more powerful and perfectly composed.

Rich in despair, Children of Chaos is a bleak example of lives truly destroyed. The depressing ambience is relentless, but instead of just fogging me down unnecessarily, it enriched the colorful story-line that is both surreal and unique. It can be a refresher to be in the main character's head when they're a mess, particularly when it's not angsty or silly just for the sake of cheesy emotional manipulation.. There's genuine pain coating these pages.

The flawed characters aren't necessarily nice guys, but Gifune managed to make me genuinely care. I gasped in dismay at the death of two, as awful as those deaths were, and it sunk me. Applause to the author for making me get so emotionally tied to the characters that came alive so forcefully. In fact, some of character deaths affected me so strongly that it slightly weakened my enjoyment of the book.

Going from a seedy apartment in America to a dangerous area of Mexico added oomph to the story, but ultimately it was in the heart of the desert that the claustrophobic pressure increased. Gifune doesn't dig into the destination quickly, instead going through the motions at a semi-sedate pace, but it never grew dull. The ending is a twisted, sick finale that truly disturbed. Excellent, but seriously dark story. show less