reviewed; THE RIDGE by JEFFERY X MARTIN

Available July 27th, 2018

Shadow Work Publishing

For generations, the Sanford family have lived on the rural outskirts of Elders Keep. But now, Lucas Brock and his pregnant wife, Jude, have chosen to make their home among them as the first outsiders to settle onto Wednesday Ridge in a century. With the arrival of new blood, the horrific secrets the Sanfords have been hiding are coming to light. There's something on the ridge, something that should not exist. It is ancient. It is ravenous. And on the ridge, everything is prey.


It takes a lot to unsettle me these days. I have my buttons. I have particular stories I still choose to avoid. But to actually give me that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach I used to get as a kid and could see Jason Vorhees sneaking up on a camp counsellor and she's totally unaware-that dread, as a horror noobie, for what is about to befall this person if he/she doesn't turn around and run-it's so rare to feel that these days.

Well, my buddy Jeffery X Martin once again gave that feeling back to me. He did it previously with Black Friday and Hunting Witches. His newest book, The Ridge, (which drops on July 27th) had me sick with dread less than a quarter way through, and it wasn't just the Southern folk horror aspects, that are a hallmark of his work. What got me first was the story of a couple about to have their first baby. In a sense, it's a bit of a fish out of water story. Two people from the city, the husband a college professor, moving out to the country-which is about as familiar to them as the plains of Mars, and the wife being left alone with the weirdo neighbors and all the strangeness that goes along with living in the hills. Lucas and Jude love each other, they are happy together, but I can tell you from first hand experience, moving into a new area, far from friends and family, while pregnant will cause tempers to flare, will bring on stress and anxiety, and if it's only the two of you there with no one else to really talk to-all of that will come out and be directed at one another. Regardless of whether or not the love is still there, you feel trapped in an emotional bubble and the threat of it popping is ever present. That's the heart, the engine, that drives The Ridge. 

I have heard it said by many people, any good horror story must still be a good drama if you take the horror elements away. So, in the case of The Ridge, done. Five stars. Two thumbs up. What about the horror elements though? X knows how to scare you. He knows how to dig in, make your skin crawl, make you hold the book away from you just a little more...He can paint a vivid landscape of despair in your brain that's hard to wash away. Violence that rolls by slowly, so you don't mis an ounce of the pain. You feel that bone shatter and you sit with it for as long as the character has to. I think of Dennis Etchison, Stephen King in his prime, maybe a little HP Lovecraft (minus all the "cyclopean towers"), Books of Blood era Clive Barker. X is building a body of work with his Elders Keep stories that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the giants rather than just stand on their shoulders.

I tell ya, X has been inspiring me to work harder, do better, and be more since our bar days back in Knoxville, Tennessee more than twenty years ago. To see the artist he is today is nothing short of awe-inspiring. If you don't know him, I feel bad for you, but you can remedy that by following him on Twitter @JefferyXMartin  and like his Facebook page. And order The Ridge today!

PARHAM'S FIELD a novella by JEFFERY X MARTIN

Let's take a road trip back to Elder's Keep. Back to the mysterious hills and hideaways of East Tennessee. A place of beauty and heavy history. A haunted place. Haunted even before the Cherokee got there, probably. A place where I grew up. Author Jeffery X Martin grew up there too.

So connected to the dirt beneath his feet, my old friend Jeff started weaving tales about Elder's Keep, or The Keep, in his first short story collection, BLACK FRIDAY. He brought us back to The Keep with HUNTING WITCHES, a novel. Both journeys were chilling, emotional, and as haunted as those green hills. Now he takes us back with his newest story, a novella, that just went live on Valentines Day, which was eerily fitting.

The story opens with a murder. I'll leave it at that. Then begins the investigation, heading by sheriff Graham Strahan and accompanied by Joseph "Josie" Nance, who runs the Elder's Keep Historical Society. The murder occurs in Parham's Field, a place everyone in The Keep knows to stay out of. The details of the murder has Strahan stumped and he turns to Josie for some help. It's Josie that suggest they go talk to the shut in, Dr. Parham, who Strahan just assumed was dead, as his house and property had been in disrepair for as long as Strahan could remember.  They pay a visit to the old doctor together, just to ask a few questions, but nothing is ever simple in The Keep, and the men get a tale nothing could have prepared them for.

PARHAM'S FIELD is such a tightly, well crafted, and tragically beautiful slow burn of a story, that I found myself bouncing along to the book's own unique rhythm and getting lost in a narrative that's part family history, part police investigation. This isn't a mystery, it's, as the doctor says, a confession. Jeff pushes the needle towards the red ever so gently, ever so slightly, building a sense of dread from page one-which you'll carry with you anyway if you've read either of the previous books-and then holds the tension until what you find is undeniable, regardless of where your mind may have been at the beginning. Vague, I know, but I feel it's important to guard the book's secrets. Let Dr. Parham tell them to you, after all, it's his story to tell.

On a couple of personal notes, Jeff's wife finished the book in tears and refused to talk to him for the rest of the night. I think that's important to know going in. "It gets dark," Jeff said. Yes it does. Also, there's a bit about a church in a place called Wheat. That church is said to be haunted and I personally tried to break in there when I was 18 or 19 to see if it were true, but...events had my friends and I speeding away from the area at 100 MPH. A little midnight ghost hunting lead to a wrong turn and we found ourselves on restricted government property. Kids.

I'm giving PARHAM'S FIELD my highest recommendation. You don't need to have read the previous two books to get into it, but they're so good as well, there's no reason to skip them. You can order your copy HERE. 

WHAT'S YOUR TOP THREE FAVORITE HORROR FILMS? JEFFERY X MARTIN GIVES US HIS IN A GUEST POST!

Do you read Jeffery X Martin? BLACK FRIDAY, STORIES ABOUT YOU, HUNTING WITCHES..? X is an old friend and an amazing writer. We used to perform at the same bar back in Knoxville. I was just a dumb kid and he was an early supporter. So I'm honored to run this, his second guest post for Stranger. Follow the LINK to get your hands on X's books. And now...

JEFFERY X MARTIN’S TOP THREE HORROR MOVIES

When I’m asked to make a list like this – and it’s always an honor to be asked to write anything for someone else – I realize how fluid my Top Ten list is. I watch a lot of horror, which makes sense given my occupation, and new great stuff pops up all the time. My Top Three, however, is pretty solid and doesn’t move about much. Well, not this week, anyway.

3. CARRIE (1976)  -- Not just one of the greatest horror movies, but one of the best films ever made. Carrie evokes so many emotions, watching it should be part of the Voight-Kampff test. Carrie is a stone cold classic. It manages to

excoriate organized religion, high school cliques, and the lack of information women receive about their own bodies. While things don’t end well for anyone in the film, Sissy Spacek is a marvel to watch as a girl who takes her personal power, embraces it, and uses it to set fires with her mind.  A pivotal piece of feminist cinema, and one of Brian De Palma’s finest directorial efforts,

2. JOHN CARPENTER’S THE FOG (1980) – Carpenter’s follow-up to Halloween has often been looked upon as a flawed film (even by Carpenter himself, according to interviews), a soft lob after the non-stop intensity of the goings-on in Haddonfield. I respectfully disagree. Not only is The Fog as scary as Halloween, if not more so, it’s the best American ghost story filmed in the last forty years. It is a campfire nightmare come to life, complete with hidden treasure, the walking dead and ghostly lepers. It never operates outside of its own logic and the special effects, all practical, are surprisingly good. This solid scary movie holds up like suspenders, and is one of the few must-sees of the genre.

1.) SUSPIRIA (1977) – Dario Argento’s masterpiece is like nothing you’ve seen before. The story of an American girl who goes to Germany to continue her ballet training, Suspiria takes its fairy tale elements to the darkest corners of the magical forest. With a brilliant soundtrack, violent set-pieces, and witches that would make MacBeth run screaming from the forest, Suspiria sneaks into your brain and sets up residence. It will not leave. Suspiria is an assault on everything you’ve come to expect from the genre, and it stands alone as horror-art. Every horror movie that has come since owes some kind of debt to Suspiria. Not one of them has ever fully paid up.

KRUM BUMS RELEASE NEW VIDEO FOR SMOKE

Texas punx Krum Bums have released an all new video for their song Smoke, which will be on their 12" EP, available exclusively on Black Friday, November 28. Check it now, fiends!

BLACK FRIDAY; AN ELDERS KEEP COLLECTION by JEFFERY X MARTIN REVIEW!

In the mountains of East Tennessee lies the town of Elders Keep. Things aren't exactly right in the Keep, and as the town heads towards the holiday season, the evil force that lives within the woods comes pulsing to the forefront. It's all downhill to New Years, and no one in the Keep is safe. This collection of eight short stories is your invitation to join the citizens of Elders Keep as they make their way through a harrowing holiday season. Only the dark and twisted mind of Jeffery X Martin could create a town where humor and terror live side by side in such harmonious agony. Welcome to Elders Keep. If you lived here, you'd be dead by now. (from the Amazon description) 

Full disclosure; I've known Jeff Martin since I was eighteen, therefore I have known him longer than I care to reveal. It's been a really long time. We used to haunt the same open mic at a bar called Manhattan's  in Knoxville TN's Old City neighborhood. He was probably more influential and helpful to me in growing as a writer than he knows. I could go on and on about all the late night talks and the whack job characters we hung out with, but I'll spare you, dear reader, that tumble down fuzzy-memory lane. After all, this is a review. I wanted to be upfront though; I know this cat. He's a friend. Fortunately my natural bias is reinforced by the fact that Black Friday is an absolute great damn book.

For those who read the line 'In the mountains of East Tennessee' and immediately heard dueling banjos let me point out that Tennessee is the proper South and not the deep South. Much of anything inhabitable in the mountains has been or will be yuppified and at times clash with the more traditional or hillbilly ways and Jeff captures this aesthetic of the modern South with pitch perfect clarity, crafting a rich and deep world. Not to say that those of you who like a little Southern fried redneck scariness won't find plenty to chew on! Jeff writes with a smooth and infectious groove. As much a musician as he is an author, Jeff gave Black Friday a rhythm that is ancient and pagan making each chapter a sort of ritual that you experience in your nerves. The depth of the stories and the diverse cast of characters kept me feverishly turning the page, devouring each story.

Jeff wields the tools of a horror craftsman as he guides us through the downward spiraling, Dante-esque saga of the people of Elders Keep and along the way offers a biting commentary about modern society. A simple drink with a lover or an old friend, a trip to the dentist or the store, a night out at the club or a talk with mom is an opportunity for ghosts and monsters to plunge you into bloody terror. Elders Keep doesn't need ghosts and monsters to scare the crap out of you though. The regular inhabitants can be just as fucked up as anything your nightmares can cook up. The stories "Be Sweet" and "Mouth" genuinely made me cringe.  

It was painful to make it to the last story, because I did not want the book to end. Black Friday satisfied on all levels. Get this book now! 

And follow Jeff on Twitter @JefferyXMartin and at www.facebook.com/elderskeep. He also writes a kick ass music column for www.popshifter.com