Review: Ghoul N' the Cape by Josh Malerman
Ghoul N' the Cape
by Josh Malerman
A humongous thanks to Earling Publications / Paul Miller for this gifted advanced copy. I may or may not have squealed whene I got your email!
Publisher: Earthling Publications
Publish Date: December 2021
Hardcover
712 Pages
Standalone
Genre: Horror
“The Naught is nigh,” the Cape tells Ghoul in a dark corner of a Manhattan tavern. The Naught – who the Cape claims to be a nefarious celestial entity capable of tipping the balance of good and bad for all on Earth.
They must leave at once, travel west. Will Ghoul go with him? Will Ghoul help the Cape outpace this horror while spreading the word of its arrival to all and everyone they meet?
So begins the adventure of a lifetime, as Ghoul and the Cape travel across America and beyond, picking up other eccentrics along the way, even as they duck the Naught’s many dark agents:
A destructor the size of a planet.
A man made entirely of flowing blood.
A knife that reflects Time and Space as it cuts.
From a haunted jail and a cowboy graveyard, to the home of the most famous actress in the world and the barge as it carries the Statue of Liberty to America, Ghoul n’ the Cape — equal parts thriller and meditation — is about people becoming more than what they thought themselves capable of being, about man’s place in the modern world: a world facing the irrevocable alterations of the Naught. An interstellar story, a slasher story, a late-bloomer coming-of-age story, and an American story, too. An unclassifiable, epic experience that promises to change the titular duo…even as it changes those who read it.
My Review:
Well now this was the best fucking cross country road trip I've ever been on! As some of y'all know, I absolutely love Malerman's brilliant mind but always end up dislocating an eyeball when it came to the endings. But I also knew that I would forever read Malerman just for the mind fuck that always appears within his pages. Well, I am here to tell you that I have found the one that has broken the mold for me. May I introduce.... GHOUL N' THE CAPE.
I legitimately did not know what I was walking into. I just knew Malerman was a must read for me despite my disdain for the endings. And holy the Naught is nigh! This was worth every single word of the 700+ pages... where we cross the country with Ghoul... n' the Cape... and dammit, I love them. LOVE. THEM. To see them meet for the first time and wondering how the hell these two end up on a road trip of all time .. to where we get left off and how they complement and love each other so.. is there such a thing as a coming-of-middle-age story?
And y'all... the characters they meet along the way are such bright lights in what turns out to be a very somber journey. But the journey entails trust, stepping outside the comfort zone, grief, hope and the Ghost Star. THERE IS SO MUCH TO UNPACK HERE. I'll admit I did sliiiiightly roll my eye at one feeling I had about the ending... HOWEVER, this journey and just how amazing it is how people in your life really can change yours... I don't know how to explain it. And I don't think I could even if I tried. All I know is I ain't hating on it. It's less horror so much as this epic, fantastical, apocalyptic, cosmic, coming of middle age road trip... that you simply must put on your TBR.
I miss Medley....
★★★★★
I need to pick this one up soon!! Killer review!
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