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Supernatural Minnesota #1
The Businessman: A Tale of Terror
Bob was the happiest man in the world. His wife was dead, and no one suspected him of the murder. His mother-in-law was dying, and would probably leave him an inheritance. And with both of them gone, he can wallow in all the beer, chips, and TV a man could ever want...
Then Bob's wife came back from the grave. She brought her sadness, her rage, and something worse - her mother.
Revenge is a gruesome business. And Bob has hell to pay...
292 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
7 people are currently reading
551 people want to read
About the author
Thomas M. Disch
379 books313 followersPoet and cynic, Thomas M. Disch brought to the sf of the New Wave a camp sensibility and a sardonicism that too much sf had lacked. His sf novels include Camp Concentration, with its colony of prisoners mutated into super-intelligence by the bacteria that will in due course kill them horribly, and On Wings of Song, in which many of the brightest and best have left their bodies for what may be genuine, or entirely illusory, astral flight and his hero has to survive until his lover comes back to him; both are stunningly original books and both are among sf's more accomplishedly bitter-sweet works.
In later years, Disch had turned to ironically moralized horror novels like The Businessman, The MD, The Priest and The Sub in which the nightmare of American suburbia is satirized through the terrible things that happen when the magical gives people the chance to do what they really really want. Perhaps Thomas M. Disch's best known work, though, is The Brave Little Toaster, a reworking of the Brothers Grimm's "Town Musicians of Bremen" featuring wornout domestic appliances -- what was written as a satire on sentimentality became a successful children's animated musical.
In later years, Disch had turned to ironically moralized horror novels like The Businessman, The MD, The Priest and The Sub in which the nightmare of American suburbia is satirized through the terrible things that happen when the magical gives people the chance to do what they really really want. Perhaps Thomas M. Disch's best known work, though, is The Brave Little Toaster, a reworking of the Brothers Grimm's "Town Musicians of Bremen" featuring wornout domestic appliances -- what was written as a satire on sentimentality became a successful children's animated musical.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
September 16, 2021
Voices From the Grave
I am fascinated by the abiding religious influence of ‘secular’ writers, especially when they demonstrate a commonality which is otherwise difficult to articulate. The Catholic Thomas Disch, for example, is remarkably like the Jewish Stanley Elkin. Each wrote about the specific cultic guilt of his tribe with profound wit and wry humour. Disch’s epigraph in The Businessman quoting President Eisenhower could have been used by either man: “The issue always and at bottom is spiritual.” They both flippantly reject the modern idea that evil is merely “a quality and not a substance; an adjective and not a noun.” On the other hand, both would probably agree with Disch’s angelic escort, “Who ever suggested that heaven is fair? Is predestination fair, would you say?”
Justice, that is, has little to do with grace. Which is why both writers are fascinated by their respective religion’s doctrines of grace, that mysterious, entirely arbitrary, haplessness-inducing force which seems to control our lives as we bounce from event to event like a cosmic billiard ball. In Elkin, as in his The Franchiser, this shows itself in a sort of persistent fatalism. In Disch’s The Businessman, the tone is almost Zen: “The source of grace has its favorite bloodlines, for which there is no accounting... it has no relation to merit... For the source of grace -- let us be honest and call it God -- is also an ironist and a dweller in paradoxes; He produces good from evil as a matter of course.” Forget the mutual historical objections of Judaism and Catholicism; it is their shared sense of irony that unites them.
So it isn’t surprising that Disch and Elkin share the occasional trope - in this case, the buried body with an axe to grind, and friends on the outside who can supply the necessary oomph to wield it. Elkin’s The Living End as well as The Rabbi of Ludalso have the dead influencing the action from the grave, not as ghosts but as a living presence. The oppressive weight of tradition - the dead in all the multitude of their respective communities of saints - is something else the two share after all. So Disch comments through his narrator: “Time past passed the time.” And “Hell is a tape loop that keeps playing the same stupid tune over and over and over forever and ever and ever” Heaven, on the other hand requires crawling out from under since it is “no more than a fantasm generated by the excess energies of the pooled imaginations of the blessed.” Both hell and heaven are ‘merely’ shared metaphors of imaginative thought.
Maybe it’s the imagination to overcome the weight of time and tradition that accounts for the similarity in humour, most notably the dead pan commentary on one’s own prejudices. Disch’s departed female soul could be a character out of several of Elkin’s novels as “She was of the widely held opinion that at bottom everyone believed what she believed, if only they'd be honest with themselves.” Disch’s cultural asides are equally Elkinesque: “not even automobiles require as large and constant a cash outlay as children. The Roman matron who said that her children were her jewels was not exaggerating.” And so too is there a shared presumption of impending salvation in the observation by Disch’s narrator that “The work was the thing that kept him going. The work and the idea that somehow things were going to change, that he was on the verge of something important.”
Being on the verge of something important is, for me, the subtle theme throughout the work of both writers - like an 11 year old with oppressive parents “All they've got is the distant hope of parole.” This barely suggested attitude of anticipation, perhaps even hope - in the first or the second coming of the messiah; it makes little difference - is what I find most fascinating about them despite their frequent irony, sarcasm, tribal criticism. For example, in contemplating the motto inscribed on a five dollar bill, “IN GOD WE TRUST. Yes. Of all possible messages this was surely the most urgent.” Sometimes, in other words, a cigar is just a joke.
I am fascinated by the abiding religious influence of ‘secular’ writers, especially when they demonstrate a commonality which is otherwise difficult to articulate. The Catholic Thomas Disch, for example, is remarkably like the Jewish Stanley Elkin. Each wrote about the specific cultic guilt of his tribe with profound wit and wry humour. Disch’s epigraph in The Businessman quoting President Eisenhower could have been used by either man: “The issue always and at bottom is spiritual.” They both flippantly reject the modern idea that evil is merely “a quality and not a substance; an adjective and not a noun.” On the other hand, both would probably agree with Disch’s angelic escort, “Who ever suggested that heaven is fair? Is predestination fair, would you say?”
Justice, that is, has little to do with grace. Which is why both writers are fascinated by their respective religion’s doctrines of grace, that mysterious, entirely arbitrary, haplessness-inducing force which seems to control our lives as we bounce from event to event like a cosmic billiard ball. In Elkin, as in his The Franchiser, this shows itself in a sort of persistent fatalism. In Disch’s The Businessman, the tone is almost Zen: “The source of grace has its favorite bloodlines, for which there is no accounting... it has no relation to merit... For the source of grace -- let us be honest and call it God -- is also an ironist and a dweller in paradoxes; He produces good from evil as a matter of course.” Forget the mutual historical objections of Judaism and Catholicism; it is their shared sense of irony that unites them.
So it isn’t surprising that Disch and Elkin share the occasional trope - in this case, the buried body with an axe to grind, and friends on the outside who can supply the necessary oomph to wield it. Elkin’s The Living End as well as The Rabbi of Ludalso have the dead influencing the action from the grave, not as ghosts but as a living presence. The oppressive weight of tradition - the dead in all the multitude of their respective communities of saints - is something else the two share after all. So Disch comments through his narrator: “Time past passed the time.” And “Hell is a tape loop that keeps playing the same stupid tune over and over and over forever and ever and ever” Heaven, on the other hand requires crawling out from under since it is “no more than a fantasm generated by the excess energies of the pooled imaginations of the blessed.” Both hell and heaven are ‘merely’ shared metaphors of imaginative thought.
Maybe it’s the imagination to overcome the weight of time and tradition that accounts for the similarity in humour, most notably the dead pan commentary on one’s own prejudices. Disch’s departed female soul could be a character out of several of Elkin’s novels as “She was of the widely held opinion that at bottom everyone believed what she believed, if only they'd be honest with themselves.” Disch’s cultural asides are equally Elkinesque: “not even automobiles require as large and constant a cash outlay as children. The Roman matron who said that her children were her jewels was not exaggerating.” And so too is there a shared presumption of impending salvation in the observation by Disch’s narrator that “The work was the thing that kept him going. The work and the idea that somehow things were going to change, that he was on the verge of something important.”
Being on the verge of something important is, for me, the subtle theme throughout the work of both writers - like an 11 year old with oppressive parents “All they've got is the distant hope of parole.” This barely suggested attitude of anticipation, perhaps even hope - in the first or the second coming of the messiah; it makes little difference - is what I find most fascinating about them despite their frequent irony, sarcasm, tribal criticism. For example, in contemplating the motto inscribed on a five dollar bill, “IN GOD WE TRUST. Yes. Of all possible messages this was surely the most urgent.” Sometimes, in other words, a cigar is just a joke.
October 11, 2013
One of the more bizarre books I've read in a while. It's part fantasy, part horror and part black comedy. An overweight executive kills his lovely young wife and despite her wishes, she returns from the grave to haunt her murderer. As much as I enjoyed the book, the cast of characters was mostly very unlikeable and I have no desire to spend any time with them again. Still, Disch was an extremely skilled writer and I will be looking for more of his work.
May 28, 2015
Darkly humorous, bizarre and utterly different than most books I have read, The Business Man was nothing like what I expected it to be.
In fact, a friend who read it a while back told me he felt it was an early incarnation of bizarro, which is about as dead on a description as can be made. It wasn't terrifying, but then I'm kind of jaded when it comes to horror, so it takes quite a bit to rattle me.
This book was unique, and full of black humor which did stir up some chuckles from this reader several times throughout. I would recommend giving it a read if you are looking for something to break up the monotony. It shouldn't disappoint.
In fact, a friend who read it a while back told me he felt it was an early incarnation of bizarro, which is about as dead on a description as can be made. It wasn't terrifying, but then I'm kind of jaded when it comes to horror, so it takes quite a bit to rattle me.
This book was unique, and full of black humor which did stir up some chuckles from this reader several times throughout. I would recommend giving it a read if you are looking for something to break up the monotony. It shouldn't disappoint.
July 26, 2013
Absurd. Grotesque. Caustic, philosophical, and at times, oddly melancholic. And with all that, 'The Businessman' is still kind of a letdown.
Disch is a master at dripping acid on the American fabric - whether a novel set in a futuristic prison or ghetto, or a short story set in the stars where an American astronaut is in orbit watching the Earth flare up from nuclear attacks. His fiction always floats and bends between many genres, but this novel, 'The Businessman', is his stab at more conventional horror. At least that's what the book jacket tries to say.
This novel is as horribly uneven as it is uniquely fantastical. It is a madcap meditation on the afterlife, using the suburbs of Minnesota as the stage. A scumbag of a husband has murdered his wife after she left him for Las Vegas. A year later, his wife's mother is dying of cancer, and he awaits her death so he can inherit her wealth. But the daughter comes back from the grave as a spirit in vengeful limbo. But instead of haunting her murderous husband, she has sex with him and soon becomes pregnant with a demonic halfling. This halfling has the power to transcend body and it ruthlessly attacks in the form of a terrier, a heron, a child. This spirit is the timebomb to the story, and gore-flecked insanity ensues because of it. Add in the ghost of John Berryman, the poet who can't make heaven because he committed the sinful act of suicide by jumping off; Jesus in a blimp; a frog arguing with a tree spirit, and in the most ridiculously wonderful image, a spirit animating an old lawn jockey in what is the most bizarre and hilarious scene in the book.
I just wish Thomas Disch pulled out the tongue from his cheek and let the narrative take its course. You can tell he sees these characters as puppets to mock the afterlife, religion and what humans see as 'doing good' in a mundane world. He brilliantly tackles it, but at points, his intellectual banter (nudge, nudge method) loses its luster and I felt I wanted to lose myself to the narrative. Still, a damn good book. Just not up with the par of his masterpieces ('334', 'Camp Concentration' and the collection, 'Fun with your New Head.')
Disch is a master at dripping acid on the American fabric - whether a novel set in a futuristic prison or ghetto, or a short story set in the stars where an American astronaut is in orbit watching the Earth flare up from nuclear attacks. His fiction always floats and bends between many genres, but this novel, 'The Businessman', is his stab at more conventional horror. At least that's what the book jacket tries to say.
This novel is as horribly uneven as it is uniquely fantastical. It is a madcap meditation on the afterlife, using the suburbs of Minnesota as the stage. A scumbag of a husband has murdered his wife after she left him for Las Vegas. A year later, his wife's mother is dying of cancer, and he awaits her death so he can inherit her wealth. But the daughter comes back from the grave as a spirit in vengeful limbo. But instead of haunting her murderous husband, she has sex with him and soon becomes pregnant with a demonic halfling. This halfling has the power to transcend body and it ruthlessly attacks in the form of a terrier, a heron, a child. This spirit is the timebomb to the story, and gore-flecked insanity ensues because of it. Add in the ghost of John Berryman, the poet who can't make heaven because he committed the sinful act of suicide by jumping off; Jesus in a blimp; a frog arguing with a tree spirit, and in the most ridiculously wonderful image, a spirit animating an old lawn jockey in what is the most bizarre and hilarious scene in the book.
I just wish Thomas Disch pulled out the tongue from his cheek and let the narrative take its course. You can tell he sees these characters as puppets to mock the afterlife, religion and what humans see as 'doing good' in a mundane world. He brilliantly tackles it, but at points, his intellectual banter (nudge, nudge method) loses its luster and I felt I wanted to lose myself to the narrative. Still, a damn good book. Just not up with the par of his masterpieces ('334', 'Camp Concentration' and the collection, 'Fun with your New Head.')
April 16, 2011
This was my third Disch novel and the only one I regret opening. The Genocides and Camp Concentration: A Novel were both excellent socially conscious novels. The Businessman, not so much. In trying to be so, the novel sunk into itself and became lost in a gobbledygook mess of it's own conceit. The entire tale fell flat with me. My initial 3 star rating was based on denial.
Within this story, Disch created an absurd afterlife. I appreciated the idea but A's for effort are only awarded in grade school. And maybe the afterlife. Ugghh, the book is rubbing off on me. Disch just failed to connect with his readers and I do not feel as though I am overstepping my bounds stating readers instead of referring to only myself. If I were to mention some of the things that happen within this book (Major Spoilers! then your interest might be peaked but Disch failed to connect. His characters were wholly unlikeable. There wasn't even a bad character I liked, either badly written or evil in action that I cared about. The characters annoyed the hell out of me. I did not care what happened to any of them, in any way shape or form. I can think of few other more negative things to say about a novel. I also did not connect with the humor. I'm still unsure why, since my type of humor (satire, at times extremely absurd) should have meshed with the author's.
Even after all of this, I will not give up on reading Disch. If this had been my first by him, it would have also been my last.
Within this story, Disch created an absurd afterlife. I appreciated the idea but A's for effort are only awarded in grade school. And maybe the afterlife. Ugghh, the book is rubbing off on me. Disch just failed to connect with his readers and I do not feel as though I am overstepping my bounds stating readers instead of referring to only myself. If I were to mention some of the things that happen within this book (Major Spoilers! then your interest might be peaked but Disch failed to connect. His characters were wholly unlikeable. There wasn't even a bad character I liked, either badly written or evil in action that I cared about. The characters annoyed the hell out of me. I did not care what happened to any of them, in any way shape or form. I can think of few other more negative things to say about a novel. I also did not connect with the humor. I'm still unsure why, since my type of humor (satire, at times extremely absurd) should have meshed with the author's.
Even after all of this, I will not give up on reading Disch. If this had been my first by him, it would have also been my last.
March 3, 2024
Bit of a mixed bag. Started brilliantly and then chapters started to alternate depending on storylines. A couple were engaging and fruitful and a couple were dull and routine. Also, billed as a novel of terror, and representing something of a satirical horror novel, it ended up being not too scary but plenty gory.
March 8, 2021
I have to admit, I am not entirely sure what to make of this bizarre, disturbing, humorous, annoying, thought provoking “Tale of Terror.” In the end, I feel that I liked it, though I may have to read it again in a couple of years. At this point, I would probably give a 3.5 if possible. I am certainly interested in reading the rest of Thomas M. Disch's “Supernatural Minnesota” series. I have only become aware of Disch in the last two months, after stumbling on the University of Minnesota's 2010 editions of the series and then happening to have read another of Disch's stories in an anthology. I had only heard of one of his previous works in the past, “The Brave Little Toaster,” through the animated film. As a writer and poet, Disch seemed to have had some interesting ideas. In the end, I may have enjoyed the ideas brought up in “The Businessman” more than the actual story or the characters he depicts.
Set mostly in the suburban Twin Cities, “The Businessman” involves a lot more than the blurb would suggest, of the disgustingly bland murderer Glandier being haunted by his apathetic wife Giselle. Equal parts droll comedy and shocking terror (both extremes exist side by side in this genre defying story), there seems to be a lot more going on behind the rather conventional supernatural thriller plot. The events of the book, on the other hand, feel very early eighties, very rooted to the period it was written As a “ghost story,” in that it involves the activities of ghosts, Disch has created an interesting take on an afterlife complete with heaven, reincarnation, ghosts, and a “virtual reality” Limbo with real time TV feeds from Earth. It is interesting to posit that imagination is what truly shapes your afterlife; a more vacuous personality will end up reincarnated as a plant, for instance, as vegetation is the best reflection of a life lived without higher thoughts. Still, life as a tree actually sounds fairly nice. This was the most interesting aspect of the story, reflecting that life after death is what people make of it, whether taking an easy reincarnation as a plant or animal or another human, hanging out as a ghost, spending time relaxing in “the waiting room” watching TV, or dissolve into the bliss of the “higher heavens” or the oblivion of sinking into the vastness of the physical universe.
Generally, on both earth and the afterlife, the innocent suffer almost as much as the guilty, though, truthfully, everyone is deeply flawed, whether through hypocrisy, thoughtlessness, or just plain apathy. Everyone, even the murderer Glandier and the ghost poet Berryman, comes off as average, everyday people even as they are surrounded by the utterly bizarre. Even Jesus, in his cameo, seems like a normal guy (but of course, he is being viewed by conventional Minnesotans, so his appearance couldn't be too strange). In particular, the character of the ghost of the poet John Berryman was among the most interesting. Trapped in Minneapolis after his suicide, the erudite spirit puts aside his quest for booze in order to attempt to fix the injustices of Giselle's death, perhaps with the ulterior motive of being allowed into the afterlife. Disch was a poet as well as a writer, and he, like Berryman, later took his own life. This adds another layer of tragic feeling to the subject matter of “The Businessman.” In any case, the book, though flawed in some ways, was one of the most unusual I have read for a while.
Set mostly in the suburban Twin Cities, “The Businessman” involves a lot more than the blurb would suggest, of the disgustingly bland murderer Glandier being haunted by his apathetic wife Giselle. Equal parts droll comedy and shocking terror (both extremes exist side by side in this genre defying story), there seems to be a lot more going on behind the rather conventional supernatural thriller plot. The events of the book, on the other hand, feel very early eighties, very rooted to the period it was written As a “ghost story,” in that it involves the activities of ghosts, Disch has created an interesting take on an afterlife complete with heaven, reincarnation, ghosts, and a “virtual reality” Limbo with real time TV feeds from Earth. It is interesting to posit that imagination is what truly shapes your afterlife; a more vacuous personality will end up reincarnated as a plant, for instance, as vegetation is the best reflection of a life lived without higher thoughts. Still, life as a tree actually sounds fairly nice. This was the most interesting aspect of the story, reflecting that life after death is what people make of it, whether taking an easy reincarnation as a plant or animal or another human, hanging out as a ghost, spending time relaxing in “the waiting room” watching TV, or dissolve into the bliss of the “higher heavens” or the oblivion of sinking into the vastness of the physical universe.
Generally, on both earth and the afterlife, the innocent suffer almost as much as the guilty, though, truthfully, everyone is deeply flawed, whether through hypocrisy, thoughtlessness, or just plain apathy. Everyone, even the murderer Glandier and the ghost poet Berryman, comes off as average, everyday people even as they are surrounded by the utterly bizarre. Even Jesus, in his cameo, seems like a normal guy (but of course, he is being viewed by conventional Minnesotans, so his appearance couldn't be too strange). In particular, the character of the ghost of the poet John Berryman was among the most interesting. Trapped in Minneapolis after his suicide, the erudite spirit puts aside his quest for booze in order to attempt to fix the injustices of Giselle's death, perhaps with the ulterior motive of being allowed into the afterlife. Disch was a poet as well as a writer, and he, like Berryman, later took his own life. This adds another layer of tragic feeling to the subject matter of “The Businessman.” In any case, the book, though flawed in some ways, was one of the most unusual I have read for a while.
Want to read
November 12, 2018I read a pretty compelling essay by John Crowley in In Other Words concerning the Disch trilogy which starts with this book.
June 4, 2017
This was such a crazy read. At one point I thought it had become too crazy for me (a walking statue comes to mind) but even though it was crazy I liked it.I liked the writing and the main characters so yes Crazy but fun .
May 29, 2018
A darkly comedic and satirical fantasy that reads like a combination of The Lovely Bones, Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, and The Frighteners...from the author of The Brave Little Toaster.
All the ingredients are ripe for a good fantasy/horror/social commentary piece - with a set-up that reads like a morality tale ripped straight from The Vault of Horror - and they certainly could have been if the final product didn't give off such a strong "making it up as I go" vibe. A positive because this book is never predictable and unlike anything I've ever read. A negative because the main point of it all is lost in the jumble. The side characters are fun, the horror elements are suitably horrific, and the depiction of the afterlife is interesting, even if the mythology of it is extremely muddled.
I particularly enjoyed some of the weird visuals. A possessed Virgin Mary statue and a naked woman look in on the woman's own funeral. A tree and a frog get in an argument. HBO is readily available in Heaven, and a certain Biblical superstar appears at the end in a very interesting way. Most poetic of all and in true EC Comics fashion, the ultimate comeuppance of the titular businessman is a cathartic hoot. Talk about fitting punishment.
I can't say this is what I'd call an engaging read, but it's certainly interesting and unlike anything else you're apt to read. I'm happy this put Disch on my radar, though. Dude's got a hell of an imagination.
All the ingredients are ripe for a good fantasy/horror/social commentary piece - with a set-up that reads like a morality tale ripped straight from The Vault of Horror - and they certainly could have been if the final product didn't give off such a strong "making it up as I go" vibe. A positive because this book is never predictable and unlike anything I've ever read. A negative because the main point of it all is lost in the jumble. The side characters are fun, the horror elements are suitably horrific, and the depiction of the afterlife is interesting, even if the mythology of it is extremely muddled.
I particularly enjoyed some of the weird visuals. A possessed Virgin Mary statue and a naked woman look in on the woman's own funeral. A tree and a frog get in an argument. HBO is readily available in Heaven, and a certain Biblical superstar appears at the end in a very interesting way. Most poetic of all and in true EC Comics fashion, the ultimate comeuppance of the titular businessman is a cathartic hoot. Talk about fitting punishment.
I can't say this is what I'd call an engaging read, but it's certainly interesting and unlike anything else you're apt to read. I'm happy this put Disch on my radar, though. Dude's got a hell of an imagination.
May 29, 2020
Member "The Brave Little Toaster"? This was written by the same guy. That could tell you all you need to know.
I enjoyed this book so much, I think I am going to rethink my rating on "The MD" (another book in this 'series', and a story I've found myself thinking of often).
The humor, kindness, character foibles and occasionally awful violence share a lot in common with another pair of Midwestern story-tellers, the Coen Brothers.
Also, I feel the subtitle "A Tale of Terror" is kind of misleading. Though there is some gore and the ideas are "terrifying" but the whole book is written with such warmth it appeared more comedic and sweet than anything else. This is in stark contrast to "The MD", which I found to be almost desperately sad. Again...the Brave Little Toaster explains all.
I enjoyed this book so much, I think I am going to rethink my rating on "The MD" (another book in this 'series', and a story I've found myself thinking of often).
The humor, kindness, character foibles and occasionally awful violence share a lot in common with another pair of Midwestern story-tellers, the Coen Brothers.
Also, I feel the subtitle "A Tale of Terror" is kind of misleading. Though there is some gore and the ideas are "terrifying" but the whole book is written with such warmth it appeared more comedic and sweet than anything else. This is in stark contrast to "The MD", which I found to be almost desperately sad. Again...the Brave Little Toaster explains all.
November 20, 2013
What the heck did I just read?
Wow. This is just bizarre. I started the book not quite knowing what to expect (I don't even know where I got it), and I still don't know what I got.
It's got humour, sometimes in an absurd Douglas Adams-way, but it's not that funny.
It's got ghosts, but it's not spooky.
It's got gore, and terror, but it's not terrifying.
What shines through the humour, the supernatural entities and spilled guts is a very interesting pragmatism and matter-of-fact way that Disch deals with the material. In that he manages to create something quite unique, without shining in any specific criterion.
It's nothing really special, but I'll admit I enjoyed it quite a bit. An unexpected little gem :)
Wow. This is just bizarre. I started the book not quite knowing what to expect (I don't even know where I got it), and I still don't know what I got.
It's got humour, sometimes in an absurd Douglas Adams-way, but it's not that funny.
It's got ghosts, but it's not spooky.
It's got gore, and terror, but it's not terrifying.
What shines through the humour, the supernatural entities and spilled guts is a very interesting pragmatism and matter-of-fact way that Disch deals with the material. In that he manages to create something quite unique, without shining in any specific criterion.
It's nothing really special, but I'll admit I enjoyed it quite a bit. An unexpected little gem :)
September 12, 2017
This was Disch's first foray into horror thrillers, and at first glance it looks like a familiar sort of thing (although unusually funny), but it's really remarkably weird and often beautiful. Violent mayhem does happen, but it's less interesting than the digressions about the afterlife, the spiritual ups and downs of an addled murder victim, and affectionately biting portraits of believable Midwesterners. The new Minnesota U.P. edition has a really nice intro by John Crowley.
(Edited to add: I put together some annotations I made during a recent reread here.)
(Edited to add: I put together some annotations I made during a recent reread here.)
October 30, 2018
Minnesotan Bob has it made. He has just murdered his wife in a Las Vegas motel, and no one suspects him of the crime. Plus, his mother-in-law is dying and would probably leave him with a hefty sum. Then Bob’s wife comes back to haunt him.
This book is, to me, unique. It is a tale of horror yet funny. Disch shows his erudition and yet can get down and dirty in language with the best of them. It is very well written and reads smoothly. The only fault I could find was the ending. It could have been truncated slightly earlier. Instead, I felt it dragged on a little too much.
This book is, to me, unique. It is a tale of horror yet funny. Disch shows his erudition and yet can get down and dirty in language with the best of them. It is very well written and reads smoothly. The only fault I could find was the ending. It could have been truncated slightly earlier. Instead, I felt it dragged on a little too much.
September 27, 2016
The problem I have with this novel and all of Mr. Disch's works are that we have to suspend our intelligence and cover our mouths. All police departments are not that stupid, people are not all that trusting and lastly, the villain is not supposed to be a symbol of success because of his elusiveness. This author follows a formula and loves to go over the top as far as violence is concerned. This was worst than his M.D. novel.
July 2, 2017
Extraño del principio hasta el final, bien narrado y muy bien escrito, me puedo aventurar que ahora mismo este libro de Disch se le podría enmarcar dentro del género bizarro.
Recomendado para todos aquellos lectores que les guste dar la vuelta a la tortilla sin romperla.
Recomendado para todos aquellos lectores que les guste dar la vuelta a la tortilla sin romperla.
October 29, 2018
I was ready to write this off as another American Psycho, which I did not enjoy, but then the book turned absurd and suddenly I was hooked.
October 17, 2023
Un libro raro. Por momentos parece que será de terror, luego de humor, luego gore... Pero ninguno termina de cuajar. Al final es una buena y extraña reflexión sobre los muertos.
August 18, 2021
"Bob Glandier's slow burn"
As I have mentioned on countless other occasions, Disch is a master of the Gothic trope. In the case of The Businessman (1984) one of his more powerful descriptions is creeping rot in a character's life. Before you know it, you've gone to hell. Before you know it, you're falling apart. Before you know it, the bottom drops out. How does Disch turn these primitive facts of life into art?
1. As with most of us, when Bob turns thirty he starts to "go to pot." We don't hear this expression much these days, but it still conveys the message. Before he realized what was happening, he had struggled. He had dieted, he had lifted weights. He had tried to stay in shape. But gradually he was worn down and he gave up. It wasn't graceful but it was true. There's just this way things have to be. We are worn down, we give up and then death, if merciful, ushers us out of the theater where we'd spent too many hours on our rear ends. Here is the sure sign that the end is near: "He had let his paunch sprawl over his belt." No use in trying to tighten things up anymore.
2. "His jaw softened from Dick Tracy to Porky Pig." Again the connection that most Gothic authors make to horror and the animal When humans slowly become more basic, more attached to their animality, they descend into horror. His clothing was one of the few things that kept him firmly within the human community. And we know the importance of clothing for keeping our dignity. Talk to any survivor of Auschwitz and you'll understand.
3. As Bob was sinking, slowing sinking in the primal ooze, he clung to an image of himself in which he found some consolation. A businessman plays golf. So we need polyester golf clothes. And a businessman smokes expensive cigars, so we smoke expensive cigars. The key ingredients of the successful Eighties businessman is someone in insurance, pharmaceuticals, finance, who enjoys the boozy lunch and the boozy dinners.
4. He had given up jogging when he surrendered to the inevitable. Rather than a sweatsuit, there was the back yard, the lawn chair, a daquiri, and a magazine. Older associates found Bob a relief from their own agony; here was a young man quickly tracking them into decrepitude. When sexual intercourse finally up and left at 41, Bob had no idea what he was doing. Everything he had built a life on- alcohol, money, position, work, sex, social life-were deserting him. He was disintegrating and his figure was ballooning from slack muscle development. Brando and Elvis were more content with their obesities.
As I have mentioned on countless other occasions, Disch is a master of the Gothic trope. In the case of The Businessman (1984) one of his more powerful descriptions is creeping rot in a character's life. Before you know it, you've gone to hell. Before you know it, you're falling apart. Before you know it, the bottom drops out. How does Disch turn these primitive facts of life into art?
1. As with most of us, when Bob turns thirty he starts to "go to pot." We don't hear this expression much these days, but it still conveys the message. Before he realized what was happening, he had struggled. He had dieted, he had lifted weights. He had tried to stay in shape. But gradually he was worn down and he gave up. It wasn't graceful but it was true. There's just this way things have to be. We are worn down, we give up and then death, if merciful, ushers us out of the theater where we'd spent too many hours on our rear ends. Here is the sure sign that the end is near: "He had let his paunch sprawl over his belt." No use in trying to tighten things up anymore.
2. "His jaw softened from Dick Tracy to Porky Pig." Again the connection that most Gothic authors make to horror and the animal When humans slowly become more basic, more attached to their animality, they descend into horror. His clothing was one of the few things that kept him firmly within the human community. And we know the importance of clothing for keeping our dignity. Talk to any survivor of Auschwitz and you'll understand.
3. As Bob was sinking, slowing sinking in the primal ooze, he clung to an image of himself in which he found some consolation. A businessman plays golf. So we need polyester golf clothes. And a businessman smokes expensive cigars, so we smoke expensive cigars. The key ingredients of the successful Eighties businessman is someone in insurance, pharmaceuticals, finance, who enjoys the boozy lunch and the boozy dinners.
4. He had given up jogging when he surrendered to the inevitable. Rather than a sweatsuit, there was the back yard, the lawn chair, a daquiri, and a magazine. Older associates found Bob a relief from their own agony; here was a young man quickly tracking them into decrepitude. When sexual intercourse finally up and left at 41, Bob had no idea what he was doing. Everything he had built a life on- alcohol, money, position, work, sex, social life-were deserting him. He was disintegrating and his figure was ballooning from slack muscle development. Brando and Elvis were more content with their obesities.
July 25, 2025
Disch can be a challenging writer, and I had a hard time deciding whether to give this 3 or 4 stars. I decided on 4 stars because this is an audacious book, even though I got bogged down in the middle. The book, at least in paperback, is marketed as a horror novel, and that is very deceptive. Horrific and terrible things happen in the book, but that is not really the point of the novel. It has also been described as a metaphysical thriller and black comedy which are closer to the mark. The titular character of the novel, Glandier, is a murderer. We know because his wife, Giselle, is dead but conscious, tied to her grave. Giselle's mother, Joy-Ann, has terminal cancer, and she does not suspect that Glandier murdered her daughter. Indeed, he has helped her to cope with her cancer, and she never suspects that he is a monster. The novel takes off when Giselle is finally free of her grave, and Joy-Ann has died and gone to Paradise, a halfway stop to Heaven where spirits can still return to Earth to deal with issues. Ultimately, Glandier needs to get what is coming to him, but it takes the aid of several spirits and demon channeled through the ghost of Glandier's and Giselle's aborted baby. Despite the blurbs on the paperback, this never reminded me of King, Straub or similar writers of blockbuster horror novels. It did remind me of Philip K Dick (Counter Clock World), Rudy Rucker (White Light), Disch (Echo Round His Bones) and Beetlejuice! Of course, it is indisputably a Disch novel.
November 29, 2019
It's really a 4.5 for me, but I'm rounding up because I'm surprise I liked it so well. Normally anything subtitled "a tale of terror" is probably not going to be my cup of tea, but this was definitely more The Good Place than Saw, to use TV/film analogies! Yes, there were some brutal murders, but when the victims show up in the next chapter complaining in the afterlife, it's hard to take it all too seriously.
So it reads more like a fantasy than a horror, with more attention being paid to events in the afterlife than on earth. We get to follow the ghosts, or spirits, or souls, what have you, and see how they feel about it all. It's funny, it's satirical, it's suspenseful, it's thought-provoking, and it wasn't at all what I was expecting.
(Now I want it to be a streaming miniseries, because I'm so looking forward to the episode with the ambulatory Virgin Mary statue!)
P.S. It only took this long to read because it was my read-while-at-work-waiting-for-microwave book. I have Very Specific times that I read books--I even have a read-when-eating-Chinese-takeout-from-CitySquareFoodCourt, believe it or not.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!
So it reads more like a fantasy than a horror, with more attention being paid to events in the afterlife than on earth. We get to follow the ghosts, or spirits, or souls, what have you, and see how they feel about it all. It's funny, it's satirical, it's suspenseful, it's thought-provoking, and it wasn't at all what I was expecting.
(Now I want it to be a streaming miniseries, because I'm so looking forward to the episode with the ambulatory Virgin Mary statue!)
P.S. It only took this long to read because it was my read-while-at-work-waiting-for-microwave book. I have Very Specific times that I read books--I even have a read-when-eating-Chinese-takeout-from-CitySquareFoodCourt, believe it or not.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!
January 24, 2013
Disch started his career writing sci-fi, and I enjoyed Echo Round His Bones, so I was interested to see what the Supernatural Minnesota books were like.
The book begins with a husband trying to cover up the murder of his wife, and with the wife realizing she's dead and in a coffin and can't get out. She eventually does (of course), and realizes that she's supposed to haunt her husband. Sometimes she wants to & sometimes she doesn't, but they're bound to each other regardless.
Both husband and wife have very strange difficulties, and this novel had a little bit of a Piers Anthony Pontification thing going on; lots of theorizing, exploration of odd ideas, etc. Disch does good characterization and explains the strangeness in a way that kept me in the story. I really like his style. Overall this felt more like a supernatural drama than horror, although it definitely had some horror-worthy moments. Very different than I expected, looking forward to The M.D. next!
The book begins with a husband trying to cover up the murder of his wife, and with the wife realizing she's dead and in a coffin and can't get out. She eventually does (of course), and realizes that she's supposed to haunt her husband. Sometimes she wants to & sometimes she doesn't, but they're bound to each other regardless.
Both husband and wife have very strange difficulties, and this novel had a little bit of a Piers Anthony Pontification thing going on; lots of theorizing, exploration of odd ideas, etc. Disch does good characterization and explains the strangeness in a way that kept me in the story. I really like his style. Overall this felt more like a supernatural drama than horror, although it definitely had some horror-worthy moments. Very different than I expected, looking forward to The M.D. next!
November 23, 2009
The ghost of a young woman gets help from the ghost of the poet John Berryman to get revenge on the husband who murdered her. Not a conventional thriller or ghost story, but rather a collection of eccentric characters caught in a very odd afterlife.
January 27, 2013
I have always enjoyed Disch's mind. He is, or was,wonderfully twisted and this book is no exception.
Initially it can be a bit challenging to "get into" but soon I was humming along, laughing at the macabre absurdity and wondering how it was going to end. A nice, evil little book.
Initially it can be a bit challenging to "get into" but soon I was humming along, laughing at the macabre absurdity and wondering how it was going to end. A nice, evil little book.
July 2, 2017
Subtitled a "tale of terror," this is not terrifying at all. But it has it's entertaining bits. It is inventive, what with halflings, shape shifters, John Berryman's ghost and escalators to paradise!
I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed this novel.
I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed this novel.
March 10, 2023
Not unlike Stephen King and Clive Barker. This particular semi-horror story is a kind of mix of these two authors. The novel has an interesting middle part, but that last 40-50 pagers are quite boring.
July 20, 2008
This outlandish, cliche-defying horror story fits squarely in the vacation-reading-for-smart-people genre.
Really only deserves 3.5 stars, but seems unfair to give it three.
Really only deserves 3.5 stars, but seems unfair to give it three.
August 20, 2008
The first of Disch's supernatural Minnesota books, which uses the conventions of gothic and horror genres to deconstruct (satirically) late 20th century America.
June 15, 2009
This original and sometimes bizarre suspense novel is squarer fare than Disch's best books, but a solid genre-bender that is fun to read.
December 15, 2011
This book falls somewhere between lesser Dick and Bulgakov's Master and Margarita (which I also did not like).
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