October

by Michael Rowe

The the waning years of the 1990s at the dawn of the millennium.


The an isolated rural town called Auburn, which could be anywhere at all—a town where everyone knows everyone else—where dark secrets run through its veins like blood.


Everyone knows that sixteen-year old Mikey Childress is “different.” A target for bullies since he was a small boy, everything Mikey does attracts the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he looks. Everyone knows he’s not like the other boys in Auburn—the boys who play hockey, who fight, the boys who pursue girls. Only his friend Wroxy, a girl almost as isolated as he is, can even guess at the edges of his pain, or the depths of his yearning for love.


But even the people who hate Mikey couldn’t dream of how many secrets he has, or how badly he could hurt them if he wanted to.


Until the night Mikey is pushed beyond endurance by his abusers. The night he makes a pact with dark forces older than time to visit a terrible vengeance on his enemies. The night he inadvertently opens a doorway that should never, ever have been opened, and unleashes something into the world that should have remained damned.


From Michael Rowe, the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of Wild Fell and Enter, Night comes a Faustian tale of the horrific cost of the murder of innocence in a small town, and of the vicious price extracted for the ultimate revenge.

Genres: Horror, Queer, LGBT, Audiobook, Halloween, M M Romance

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 31, 2017

About the author

Michael Rowe is an independent international journalist who has lived in Beirut, Havana, Geneva, and Paris.

His work has appeared in the National Post, The Globe & Mail, The United Church Observer and numerous other publications. He has been a finalist for both the Canadian National Magazine Award and the Associated Church Press Award in the United States. The author of several books, including Writing Below the Belt, a critically acclaimed study of censorship, pornography, and popular culture, and the essay collections Looking For Brothers and Other Men's Sons, which won the 2008 Randy Shilts Award for Nonfiction, he has also won the Lambda Literary Award. He is currently a contributing writer to The Advocate and a political blogger for The Huffington Post.

--from the author's website

Reviews

[Char · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 stars!

Just look at that gorgeous cover! One would never guess the pain hiding behind it, but it's there. It's there in spades.

In a small Canadian town, two awkward teens are just trying to make it through high school. Mikey, a young gay man, and his best friend Wroxy, a loaner and a goth girl, try to support each other as best they can. But Wroxy can't protect Mikey from the jock bullies and it seems no one else can either. After witnessing something in the woods, and then soon after going through the worst experience of his life, Mikey decides he's had enough and takes matters into his own hands. Will he exact his revenge upon the jocks? Can he do it on his own? You'll have to read this novella to find out.

As in both ENTER, NIGHT and WILD FELL Michael Rowe's bewitching prose captured my attention and held it tight. His characters are so well developed it's easy to understand their motivations. They are also so human that the reader cannot help but to empathize with them. Then, once Rowe has you in his clutches, he puts those characters through hell and you're just along for the ride.

OCTOBER will join Rowe's last two books on my list of favorites. It's beautifully written, evocative, brutal and surprising all at once. I only wish it could have been a little longer.

Highly recommended to fans of LGBT and dark , dark fiction!

You can find a copy here: October

*I bought this e-book with my own hard earned money and this is my honest opinion.*

[Matt Milu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well I didn’t see that ending coming! 4 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!

[The Shayne-Train · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Rowe has a way of writing that puts you in the heads of characters, and gaining their sympathy, even when you don't particularly like them. That is a rare and wonderful skill.

This was a kinda-creepy, kinda-hot-gay-sex-ish bullying/revenge/demon worshiping story. You know, THAT old chestnut. Written very well, I breezed right thru this and was completely satisfied.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only is Michael Rowe a wonderful storyteller, he is a skilled writer. He can craft a phrase in ways that will rip your heart out or, as related in an earlier discussion, make you put down the book and simply stare at the wall in contemplation.
The first half of this book is pure terror but not in a supernatural way. It is the story of a young gay man named Mikey and the daily abuse and ridicule he faces from his classmates. It is terrifying and although difficult to read, you can feel in your heart that Rowe knows better than most exactly how this feels. You have become his confidant. It is a staggering responsibility.
There is more to the story, much more and in the telling we find ourselves privy to not only Mikey’s enlightenment but also our own. What would we do for love? If we were to find our perfect partner how far would we go to keep that person with us? Is the love of a friend as important as the love of a romantic partner? What is it that draws us to people and what does that say about who we are as humans? What is the nature of an evil that we can accept? All of these questions come to the front in the second half of this novel. Mikey is drawn to a darkness that he has been skirting for awhile. Although we can nod our heads and agree that he was headed there when he started hanging out with his rebellious friend Wroxy, we have to take a step back and realize that she is the most benign character in the book. She wasn’t taking him anywhere that wouldn’t end in a friend’s embrace.
The end is abrupt and shocking. I dare you to not go back and read the last page twice. I also urge you to read the afterward by the author. It is important. Like his other books, this one is stunning in it’s character development and it’s description of place and time. You will get lost in the story—not especially a comfortable place to be but certainly a place of contemplation and self-assessment.

[Audi♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I would die for love. Yes. I would die for it. I would kill for it."
 
Omgg!!! That ending 😧 I'm shocked! 
Mikey lives in a homopobic, hillbilly, bible-thumpin town. He's constantly being bullied at school for his interests, being unathletic, shy, and gay. Even his parents treat him terrible. 😭 when the jocks rock his shit for something he didn't do, he's done. So...he finds a revenge spell. (Tw. he kills a cat on page.)
Then, ooouuuweee! Would you look at that? The next day, a mysterious new student enrolls and wants nothing more than to make Mikey's bullies pay. 
Who...or what is Adrian?? 🤭 
This was so good! Obsessed with the cover.
 

[BrokenTune · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*

Mikey climbed into the Honda and turned the key in the ignition. He revved the engine, tossing mud up into the air as the car peeled out of the clearing and onto the road back to Auburn. He glanced down at the dashboard clock. It was one o’clock in the morning on the last day of September—or rather, the first day of October—and he had just bashed out the brains of an innocent, defenseless animal in order to cast a spell he’d found on the Internet to make the bullies in town suffer for having hurt him. Mikey felt he would vomit. He pulled the car to the side of the road and leaned out of the driver’s side door just as his stomach began to heave. All of this for nothing, he thought sickly, retching into the mud. I killed a living thing for nothing. Yeah, I’m a real sorcerer, aren’t I? I am Mikey Childress. Fear me. Christ almighty, what have I turned into? On the ride home it occurred to him that the best thing to do would be to drive off one of the cliffs and crash his mother’s car into a ravine. It would solve a lot of problems. At the same time, he suspected, he probably didn’t even have the courage for that.

This quote to me very represents the very best part of the book: the almost tangible despair and inner turmoil in the main character, whose life has been shaped by bullies of all kinds.

With respect to the portrayal of bullying and the impact it can have on a person, October was great.

What didn't work for me was the execution. The story felt rushed, most of the characters were a bit two dimensional, the plot and characters choices felt at many time ludicrous, and there were some other writing choices that made me either groan, roll my eyes, or want to heave.

Sure, this was a novella and had limitations of length to contend with, but to me the story just felt rushed and trying to do too much.

Not for me.

[Ctgt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to the audiobook and while I didn't love the narration I really enjoyed the story. Tale of two teenage outcasts, a boy struggling with his sexual orientation and a goth girl who end up best friends as they deal with the typical high school bullying. Add in a local urban legend about a coven of witches in the local forest and you have the framework for the story. The legend is an interesting angle but the story is really about kids and their struggle to figure out who they are and how they fit in to the often unforgiving world around them.

8/10

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if Stephen King's Carrie White was a gay male growing up in a small Ontario town like Milton in the early 90's?

This is a delicious and dark read from an author who never disappoints.

This novel is raw, emotional and frightening, stemming from both the reality of the horrors that outcasts and bullied kids face daily, but also the dark supernatural elements that Rowe so brilliantly weaves into the tale.

[Allison B-P · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 rounded down. I'm using the Goodreads definition of one star here to mean "I didn't like it". I didn't HATE it, but I struggled to get through what's only a six hour audiobook.

This book read like someone's self-insert wish fulfillment fanfiction with the canonical characters' names changed. Mikey is an honest-to-God idiot and a jerk and I hate him. Treating the one friend you've had for four years like absolute garbage because you found your 16 year old "twue wuv :3"? Yeah, I'd beat this kid up, too, not gonna lie.

I loved Wroxy's character but hated how she got so underutilized and used simply as a tool to assuage and comfort the male main character. Mikey is such a spastic asshole around her all the time and she's so patient with him, but she only gets used as a sounding board when Mikey needs to snivel about something. And naturally he can speak to her any way he wants to, and she'll just take him back and light some candles about it. I just... UGH!! I HATE MIKEY.

This also was not horror, so that's a big disappointment. It's more of a YA slice of life with a couple predictable supernatural elements tossed in.

As a trigger warning, there is animal cruelty and death that features fairly heavily in a few scenes, so reader beware.

I would skip this book entirely, but if you go ahead with it, definitely don't opt for the audiobook. The reader has this strange thing where he makes every character sound like they're whining and about to cry every time he reads dialogue. And the Canadian goth girl sounds like a valley girl from the Hills - it's very strange. I don't usually let the narrator sway my rating of books, but it was hard to get past this time.

I picked this one up because it was in my 'available horror books' list on Libby/Overdrive, and I'm glad it was really short.

[SheriC · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novella was a quick wild ride, once it got going. I think it could have benefitted from a longer and more thorough treatment, to give us a more nuanced view of our main characters, but as I understand this was originally a short story, perhaps this is really all the author had to say about his characters. But I felt for Mikey and Wroxy. I had a small, very small, taste of being bullied as a child, and I remember other children who were the constant targets of harassment, likely much worse than was done publicly. The ending… is the logical conclusion of Mikey’s choices, but not the one I hoped for. Sometimes, though, the ending that we, as readers want, is not the ending that is right. It was still satisfying.

Audiobook, via Audible. Joel Froomkin was the perfect voice for Mikey, although he reminded me irresistibly of George McFly.

I read this for the 2018 Halloween Bingo square New Release: mystery, suspense, horror or supernatural that was published after 10/31/17. Although it was based on a short story written in the late 1980’s, this novella was just published in February 2018.

[Brice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Rowe knows pain. He knows anger. And, thankfully, he knows when the pair marry there can be no good.
In his latest, OCTOBER, Rowe does what he has done so well in his previous novels - WILD FELL and ENTER, NIGHT - by crafting characters we not only genuinely care for, but know or have known in our lives. In this instance it's a pair of outsiders who work their way into out hearts with awkward, gay teen Mikey and his misfit, 'fuck you' attitude female friend Wroxy. The pair's bond and love for one another shines through each page, as does Mikey's pain as he is the constant target of bullies at his high school in a small, rural Ontario town with a population just a tad shy north of 3,000 souls.
That town has legends of witches, werewolves and even vampires, but only one proves to be true and, as Mikey and we readers learn, sometimes legends come with a very heavy price.
A slick, comfortable read that manages to examine the issues of bullying and sexuality, OCTOBER is a great fall read, but will engage readers regardless of the season.

[Peter Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! From the second I picked this book up, it was hard for me to put it down. The story was gripping and the characters were believable (I saw so much of myself in Mikey). I’m especially appreciated them author’s love for the town and his characters. The richness and depth of both was exquisite. I’ll definitely be looking for more to read from this author. This is easily one of my favorite books of 2017!

[Shikhar · Rating 5 out of 5]

OCTOBER is, in many ways, the quintessential revenge novel. There is the sympathetic hero, Mikey Childress. There’s the girl, Wroxy. And there is the villain, Dewey Verbinski. And in this case, an idyllic setting, lovely Auburn, the town that tourists visit in autumn, when the changing leaves burn brightly with color. Where, legend has it, a coven of 12 witches practice dark magic on certain nights of the year.

But some key differences set OCTOBER apart. For example, Mikey is flamboyant, without quite admitting even to himself that he is gay. His entire school, it seems, as well as his own parents, and by extension the town of Auburn, don’t like him. During summer are his halcyon days. He spends that season alone, blissfully unabused, since he gets his joy from a vivid imagination, horror novels, horror films, and late night bike rides through the streets of Auburn.

Then September begins: enter the girl, a fiercely independent outcast, who also happens to be a witch. She’s there at school when Verbinski trips Mikey, embarrassing him in front of a cafeteria full of laughing students. Jim Fields, whose body he fantasizes about in the privacy of his room, watches as things go flying, and when Mikey’s CD Walkman comes sliding right to his feet, crushes it. After the incident, Wroxy approaches him. She’s just moved here from Vancouver, and finds Auburn to be a provincial hellhole. Once the two become acquainted, for the next three years they are inseparable best friends.

However, Dewey and Jim hatch a plan to get Mikey beaten up—an act that sets into motion a series of events where Mikey’s rage, unleashed, brings him into league with dark supernatural forces.

Rowe’s portrayal of a boy, on the cusp of manhood, and abused daily by his peers, is at once nerve-wracking and deeply saddening.

The supernatural horror aspect pales when contrasted with Mikey’s abuse, symbolic of what millions of young LGBTQIA children across the nations of Canada and the US have silently endured for decades. I highly recommend this novel to any and all members of the human race.

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded down because the pacing seemed a bit off (slow for over half the book, then rushed) and the head-hopping was a bit jarring.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

October is the second novel I have read by Micheal Rowe. Once again, I was very happy with the time I spent reading October. He writes fantastic contemporary horror. While I believe I detected a bit of a nod to Stephen King, the plot felt unique and timely.

The ending is a killer, so buckle up buttercup and read on!

[Jeffrey Luscombe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy a good horror story but really good ones are so few and far between! Micheal Rowe's October checks all the boxes: multi-faceted characters and an intriguing setting (I am such a fan of Rowe's exposition) and a gripping tale that grabs you and doesn't let you go until the final page. This is a chilling, sexy tale by a master storyteller. More than just a scary story, Rowe spins a deeper allegory to describe the tensions and contradictions that lay between stark binaries: the gray area that separates black and white, good and evil, right and wrong, male and female, pleasure and pain and the terrifying yet glorious power that can come when refusing to live in the confines of these binaries.

[Scott Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can hardly believe it’s been more than a decade since I read the original “In October” as part of Triptych of Terror! This story had a big impact on my then; no less so now. Michael Rowe seems to be channeling my teenage self when he describes some of Mikey’s experiences with bullying and burgeoning sexuality. I think this is a must-read for any gay men who enjoy horror.

[David Baillie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply put, Michael Rowe is (in my humble opinion) one of Canada’s greatest writers. His award-winning first novel, Enter, Night (2011), resurrected the vampire in all its horror and glory in the wake of that pathetic, hollow attempt at abstinence porn called Twilight. Rowe’s second novel, Wild Fell (2013), was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Awards, and rightly so: it’s sort of like The Haunting of Hill House, but on the Canadian Shield.

However, October (2019), Rowe’s third novel, is something different altogether. Its power lies in the protagonist’s powerlessness. Mikey Childress is not a vampire or a werewolf or a conduit for ghosts—he’s a gay teenager trying to navigate the very real horrors of a rural high school. To his classmates, Mikey is nothing but a target. There is nothing speculative about their bigotry and disdain—his is a world where adults turn a blind eye to hate crimes against those that defy the myth of the gender binary. Mikey’s parents are no better: his father is embarrassed by his son’s very existence; his mother has turned to fundamentalist Christianity. And we all know where those lunatics stand. Rowe does not spare the reader anything: we witness, firsthand, every humiliation and savage injustice. And for the straight reader, there is the additional agony of recalling every petty cruelty we witnessed as teenagers and did nothing about.

Enter Wroxy, Mikey’s first and only friend. A punk girl obsessed with the supernatural, Wroxy is Mikey’s personal seithkona—it is she who guides him with shamanistic precision to the darker world that exists a mere ritual away from this one. Wroxy acts as (if you will forgive the traditionalist, patriarchal interpretation) the portal through which Mikey must pass; she is the keeper of that most ancient of traditions common to all mystery cults: the initiation secret.

Her entrance into Mikey’s life is punk-iconic, walking at him “with a curiously defiant gait”; of course, she “wore burgundy Doc Martens and her hair was cut in a Mohawk” (Rowe 28). Wroxy openly defies every convention held dear by the inhabitants of Auburn, the little rural town in which the novel is set. From her horror novels to her haircut, she refuses to conform to the narrow parameters of acceptability. She is a creature out of her element—an alien, not an inhabitant. And, symbolically speaking, Wroxy is Mrs. Childress’s foil, a perfectly balanced counterpoint to Mikey’s mother’s own speculations into the supernatural world. After all, what is Mother’s fundamental religious faith but an intense belief in an ancient form of magic? In Rowe’s world of October, both might be equally valid, for the action of true evil requires an equally true and—and equally opposite—reaction.

But there’s a twist …

It’s a beautifully constructed little novel—I don’t want to spoil it, and I can’t recommend it enough.

[Richard K. Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

You will NEVER forget Mikey Childress and the horror story that is "October"!

"I would die for love. Yes. I would die for it. I would kill for it."
Mikey Childress; main character in "October"

I just listened to a horror classic! When I started this audiobook I was expecting a story of a closeted gay high school boy who uncovers a coven of witches in his hometown, and has no idea what to do or say next.......what I was NOT expecting was to experience the creepiest, scary and most stunningly beautiful coming of age tale of evil, horror filled creepy beings committing a sacrifice in the woods, and one of the best LGBTQ horror novels I have EVER read! Michael Rowe writes with real life experiences in the fact that he is an openly gay married man, who almost lived thru what 16 year old Mikey Childress lives through.

Mikey Childress is a 16 year old closeted gay boy who is bullied on a daily regimen. Though he keeps this quiet to others, he becomes friends, in face best friends with a goth girl by the name of Wroxy.....she also knows what it is like to be the subject of harassment. When she asks Mikey how long he has lived in Auburn, she also says to him 'What do you know about the Auburn Witches?'. This begins the 3 year friendship of two of the most unusual yet SO normal to all of us in some way or another school kids, and it is as terrifyingly scary as it is sad and beautiful. You MUST listen to (and or read if you are reading this,) the Afterword at the end of the book....you will never forget it.

Highly recommended! Though hard to read in parts, it is a horror tale that you will probably never forget.
5 Screams

[Robynne]

I don't read horror books; I don't watch horror movies. Horror is not my genre. I read this for the Read Harder 2020 reading challenge; the prompt was "horror book published by an indie press" (with extra points for books by queer authors). I have to say the author writes beautifully and is a fabulous storyteller! The story of a young queer man bullied by fellow students until he calls up a vengeful curse is incredibly well-written. The author is a Canadian and the book is set in small-town Canada, so extra points there. If I liked the genre, I think I'd really love this book. Horror is just not my thing.

[Todd Howell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried to like this but just couldn't. Not much of a horror story. Just your basic revenge story where the horror/evil is sidelined till about the end and even then is 'meh'.

The narrator on the audio edition just wasn't up to snuff either imho.

There is a story here and it is ok and somewhat well done so it has some redeeming qualities. Overall though, try as I might, I just didn't enjoy it.

[Rachel Drenning · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. Full of emotion and rage. The only thing I didn't care for is the cat killing and how long it took to get through it. ( I skipped over all this but it was at least 3 pages. Unnecessary.) Other than that, was a great book. I'm not gonna mark that as a spoiler because some people need to be warned.

[Holly Eustace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this one on Audible, the narrator was great. I really loved the story and I kind of pulled a Bunny by Mona Awad feel from it in a weird little way. The author really had you relating to Mikey and how he was being bullied by kids at his school. I really felt for him. The ending-ugggghhh...heart wrenching, but at least it wasn't predictable.

[L J Valentine · Rating 5 out of 5]

My heart!
Full of queer yearning & rage, this is a beautiful yet bloody story. I could've stayed lost in this world forever.
Mikey's journey really resonated with me and this one is going to stick with me for a while. What a read!

[Evey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The horror novel had an interesting premise and begins promising enough; unfortunately, the ending is rushed that blunts the payoff. Essentialy, a revenge story of a gay boy who is bullied and gay-bashed, pushing him to perform a dark ritual that summons a demon to avenge him. The emotional torture he endures is palpable and the story could have been a profound statement, but it is undermined by it's climax.

[Simon]

I found this queer YA horror novel by sheer chance and really enjoyed the audio book narrated by Joel Froomkin! It was such a fun and relatable listen and while not being super unpredictable I still didn’t expect it to end the way it did. Awesome!

[CT · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but a little needlessly gruesome. I guess it fits in the modern day fairy tale. I get the message and it is intense how the victim of most gay novels is kind of a villain in this one.

[Josh Korngut · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better queer horror novels I've picked up.

[Reia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huge fan of Michael Rowe and enjoyed this book a lot just like his others.

[Caia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I would die for love"
Dark Queer Horror
narrated by Joel Leslie Froomkin

I loved it! I ordered the paperback for a re-read session