The Shaft

by David J. Schow

A low-level drug runner named Cruz finds himself exiled from sunny Miami to frigid Chicago. He holes up in a decrepit rooming-house, the Kenilworth Arms, in the dead of winter. There he meets Jonathan, a yuppie struggling to get over a failed romance, and Jamaica, a prostitute on the payroll of the drug kingpin Bauhaus. When Cruz and Jamaica are forced to drop two kilos of cocaine down a ventilation shaft in the rooming-house to escape a police raid, strange things begin to happen... David J. Schow’s The Shaft features a unique mingling of supernatural horror with the very real dangers involved in drug-running, creating a uniquely compelling atmosphere. Amid the inexplicable terrors of a building that seems weirdly animate and of some loathsome monstrosity lurking in the bottom of the ventilation shaft, the pursuit of Cruz, Jonathan, and Jamaica by Bauhaus and his minions seems by turns insignificant and chillingly immediate.

Genres: Horror, Splatterpunk, Crime, Fiction

388 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

David J. Schow is an American author of horror novels, short stories, and screenplays, associated with the "splatterpunk" movement of the late '80s and early '90s. Most recently he has moved into the crime genre.

Reviews

[Dr. Cat in the Brain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sex, drugs, parasites, zombies, ghost stories, cocaine, cat protagonists, bad weather and bad-ass prostitutes. WOOF!

David J. Schow is an absolute legend for his Raving and Drooling columns in FANGORIA and his Outer Limits Companion (a must-read for any fans of the original series). If you know the guy you know how insightful and funny he can be. He's a hidden gem in the horror genre. But if you're a fan of guys like Joe Bob Briggs and you haven't read David J. Schow? Drop whatever you're doing and go pick up this guy's work.

Right now.

You can read his collected essays in the book Wild Hairs, believe me it's worth your time.

And as good as Schow is at non-fiction, he's a truly diabolical spaz when it comes to fiction.

In The Shaft, David J. Schow goes for broke without any regrets or excuses.

There is no brake pedal. There is only gas.

And that big red dirty button called "ASS NITRO" covered in duct tape. Don't touch that. You'll get HEP-C.

The Shaft is so unapologetically slimy and filthy it reads like Tarantino doing a no budget Troma movie. It makes internet edge-lords wanna take a bath. Porn stars will cover their mouths and clutch their pearls. There's so much awkward, steamy, kinda cringe sex scenes in this book that at times you forget you're reading a horror novel.

Like "Oh yeah! There's dead babies and monsters! Shit! I forgot after the girl gave a blow-job to the cops and the drug dealer and then got coked out of her brains and screwed the two main protagonists".

You see the title has many meanings. Characters are given the shaft in more than just one way and there's an elevator shaft full of weird shit. It's like poetry. It's like Irving Layton.

Licking the juices off of god's holy stink-finger. You know what I'm saying?

Neither do I.

Just roll with it, friend-o.

The book moves at a lightning pace, it feels like a short story because it's so compact and rapid-fire. But it's a lot of fun, the characters are well developed, the bad guys get their comeuppance and the virgin isn't the last one standing.

Because there are no virgins left by the end of the story!

It feels like The Shaft was written in an alternate reality where Elmore Leonard decided to go into horror porn. It's a knee-slapping, beer-spitting, bloody, brawling, sex-fuelled frenzy with awesome hookers, funny drug dealers, terrifying sadomasochistic crime bosses, suicidal girlfriends and delusional, relatable weirdos. The whole vibe of the book effortlessly communicates the desperate last gasps of the 80s after it got gutted by Reaganomics and turned into a vast homogeneous wasteland.

Plus gore literally spilling out of the walls, coke orgies, fights with hitmen and enforcers and flesh-dripping ghouls.

What else can I say? There's something for everybody! Underrated and a dump truck full of sticky fun.

Go get your dirt on. 8/10

A part of my giant sized Review Round-Up: https://www.patreon.com/posts/68034532

[Jack Tripper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know a lot of people, including esteemed weird/horror critic S.T. Joshi, consider this a sort of lost masterpiece of the genre, but it actually reads more like a violent crime novel, with only occasional bursts of supernatural horror.

The set-up is great: various young-ish people from different walks of life end up in the same derelict apartment building in Chicago in the middle of a brutally harsh winter, where some disgusting thing or other awaits in the pipes and drains (and shafts), ready to devour them one by one. Sounds promising, right? But most of the novel deals with the everyday, violent lives of various drug dealers, hookers, and gangsters -- few of whom were very interesting -- and their ultra-hip (at the time) slang really started to grate on me after a while, as is the case with a lot of Schow's 80s/early 90s work. His dialogue really hasn't aged well, and even back in the day it struck me with a "trying way too hard" vibe.

Also, the novel is at least 100 pages too long. This would have made an excellent short novel or novella, and indeed it began its life as a short story, which I haven't read yet. There are some great, horrifying moments sprinkled throughout, but they seemed out of place in a book that could have been written by an Elmore Leonard-type. And there are much better crime novels out there.

It's worth reading if you're a fan of the splatterpunk-era of horror, but don't go in expecting some non-stop fright fest, as the scares are few and far between. Also, it's really not worth paying the ridiculous online prices for the paperback, imo. But if you happen to come across it cheap like I did, it may be worth a gander, if only for the gritty 80s Chicago setting.

3.0 Stars

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is this thing overwritten? Yes. Is it trying way too hard to be cool? Yes. Does it have enough grimy, brutal shit in it that its numerous flaws somehow don’t matter? Also yes.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally found an affordable copy of this novel, and while not exactly disappointed, I was hoping for a bit more given its notoriety. Schow has been credited with coining the term splatterpunk in 1986 at the Twelfth World Fantasy Convention in Providence, Rhode Island. First published in 1990, The Shaft fits the splatterpunk bill much better than Schow's The Kill Riff, but also suffers from being overwritten and a bit bloated.

The Shaft contains two major story lines, one of a tenement building in Chicago and its inhabitants with the second cocaine/drug dealers and their employees. While featuring several characters, many of which Schow grants them their own POVs, the story centers on three: Cruz, a drug runner from Miami who fled to Chicago to avoid reprisal from daring his boss's doxy to jump from a 10 story balcony (she did and died); Jonathan, a yuppie type who recently moved to Chicago to escape a bad relationship and eventually took a room at the tenement (along with Cruz); and finally, Jamaica, a hooker who works for drug kingpin Bauhaus.

The story starts, however, with one Boner, a punk (who we learn later worked for Bauhaus) funking around in Chicago before coming home to the tenement and getting eaten by Something in his bathroom. Cruz, who now works for Bauhaus, ended up taking his room, #307. Jonathan, in room #207, sees living in the dive as temporary, ends up meeting Cruz while he is moving in. Cruz, just after picking up another key of coke for Bauhaus, demands a woman and Bauhaus sends him Jamaica. Well, after Cruz and Jamaica engage in some hot sex (that would make James Herbert blush!), they notice tons of cops around the building; fearing a bust, they wrap all the coke and things in a hefty bag and dump it down a ventilation shaft in the bathroom (yes, the titular shaft). Long story short, the cops still bust Cruz and Jamaica as they know her and find a bit of coke in her bag. Jonathan, being questioned, meets them in the lobby while the pair are also being questioned...

I loved the basic plot-- creepy building with Something lurking in the ventilation shaft (among other places) and drug kingpins getting increasingly suspicious of their employees, in this case, Bauhaus, who does not quite buy that Cruz and Jamaica flushed his two keys. Jonathan gets caught up in the mess as he called Bauhaus for Cruz and helped bail him out of jail.

What disappointed me concerns the overwriting and endless descriptions of everything. We learn, for example, in excruciating detail, about Jonathan and his ex. While I always appreciate some backstory to flesh out characters, Schow takes this to extreme, and also punctuates his prose with 5 dollar words. Granted, I did find some of this chuckle worthy, but man does this story take some time to get going. Schow also likes to turn a phrase something like a wordsmith, and this sometimes works wonders, but also often dragged the story along.

The further along the story, the more OTT it gets! Expect buckets of blood and gore along with all kinds of twists and turns. I also loved the horrible weather in Chicago; it seems like the entire story took place either in a blizzard or 30 below. Very atmospheric, as was the depiction of the tenement building. So, overall, this could have been much more focused and less bloated, but still a fun read that I enjoyed more as it progressed. 3.5 splatterpunk stars, rounding up as it got better as it went.

[Pisces51 · Rating 3 out of 5]

THE SHAFT [Crossroad Press Digital Edition 2016] By David J. Schow
My Review 3.5 Stars


“The Shaft” by David J. Schow was chosen as one of our two Group Read selections this month for the members of Splatterpunk Horror Book Club.

Schow’s work for the most part falls into the subgenre splatterpunk, a term he is sometimes credited with coining. “The Shaft” was originally released in 1990, and Crossroad Press made it possible for us to acquire the Macabre Ink First Digital Edition of the book in November 2016. It is to be appreciated that this novel was long unavailable and widely regarded as one of the “finest horror novels ever written”.

But an accurate placement of the novel in “Extreme History” is relevant to the reverence fans show to Schow’s contributions, to include his second novel “The Shaft”. It could be said that there were positive things happening in the horror genre between the late ‘80’s” and mid- “90’s”. Schow, however, and his novel that he had started writing in the mid-1980’s, did not benefit from this surge. A softcover edition of “The Shaft” was printed in Britain by 1990, but it was not publicized to any extent and soon went out of print.

It is hardly any wonder why that the sheer unavailability of this novel and its cost prohibiting acquisition by anyone, but very well-heeled fans became legendary. The first hardcover edition of Schow’s “The Shaft” was first released by Centipede Press, but this did not occur until 2015, which was a quarter of a century after its original softcover edition printed in Britain in 1990. “The Shaft” became known as precious gem which had been hidden away for decades.

Today we consider Schow’s “The Shaft” to fall within the “First Wave” which included 1980’s Extreme Horrors and the Original Splatterpunks. David J. Schow is noted as an important author during this time frame and in the company of a list of legends that include Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, John Skipp & Craig Spector, Kathe Koja, and Clive Barker.

I read “The Shaft” over a period of seven days. It is a long novel which boasts a page-length of 390 pages. The atmosphere of the dark seedy side of Chicago was captured both chillingly and creepily with its bleak blizzard cold and oppressive claustrophobia which seemed to whisper threats of danger from the darkness and shadows.

The storyline concerns organized crime, and a relocated low-level coke dealer named Cruz who finds himself in a decrepit rooming house named the Kenilworth Arms. He meets Jonathan who is ostensibly just a yuppie trying to get past a romantic break up. The guys are stranded in the middle of winter in freezing, snowbound Chicago. There are additional characters who make up the cast of pimps, dealers, prostitutes, or killers.

The first few things I noticed about the book was the excellence of the author’s consummate writing skill, with his use of words painting a vivid picture of the scenes, and his prose sounding lyrical at times. The development of the diverse group of characters was outstanding. The character development and dialogue brought the different players to life for the reader. The intrigue and the action scenes were all entertaining and believable. It was known from the book description that there was a supernatural element in the novel which was only very gradually revealed to the reader.

The author teases and tortures the reader with the unknown unnamed danger that is ahead, and he does it with finesse. The characters and the sleazy world of Chicago drugs and prostitution are so well drawn that is projects a very dark and uncomfortable atmosphere (if not just plain scary and gloomy). The overburdened pregnant mother looking in every corner for her precocious 2-yr old little boy and the finding one of his tennis shoes…with the foot still in it. Jeez!!! The narrative storyline is unpredictable and sneaky. It made me feel like I was fumbling around in the dark knowing a Black Mamba was curled somewhere just waiting to kiss me goodnight.

The reader eventually becomes informed about some of the properties of the supernatural threat that effects the rooming house. This information explains the phenomena that has been occurring at random intervals to the tenants of the rooming house. It is only when in my opinion the explanations for the supernatural begins mutating into sequentially more bizarre and unbelievable, fantastic and grander horrors that I felt the pedal was taken off the metal. It was only then that the pages became long and tedious for me, and I strongly felt the story was overdone.

I enjoyed the crime/suspense story that was at the heart of the book, to include the plight of the hooker with a heart of gold. I rooted shamelessly for Jamaica throughout the story. In my opinion, “The Shaft” would have offered up a better than average crime thriller without any supernatural elements at all. I would have rated the novel 4.0 Stars. But the “horror story” did not congeal for me. It was in my opinion pulled like a piece of taffy in multiple directions.

A special thanks to my friend Alan who nominated this read for the members. He is also my resident authority on the early days of Splatterpunk!

June 1st, 2025 – June 7th, 2025

[Aksel Dadswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has got to be one of the best books I’ve read in years, and one of the best horror novels I’ve read, period. A wonderfully crafted neo-noir masterpiece that really slices to the bone – and the brain. Schow’s prose is unlike anything I’ve ever consumed. It’s thick and robust and clever and as bleakly, darkly funny as the book itself. It genuinely is like something to be greedily consumed, a rich, filling dish that nonetheless leaves you hungry for more – and spouting gratuitous metaphors in praise of it, apparently. The violence is unrelenting and forces you to feel every injury and cut and torment, and the horror elements are confronting, original, exhilarating and gag-inducing.

I’m in love with the characters; their fallibility, their histories, the perfectly crafted idiosyncrasies of their thoughts and hopes and dreams and failings. Schow writes his male characters with great variety; some are clever, desperate, frail, some quick-witted, some naïve, some vile and sleazy, but it’s the prostitute Jamaica who holds the book up, and is one of the strongest female characters I’ve read in years. She’s just so likeable, too. She doesn’t rely on any of the men. She’s soft but she doesn’t take an ounce of shit – or inhale any, as Rosie would say.

I can’t praise The Shaft enough. The copy I own, a limited print run by the consistently amazing Centipede Press, is a work of art in itself; beautifully bound, with wonderful artwork by David Ho. I wish it was more readily available. If you can find a copy, pay whatever it costs, because this book is worth it, and if you get a fancy edition of it then all the better. Just read it. Now.

[Wayne · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I read "The Kill Riff", written by the same author, I was so disappointed. I said I'd give all his other books a pass. When I saw this, the premise was the type of book I like. I gave in and changed my mind and try again. Another big letdown. This reads like if you were stuck at the top of a roller-coaster with the most boring person you can think of. This goes on and on with no real pay-off.

There is a whole chapter in here about a resident in the apartment complex trying to open a window. Granted, there is talk about her ex-husbands and kids. The room is stuffy without the window open. More of lives misfortunes. Then lay down and feel the heat.

If I ever give in again and try to read another book by this author, someone please gouge out my eyes with a Jakie Collins novel.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been curious about this book for years, especially since Centipede Press republished it as part of their signature Unaffordable and Unavailable Series.

This book felt more like noir for most of it's length, than horror. This is a very gritty, bleak, grim book. There's a lot of sex, described in often quite twisted and gross detail. The cops are sickeningly corrupt and violent, far less sympathetic than the drug pushers. There's a potent sense of urban blight, as well as the harsh winter which along with the decaying apartment building are characters in themselves.

Early on the horrific scenes are pretty few and far between. But when they appear they are over-the-top gross. We're not just talking about blood and guts -- there's lots of decayed viscera, and lots of sewage. Stenches are described quite well -- you'll feel like taking a bath after a few scenes. That said, while this book is certainly unsettling and upsetting, I can't say it creeped me out. There are some eerie moments, but most of the horror is more graphic.

The first half of the book, maybe even the first three quarters felt like it could have been culled significantly. I like slow building suspense, but the character of Jonathan moping over a heartbreak is delved into far too deeply than was needed to flesh out his character. This could have been spent fleshing out the other characters that live in the building, which we get interesting glimpses of -- usually right before they die.

But this book gets far more right than wrong. The claustrophobia generated by the hostile weather and the paranoia of the characters from the cops and the big drug king pins makes this a really atmospheric read. I've been in the mood for some gritty urban horror from the 80's -- this certainly sated that for a while.

[Alex Budris · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best full horror novel – as opposed to anthologies or story collections – that I’ve read in a long, long, time. I know that’s high praise, but it’s true.

This book could have been edited and cut two hundred pages, taken out the horror element, and it still would have been a slightly better than average crime/ noir/ suspense novel. But David Schow is anything but average. The lurking horror slowly builds – insidiously – just slightly behind the scenes of the narrative action, until, in the last part of the book it is suddenly no longer in the background but it is the action; the gritty drug-running/ mobster/ hooker with the heart of gold element of the story is swallowed – literally – by dreadful happenings that have been being hinted at throughout the novel.

The story is paced brilliantly, has an amazing cast of incredibly well-developed characters that are very diverse, very believable. And when I say diverse I mean that you have gangsters, mobsters, drug-runners, unwitting yuppies, unfortunate losers, hookers, and transients – even the old Victorian boarding-house and the black cat that curiously prowls it’s every hall, room, and recess are important characters. Thinking about it, the bitter blizzard-torn Chicago night is a main character in itself: The book would not work without it.

There were things happening in horror fiction between the late eighties and the mid-nineties.

Stephen King released his authorized and uncut version of “The Stand” which baffled and irritated critics and blew-away fans, (and was also fifteen-million pages long, but everybody bought it – High-Five, Steve!)

Clive Barker was an emerging talent with his “Books of Blood” which started selling well. And when the story from that collection, “The Midnight Meat Train” started to get anthologized and win awards the portal was open for the “Splatterpunk” genre to start to become somewhat accepted.

Bret Easton Ellis’ seminal “American Psycho” was released, initially Hardcover in Britain, as it was turned down by U.S. publishers due to protests and threatening obscenity allegations. (Eventually published soft-cover by Vintage.)


“The Shaft” missed this mini-revolution. Schow started writing it in the mid-80’s and a softcover edition was printed in Britain in 1990. It was under-publicized and thus \ largely ignored but for a few cult followers. It soon went out of print.

A U.S. hardcover edition was near publication a number of times, but a long story involving lawyers and copyrights and squeamish editors got in it’s way each time.

Finally, Centipede Press released the first hardcover edition of this long hidden gem – 25 years after its original publication – in 2015.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Kenilworth Arms apartment building is getting pretty run down and dilapidated.

It’s also getting pretty hungry.

Coming out of the 80’s horror boom and nastier than 5 stubby inches of beet red Bowhouse bratwurst, The Shaft delivers with a sex and drug induced, violent “haunted house” tale that has some serious teeth.

Took a bit to get firing on all cylinders, but I dug it. 3.5 Stars rounded up.

[DJMikeG · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has been on my "Want to Read" list for about 12 or so years, ever since I discovered Schow and the other "Splatterpunks" back in the late oughts. I am glad it was finally published in the USA as an affordable paperback. And, I am glad that I finally read it. I can't say that I actually liked it much, but yeah, I am glad I read it.

Manically overwritten, it reads like Schow was in the grips of a cocaine and or mental problem while writing this thing. Bleak, bloated, nasty, disgusting, and hugely uneven, this is a king hell mess of a novel. It was almost like Schow was reaching so hard and so far, you can see hear him reaching while you read it. That is admirable in an author, but the problem for me was I never bought it. For something this hyper detailed and over written, Schow failed at pulling off the sleight of hand, of making me believe in what he was selling.

Again, completely uneven, and not successful as a horror novel, in my opinion, I am still glad I own it and read it.

[Scotty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've long had kind of a love/hate relationship with splatterpunk. I got seriously into horror around 1990, and I gravitated toward splatterpunk right away (I was a 13-year-old boy, after all). My punk-rock/metal-loving side has always been drawn to the genre's surly provocations, and there are some authors commonly associated with it--Bentley Little and Jack Ketchum being my personal favorites--who are genuinely great and became touchstones in my own development as a writer. The genre has produced more than a few bonafide classics, from Joe R. Lansdale's "The Nightrunners," to Kathe Koja's "The Cipher," to John Skipp and Craig Spector's "The Light at the End."

At the same time, it didn't take long for splatterpunk to wear out my goodwill. For every skilled, unflinching author that the genre produced, it seemed like there were four long-haired, leather-jacketed dudebros of middling talent churning out no end of half-baked crap. The more these books tried their damnedest to shock me, the more quickly I grew bored.

Of course, you can't talk about splatterpunk without talking about David J. Schow. He's the guy who coined the term, after all. I was a religiously loyal reader of his Raving & Drooling column in Fangoria Magazine (you can find those columns in his collection "Wild Hairs"), and I dipped infrequently into his short fiction. His 1990 collection "Seeing Red" has to be one of THE definitive splatterpunk books. But somehow I never got to his longer stuff. I guess my interest in splatterpunk burned out before I ever made it that far.

After retreating from horror almost entirely for a few years, I came back with a vengeance in my 30s. For the last several years my reading has skewed toward what I guess you'd call the more literary/cosmic side of the genre. One of my resolutions for 2022 was to get over myself and dip back into splatterpunk to see how those old books landed with my new, 44-year-old self.

So of course I started with Schow's "The Shaft," one of those legendary splatterpunk tomes that makes all the top 5 lists. I missed it in its first run, and it was well past due for me to catch up with it.

Verdict? Well, the book is...pretty remarkable. Schow is a hell of a writer, and he's able to combine a hardboiled, almost Elmore Leonard-esque voice with the visceral demands of splatterpunk in a way most lesser writers can only dream of. And he makes it feel effortless. There's a breezy, conversational quality to his writing that brings to mind authors like Stephen King and Stephen Graham Jones. As a writer myself, I know how incredibly difficult it is to make the actual writing seem so easy.

The story takes place in wintry Chicago, where three disparate characters cross paths in the apartment complex from hell. The first is Jonathan, a Texas expat licking the wounds of a broken relationship. The second is Cruz, a Miami drug dealer fleeing from the disastrous consequences of a single thoughtless action. The third is Jamaica, a sex worker with an indomitable will to survive.

They each come to the Kenilworth Arms for their own varied reasons. What they find is a surreal nightmare and a literal monster nestled in the dank ventilation shaft in the center of the building.

Schow is playing with two genres here. The first is the sort of hardboiled crime story that brings to mind writers like Jim Thompson, Dennis Lehane, and--yes--Elmore Leonard. The second is a truly disturbing guttural horror story that incorporates a little bit of everything from Goya to Lovecraft.

I could go on and on about the quality of the writing. This is one of those books where you can actually SMELL the story (and that smell is...not good). The sensory details are precise, immersive, and upsetting. It's easy to see why this is a splatterpunk classic, because the splatter--when it comes--is so visceral I actually gagged on it.

But Schow is not just another leather-jacketed dudebro going for cheap shocks. He knows when to hang back, and then when to hit you upside the head with a sledgehammer. Every gross-out moment is in absolute service of the story and the world he's creating. As explicit as a lot of it is, it's never gratuitous.

What really elevates this story are the characters. Jonathan is a deeply sympathetic character, and he's never quite the sap that a lesser writer would have turned him into. My relationship with Cruz walked a real tightrope between empathy and outright loathing. But it's with Jamaica where the fierce intelligence of Schow's writing really shines through. She could easily have fallen into the stereotypical "hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold" trope, but Schow never insults our intelligence that way. Jamaica has a heart, sure, but it's caged in steel. She's too smart for the world she lives in, but not enough in control of her demons to see a way out of it.

What it seems to me Schow is most interested in here is the impulse toward self destruction. Jonathan, Cruz, and Jamaica are all gripped by that impulse in their own unique way--as is the Kenilworth Arms, which is a building that seems to have literally gone insane. Schow explores how those impulses can turn deadly, or can be overcome.

This isn't a perfect book. It's a bit too long, and flabs a little in the middle. There's one extremely cringe-inducing sex scene. And while the supernatural menace is suitably terrifying, the human villains veer into caricature (the character of Bauhaus is perfect example of the utility of "less is more"). And it's definitely dated. I found most of the ways it's dated to be pretty charming, but there are a few points that swerve into an ugliness that feels unconsidered and maybe a little naive about their impact.

This isn't going to be for everyone, but if you like splatterpunk and want to find something with a fair amount more grace and style than the genre usually offers, you could do far worse than "The Shaft." This read made me want to go back to "Seeing Red," and I'm looking forward to diving into Schow's other undisputed classic "The Kill Riff."

[Valerio Spisani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pare che sia stato proprio David J.Schow, l'autore di questo romanzo, a coniare il nome splatterpunk, sottogenere horror contraddistinto da iperviolenza e contenuti espliciti, roba che andava particolarmente di moda a cavallo tra gli anni '80 e '90 e che ancora oggi continua ad avere il suo bel posticino nella sua nicchia lorda di sangue e fluidi corporei. Schow è quindi un po' considerato uno dei padri dello splatterpunk e questo Viscere Nere - uscito nel 1990 - sarebbe dovuto essere uno dei romanzi-manifesto del genere. Viste le premesse io mi aspettavo parecchio, ora non dico qualcosa come Exquisite Corpse, il capolavoro di Poppy Z. Brite, o come i deliziosi racconti dei libri di sangue di Clive Barker, però qualcosa di potente e malsano sì. Insomma. Paradossalmente, la parte che funziona meglio di Viscere Nere è proprio quella meno legata agli eccessi, quella più vicina al thriller-noir, con personaggi come spacciatori, prostitute e yuppies psicotici che tutto sommato risultano abbastanza interessanti. A tutto ciò è stata appiccicata la trama splatter/horrorifica: l'impressione è che si siano volute mettere assieme due cose ma che non siano state amalgamate proprio al meglio. L'atmosfera malsana dello stabile in cui si svolge il grosso della vicenda funziona e il romanzo scorre pure abbastanza (anche se una sforbiciatina al numero di pagine, quasi quattrocento, io gliela darei), quindi nel complesso il suo seino se lo porta a casa, ma la delusione rimane.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Group read I nominated for Splatterpunk for June 2025. I've always wanted to read this one as read several of Schows novels many moons ago. What we get here is a slow burn classic of a novel that excels more in its crime and character building than it does in its horror aspects. The horror side of the story is an interesting concept and reminds me a lot of the weird fantasy tinged works of the 80s like Clive Barker. It's very wordy, maybe overwritten at times but it's also a very high calibre of writing compared to others of the era. All in all it was a lot of fun.

[Ryan Sasek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kill Riff was fantastic and so was The Shaft. Schow has this wild no holds barred style to his writing. Loved this one from start to finish.

[David Boren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doom-stricken ne’er-do-wells rocket towards catastrophe with coke fueled fury in a putrefied Chicago hopelessly encased in snow and ice. There’s also a big nasty worm!

[Two Envelopes And A Phone · Rating 4 out of 5]

A disgusting creature preys on the inhabitants of a stitched-together, shape-shifting apartment complex. The shaft is gross. The walls are gross. The monster is gross. The characters are gross, before and after death. The drug-taking is gross. The drug-dealing is gross. The sex is gross. The coffee from that special machine someone has is apparently not gross, but there’s a nice coffee shop down the street from the apartment building from hell…and if it was me, I’d get out of there and get the less impressive coffee on offer down the street, and not die horribly enjoying that gourmet shit.

Of course, the problem with fleeing for a cuppa - down the road or to another state - is that a Chicago winter is on, and looking to break records. So, okay, tenants of the Kenilworth Arms do have trouble moving more than six feet from away from anything slimy and toothy. Even so, we have some serious Horror movie drag-ass going on, when it comes to characters who need to be bitten in half before they contemplate wading through the blood and finally getting out. That does have to do with the score of a lifetime being stashed in the building somewhere (guess where), and most of the people trying to get it desperately needing it, to crawl out of their miserable lives. But, I dunno - if I was there, and one of those…things was between me and a financial boost, or the walls were a little too absorptive or inexplicably door-deprived for me to feel I could split whenever, I might brave a blizzard and drive towards dawn.

Explanations for all things vile are somewhat bizarre and fuzzy, near the finale - but on the other hand the late revelations concerning the Amanda Situation are so off the wall, so against all logic, that that aspect of the book must count as one of the best sleights of hand in the whole book. And the least gross.

[Rina.P · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ich habe nach der Hälfte aufgegeben. Und ich war wirklich sehr ausdauernd. Es ist aber nicht so, dass das Buch wirklich schlecht war bis dahin. Es war nur nicht das was ich wollte. Bis zu dem Zeitpunkt als ich es beiseite legte, ist mit dem Haus nur sehr wenig passiert. Ein kleines Kind verschwand. Fenster wurden eins mit der Wand und es gab komische stöhnende Geräusche….. Das war´s. Es ging hauptsächlich um Drogen, Sex und gescheiterte Existenzen, die in dieser Bruchbude lebten. Der Schreibstil ist klasse, sonst hätte ich es nicht so lange gelesen. Aber wenn ich ein Drogen-Mafia-Roman lesen will, dann wähle ich auch ein solches. Es scheint ja, dass noch was brutales und aufregendes passiert….aber das konnte ich dann nicht mehr abwarten. Tut mir leid. Das war einfach zu langatmig. Es sollte vielleicht paar Szenen vorher schon was spektakuläres passieren. Für mich war es Zeitverschwendung. Rür jemand, der gerne aus diesem Genre liest und dann noch mit Horror und Splatter überrascht wird kann es vielleicht echt noch gut werden, aber das werde ich nicht erleben….leider ein Flopp für mich….Schade…

[Greg Illig · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a masterclass in both horror and writing. There are two injustices here: 1) That the book was never released in the U.S. aside from the wonderful Centipede Press edition which I read and that came out well after the initial publication. 2) That THE SHAFT was classified as splatterpunk, a “genre” sub classification that’s dubious to be sure and that would probably steer some potential readers away. Schow’s descriptive prose is vibrant, graphic and unforgettable, his characters are memorable and lifelike and the gritty crime novel is enhanced by disturbing horror, of a unique and unforgettable nature. Highly recommended! (If you can get your hands on it).

[Michael Myett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Monster, zombies, haunted apartment building in the seedy underworld of drugs and prostitution. This story was non-stop action from start to finish with very memorable characters. If you are a fan of old-school horror or splatterpunk this book needs to be on your TBR list. The audiobook version was very well performed.
I have no idea how I missed this one all these years but I’ll be going back and rechecking the mid to late eighties and early nineties for more I may have missed.

[A13 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Убийственная смесь секса, крови, наркотиков, монстров, а также занудных и пространных отступлений про отношения, жизненный путь и моральные уроки. По большому счету сюжет книги умещается в одну короткую фразу, но для того, чтобы это осознать, придется проглотить эту невероятную гору текста про талантливого наркодилера, задрота-неудачника, суперпроститутки и говорящего черного кота.

[timj26 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was more of A cocaine fueled crime story with a supernatural setting
Well narrated and perfect if your looking for a dark thriller
I received a free review audiobook and voluntarily left this review

[Michael Louis Dixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good old fashioned Splatterpunk.

[Max Lancaster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dropped

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book blew me away. Was enjoyable on so many levels. The author evidently struggled for years to try and get it published stateside. Britain and Germany had no problems publishing it initially. Was expanded by Schow from his own short story. I assume publishers had issues with a few explicit sex scenes and detailed drug use.
Anyway, this book would easily stand on its own without the horror aspect. Is a fantastic crime, drug, gangster story. Takes place mostly in a creepy old Chicago apartment building during a winter blizzard. Won't say much more about plotting except that it's terrific. The horror aspect of the story really was secondary for me, but it was good. This book moves ahead of Kings "The Shining" and Straubs "Ghost Story" as the absolute best I've read in this genre. Not as scary as the aforementioned, just better storytelling .
Am tickled that I have the Centipede Press edition signed by the author on my shelf.

[EmBe · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Dieser Roman über die Drogenszene, die in den Kellern von Chikagos Mietshäsusern wuchert, ist vielleicht der einzig wirklich originelle Beitrag des Splatterpunk zur unheimlichen Phantastik" meint S.J. Joshi hinten auf dem Einband und hat in Sachen Originalität nicht unrecht.
Der Roman ist auch wirklich abgefahren, denn das Chicagoer Hotel, in dem der Roman spielt, hat ein unheimliches Eigenleben. Es verändert sich wie ein Organismus, es ernährt sich von seinen Bewohnern. Erst recht wird es zur Bedrohung, als in einen Lüftungsschächte zwei Kilo Kokain hineingeworfen werden.
Die Einwohner sind Loser und Drogensüchtiger wie Cruz, der aus Miami hierher geflohen war. Das Hotel wird zu ihrem Schicksal.
Ein intensiver Horror-Roman mit expliziten Sex-Szenen. Ich fand an einer Stelle einen Zettel: "Sex-Szene für "Die phantastische Sau". Ich finde es sollte eine solche Sammlung neben solchen wie "Die literarische Sau" auch geben.

[Jody · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book. It was hard for me to believe that God would appear to a man as a black woman. However lots of interesting beliefs that I didn't quite agree with but lots that were good food for thought.

[Mos3s · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein dämonisches Haus auf Koks...vom Festa Verlag...dazu muss man nicht mehr viel schreiben...lesen, bitte! :D