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Silk #1
Silk By Kiernan, Caitlin R.
They are the young misfits...society's castoffs...urban strays looking for a thrill. Something cheap, anything to get them through the night. Sleepwalking on caffeine, nicotine, and drugs, they wait out the dawn in death-rock clubs and shadowy back alleys... Then into their midst comes the enigmatic Spyder. A patron saint of the alienated and lost, she invites them into her mesmerizing world-but has she been sent to redeem them or destroy them?
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First published June 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 153 reviews
November 14, 2012
"Silk" is a strong, beautifully written effort, featuring one of the most realistic portrayals of the gothic subculture and the surrounding punk/metal/industrial/etc. subcultures--there are many overlaps, and the book understands this--that I've read in a novel. The characters are interesting and likable, and the book takes its time, letting you get to know them before anything supernatural happens. When the supernatural finally does hit, it's creepy as hell. The attacks start feeling quite repetitive, as do the scenes of characters asking questions but not recieving answers, but I still highly recommend the book. It's gripping, well-written, and dark as shit.
May 30, 2015
I'm reviewing this book late, about a decade after I first read it, but I recall my distaste for this book enough that, in comparison to my love for some of Kiernan's later books, demands some sort of review for some of those who have read *Silk* and, because of this experience, are not interested in reading anything else.
This book reads like the fictional equivalent of white goth/punk kids in highschool who think they're hard done by, despite the fact that their parents are wealthy and privileged, and who have no inkling about racism, colonialism, and only think according to subcultural/hipster categories. "We're oh so oppressed because we're these white wiccan occultists who do drugs." That's pretty much the view of reality, along with some derivative Gaiman shit (which fits well with this way of seeing the world), that determines the plot of this book. And it's worth pointing out, regardless of the quality of other Kiernan books (i.e. I think *The Red Tree* is the best haunted-horror novels since Shirley Jackson), that this author, despite her queer and trans affinity, has resisted any non-white political affiliations, defending even her use of the very problematic term "exotic" in this book. The fact that she fell on the side of Laura Mixon and et al in the "Requires Hate" affair, and for reasons that were based on her annoyance that the "Requires Hate" blog attacked her for orientalism (which she clearly doesn't understand, not to mention the whole appropriation of the "dreamcatcher" on the cover of this book), reminds me why I despised this smug, I'm-so-goth-I'm-just-oppressed-by-being-goth bullshit.
It's sad, really, because this is what prevented me, for a long time, from reading Kiernan again. It wasn't until someone who I really trusted told me to read *The Red Tree* (regardless of that terrible cover), and told me that I shouldn't even compare this book with that one, that I risked bothering with Kiernan again and discovered, much to my surprise and pleasure, that at least in the realm of literature (though not, unfortunately, in the realm of the political), she had developed.
Skip this book if you're interested in Kiernan and read *The Red Tree* and *The Drowning Girl*. Hell, even read *Daughter of the Hounds* or *Low Red Moon*. Because, if you're like me, *Silk* might annoy you enough to dismiss her as an author when some of her later books are some of the best, literary examples (despite poor choices in covers) of the horror/fantasy genre.
This book reads like the fictional equivalent of white goth/punk kids in highschool who think they're hard done by, despite the fact that their parents are wealthy and privileged, and who have no inkling about racism, colonialism, and only think according to subcultural/hipster categories. "We're oh so oppressed because we're these white wiccan occultists who do drugs." That's pretty much the view of reality, along with some derivative Gaiman shit (which fits well with this way of seeing the world), that determines the plot of this book. And it's worth pointing out, regardless of the quality of other Kiernan books (i.e. I think *The Red Tree* is the best haunted-horror novels since Shirley Jackson), that this author, despite her queer and trans affinity, has resisted any non-white political affiliations, defending even her use of the very problematic term "exotic" in this book. The fact that she fell on the side of Laura Mixon and et al in the "Requires Hate" affair, and for reasons that were based on her annoyance that the "Requires Hate" blog attacked her for orientalism (which she clearly doesn't understand, not to mention the whole appropriation of the "dreamcatcher" on the cover of this book), reminds me why I despised this smug, I'm-so-goth-I'm-just-oppressed-by-being-goth bullshit.
It's sad, really, because this is what prevented me, for a long time, from reading Kiernan again. It wasn't until someone who I really trusted told me to read *The Red Tree* (regardless of that terrible cover), and told me that I shouldn't even compare this book with that one, that I risked bothering with Kiernan again and discovered, much to my surprise and pleasure, that at least in the realm of literature (though not, unfortunately, in the realm of the political), she had developed.
Skip this book if you're interested in Kiernan and read *The Red Tree* and *The Drowning Girl*. Hell, even read *Daughter of the Hounds* or *Low Red Moon*. Because, if you're like me, *Silk* might annoy you enough to dismiss her as an author when some of her later books are some of the best, literary examples (despite poor choices in covers) of the horror/fantasy genre.
October 31, 2013
Disclaimer: GIF use. :D And bad language. I curse like a sailor most of the time in real life. lol
I loved this book so fucking much. I want to own this, but luckily my friend is only getting it back next time she comes over, so I might get to read it again. This book was very much poppy z brite-esque which I adored, so if you liked poppy's writing, than I think you'd like this one too.
This is how I feel right now.
I loved this book so fucking much. I want to own this, but luckily my friend is only getting it back next time she comes over, so I might get to read it again. This book was very much poppy z brite-esque which I adored, so if you liked poppy's writing, than I think you'd like this one too.
This is how I feel right now.
September 16, 2024
Safe to say I’ve never read anything like this, not quite. Atmospheric, drifting, urban-fantastisque, utterly gothic but in the late 80s / early 90s sense, dark as black nail polish, and surprisingly horrific once it gets going. I suppose there are echoes of Poppy Z. Brite, Clive Barker, Karl Edward Wagner (kudzu everywhere!), and even early Neil Gaiman (the most horror oriented Sandman tales), but Kiernan outshines them all at the sentence level. Considering the company she’s in, it’s hard to overstate just how good this book can be, even if its strangeness and wriggling structure can be hard to swallow whole.
Silk is ultimately an unknowable book, sure to frustrate the plot-minded reader, and it’s a strange effect given how much of it focuses on the mundane happenings of a bunch of 20-something goths in Birmingham, Alabama. They hang around and get high, watch horror movies with the sound turned down so as not to interfere with the soundtrack of Skinny Puppy and The Cure (oddly relatable in 2024). They work at thrift stores and coffee shops, play shows at shithole venues, shoot junk, fight jocks, fuck constantly, and live their little lives as any of us who have ever lived on the edge do, on the underside of a city, in fits and starts…
The book could have been just that, and for the first half or so, it mostly is. But Kiernan has grander ambitions. She weaves in gossamer strands of supernatural horror, jagged filaments of silk (literally) that flit about and accumulate in the quiet places in the story where larger plot points would usually go. Lots of skittering, strange sounds, things half glimpsed, barely felt. Key developments often happen off screen, out of sight; we catch snippets in drug-induced flashbacks, in the nightmares that follow. And yet the horror builds and shifts form as it goes, in turns mythic, cosmic, biblical, visceral, chitinous, trauma-induced, and then lacerating, fully punishing and almost orgasmic (big climax energy) when it finally hits. For all that, it’s still unknowable and almost indescribable, even when we’ve been told what and (almost) why.
This won’t be for everyone, and it’s probably not for most. Even if it took me ages to finish, it’s very much for me.
Silk is ultimately an unknowable book, sure to frustrate the plot-minded reader, and it’s a strange effect given how much of it focuses on the mundane happenings of a bunch of 20-something goths in Birmingham, Alabama. They hang around and get high, watch horror movies with the sound turned down so as not to interfere with the soundtrack of Skinny Puppy and The Cure (oddly relatable in 2024). They work at thrift stores and coffee shops, play shows at shithole venues, shoot junk, fight jocks, fuck constantly, and live their little lives as any of us who have ever lived on the edge do, on the underside of a city, in fits and starts…
The book could have been just that, and for the first half or so, it mostly is. But Kiernan has grander ambitions. She weaves in gossamer strands of supernatural horror, jagged filaments of silk (literally) that flit about and accumulate in the quiet places in the story where larger plot points would usually go. Lots of skittering, strange sounds, things half glimpsed, barely felt. Key developments often happen off screen, out of sight; we catch snippets in drug-induced flashbacks, in the nightmares that follow. And yet the horror builds and shifts form as it goes, in turns mythic, cosmic, biblical, visceral, chitinous, trauma-induced, and then lacerating, fully punishing and almost orgasmic (big climax energy) when it finally hits. For all that, it’s still unknowable and almost indescribable, even when we’ve been told what and (almost) why.
This won’t be for everyone, and it’s probably not for most. Even if it took me ages to finish, it’s very much for me.
March 10, 2016
I loved down-spiraling into this storyline. There was never a dull moment, and it was packed to the brim with awesome music references that I insisted upon playing in the background as a soundtrack.
I was immediately thrown headfirst into 90's, when I was a mere juvenile delinquent- a Guinea pig of antidepressants and adhd meds, surrounded by misfits. The scent of body odor and stale smoke and dirt surrounded me as I continued on along this “journey”. This is more than a story for me, it was a journey of memorable derelicts moving along in a blended blur of either reality or drug induced distorted fantasy horror.
I’ve known people like Niki, Keith and Spyder in the 90s, rarely do their futures turn out well.
This was a fascinating plunge into the depths of hell comingled with mental disorders and drug addiction coupled with just a slight paranormal touch.
I enjoyed so much I will re-approach it again someday!
December 3, 2008
Poorly written, with a barely coherent and hardly discernible plot. Caitlin Kiernan throws together a group of misfit outsider characters who do nothing but drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and toss off the names of the cool bands to whom they listen. In more capable hands, I'd probably like it. In her hands, ugh.
Want to read
December 19, 2015This is copy 113 of 450 signed numbered copies.
August 8, 2011
If you are a writer and you want to become a better writer, I recommend you read silk. Caitlín R. Kiernan's style of writing is amazing. Her descriptions are rich and her metaphors and similes are like none you've ever read before.
Here is what the book is about written by Publisher's Weekly: there's nothing smooth or sexy about this skin-crawling debut from Kiernan, an author with one helluvan imagination and a startling lack of inhibition. At the center of this modern gothic horror story is Spyder Baxter, a deeply troubled young woman haunted by terrifying memories of childhood and her insane, abusive father. But his transgressions were so heinous that the demons aren't just in her head anymore; they've taken on a life of their own and are taking over Spyder's house, crawling out of the basement and into everything and everyone she cares about. Caught in Spyder's web of bad karma are a motley crew of disenfranchised Gen Xers all living on the edge and trying to heal various psychic wounds of their own. They've each got plenty of reasons to be hallucinating, and the author does a good job of blurring the lines between their bad acid trips and spectral sightings.
Her style of writing is very poetic and at first you may have a bit of a learning curve before you can fully appreciate it's uniqueness.If youve ever wanted to dive into the gothic world then this book is perfect. I highly recommend it.
Here is what the book is about written by Publisher's Weekly: there's nothing smooth or sexy about this skin-crawling debut from Kiernan, an author with one helluvan imagination and a startling lack of inhibition. At the center of this modern gothic horror story is Spyder Baxter, a deeply troubled young woman haunted by terrifying memories of childhood and her insane, abusive father. But his transgressions were so heinous that the demons aren't just in her head anymore; they've taken on a life of their own and are taking over Spyder's house, crawling out of the basement and into everything and everyone she cares about. Caught in Spyder's web of bad karma are a motley crew of disenfranchised Gen Xers all living on the edge and trying to heal various psychic wounds of their own. They've each got plenty of reasons to be hallucinating, and the author does a good job of blurring the lines between their bad acid trips and spectral sightings.
Her style of writing is very poetic and at first you may have a bit of a learning curve before you can fully appreciate it's uniqueness.If youve ever wanted to dive into the gothic world then this book is perfect. I highly recommend it.
September 8, 2010
well-written, but after a while I lost interest in the tangledness of gothic girrrrrrls with prrrrroblems and darrrrrk histories.
January 24, 2010
Goth girl's traumatic childhood of abuse may or may not be manifesting itself in menacing supernatural form to both herself and her circle of followers & hangers-on in this intense, arty, way-goth 1997 novel. Kiernan is very talented and her imagery burns with a unique energy, often (grotesquely) beautiful. The supernatural aspects are handled through psychological means, flowing from character, avoiding the obvious terror novel tropes that we've all encountered a zillion times before. The book is subtle. The downside of all this restraint, however, is that the story itself eventually loses a certain momentum, too often meandering in crucial spots for long spells of squalid ennui with her punky cast of beautiful losers when it should be moving along. Slightly past the midpoint I began to long for just a little more plot and a lot less Goth. Silk is certainly recommended to anyone with a taste for out of the ordinary, quality dark fiction, but in the end it is a book I admired more that I actually enjoyed.
March 9, 2013
This was actually a reread, though I can't remember when I first read it (before I started cataloguing properly on Goodreads).
Kiernan's work has gotten stronger with every book, and there's a scatteredness, as well as a kind of emotional distance, in this novel that isn't there in her later works (The Red Tree and The Drowning Girl in particular, which are both masterpieces).
But don't let that make you think that this is a weak book, because it isn't (see the five star rating). There is such a sense of atmosphere and place in this book, and all of the broken characters feel all too human. You really get the impression that Kiernan tears out her heart afresh to create her books. I am so pleased that she won the Tiptree for The Drowning Girl, and hope that it will get her body of work the attention that it deserves.
Kiernan's work has gotten stronger with every book, and there's a scatteredness, as well as a kind of emotional distance, in this novel that isn't there in her later works (The Red Tree and The Drowning Girl in particular, which are both masterpieces).
But don't let that make you think that this is a weak book, because it isn't (see the five star rating). There is such a sense of atmosphere and place in this book, and all of the broken characters feel all too human. You really get the impression that Kiernan tears out her heart afresh to create her books. I am so pleased that she won the Tiptree for The Drowning Girl, and hope that it will get her body of work the attention that it deserves.
October 30, 2010
It's been a while since I read a horror novel that actually added something new to the genre. Caitlin Kiernan's book Silk blew in like a breath of fresh air. While there were one or two spots where I found myself getting a little bored, they didn't last for very long! I really enjoyed how real her characters seemed & how much I liked them (even as unsympathetic as some of them are).
Would I recommend this to a friend? Oh heck yeah! It's a horror novel that doesn't try to out-spook the genre & could appeal to a broader audience than some of the other writers could.
Would I recommend this to a friend? Oh heck yeah! It's a horror novel that doesn't try to out-spook the genre & could appeal to a broader audience than some of the other writers could.
May 27, 2008
Silk is a creepy character-driven horror novel that's been sitting on my to-read shelf for about a decade. The characters are vividly drawn, and their downtrodden lives are not sugar-coated in any way. The supernatural element in the book is so subtle that at first it's easy to believe that the horror exists only in the characters' imaginations. Even at the end, it's not made manifestly clear what was going on, but that helps the book's final scenes linger in your mind well after it's over.
October 31, 2016
I couldn't get deeply into this; I pushed through but skimmed a bunch. It felt packed with name-dropping from the early 90s (Will we have a Sisters of Mercy referenc? We will) and had characters that acted like dolls.
On the other hand, neat idea. Which I won't spoil here.
Thin along the suspension of disbelief front--an early book for the writer, I think her first. If you're into Poppy Z Brite this is similar (although I like PZB's book better).
On the other hand, neat idea. Which I won't spoil here.
Thin along the suspension of disbelief front--an early book for the writer, I think her first. If you're into Poppy Z Brite this is similar (although I like PZB's book better).
April 21, 2021
DNF @ about 55%
I generally enjoy Kiernan's books but I think this is one of her first and it definitely shows. I'm used to being a bit lost in the beginning of her books but usually things start to come together eventually or else it's just engaging enough that I don't mind being a little bit confused but that never really happened here. I honestly couldn't tell any of the characters apart because they're all the same kind of like young queer goth druggie band member type of person so by halfway through I just decided to give up on this. I think one of them might be an angel? Or they summoned a demon and are processed by it? I just genuinely don't know. I've enjoyed a lot of her later works and I'm going to continue to check out more of them but I wouldn't recommend this series and if you decided to start with them I would try The Drowning Girl or one of her short story collections instead to get a better idea of what she can actually do.
I generally enjoy Kiernan's books but I think this is one of her first and it definitely shows. I'm used to being a bit lost in the beginning of her books but usually things start to come together eventually or else it's just engaging enough that I don't mind being a little bit confused but that never really happened here. I honestly couldn't tell any of the characters apart because they're all the same kind of like young queer goth druggie band member type of person so by halfway through I just decided to give up on this. I think one of them might be an angel? Or they summoned a demon and are processed by it? I just genuinely don't know. I've enjoyed a lot of her later works and I'm going to continue to check out more of them but I wouldn't recommend this series and if you decided to start with them I would try The Drowning Girl or one of her short story collections instead to get a better idea of what she can actually do.
August 2, 2019
The joy - and the point - of this book is the description - it's atmospheric, cloying, and full of run on sentences. Take:
But I don't go for that gothic writing style, so I bounced pretty hard off this. I also didn't appreciate how meandering the plot seemed to be.
1.5/5 stars
Daria pushed open the gates to Baby Heaven, and there was warmer air and real light on the other side, the steamy hiss of radiators and rows of fluorescents suspended from the high ceiling, a couple of shadeless old floor lamps like tiny suns on gooseneck stalks.
But I don't go for that gothic writing style, so I bounced pretty hard off this. I also didn't appreciate how meandering the plot seemed to be.
1.5/5 stars
dnf
February 25, 2025What is the plot of this book? No seriously what is happening? What am I supposed to anticipate? Why am I supposed to care about the characters and their lives? Also, there’s too many white people with dreads it put me off(half joking)
March 25, 2024
These punks sure act like emos.
May 3, 2025
Very slow to get going, and a little too much drinking and drug taking for my tastes, but still a creepy fun book.
October 22, 2013
In praise of Silk, Neil Gaiman described Caitlin Kiernan as "the poet and bard of the wasted and the lost." Having managed to read four of her six novels, I totally agree. She is one of the most brilliant and exciting writers that I've come across in recent memory. Her writing is meticulous and evocative, lush and insanely atmospheric. A few years ago, after reading my first Caitlin Kiernan book (Murder of Angels) I ordered all of her books via inter-library loan. When they arrived, I was very excited and checked everything out, took it all home and sat on the floor of my bedroom. I remember that I was totally undecided about what to read first and picked a book at random. I think that everything had arrived except Silk, the prequel to Murder of Angels. The book that I happened to crack open first was Low Red Moon. I remember that I read the first paragraph, got so jealous that I closed the book and promptly took the lot back to the library. I was so envious that I couldn't bear to read them. I have NEVER had that response to a writer.
If you were to attempt to categorize Kiernan, I think that the popular place to put her is horror. However, I would contest that designation. Heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft, what Kiernan writes reminds me of American Southern Gothic, but with a modern goth aesthetic. It can be labeled urban fantasy or, very simply, dark fiction. Whatever it is, however you choose to call it, I love it.
Silk is the sort of prequel/companion to Murder of Angels. You don't really have to have read one in order to read the other, but it doesn't hurt. They are more directly related than the Novels of Deep Time. But all of Kiernan's novels seem to share elements: regions, references to characters, events.
In Silk, Kiernan does what she does best. She takes disenfranchised, marginalized “freaks” and throws them center stage in events that make you question perception, reality, and sanity. She introduces seemingly unrelated characters and slowly draws them together in what seems like a destined act of the Fates. But then again, maybe not. If only Nikki Ky, a wandering Vietnamese girl on the run from her conscious hadn't ran away from her problems at home, if only Spyder Baxter hadn't been so terrified and weaved truth and lies to keep her friends close, if only Daria Parker had never gotten involved with Keith Barry and Stiff Kitten. If ONLY, Keith hadn't decided to play the hero and run-off to rescue Spyder from homophobic thugs hassling her one cold, winter's night. If only they all hadn't decided to follow Nikki who decided to follow Spyder back to Spyder's house the next morning, so many things would have turned out differently. There is a sad elegance in the way that tragedy befalls the characters who have no idea what's coming their way or that they've fallen into a web from which there is no real escape. None of it is really their fault, except that somewhere along the way a decision was made that led them *here*.
Next thing you know ... flying monkeys. Although, Silk isn't as simple or as random or unexpected as all of that. Kiernan builds and layers until what happens in the end kinda has to happen. As events unfold and characters cross paths, a deep and terrible sense of foreboding rises to the surface and all you can do is wait to see how it all turns out.
The other thing that Kiernan does so well is to conflate fantasy and reality so that you're never sure what's real, what's the drugs or mental illness and what's the lie. All four play a part in setting the stage for the novel's tragic, surreal close. It's horrific to discover that maybe all of the creepy, disconcerting corner-of-the-eye mind tricks that permeate the novel are actually real and not just the hallucinations of a woman with a mental illness and her friends, unnerved by a bad trip on peyote. Watching the novel and the characters unravel was sad and deeply affecting. You feel for them as much as you sometimes despise them. Keith for his heroin addiction, Spyder for her needy, bitchy, controlling ways, and Daria for her self-destructive attachment to a man who loves the needle more than he loves her.
Be warned, however. If you're looking for an easy read, Kiernan is not the place to turn. She's challenging and you really have to pay attention. The devil's in the details, but even then, he might slip one past you, well aided by Kiernan's gorgeous nuance of writing as a craft.
If you were to attempt to categorize Kiernan, I think that the popular place to put her is horror. However, I would contest that designation. Heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft, what Kiernan writes reminds me of American Southern Gothic, but with a modern goth aesthetic. It can be labeled urban fantasy or, very simply, dark fiction. Whatever it is, however you choose to call it, I love it.
Silk is the sort of prequel/companion to Murder of Angels. You don't really have to have read one in order to read the other, but it doesn't hurt. They are more directly related than the Novels of Deep Time. But all of Kiernan's novels seem to share elements: regions, references to characters, events.
In Silk, Kiernan does what she does best. She takes disenfranchised, marginalized “freaks” and throws them center stage in events that make you question perception, reality, and sanity. She introduces seemingly unrelated characters and slowly draws them together in what seems like a destined act of the Fates. But then again, maybe not. If only Nikki Ky, a wandering Vietnamese girl on the run from her conscious hadn't ran away from her problems at home, if only Spyder Baxter hadn't been so terrified and weaved truth and lies to keep her friends close, if only Daria Parker had never gotten involved with Keith Barry and Stiff Kitten. If ONLY, Keith hadn't decided to play the hero and run-off to rescue Spyder from homophobic thugs hassling her one cold, winter's night. If only they all hadn't decided to follow Nikki who decided to follow Spyder back to Spyder's house the next morning, so many things would have turned out differently. There is a sad elegance in the way that tragedy befalls the characters who have no idea what's coming their way or that they've fallen into a web from which there is no real escape. None of it is really their fault, except that somewhere along the way a decision was made that led them *here*.
Next thing you know ... flying monkeys. Although, Silk isn't as simple or as random or unexpected as all of that. Kiernan builds and layers until what happens in the end kinda has to happen. As events unfold and characters cross paths, a deep and terrible sense of foreboding rises to the surface and all you can do is wait to see how it all turns out.
The other thing that Kiernan does so well is to conflate fantasy and reality so that you're never sure what's real, what's the drugs or mental illness and what's the lie. All four play a part in setting the stage for the novel's tragic, surreal close. It's horrific to discover that maybe all of the creepy, disconcerting corner-of-the-eye mind tricks that permeate the novel are actually real and not just the hallucinations of a woman with a mental illness and her friends, unnerved by a bad trip on peyote. Watching the novel and the characters unravel was sad and deeply affecting. You feel for them as much as you sometimes despise them. Keith for his heroin addiction, Spyder for her needy, bitchy, controlling ways, and Daria for her self-destructive attachment to a man who loves the needle more than he loves her.
Be warned, however. If you're looking for an easy read, Kiernan is not the place to turn. She's challenging and you really have to pay attention. The devil's in the details, but even then, he might slip one past you, well aided by Kiernan's gorgeous nuance of writing as a craft.
November 3, 2018
2.5
I don't seem to get along too great with Kiernan's earlier works. A lot of interesting stuff in that one but it was kind of all over the place.
I don't seem to get along too great with Kiernan's earlier works. A lot of interesting stuff in that one but it was kind of all over the place.
Read
September 17, 2012The author clearly loves language, and loves descriptions and every reader who loves those too will enjoy Silk immensely. It is a first novel, so there is some tendency to overindulge herself – there is hardly a sentence here that does not contain at least one metaphor or two similes, but Caitlín Kiernan’s prose is so luscious and sensuous that complaining about this in the face of so much too enjoy would seem rather petty.
Kiernan is usually classified as an author of horror fiction, and for good reasons, I am sure; but in this particular novel the horror seems almost incidental and marginal, while the main focus of the story rests on the lives of a group of people in a small town in the United States, all of them young, all of them mentally scarred in some way and existing on the fringes of society. For most of Silk, it is not even quite sure whether the horrors they experience have any external source besides drugs; but while the visions they live through might not be real, their tragic consequences very much are. Interestingly, even though all of the novel’s main characters are misfits and outsiders, the narrative’s conflicts are not about them versus the mainstream of the society whose margins they live on (although Kiernan does not leave any doubt that they are being marginalized) but rather about the characters either battling with or surrendering to their own inner demons, whether it is by taking drugs, by repeatedly falling in love with the wrong kind of person or any of the countless other possibilities of hurting oneself.
While the novel’s catastrophe is initialized by a group of town bullies, that enounter is entirely random, and in the end it are the characters themselves who bring about their downfall – there is not a single character in Silk who is not in way or another bent on self-destruction, and while some manage to escape that urge, it proves fatal for others. Even when events take a turn from psychological and drug-induced horror towards the distinctly supernatural at the end the demons still remain largely internalized, or appear as the external expression of a damaged interior (that might be a disturbed psyche as well as a conflicted community).
But – and this, I think, is where Silk gets really interesting – if it appears that all the novel’s characters are severely damaged and can relate to their own self only by self-destructing, it becomes clear (for some characters soon, for others later in the novel) that all of them have been traumatized in some way, that the original damage was done to them by outside forces, and the deformations of their psyche are the scars of that damage; the misfits and outcasts were made not born, and born by the structures (mostly familial) of the very society that stigmatizes them. This might not be the most original of insights, but it is no less true for that, and what makes Silk so good a novel is that it never needs to make any of this explicit to get it across, but keeps it implied in the story, in the characters, and in the imagery woven through the novel. And of course above all in Caitlín Kiernan’s superbly evocative writing that conjures up an atmosphere of slowly thickening claustrophobia, gradually closing in on the characters like a spider-spun cocoon. She is already such a skilled and accomplished writer in her debut novel that it is easy to forgive her the occasional swerve into overly purple prose, and I am very keen on reading more of her works.
Kiernan is usually classified as an author of horror fiction, and for good reasons, I am sure; but in this particular novel the horror seems almost incidental and marginal, while the main focus of the story rests on the lives of a group of people in a small town in the United States, all of them young, all of them mentally scarred in some way and existing on the fringes of society. For most of Silk, it is not even quite sure whether the horrors they experience have any external source besides drugs; but while the visions they live through might not be real, their tragic consequences very much are. Interestingly, even though all of the novel’s main characters are misfits and outsiders, the narrative’s conflicts are not about them versus the mainstream of the society whose margins they live on (although Kiernan does not leave any doubt that they are being marginalized) but rather about the characters either battling with or surrendering to their own inner demons, whether it is by taking drugs, by repeatedly falling in love with the wrong kind of person or any of the countless other possibilities of hurting oneself.
While the novel’s catastrophe is initialized by a group of town bullies, that enounter is entirely random, and in the end it are the characters themselves who bring about their downfall – there is not a single character in Silk who is not in way or another bent on self-destruction, and while some manage to escape that urge, it proves fatal for others. Even when events take a turn from psychological and drug-induced horror towards the distinctly supernatural at the end the demons still remain largely internalized, or appear as the external expression of a damaged interior (that might be a disturbed psyche as well as a conflicted community).
But – and this, I think, is where Silk gets really interesting – if it appears that all the novel’s characters are severely damaged and can relate to their own self only by self-destructing, it becomes clear (for some characters soon, for others later in the novel) that all of them have been traumatized in some way, that the original damage was done to them by outside forces, and the deformations of their psyche are the scars of that damage; the misfits and outcasts were made not born, and born by the structures (mostly familial) of the very society that stigmatizes them. This might not be the most original of insights, but it is no less true for that, and what makes Silk so good a novel is that it never needs to make any of this explicit to get it across, but keeps it implied in the story, in the characters, and in the imagery woven through the novel. And of course above all in Caitlín Kiernan’s superbly evocative writing that conjures up an atmosphere of slowly thickening claustrophobia, gradually closing in on the characters like a spider-spun cocoon. She is already such a skilled and accomplished writer in her debut novel that it is easy to forgive her the occasional swerve into overly purple prose, and I am very keen on reading more of her works.
May 27, 2012
If you pick up Silk by Caitlin R. Kiernan and read the back, be forewarned that what little the description tells you is in many ways very misleading. It's not inaccurate so much as it doesn't give you a real feel for what the book is and how it feels.
With that said, if you are a fan of horror that has a foot in Lovecraft and isn't always as scary as it is unnerving, then I'd say that this book might appeal to you. I really enjoyed it, reading it fast (faster than the last few books I've read I mean) and taking in every page as much as I could. It's not a perfect book. Actually far from it and my 4* rating is subjective at best. Part of me knows this should be a 3* rating for a lot of reasons, and yet I was so into it even when it wasn't particularly very good in parts I still uprated it. Silk has a number of problems and will leave you wondering what ultimately happened when it is all over. The latter is not bad as I don't need a pat ending all of the time, it however did leave me with the "well that sucks what happened next?" feeling that does take a little bit away from my overall enjoyment.
As for the problems themselves, my main issue was that a few of the girls in the book (Robin, Daria, and even Spyder herself) are almost interchangeable in respect to their personality and how they sound. Maybe that was the point, maybe that is what a life like this is all about. Individualism and rebelling even as you become more of something and someone else than you were before, but I wouldn't really know as I never lived that life (or was ever a young Goth girl). Niki and Theo are the two best drawn and most unique characters and voices in the novel, and yet they are not present in the book near as much as Robin, Daria, and Spyder. The same goes for Byron and Walter, two young men who oftentimes sounded so much alike that I had to stop and think or even go back to remember which was which. Another problem I had with the book was the pacing. I didn't mind the first third of the book (and then some) being just about setting the characters up and letting us slowly get to know them, I didn't mind the second third being all questions and more character building, but I found I did mind the last third building and building to a resolution that never truly came. And what I did get was rather anticlimactic. I said I don't need pat ending, and I said the ending we got wasn't bad, but I guess I should restate that as it wasn't bad had there not been this steady and constant build the last 75-100 pages that never had a proper pay off as far as I am concerned.
I will definitely read more of Ms. Kiernan's books, and for sure will read the sequel to Silk (Murder Of Angels). I like her style, her way with words, and how brilliant she was at times. I understand that this was her debut novel and I look forward to her growing as a writer and storyteller with subsequent books.
With that said, if you are a fan of horror that has a foot in Lovecraft and isn't always as scary as it is unnerving, then I'd say that this book might appeal to you. I really enjoyed it, reading it fast (faster than the last few books I've read I mean) and taking in every page as much as I could. It's not a perfect book. Actually far from it and my 4* rating is subjective at best. Part of me knows this should be a 3* rating for a lot of reasons, and yet I was so into it even when it wasn't particularly very good in parts I still uprated it. Silk has a number of problems and will leave you wondering what ultimately happened when it is all over. The latter is not bad as I don't need a pat ending all of the time, it however did leave me with the "well that sucks what happened next?" feeling that does take a little bit away from my overall enjoyment.
As for the problems themselves, my main issue was that a few of the girls in the book (Robin, Daria, and even Spyder herself) are almost interchangeable in respect to their personality and how they sound. Maybe that was the point, maybe that is what a life like this is all about. Individualism and rebelling even as you become more of something and someone else than you were before, but I wouldn't really know as I never lived that life (or was ever a young Goth girl). Niki and Theo are the two best drawn and most unique characters and voices in the novel, and yet they are not present in the book near as much as Robin, Daria, and Spyder. The same goes for Byron and Walter, two young men who oftentimes sounded so much alike that I had to stop and think or even go back to remember which was which. Another problem I had with the book was the pacing. I didn't mind the first third of the book (and then some) being just about setting the characters up and letting us slowly get to know them, I didn't mind the second third being all questions and more character building, but I found I did mind the last third building and building to a resolution that never truly came. And what I did get was rather anticlimactic. I said I don't need pat ending, and I said the ending we got wasn't bad, but I guess I should restate that as it wasn't bad had there not been this steady and constant build the last 75-100 pages that never had a proper pay off as far as I am concerned.
I will definitely read more of Ms. Kiernan's books, and for sure will read the sequel to Silk (Murder Of Angels). I like her style, her way with words, and how brilliant she was at times. I understand that this was her debut novel and I look forward to her growing as a writer and storyteller with subsequent books.
April 24, 2009
Silk by Caitlin R. Kiernan is written out like a spiderweb, so many characters and so many things going on, that it's all so dizzying when you first read it.
It's a Lovecraftian-like story done perfectly. Caitlin R. Keirnan, you can tell, loves words and creates such a wildfire with them, bordering on the poetic side.
"Spyder opened her mouth, bloodsmear-ringed like smudged lipstick or the candy-apple halo around a little girl's mouth, and caught a single flake on her outstretched tongue. It lingered there a moment, ice-water crystal on pink flesh, before it melted and Spyder swallowed what was left.
And Niki Shivered as something warm and sharp passed through her....and they stood there, her and the white-haired girl, in the space between the beams of the van's headlights, watching the snow fall..."
Not many people can write so well like that...
The characters all come out so alive and distinct. Honestly, it's an engrossing character study throughout the novel; all them coming from and are things society is often uncomfortable with, the goths, the punks, various subcultures, the junkies, the victims of abusive homes.
The people in this book are almost disquieting, so hard and lush all at once, with little slips of vulnerability now and then. None of them are one-dimensional at all.
Then there is the question of their sanity and whether the horror they see is real or just in their minds.
Is it real?
Are all of them just crazy?
Just what is it with those spiders? Are they harmful, or are they empowering?
It's a perfectly tight little package of dark fantasy.
It's a Lovecraftian-like story done perfectly. Caitlin R. Keirnan, you can tell, loves words and creates such a wildfire with them, bordering on the poetic side.
"Spyder opened her mouth, bloodsmear-ringed like smudged lipstick or the candy-apple halo around a little girl's mouth, and caught a single flake on her outstretched tongue. It lingered there a moment, ice-water crystal on pink flesh, before it melted and Spyder swallowed what was left.
And Niki Shivered as something warm and sharp passed through her....and they stood there, her and the white-haired girl, in the space between the beams of the van's headlights, watching the snow fall..."
Not many people can write so well like that...
The characters all come out so alive and distinct. Honestly, it's an engrossing character study throughout the novel; all them coming from and are things society is often uncomfortable with, the goths, the punks, various subcultures, the junkies, the victims of abusive homes.
The people in this book are almost disquieting, so hard and lush all at once, with little slips of vulnerability now and then. None of them are one-dimensional at all.
Then there is the question of their sanity and whether the horror they see is real or just in their minds.
Is it real?
Are all of them just crazy?
Just what is it with those spiders? Are they harmful, or are they empowering?
It's a perfectly tight little package of dark fantasy.
March 18, 2012
Silk is Caitlin R. Kiernan's debut novel.
Kiernan is a truly talented writer, I've greatly enjoyed her metaphorical and often poetic style. Her depiction of a ragtag of fringe characters entrenched in the punk and goth subcultures screamed of real-life experiences. There's that stamp of authenticity lending credibility to the characters, settings and overall atmosphere (whether real or imagined on my part).
On the other hand, this novel fails so utterly in its fantasy/horror elements. The plot is paper thin and whenever supernatural manifestations occurred, they felt completely artificial and unwelcome, like rejected grafts. There is zero tension as it's quite difficult to be afraid of poetic evocations or convoluted dream sequences. We're left hanging in the end with no explanation whatsoever. Yes there is a sequel, Murder Of Angels, but that is hardly an excuse for this travesty of an ending.
Still Kiernan is truly worth the time for her high caliber writing and original voice. I'm not done with her yet.
Kiernan is a truly talented writer, I've greatly enjoyed her metaphorical and often poetic style. Her depiction of a ragtag of fringe characters entrenched in the punk and goth subcultures screamed of real-life experiences. There's that stamp of authenticity lending credibility to the characters, settings and overall atmosphere (whether real or imagined on my part).
On the other hand, this novel fails so utterly in its fantasy/horror elements. The plot is paper thin and whenever supernatural manifestations occurred, they felt completely artificial and unwelcome, like rejected grafts. There is zero tension as it's quite difficult to be afraid of poetic evocations or convoluted dream sequences. We're left hanging in the end with no explanation whatsoever. Yes there is a sequel, Murder Of Angels, but that is hardly an excuse for this travesty of an ending.
Still Kiernan is truly worth the time for her high caliber writing and original voice. I'm not done with her yet.
August 31, 2011
Caitlin R. Kiernan's first book stopped me in my tracks and made me slow down and pay attention. The prose is luscious, gothic almost, filled with raw, intense metaphors and a power that moves you forward through the plot with the same inexorable pull of a great river. While this is at heart a tale of the weird and macabre, what truly hooked me was the characters, each unique and compelling. The cast is one of misfits and drop outs, drug users and loners, but as a collective whole they grabbed my imagination and refused to let go.
Don't pick up this book if you want a fast paced plot full of action and twists and turns. This one is a slow burn, a building of tension that layers on until its almost unbearable at the very end.
Caitlin R. Kiernan has gone on to write more polished prose, with less compound adjectives such as 'rawsilked' or the like, but this is the authentic, original thing, and you should pick it up if you love a good tale of psychological horror.
Don't pick up this book if you want a fast paced plot full of action and twists and turns. This one is a slow burn, a building of tension that layers on until its almost unbearable at the very end.
Caitlin R. Kiernan has gone on to write more polished prose, with less compound adjectives such as 'rawsilked' or the like, but this is the authentic, original thing, and you should pick it up if you love a good tale of psychological horror.
December 8, 2007
I was morbidly fascinated by these dark, troubled characters and by their environment, which was equally gritty and broken down. Part of my interest in them (and in Spyder, in particular) was with trying to figure out if the things they were seeing were real, or just a product of their abuse-driven imaginations.
I think I was absorbed with the book - up until just short of the end, where, I felt, it cut off abruptly and then left me hanging out there with a bunch of questions still in my head. Not all stories have a straight resolution. However, this one really just seemed to end on a randomly chosen page.
Still, it's one of those that's interesting enough that I keep turning it around in my head. So I'll probably reread it at some point in the future and see what I might have missed the first go round.
I think I was absorbed with the book - up until just short of the end, where, I felt, it cut off abruptly and then left me hanging out there with a bunch of questions still in my head. Not all stories have a straight resolution. However, this one really just seemed to end on a randomly chosen page.
Still, it's one of those that's interesting enough that I keep turning it around in my head. So I'll probably reread it at some point in the future and see what I might have missed the first go round.
June 26, 2012
The only reason is this book merits 4 stars--and not five--is that the style of it echoes more conventional horror styles in most places. I prefer Kiernan's current style, which really stands out, in the novels I've read, beginning with "A Daughter of Hounds."
What does work here, again for me, are the complex characters, some imperfect, true; but she argues well your understanding of all of them, and spends a large amount of her time creating them so that the books focus less on the horror and more on the people who inhabit them. Great descriptions of places, too.
What does work here, again for me, are the complex characters, some imperfect, true; but she argues well your understanding of all of them, and spends a large amount of her time creating them so that the books focus less on the horror and more on the people who inhabit them. Great descriptions of places, too.
January 8, 2008
This is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. The author has a very original style--her prose is vivid, beautiful, and frightening. This is actually the book that kindled my interest in tarantulas and I love how she references Rainer Foelix's "Biology of Spiders" at the beginning of each section of the story. Kiernan is one of the few contemporary horror authors out there with something original and striking to offer fans of the genre.
April 21, 2008
The atmosphere of the novel was very well-written, and the characters, while being a bit "central casting" for a particular lifestyle, did seem real and believable. But the ending felt a bit too jagged. I have no problem with endings that aren't all sewn up, but something didn't quite hold together at the end. That may have been the point, though.
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