Crazy Times is...well...Fucking Crazy
Scott Cole’s newest work, a 116 page novella called Crazytimes, reads like what would happen if my worst nightmare experienced its worst nightmare’s worst nightmare. It is page after page of terror and gore, adding up to an unnerving existential commentary that has me rethinking my life.
The story, written in a first person stream-of-consciousness style, follows a single day in the life of a fellow who is only ever identified as Trey. He wakes in a nice home, bought with his girlfriend Isa who left him several months before. Late for work, he readies himself quickly and rushes to the local bus stop. There are lots of little hints that something is not quite right in his city. Everyone Trey encounters on the way to work is, well, just slightly off. When he buys his morning cup of Joe, he hears odd banging off in the distance. He makes little of it, but we horror nerds know that far-off out-of-the-ordinary banging sounds only mean bad things.
Not knowing he is living in a horror novella, Trey continues to work where, once again, we see that things are just a bit off kilter. Right about there, the day turns rapidly apocalyptic. People go insane at a stultifying pace. Most become homicidal. The rest of the novella follows Trey’s attempt to get to somewhere safe in an effort to survive whatever the heck is going on in his home city.
Most of the novella is a shocking barrage of human insanity and depravity. It is gruesome and gory in the extreme. If I had Scott Cole’s phone number, I would honestly call him up and ask him if he’s okay, if he needs the number for a good therapist. Whether it’s people in dark alleyways defecating into mason jars as a group, exploding pustule clusters, gouged out eyes, throats slit by printing equipment, self mutilating baristas, or Chinese tea gone wrong in the worst way, Cole is simply unrelenting and brutal. Up to the very last scene, this is not a work for the faint of heart.
On the surface, this novel is little more than a series of gore and body horror. Some of the scenes are funny. Others are just unnerving. Quite a few of them are genuinely clever. What struck me most when reading it, however, is that there are some very deep undercurrents in Cole’s tale. It’s almost deceptive, easy to miss. After all, it seems like it’s just a novel about a guy who goes to work and, when chaos ensues, leaves work looking for a place to hide. Yet, between the lines is a sharp and cutting commentary about modern existence.
I won’t give anything away, but I will say this: at several junctures in his story Scott Cole tactfully suggests that maybe we have the apocalypse coming. What if humanity is such an uncompromisingly foul species that we have forfeited our right to exist? What if the world was better off without us? What if our moral bankruptcy earns us every evil thing the cosmos throws in our direction? It is one of those thoughts that is so unsettling because it might just be true. In this Cole goes far deeper than most of the weird fiction literary tradition. Cosmic horror very often embraces the belief that the universe is, at best, utterly indifferent to us. The more hardcore practitioners go with H P Lovecraft in suggesting that the cosmos is downright hostile to us. Cole seems to be doing one better. In this work, he suggests the possibility that the universe is hostile to us for good reason, that it is actually right to be hostile to us.
Cole’s work is incredibly well written. It is hard to do first person stream of consciousness narration well. I have seen it done poorly more times than I can count. Cole’s ability as a writer should not be in doubt. The only part that didn’t satisfy me personally was the last act. Starting from the scene in the graveyard, Cole makes a series of bold narrative decisions which take the story in unforeseen directions. For me, these directions seemed incongruous to the preceding material. However, I can also see many readers enjoying the last act of the book specifically because it takes you to weird, wonky places you did not expect. It just did not work for me personally.
Scott Cole’s Crazytimes - especially because it’s well composed and short - is definitely worth the effort of most horror nerds. This is especially true for aficionados of cosmic horror, weird fiction, and gore. Just make sure to bring one of those airplane sick bags for the ride. Enjoy!
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