The Pallbearers Club - A Coffin Worth Bearing
I was lucky enough to win an ARC of this book from Paul Tremblay's newsletter contest for a tattoo recommendation. Thank you for picking my idea, Paul!
I think there's something very omnisciently disturbing about this story. It has banal moments, everyday-life and teenage-angst moments, but what grows from that into the adult who is our main character, Art Barbara (mostly Paul Tremblay), is far from banal. Art's scoliosis is a direct parallel to his mental state that curves into itself, despite an attempt to keep to the straight and narrow.
The relationship Art has with his friend Mercy is riddled with imagination, true bonding through music and horror, and delusion. I found it to be a very honest relationship. It reminded me of people I put on pedestals when I was young, usually by imagining them god-like or otherworldly in their mystery - especially in comparison to my awkward self. I think these characters were concretely relatable and I know a lot of that is because Paul Tremblay poured his own soul into the character (Art hates pickles too, it's so obvious). I also devoured all the music references because of my former punk scene years and it made everything drip of nostalgia for me.
The weird and dark parts mixed together in a slurry of fiction, substance-induced stupors, and reality. They were fantastic. I loved the dedicated reference of an early character to a fellow horror author (Mr. Langan) with a physical description to boot, and I fell in love with likening a book to a coffin. I wear my Pallbearers Club badge of honour with pride and would happily bear the weight of this coffin into the next life.
