{"id":8263,"date":"2015-10-13T13:55:45","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T17:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cemeterydanceonline.com\/?p=6996"},"modified":"2015-10-13T13:55:45","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T17:55:45","slug":"review-the-art-of-horrible-people-by-john-skipp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-the-art-of-horrible-people-by-john-skipp\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: &#039;The Art of Horrible People&#039; by John Skipp"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Horrible-People-John-Skipp\/dp\/1621051935\" target=\"_blank\"><strong><em>The Art of Horrible People<\/em>\u00a0by John Skipp<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Lazy Fascist Press (August 2015)<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>176\u00a0pages, e-book $5.95, paperback $12.95<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Reviewed by\u00a0Blu Gilliand<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-7002\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/HorriblePeople-195x300.jpg?resize=195%2C300\" alt=\"HorriblePeople\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" \/>On the back cover of John Skipp&#8217;s\u00a0<em>The Art of Horrible People<\/em>, author Josh Malerman implores readers to &#8220;savor this book.&#8221; It&#8217;s a good suggestion, but difficult to follow with prose like this, which fully embodies the tried-and-true clich\u00e9 of being difficult to put down.<\/p>\n<p>The book<em>\u00a0<\/em>collects nine stories written over the last decade, each of them featuring the razor-like wit and sharp insight which has characterized Skipp&#8217;s work all the way back to his days as a young (splatter)punk breaking into the business. <!--more-->Each story has its merits, but a couple of them stood out for me.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Depresso the Clown&#8221; examines the ramifications of coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, from a clown&#8217;s point-of-view. A man trying to eke out a living in greasepaint is captured by a woman desperate to face &#8211; and conquer &#8211; her fear. Instead, her attempt at home-spun therapy only serves to create that which she fears the most.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Skipp&#8217;s Hollywood Alphabet Soup of Horror&#8221; is a gleeful evisceration of Tinseltown, packaged in 26 pieces of flash fiction &#8211; one for every letter. Skipp takes\u00a0aim at the movie industry&#8217;s inflated egos and get-ahead-at-all-costs mentality in particular, revealing that the true victims in Hollywood horror stories are usually creativity and dreams.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Art of Horrible People<\/em> is a welcome collection from one of horror&#8217;s great treasures. John Skipp is a unique and important voice in fiction, and we should count ourselves lucky that he shares his nightmares with us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Art of Horrible People\u00a0by John Skipp Lazy Fascist Press (August 2015) 176\u00a0pages, e-book $5.95, paperback $12.95 Reviewed by\u00a0Blu Gilliand On the back cover of John Skipp&#8217;s\u00a0The Art of Horrible People, author Josh Malerman implores readers to &#8220;savor this book.&#8221; It&#8217;s a good suggestion, but difficult to follow with prose like this, which fully embodies &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-the-art-of-horrible-people-by-john-skipp\/\" class=\"more-link button bg-gold white\">Continue Reading!<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Review: &#039;The Art of Horrible People&#039; by John Skipp&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80],"tags":[301,42,460,437,79,461],"class_list":["post-8263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-blu-gilliand","tag-featured","tag-john-skipp","tag-lazy-fascist-press","tag-reviews","tag-the-art-of-horrible-people"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Review: &#039;The Art of Horrible People&#039; 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