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By James Rolfe
2025
I've long been an admirer of James Rolfe and his work at Cinemassacre, and a few years ago he posted a video to YouTube teasing the plot to a film that he intended to make in the future. It had an intriguing premise and ended on a cliffhanger, so naturally I wanted to find out how the damn thing ended!
Time marches on and plans change in ways we couldn't have foreseen, and not too long ago Rolfe provided an update on the film: he didn't feel it was feasible to make it at this juncture as he had too many other commitments (predominantly and most importantly his family), but he still wanted to tell this specific story and decided that a novel would be an ideal format. Fast-forward to the tail end of last year-- the novel was finally released, and I picked up a copy promptly.
For Rolfe's first effort in the medium of written fiction (he has also published a memoir), I think Gnome Cave proves a promising start. It is incredibly short, but as per Rolfe that was by design. That said, I do wish the book had been even just a chapter or two longer; I think it might have benefitted from the breathing room and a bit more fleshing out of the characters. My only other gripe is that the big twist (which I won't spoil here) felt a little anti-climactic-- the story had done a great job building up to that point and provided an ominous, suspenseful atmosphere effectively. I'm not too sure the reveal that followed took full advantage of that promise.
Nostalgia, particularly the ugly side of it, is a common theme in James Rolfe's work. His most famous creation, the Angry Video Game Nerd, is an abrasive malcontent with a hare-trigger temper that plays games (usually) from the 1980s and 90s, becomes disproportionately enraged by them (which is especially funny when the games often focus on subject matter along the lines of the Berenstain Bears and "Cheetahmen"), then typically destroys the cartridges in a gloriously over-the-top manner once his fury becomes too much to bear-- usually with delightful Troma-esque practical effects. It's a consistently hilarious series that is still going strong to this day, and has been around so long it essentially predicted what has now become a disturbingly-real type of person-- people who spend all their time obsessing over their childhood memories, then going out of their way to become aggressive about them for the most ludicrous reasons. This sort of individual has been around for decades, sure, but Rolfe was very prescient in imagining the bizarre ways they would evolve as the age of social media took hold, making the series' satirical premise just as relevant as ever.
Another popular project of Rolfe's was a series called Board James, where the eponymous character would make his friends play-- what else?-- board games from his youth. BJ would take the proceedings a tad too seriously, and as the series progressed this became more and more sinister as it was eventually revealed that he was a violent madman who had trapped his buddies/victims in some sort of nightmarish purgatory hellscape shaped by obsession with board games, inevitably murdering them by the end of each episode in a brutal fashion, before they are forced to start the whole process over in the next one. Although this all sounds quite terrifying on paper (and there are some moments that are genuinely disturbing, particularly in the finale), Board James was unmistakably comedic in tone overall. Think a version of the Three Stooges where Moe disembowels Curly and Larry.
Rolfe's two aforementioned, best-known musings on the dangers of nostalgia were meant to be humorous, and Gnome Cave differs from them in the sense that it a more serious work in tone. It focuses on a middle-aged truck driver named Dante who has no real roots-- essentially friendless and his immediate family have all passed on-- and he delves into an obsession with an eerie theme park ride he remembered from his youth that was the subject of demented urban legends. The subject matter is Rolfe's bread-and-butter, and it is very gripping to see him take one of his characters' unhealthy fixations on relatively inconsequential pieces of childhood entertainment seriously for once. One can certainly detect the influence of Rod Serling this time around (and perhaps even the Cryptkeeper). Dante's sanity visibly growing more askew throughout the book is the most captivating element-- you can tell something has gone wrong with the guy, but what exactly is it? His manner is chilling yet his intentions seem just out of our grasp until The Big Reveal.
It's not Rolfe's masterwork but it certainly is not bad at all either, despite the touched-upon flaws here and there. I would definitely recommend it; it's an easily digestible, engrossing horror fable that won't take up too much of your time and recalls the brand of freakiness found in RL Stine's Goosebumps, albeit taken to some darker places. If James ever decides to write another book, I'll certainly make sure to check it out.
By John Updike
1974
Prior to this, I had read some of Updike's short stories, but A Month of Sundays was the first full novel of his for me (granted it's not particularly long; I'm not trying to suggest this was a Herculean task). It's the first instalment of Updike's "Scarlet Letter Trilogy", a triad of books he put out in the 1970s that are loose adaptations of Nathaniel Hawthorne's literary classic. I haven't read the other two yet, but this blog post gives a rundown that helped give me some background on what Updike had in mind.
The story follows a middle-aged reverend named Thomas, who is sent to some sort of hush-hush retreat under the guise of "rehabilitation" after he is busted having numerous affairs, first with the church organist (whom he seemed to have the deepest connection with, and coldly fired after things fizzled out), then with a smorgasbord of female parishioners. The novel is written from Thomas' point of view during this retreat, where he is tasked with keeping a diary of sorts, where he reflects on his fall from grace, and writes a couple of cynical sermons he knows he will never be able to deliver. He eventually starts lusting after one of the retreat's employees, who (spoiler alert?) he supposedly beds in the final chapter, although whether or not this actually occurred is up to interpretation-- our only account of this comes from Thomas himself, and seems rather abrupt.
"Cynical" is the operative word here. I've heard the book referred to as "deliberately offensive" on Updike's part (I don't remember where), suggesting he set out to provoke with it (what, him? No way!). On top of interweaving the touchy theme of religion with the touchy theme of sex throughout the tale, we get a few rather detailed descriptions of Thomas' preferences, and in general he is a very unlikable individual; sexist with some questionable implied politics, and constantly behaving in ways that hurt the people around him and showing little, typically superficial, remorse about it (and, circling back to the ending, he doesn't seem to learn his lesson). He's a very jaded guy who seems to feel very little anymore, and one gets the impression his rule-breaking sexual escapades are his way of trying to bring a bit of emotion back into his existence. It makes him a bit sympathetic, if ultimately pathetic. You don't get the sense Updike wanted you to like this guy very much, but he's a fascinating enough character to fill a protagonist role.
I wouldn't call A Month of Sundays a classic, but it's competent and, in several moments, captivating. The last few chapters run out of steam and feel superfluous, as though Updike via Thomas had run out of things to say but wanted to meet the thirty-one chapters threshold (hence the title). I found my copy for a dollar secondhand, and it's a pretty brief read, so I don't regret having picked it up or anything, even though it's not anything to write home about. I looked up the New York Times' contemporary review of the book, which concluded "A Month of Sundays is a Sunday sort of book. Mr. Updike is lounging in his own backyard, enjoying a day off from his strenuous job of being one of our best writers."
By Alice Munro
1978
This will be hard to write about, as I'm still not entirely able to wrap my head around the experience. When I was about halfway through reading Who Do You Think You Are?, I was made aware of Alice Munro's daughter, Andrea Robin Skinner's recent essay about the horrifying abuse she faced as a child and Munro's complicit role in it. What's more is that Munro seemed to use her daughter's woes as direct inspiration for parts of this specific book. To say the least, it certainly cast a massive shadow over finishing it up.
Who Do You Think You Are? is a series of short stories tracking the life of a Canadian woman named Rose, from childhood to late-middle age. As the title suggests, Rose is always on the search for some kind of identity that seems to just elude her grasp, wanting to fit into a world that often seems to not want to accept her on her own terms. The book is incredibly well-written, obviously, as it is arguably the most acclaimed work of Munro's (a canonical modern author who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013). Rose's emotional journey easily pulled me in and her setbacks felt like punches to the gut to read about. All that said, I don't really think I can write any more about it. Finding out about the book's viscerally-upsetting origins colored the experience in a very uncomfortable way that I'm not eloquent enough to put into the proper words, nor do I think I'm really qualified to.
The "Art vs. Artist" debate is an all-too-common one nowadays that tends to just go around in circles. I suspect there will never be any universally-satisfying answer to something so tricky and wide-ranging in scope. I am generally not of the camp that insists you automatically cannot take in a powerful work of art if its creator did terrible things-- it depends, it's a case-by-case basis to me. There are a lot of variables to consider (is the artist still alive? If so, will they benefit directly from your enjoyment? What's the historical context? What's the bigger picture? What can be gained from engagement and what harm can be caused And so forth). It's undeniably a great book from a great author, and Munro is dead (and I bought it secondhand anyway), but considering how directly linked Who Do You Think You Are? seems to be to her daughter's story, it's hard to not feel that there is much about the book that becomes very difficult to approach while trying to remain sensitive and respectful. The mere idea that I'm even struggling with such a thing already feels superficial and even a tad selfish to me, as what ultimately matters the most is not my experience with the book, or yours', but the feelings of Andrea Robin Skinner. She was the one affected by what happened, not us, and having complicated feelings about a book is nothing compared to what she must have went through.
I think it's best to end this all with a quote from Skinner herself on the matter: "I never wanted to see another interview, biography or event that didn’t wrestle with the reality of what had happened to me, and with the fact that my mother, confronted with the truth of what had happened, chose to stay with, and protect, my abuser."
By John Kennedy Toole
1963/1980
A Confederacy of Dunces swiftly became one of my favorite books of all time. Just a few chapters in, I could feel it taking that place in my personal pantheon. I don't really know what I could possibly say about the book that would do it justice-- all the highest compliments have been paid long ago, including a Pulitzer Prize a year after it was finally published in 1980 (as you might already know-- it's probably the most famous tidbit about Dunces, as well as what drew my attention to it in the first place-- its author, John Kennedy Toole, wrote it in 1963, was unable to get it published, and wound up shelving it. He took his own life later on, and his mother shopped it around to publishers after).
I laughed out loud at least every few pages. It is so funny, and so honest-- its portrait of humanity, peculiarities and delusions and all, is practically unparalleled as far as I'm concerned. The story's characters, particularly its lead Ignatius J. Reilly, live and breathe during the 400-odd pages. There's a relatively large pool of characters with their own little stories going on separate from one another, yet the way they interweave into a web that all comes together flawlessly and hilariously in the end is nothing short of masterful. I had the time of my life reading A Confederacy of Dunces. If you've never read it, I urge you to get on that yesterday.
By Rudolph Grey
1992
Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA
By Will Sloan
2025
Closing out the year, I read two books in tandem on the same topic, one old (well, not really all that old) and one new. The topic was a longtime fascination of mine, filmmaker Ed Wood.
I've always had a great time with StarCrash, and many of these "bad" flicks. I enjoy watching them as much as I enjoy watching a "good" movie. I think about them often, and like I mentioned, I just about have several of my personal favorites memorized. So how can I call these movies "bad" at this point? Sure, they're... not conventionally competent, let's put it that way. But I feel that long ago, I mostly shed the ironic, condescending perspective I initially came to those films with. Their idiosyncrasies fascinate me in an earnest way; the atmospheres they often achieve, so unlike anything you see in the more conventional works, are unique and genuinely entice me. Watching these films can feel like getting a chance to explore a different universe, one where everything is not what you've been led things are "supposed" to be, yet it's all captivating and you are glad to spend some time immersed in this distinctive, uncommon environment. I admire their offbeat nature, and by this point I truly believe I am doing so in a mostly earnest way. They're sort of like an eccentric old family member; amusing in their strangeness but I love them with all my heart and I promise you I am not aiming for sarcasm as I write all this.
If a movie gives me this much positive stimulation, can it really be "bad"? To me, a bad movie would be something that gives you absolutely nothing, something bland and forgettable. Watching a bad movie is watching something you dislike, a negative experience in general (even if its a fairly trivial one as far as negative experiences go. That is not how I would describe the works I've been talking about-- I enjoy myself watching then, and actively opt to do so often.
To wit, I think about the king of this domain: Ed Wood, who has been deemed "The Worst Director of All Time" the same way Aretha Franklin is unquestionably "The Queen of Soul". You probably know his output, if you're reading this-- Plan 9 From Outer Space, Glen or Glenda, Bride of The Monster are the most famous ones. While those movies are all too weird for polite society, they grab your attention and never let it go, even after they're over. Hence why Wood has such a strong posthumous reputation that includes a Tim Burton-helmed biopic. He deals with themes that unapologetically feel like drive-in B-movie fare in their purest, least compromised and distilled form; his work seems to have emerged from some sleazy gutter in Hollywood, yet never sheds this reverence for the city's starry-eyed glamor, and feels almost refreshingly naive and earnest in doing so; his work tonally feels like a collection of dreamscapes that let you view some part of your subconscious that you might never entirely come to understand. How can someone who does all this be "bad", let alone "the worst"? I don't know who I would bestow that insult-moniker upon off the top of my head, but to me, Wood is very far from that hypothetical person's orbit. The Worst Director of All Time would not be nearly as interesting.
Nightmare of Ecstasy is essentially the Bible of Ed Wood; an oral-history account featuring interviews with just about everyone who knew him and even some archival thoughts from the maestro himself, organized chronologically enough to serve as a de-facto biography. While Ed Wood's cult following had been very much brewing prior to Ecstasy's publication, it sort of served as this dam-burst moment that brought him into the realm of legitimate celebrity, with the aforementioned (Disney-produced!) biopic and references on Seinfeld emerging in its wake. It tracks Wood's life as a biography is meant to: youth, army service, beginnings in showbiz, hooking up with Bela Lugosi, Lugosi's death and Plan 9 crawling out of that wreckage, his fortunes dwindling, alcoholism worsening, his later career as in porn, and his depressing final years where he lived bottle-to-bottle in a mutually-abusive, codependent relationship with his common-law wife Kathy, bleeding money until they're homeless and Wood dies crashing at a friend's apartment for a spell. Ed is humanized in these accounts much more than he typically is in pop culture; sure, he does lots of funny stuff (often unintentionally), but he was a person and this doesn't get lost. I feel like this is often the case whenever Wood is discussed, it seems as though making shoddy films is used as a pretext to turn him into a comedy punching bag much of the time. Even the Burton bio, while well-meaning and sympathetic, takes a fairly condescending view towards him.
This sympathy is especially important when it comes to the recurring struggle in Ed's life: gender. Ed was a perpetual cross-dresser, and while he insisted he was heterosexual and cisgender (Wood used "he" pronouns, I'm not attempting to misgender him), some of the stories give the impression like he might have been in denial even to himself. Pop culture tends to really mock Wood when it comes to this aspect of his life, especially re: his debut film, Glen or Glenda The assignment was to make an explotation-ish documentary in the wake of Christine Jorgensen, the woman who. had the first widely-publicized gender-reassignment surgery. Ed took that ball and ran with it: he wrote, directed and starred in a final product that focuses on his character's (Glen) internal struggle with what we would now describe as gender dysphoria. He fears what will happen when his fiancee founds out, he fears being arrested, he fears the stress be coming so unbearable that things end in suicide. He has a nightmarish dream sequence where the Devil taunts him, all the while the film's narrator repeatedly insists that Glen is a perfectly heterosexual, virile man. He yearns to be "cured" of his dysphoria, and finally is in the film's poorly-aged happy ending. There is lots about the film that is funny and not in transphobic "ha-ha, he wants to be woman" ways, but the undercurrent is sort of heartbreaking-- it reads as Wood's plea for tolerance to 1953 society, all the while he ultimately knows it will fall on deaf ears. Nightmare of Ecstasy has a quote from a friend reiterating that Ed told him the movie was "my story" (I'm paraphrasing from memory so perhaps I'm slightly off).
If you feel for Wood after reading all this, then Will Sloan's new book, Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA is for you, just as it was for me. Sloan presents an analysis of Wood's work and its themes that engages with it all earnestly and on its level, rather than going "gee these films are stupid" as has often been the protocol. His introduction to the book features very similar sentiments to my above musics on whether these are truly "bad" movies, and I knew I was at home right away as I read that.
The two books work very well as companion pieces. One is the facts, and the other is some analysis (as well as some more facts, including a few debunkings of information that was in the 30 year-old Ecstasy book-- no, Bela Lugosi did not die with Wood's latest script in his hands). There are several other volumes on Wood that I have not gotten around to yet, but I would definitely say this was a wonderful double feature that Wood have done Ed proud. Wocka wocka.
...And with that, we've recapped my 2025 reading! Who knows where we go from here? In 2026, I have two goals:
I. Finish more books. Ever since I was a teenager I have been plagued by a compulsion to read dozens of books at once, and consequently it takes me ages to finish just one. My method of cycling through several just isn't doing it for me. I've gotten a bit better at that lately!
II. Read more fiction. As you may have noticed, the vast majority of the books I've discussed are all biographies! I'm trying to broaden my horizons there.
See ya next year!
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