A Little Halloween Talk by Joe Lansdale

‘Tis the season for Halloween tales, and Cemetery Dance Publications has got you covered with its 13 Days of Halloween: Halloween singles collection. CD will release a different $.99 short story each day until Halloween.

Joe Lansdale’s A Little Halloween Talk is a short tale told in the first person, present tense. Lansdale’s prose goes down as smooth as hot apple cider following a haunted hayride. He doesn’t do anything complicated or sophisticated here, but what he does, he does well, and he makes it look easy, the sign of a true master mojo storyteller.

I plan to review other Halloween Singles. Stewart O’Nan’s Monsters and Ray Garton’s Invitation Only are up next. If A Little Halloween Talk is any indication of the quality of the other Halloween Singles, this is going to be a fun collection!

One gripe — the covers of all the Halloween Singles look the same; an orange jack-o-lantern on a black background with only the author and title changed. This makes it hard to differentiate one title from another, and fails to give each story a unique look and feel.  Put a little more effort into cover design next Halloween, CD!