Set in the affluent, upper-middle class surroundings of the San Fernando Valley in Southern California, Crucifax Autumn tells the story of a pied-piper like figure named Mace who arrives in town toward the end of a particularly hot summer. Unquestionably splatterpunk, this work is also one of the darkest, most intense horror novels to be published in recent memory. Garton's latest book, Crucifax Autumn, shows a much more developed and mature style than Live Girls. Still, Live Girls remains an important splatterpunk milestone, and has managed to disturb more than one reader with its macabre mixing of vampirism and sex. And although Garton does a fairly good job of capturing the sleazy ambiance of midtown Manhattan, he does not quite have the skillful elan which Skipp & Spector bring to their New York novels. His characterization, though not trite, is never terribly compelling. Though Live Girls is a well written and competent novel, it does seem to lack something, and although interesting and entertaining, the book never really seems to take off. Davey soon finds himself entranced with one of the performers at Live Girls (the sleazy club), but only realizes the truth about her After Its Too LateŠ

Into their clutches falls Davey Owen, a too-nice-for-his-own-good associate editor at a third rate Manhattan publishing house.

A vampire novel set in New York City (for more on this theme see The Light at the End, in Part 5), Live Girls tells the story of a coterie of vampires who set up shop in both a sleazy peek show off Times Square and in a macabre, high-class nightclub. One of the splatterpunk authors to attract the most attention of late is Ray Garton, whose novel Live Girls has already garnered a cult following and a Stoker award nomination. (Text originally published in Nova Express, Volume 4 Issue 1, Summer 1988) PART FOUR: Splatterpunk Today: The Faces of the New Flesh - Ray Garton

Crucifax autumn ray garton