What did you read in 2018?

I've never been in a hurry to read Laymon as he's particularly known for gratuitous rape scenes but I feel obligated to try a few.

Girl Next Door and Off Season are the Ketchum fan favorites (haven't read any myself). I really don't know much about Ketchum's politics but he isn't one of those writers whose fans swing right or left.
There's a decent summary and biographical info in these links.

https://thebedlamfiles.com/commentary/jack-ketchum-1946-2018/
https://thebedlamfiles.com/nonfiction/book-of-souls/

The first piece is “Henry Miller and The Push,” a memoir of Ketchum’s mercifully brief 1970s-era tenure as a New York literary agent, with clients that included his longtime hero Henry Miller. After pushing an old woman to the ground in a rush to catch a taxi, an act that shocked him as much as it did the woman he pushed, Ketchum became determined to quit his job immediately—but not until after meeting his idol face to face. The tale’s final pages lovingly detail that meeting, with Henry Miller registering as “a living fucking saint.” I’ve read other recollections of Miller that paint a far less rosy picture, but Ketchum’s claims are persuasive. Certainly his account demonstrates the enormous influence Henry Miller had on Ketchum’s life and writing, starting with the title of the book under discussion, which was evidently inspired by that of Miller’s BOOK OF FRIENDS.

I never even heard of Ketchum until early last year when I went to this annual recital/birthday party given by a flamenco guitarist and he mentioned various friends who had recently passed including Jack Ketchum and Billy Joel's piano teacher Morton Estrin.

I loved Omensetter's Luck, but yes it did remind me more of Faulkner than anything by Barth or Gaddis or Pynchon, which was what I'd been expecting.

I’ve told the “what fun do monks have?” joke irl

Xp I shouldn’t make assumptions about politics really as I know horror is often about pushing those kinds of buttons. Re ketchum’s career as an agent, didn’t he use that to get an author signed who turned out to be himself under a pseudonym or something?