endless night richard laymon horror classic

The book is about cannibals called Krulls who kill people and dress in their skin. This is a reference to Laymon's second book, The Woods Are Dark, whose poor editing job by the publishers he blamed for the stall of his career in the US (he became very popular in the UK). The gang, called Killer Krulls, dress only in sneakers and the tanned hides of their former victims, having shaved all over apart from their eyelashes and eyebrows. In the case of Endless Night, killer Simon Quirt isn't aroused by cross-dressing but wears a victim's scalp and clothes so as to 'pass' as a woman, thereby evading police. It also contains an example of the cross-dressing killer, a cliche in crime and horror fiction whereby a man dresses as a woman so as to either become aroused or facilitate his crimes.

Though it contains no elements of the supernatural, its content places it firmly in the extreme end of horror. Like a lot of Laymon's and splatterpunk fiction, the novel contains many acts of extreme violence, including rape, torture, and mutilation. The novel takes place in Los Angeles and is notable for its presentation of the city in the early '90s. (They must kill themselves so as to protect their fellows, or else their families will be wiped out.) Simon's parts are presented as audio recordings he's making so as to incriminate his fellow gang members lest they try killing his family or pressuring him into committing suicide, as per the rules should a member be caught by police. The story is structured into parts alternating between Jody's third and Simon's first-person perspectives. The genre is marked by its depiction of graphic violence and taboo subject matter, pushing limits of what's acceptable to put in a novel. Splatterpunk is a subgenre of horror fiction that came about in the 1980s as a reaction to subtler, more suggestive horror.

Now Simon Quirt, a gang member, is charged with tracking down and eliminating them as witnesses.

Jody Fargo is a 16-year-old girl staying overnight at her friend Evelyn's house when a gang of psychopaths break in and slaughter everyone except for Jody and Evelyn's little brother, Andrew Clark, who make a narrow escape.

Endless night richard laymon horror classic