Midnight on Mourn Street - Softcover

Christopher Conlon is the author of several books including Thundershowers at Dusk and three poetry collections. His work has appeared in numerous periodicals (Filmfax, America Magazine) and anthologies (Masques V, California Sorcery). As an editor, his credits include The Twilight Zone Scripts of Jerry Sohl and Poe's Lighthouse. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Reclusive bachelor Reed Waters has little inkling of the disturbing complications awaiting him when he invites a homeless teenage girl out of the rain into his Washington, D.C. townhouse. While the girl, Mauri Dyson, is a stranger to him, he is no stranger to her, as she harbors a sinister secret from Reed's haunted past. Yet Reed's recent long stay in an asylum has left him eager for companionship, prompting him to keep a close eye on Mauri and introduce her to a student friend from D.C.'s housing projects. At first their growing friendship is a balm to his soul. Then the revelations begin about Reed's psychiatric breakdown and Mauri's role as one of his forgotten victims, bringing them both to the edge of madness and life-changing transformation. Conlon keeps the suspense taut while slowly peeling back layers of his protagonists' troubled psyches. His masterfully moving tale has already garnered praise from authors of every genre and easily distinguishes itself as a top-drawer first novel. --Carl Hays, Booklist

Midnight on Mourn Street is a short, powerful, and tightly-focused novel. For the most part, there are only three characters (and one of those is clearly secondary), and the sets are largely limited to interior spaces. Such a narrow focus might grow tedious over the course of a longer work, but within the dark, tight confines of Mourn Street, the approach fits perfectly. The claustrophobic effect is enhanced by the fact that all three of the characters qualify as damaged goods, with substantial amounts of emotional baggage in tow...Midnight on Mourn Street is undeniably a dark and frequenently disturbing piece of work that's highly worthy of your time. --Jack Lloyd, Cemetery Dance Magazine

Conlon's novel, his first, alternates between chapters from the point of view of Reed Waters, a middle-aged man living alone in Washington, D.C., and those from the point of view of Mauri Dyson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has run away to D.C. from her home in California. Will Bliss, a high school senior for whom Reed is a mentor and Mauri a romantic interest, plays a supporting role, but there is never any doubt that this is Reed and Mauri's drama. From its beginning, when Reed hears Mauri crying outside his home and invites her in, the focus is on their developing relationship. As that relationship veers uneasily between father-daughter and Humbert Humbert-Lolita, Conlon peels away each chatracter's history. We learn that Reed committed a terrible crime--although its exact nature is unspecified--and that Mauri has suffered the effects of a terrible tragedy--obviously, Reed's crime, although, again, the details remain vague. It is clear, though, that Mauri recognizes Reed--has sought him out--and is after revenge...Midnight on Mourn Street's relentless attention to its primary characters, its insistence on charting the contours of their selves, combined with a refusal to settle for pat narrative conventions, gives it a rare power. This is not only a novel that is difficult to put down while you are reading it; it is a novel that is difficult to put out of your mind once you have finished it. --John Langan, Dead Reckonings