By Joe Taylor
Sley House Publishing, 2024
Paper: $16.99
Genre: Fiction, Supernatural
Reviewed by Nelson Sims
It’s not every day you pick up a novel that reads like American Horror Story: Coven sharing an elaborate feast with Stephen King, while dinner guests like Thomas Mann and James Joyce linger in the background. Joe Taylor’s Persephone’s Escalator is just that: a wild, hilariously unsettling ride into the supernatural, the existential, and the downright weird.
Taylor, a seasoned novelist with no aversion whatsoever to weirdness, packs his latest work with killer dolls, living statues, a centuries-old coven of witches, and even an epic confrontation with the world’s first murderer. Woven into this chaotic tapestry is a sometimes murderous, sometimes loving bond between a father and son—because when mom’s turned into a zombie, you’ve got to try and stick together.
Anchoring the story’s supernatural mayhem is a psychologist—not a psychiatrist, mind you—steadily drawn into a world far removed from anything textbooks or prior experience could have prepared him for. But don’t worry; he has guidance from a shapeshifting witch who doubles as her own daughter. The mere concept of this relationship could fuel an entire novel, but Taylor is never content to linger in one place for long. His prose flows like a river of madness, winding through dark forests of philosophy and swamps of madcap horror.
That swamp metaphor isn’t purely figurative, either. Much of the novel unfolds in the swamps of Florida, a setting that couldn’t be more perfect for a horror story. The landscape, with its dense, foreboding vegetation and murky waterways, practically breathes its own kind of eerie life into the narrative. It’s one of my favorite aspects of the book, and Taylor uses it to full effect, immersing the reader in a world that feels both otherworldly and vividly real.
The titular Persephone’s Escalator is just one of the novel’s many arresting images, though the meaning of its name is best left for the reader to discover. Let’s just say Taylor lets a wide-eyed, delighted fifteen-year-old deliver the racy reveal, reacting as only a teenager could.
Taylor’s prose crackles with energy, alternating between haunting, humorous, and deeply reflective. One moment, you’re unnerved by a killer doll, and the next, you’re pondering existential truths served up with a side of killer wit. While the novel’s intellectual layers might intimidate some readers, they never detract from the story’s momentum. Taylor strikes a delicate balance, weaving scholarly depth into the kind of horror and suspense that keeps you glued to the page late into the night.
This is a novel that defies easy categorization. It’s horror, yes, but it’s also literary, philosophical, and deeply human. Beneath the killer dolls and living statues lies a meditation on the nature of identity and the fragility of family bonds.
Persephone’s Escalator is not for the faint of heart or the faint of mind. But for those willing to embrace its chaos, it offers an experience unlike any other. Joe Taylor proves once again that he’s a master of blending the sublime with the grotesque. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to read a book that makes you laugh, shudder, and think all at once, look no further.
Nelson Sims is an English instructor at Wallace Community College Selma, where he shares his love of literature and writing with students. Outside the classroom, he enjoys crafting quirky stories, obsessing over 80s/90s pop culture, and consuming weird and wacky books, with the occasional comic book on the side. He lives in Alabama with his wife and their lively household of six animals—three dogs and three cats—who keep things interesting.
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