Ladies Night

by Jack Ketchum

Book Overview

Ladies' Night is a non-stop rollercoaster ride of sheer nerve rattling terror, previously deemed too violent for mass market publication. In this modern tale of the ages-old battle of the sexes... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1887368353
• ISBN13: 9781887368353
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Gauntlet Press
• Length: 310 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Brutal, Efficient, Gripping

I've been looking for LADIES NIGHT for several years and finally resorted to doing something I almost never do: buying a book new, at retail. This was worth it. LADIES NIGHT is set in Manhattan during a very short time span. A chemical truck overturns in a residential neighborhood. The driver and a woman in a Buick are killed instantly. Goo spreads over the streets: it smells like cherry lollipops. We don't know exactly what the compound is, but it's nothing nice. That evening the weather is warm and pleasant, but women begin to behave strangely. Soon the streets of the city are soaked with blood as women literally from ages eight to eighty are turned into killing machines with men as their targets. Ketchum sets strict discipline for himself. Some of the women exposed to the toxin were just passing through the city, so they'd be in the suburbs or on their way to other places. Mayhem is probably erupting many miles away, but he has the good sense to limit himself to a small geographic area and let us imagine what's going on elsewhere. Eventually we see the main character, Tom, embark on a quest to redeem himself after being a rotten husband and indifferent father. He needs to travel a few blocks to his apartment to find what condition his wife, Susan, is in and to check on the safety of his teenage son. Ketchum admits the influence of several sources on the story. Obviously, Romero's film NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and Cronenberg's film THEY CAME FROM WITHIN. I was reminded, too, of another of Cronenberg's films from the seventies, RABID. There are lots of unanswered questions that I'd like to know about. As order begins to be restored, the police are told to use their own judgment in shooting any woman on sight if they suspect her to be infected. Would the toxin wear off eventually, or does it completely change brain chemistry? What would be the probability of an antidote? Are there any women who are immune to to unusual estrogen levels or other health conditions? Somewhere there's a 400 page version of this, and I'd love to read it. As is, I'm doing something I very rarely do: I finished LADIES NIGHT at 2 this morning, and today I started over from the beginning. Two warnings before I'd recommend this book to anyone: it is brutally violent. Don't think that this character or that is immune to being slaughtered: that doesn't hold here. And it's not a finished product: there are too many errors that a proofreader should have caught. Darn. There's got to be some way we can get our hands on that 400 page version. Ketchum can advertise it like when the uncut version of Stephen King's THE STAND came out: It's the book THEY wouldn't let you read.

Perfumed Pleasures and the Teeth They Possess

When certain chemicals are applied to the opposite sex's visage, specific emotions are brought into fruition. Sometimes its a feeling of heightened bliss and attraction, other times its love and devotion, and still other times its safety and a feeling somewhat like home. When chemicals that have been manufactured for warfare are applied, however, all deals are off and, for the men of New York City, its run for your lives time. Basically a B-movie in practice, this story focuses around the lives of one character, Tom Braun, and the people surrounding him as all the women that come into contact with a certain mystery chemical become primal killing machines. These individuals include his son, his wife, his infatuation, the bartender he keeps to cope with his infatuations, and other people met along the way, all struggling for some way out of the nightmare that has fallen on them in a twenty-four hour period (and that smells like Cherry lollipops, for anyone interested in holding their breath). It is because of this that I thought the book was good but, at the same time, that it also lacked in some regard as the streets slicked with gore. The characters were noticeable and the effects were gruesome and sometimes even applaudable, but the outside world ramifications weren't really focused on at all. The setting sometimes teemed but more than often were just barely touched, and some of the momentum is lost toward the last portion of the book. Still, the last statement made in the book was something that, in many ways, I found to redeem much of that.For someone looking for a quick read that is slicked with the internals of the unfortunate, this might be something that you might be interested in. It has quite a few little deaths that seemed, well, painful, plus it goes into detail about random acts of violence going on all about the city. If you need the backgrounds painted for you and the city described in more than a minimalist perspective, it might be something that you might want to save for later.

THIS IS AN ALL OUT WAR BETWEEN THE SEXES!!!

I'm now starting to get into what I call "Splatter" novels (that's "horror" and "suspense" fiction with excessive violence and gore, not mention a strong sexual content). I've already purchased several books by Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, and Simon Clark, to name a few. I've also quickly discovered that sometimes too much violence and sex disrupts the flow of the book, while at other times it seems to be just the right amount, moving the story along at a break-necking speed. Such is the case with Jack Ketchum's LADIES' NIGHT. This is a relatively short novel, running at a 167 pages. It's fast paced, tense, and definitely not for the squeamish. The story begins when a tanker truck is involved in a traffic accident in the middle of New York City's West Side. The unknown contents of the truck spills out into the streets, and its cloy, sweet cherry scent spreads throughout the inner city, infecting most of the female population. By nightfall, the women of NYC have become sexually aroused with a powerful blood lust that leads them to want to kill every man in the city. When Tom Braun and his wife notice a beautiful dancer masturbating herself with a broken wine bottle during a roof party at the top of their apartment building, it's the first sign that the night is going to get even stranger. After the party is over and the demented dancer has been subdued by security, Tom decides to visit the local bar for a nightcap. Within a couple of hours, the women in the bar are brutally murdering as many of the men as possible, while Tom and the bartender, Phil, fight their way outside to the street, stepping out of the frying pan and into the fire. The sounds of the night are filled with the screams of dying men and the demonic laughter of vengeful females. Tom realizes that the women in the city have gone totally crazy and that his young son, Andy, may be in danger back at the apartment. It's going to be a battle to the death as he and other men fight their way through the streets in an effort to save Andy...a boy who may already be dead at the hands of his mother. LADIES' NIGHT is one of those fun reads that reminded me of movies like Night of the Living Dead and Halloween. It's popcorn entertainment that thrills and makes you jump in all of the right places. Mr. Ketchum doesn't hold back on the blood and gore in his descriptions of men and women being killed in the streets of New York City; yet, rather than being a turnoff, it actually works for me. There is no in-depth character development here, but who cares? Most of the characters in this novel are going to be dead by the end of it. This is a short roller-coaster ride of death and destruction that's to be enjoyed for its pacing and intensity. I liked LADIES' NIGHT enough that I intend to purchase some of Jack Ketchum's other novels, THE LOST, HIDE & SEEK, OPEN SEASON, and THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. Naturally, this novel isn't for everyone. If you're not into "splatter" fiction, then save your money for somethi

Ladies Night of the Long Knives

First of all, take the warning on the cover that this book contains upsetting, graphic subject matter seriously. I'm a longtime horror reader, and while I read and enjoy many authors, only a handful of them have disturbed me to the point of giving me nightmares after I read their work. Jack Ketchum, aka Dallas Mayer, is one of them. If you're a JK fan (or have read and finished Off-Season or The Girl Next Door), you'll know what I mean. And if you love JK, pick this up fast if you haven't already. It's one of his best and most memorable. It's also one of his most cold-blooded, which Ketchum readers will know is saying a lot.Ladies Night (great title, by the way) takes place over a short period of time-about 24 hours, actually. The plot reminded me of Cronenberg's "Rabid", Romero's Dead trilogy, and Phillip Nutman's "Wet Work". A virus that the government developed, presumably as a weapon, leaks out and quickly begins to effect females only. The chemical/disease causes women to slowly but completely lose their minds (note: insert PMS joke of your choice here). The main symptoms are women becoming homicidally violent, with their hormones and sex drive also going berserk (and not in any sort of a fun way). The plotline mainly focuses on the residents of one apartment complex, but also carries into the insanity on the streets as well. It's almost a twist on "Night of the Long Knives", with women as the ones who gang up and take over.One of the more upsetting elements of the story is that families are quickly and completely torn apart. Sons, brothers, boyfriends and husbands have no choice but to defend themselves against the woman they love most in the world, and one of them is going to have to die in almost all these cases. Also, a few rare women are immune, so they have to defend themselves against other women and also men who might think they're a threat. I have yet to talk to a male who has read this book. My husband doesn't read fiction, but if he did, I know this would scare the you-know-what out of him. Come to think of it, with all due respect, I can't imagine any man not being disturbed by this book, for obvious reasons. Men who have an especially moody spouse or close family member...maybe they should read a different title instead. I think women readers will also be scared by a whole different element. Every woman has probably felt on the verge of losing it completely and felt a fear that they might lose control and hurt someone. It's a cliche, but especially during one week of the month. Women know they have this inside them, and the book plays on that fear.Before I read this book, there's a couple pieces of information I already knew from my college majors of Women Studies and Deviant Psychology. One is that both PMS and pregnancy have both been used successfully as a legal defense for murder charges. The other is that women as a rule fight more viciously and nastily than men. "They just want to do the most amount of damage in the shorte

A Great, Fun, Read

Ladies' Night is quite a departure for Jack Ketchum. The book's intro tells us that he wrote this book in the early 80s and worked on it ever since. And now, the final results has been published. And it looks a lot like an Urban-city version of Night Of the Living Dead. In this book, a strange chemical is realeased in New York city and every single woman becomes a zombie-like creature who is thirsty for blood. And so they go after the men.The book is fun, gory and fast-paced. It is a quick read. It made me grin quite a lot. I love Ketchum's ironic style. He loves to play with words, giving many words or sentences double meanings. And he is not afraid to shock his readers. This book isn't for the faint of heart. Ketchum fans should find this to be a fun read. It's not Ketchum's best, but it's still a Ketchum book.