Review by Scott Lefebvre
This is the second horror fiction novel
published by Leisure Books loaned to me for review by Ray Dowaliby. I read both in quick succession and came to
a revelation, but first a review of Michael Laimo’s ‘Dead Souls’.
The story is essentially a “coming of age”
story with an occult horror flavor.
Johnny, a New York City kid, just after his eighteenth birthday,
receives a letter informing him that he has inherited an estate in the
backwoods of Maine worth a considerable sum of money. This event sets the main character’s journey
in action. The story is told in a style
where every other chapter alternates between the past and the present, which is
an interesting device, but did little to add to my enjoyment of this novel.
I entered into the novel with enthusiasm,
but by page 109 I was sick of ankh scars and black feathers, as seemingly ever
present foreshadowing of events to come.
On page 110 I knew that Johnny’s father had hung himself, but the author
tried to elaborate upon the nonexistent suspense for another three pages. And on page 118 you knew that the
tough-looking kids in jeans and white t-shirts were going to rough Daniel up
but good. At least if you’ve ever read
any of Stephen King’s novels with tough kids in jeans and white t-shirts as
characters. And they do, from page 122
through 128. The action is not scary. It’s just cruel and unpleasant to read. A study in what boys are capable of doing to
other boys exemplary of man’s inhumanity to man. I read horror fiction for chills of fear not
to inspire my disgust for the small-minded cruelty of the common man.
Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t prejudiced against this novel. I really wanted to like it. I wanted to like it a lot. I wanted to believe that “With Stephen
King’s retirement imminent, many readers have been wondering if another writer
will be able to take his place. Michael
Laimo may very well be that writer.” I
wanted it to be “Nicely creepy and downright terrifying.”. I wanted a ticket to the ride where, “Right
out the gate this book grabs you, possesses you, and then spits out your
soul.”, as the superlatives printed on the back of the book claim.
I especially wanted to like the book when
I realized that the ankh on the cover of the book was a foreshadow of the scar
that every member of the twisted family bears, especially since I have a fat
black ankh tattoo square in the middle of my chest. I thought, “This book should be perfect for
me! I’m practically one of the
family!”. But unfortunately I am unable
to provide the author with the kind of superlatives listed on the back cover of
the paperback in good conscience. I
don’t think that Michael Laimo is the next Stephen King. Although who would blame the author for
using that common recommendation of horror fiction? I do think that he is an industrious and
talented author in his own right and I will follow his career as a horror
author with interest, having had the privilege to read and review his fourth
novel.
That being said, this novel is less for
adult enthusiasts of horror fiction, and more for readers of the “coming of
age” ages with an interest in the occult or exploring the miscellany of available
religions and belief systems before select one or more than one to
practice. The problem with that
recommendation is that when one is “coming of age” one is rarely objectively
aware of the importance of this transitional time in one’s life, so instead I
recommend the book for boys between the ages of 16-22 who might feel
sympathetic to the spiritual and emotional journey embarked upon by the lead
character.
Now for my revelation, and allow me to be
perfectly clear that Mr. Laimo is not the only perpetrator of this trend in
contemporary horror fiction.
I read two books published by Leisure
Books in quick succession. Both horror
fiction and both set in the backwoods of Maine. The first featuring a blurb from, and the
second featuring a comparison to Stephen King.
I unapologetically admit that I cut my
teeth on the horror fiction of Stephen King, but not exclusively. The horror anthologies of Helen Hoke were
and early influence. The ‘Scary Stories
to Tell in the Dark’ series by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen
Gammell should not be read by any of your children unless you want them to grow
up to be as fucked up and twisted as I am.
And Edgar Allan Poe should be core to every child’s reading curriculum.
I have read most of King’s bibliography up
to Nightmares and Dreamscapes after which I felt the King had lost a certain
intensity from his writing that made it no longer worth my time and
effort. Stephen King is like the first
rock star of horror fiction. Although
Poe and Lovecraft achieved similar fame before King, both authors died in
relative poverty and their work achieved notoriety after the deaths of the
authors. King has lived to reap the
rewards of his work and his books have become best-sellers and many have been
adapted into films and television series with much success. His notoriety as a horror author has earned
his name a place in the awareness of even the most casual enthusiast of
mainstream horror fare. No one could
blame aspiring authors of horror fiction for wanting to follow in King’s
footsteps in hopes of attaining a similar popularity and success. Basing your black-bound book in the
backwoods of Maine does not insure that your book will have a similar success
to the work of Stephen King.
What many aspiring authors of horror
fiction fail to have realized is that Stephen King didn’t earn his success
trying to be Stephen King. Stephen King
cites as his influences the horror fiction of Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson,
and even Nathaniel Hawthorne. What King
did with the inspiration he gleaned from reading from those authors was to look
inside of himself and plumb the depths of the darkness within himself. When he had reached in and firmly grasped
the elemental things which evoked his fear he set the tales amongst the Maine
he knew so well. Part of King’s appeal,
apart from his writing style, which is not only evocatively descriptive, but
also readily accessible to a wide range of reading ability, is his exploration
of fears that were common to a wide audience.
This was solely a ploy to gain a wide readership. King wrote about the things he feared in the
places he knew and readers found his writing accessible because they were also
the things that they feared and happened in places and to people similar to the
people and places they knew. The beauty
of Stephen King’s Maine is that in King’s world it could be Anytown U.S.A. It’s easy to imagine your town being overrun
by vampires like Jerusalem’s Lot, and that is what made Stephen King’s novels
successful.
Many contemporary horror novelists feel
that parroting King is the key, and they set their tales in backwoods
Maine. Instead of going with what they
know, exploring ideas which evoke their own fear, setting their tales in the
places familiar to them, and expressing themselves in a heartfelt and genuine
manner, they write what they think will bring them the greatest success. They set their tales in the vicinity of
Bangor, Maine, and namedrop Providence, Rhode Island along the way as King has
a penchant to do, perhaps as an homage to Providence’s part in the lives of Poe
and Lovecraft. What they fail to
realize is that if the tale they set out to tell is appealing, it doesn’t have
to happen anywhere near Maine. Their books
will generate a popularity of their own and they won’t have to cling to King’s
coattails.
Two of the best horror fiction novels I’ve
read in the past five years weren’t even written by authors known for writing
horror fiction. Bret Easton Ellis,
author of Less Than Zero, Glamorama, and American Psycho to name only
three, and Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club and several other lesser
known but equally excellent novels coincidentally both wrote horror-themed
novels in the same year.
Ellis’s ‘Lunar Park’ is an excellent modern adaptation along the lines
of the film ‘Poltergeist’ and Palahniuk’s ‘Haunted’ is a delightfully twisted
anthology of short stories within the framework of a larger story that reads
like Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ populated with the infamous celebrities of
almost every modern urban legend.
This is why
I have been hesitant to review horror fiction submitted to the magazine for
review, because these two authors have set the bar for my expectations and no predictable
rewarming of the themes of Stephen King are going to compare favorably.
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