Sometimes I wonder where else horror can go, get depressed, and think the genre is tapped. Then something comes down the pipe that gives me hope and spins everything around. The book in question is Brian Keene’s DARK HOLLOW.
The cover blurb promises he’s the new Stephen King, but since King isn’t dead, I’ll withhold judgment.
But I can promise that DARK HOLLOW provides not only an interesting new form of evil, but a shocker of an ending, and maybe the greatest opening line I’ve read this year: ”It was on the first day of spring that Big Steve and I saw Shelly Carpenter giving head to the hairy man.”
The setting is a small town near a dark forest known as LeHorn’s Hollow, named after a creepy hermit who killed his wife. The protagonist is likable first-time novelist Adam Senft. Now here’s where it gets trippy: Walking his dog Big Steve one day in said dark forest, and discovering the aforementioned open, the women in the town start to go missing.
And people get horny – very horny – in LeHorn’s Hollow.
Keene has a good grasp of the life in small-town America, where you only have one bar and everyone went to high school together. It almost reminded me a little of PEYTON PLACE, only if Jack the Ripper has gone on a killing spree. More women go missing.
Strange music emits from the forest – odd piping music that gives any male who hears it a Viagra-sized boner. Adam Senft comes to realize that the piper – and the big hairy man in question – is a horny satyr named Hylinus (imagine a cross between Puck and Ron Jeremy after your girlfriend – or better yet, don’t!), an ancient evil that has come back to life to get some action, just like the virgins he was offered in days of yore. And Hylinus has its horns set on Adam’s wife, Tara.
The main character comes off believable and driven, and having a satyr as the boogeyman is a great twist. The best kind of tales are the ones just believable enough to be possible. Adam and his NEWHART-like neighbors are on their own and provide good comic relief. With a line like “Only Cory and Big Steve – a stoned college dropout who worked at Wal-Mart and a cowardly dog that ran from squirrels – stood between Hylinus and our wives,” I had the strangest feeling I went to high school with these clowns.
The book really shines on Senft digging and uncovering the dark mysteries of LeHorn’s Holler, reading a journal of a murderer that just gets creepier and creepier. I was thinking this book was one of those offbeat horror comedies, but without ruining it, the end is truly terrifying – that’s the part where the screaming really starts. I don’t know if Keene is the next King, but he’s got a great story that deserves to be read. Buy it now before they turn it into a movie. –Matt Adder
“I climbed between her widespread legs, looked at her glistening sex, and felt a wellspring of emotion and need erupt inside of me. ‘Go slow,’ she whispered. ‘It’s been a while.’ I did, resisting the urge to plunge into her slick warmth all the way. I took my time, inch by excruciating inch. … Slowly I began to slide in and out of her, and she moved her hips in time with me. … Tara was dripping wet and I felt like a steel girder.”
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE CONQUEROR WORMS by Brian Keene
• DEAD SEA by Brian Keene
• TERMINAL by Brian Keene
Related posts:
- Terminal
- King climbs DARK TOWER for Marvel Comics
- Dark Harvest
- Dark Delicacies
- Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth’s Surface
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I read this one back when it was called The Rutting Season from Bloodletting Press. For some reason, Leisure didn’t want to retain the original title?
Very good read indeed.
Take care,
Troy
The King comparison is all wrong. This novel is far better than anything Stephen King has written in many years. Brian Keene is right now the best thing going in horror fiction.
What can be more frightening than “something” in the dark of a forest? Brian Keene has taken this primal fear of ours and put a new twist on it. Making the evil force irresistible and the very woods come alive in ways never seen before. He has used the small town setting to seclude the scene from the outside world and used small town gossip and small-minded ignorance to confuse the issues. Making us feel like helpless children with no where to turn. It was very interesting that he portrayed the main character as an author – talking about his writing routine and musical tastes. Did he give us an inside glimpse as himself as a writer? Mythology, magic and monsters… how do we really know what’s out there in the deepest, darkest part of the woods?
first book Ive read frm this author and Im pleased to say it was a great book ….. glad to hear a movie is in the works
Just bought the next book from Brain