Darkness on the Edge of Town

Prolific and inventive horror author Brian Keene’s DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN shares the same basic premise as UNDER THE DOME by Stephen King, to whom Keene is often — and justifiably — compared. Don’t avoid it just because of this coincidence. If you do, you’ll miss out on Keene’s creative spin on the idea. Plus, DARKNESS ranks among his best work. (And anyway, this Leisure edition is actually an expansion of the novel’s original publication back in 2008, so you could argue that Keene beat King to the punch by a couple of years.)

As narrator Robbie Higgins recalls, he and the other residents of the small town of Walden, Va., woke up one morning to darkness. All light had disappeared, along with all electricity and other utilities. No phones, no TV, no radio, no Internet. Just darkness.

As Robbie; his girlfriend, Christy; and his buddy, Russ, struggle along with the other Walden residents to figure out what happened, they soon find that the rest of the world seems to have disappeared, and their town, as Robbie describes it, has been “stuffed into a bottle and covered by a black cloth.” A group of volunteer firemen venture out beyond the town borders, where the darkness seems to expand and thicken. Almost immediately after they vanish from sight, horrific screams are heard by those left behind, and the volunteers never return.
 
Robbie and his friends then find that the darkness emits strange powers over them. As they explore one evening toward the edge of town, they experience visions of those they once loved — now either dead or simply long-lost — who invite them deeper into the darkness.
 
Keene is at the top of his form when depicting the increasing sense of claustrophobia and other mental and emotional trauma brought on by the darkness. Not only do Robbie and the others revert to inevitable survival tactics, but Keene also has the darkness heighten their tendency and temptation toward brutality. Yet the creepiest moments occur when those who venture outside of Walden experience their unspecified, but obviously unspeakably terrible and painful deaths.
 
So good and strong are these moments that it is a bit of a letdown when we learn that the only resident who seems to have any knowledge of — and small control over — the darkness is a homeless derelict named Dez. In a few overly long sections, Dez explains to Reggie that the darkness comes from entities encompassing everything from the Old Testament to H. P. Lovecraft’s Elder Gods (and even earlier Keene novels), who are intent on destroying every world in their path.

Dez previously fought these entities, and it was his actions that prevented Walden from being destroyed. It’s all convincing enough, but again, a little too convenient to have come from the town’s most obvious outcast. But it’s another instance of a novel’s sole defect standing out so strongly against all of its otherwise admirable strengths.

Still, from start to its open-ended conclusion (leaving ample opportunity for a sequel), Keene’s novel contains characters who are believable and consistent, and the fears they face are among the strongest and most affecting. If you haven’t picked up on Keene yet, DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN is a fine way to begin. Just make sure the electricity bill is paid before you settle into it, and that you’ve got plenty of replacement light bulbs on hand … just in case. —Alan Cranis

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• CASTAWAYS by Brian Keene
• THE CONQUEROR WORMS by Brian Keene
• DARK HOLLOW by Brian Keene
• DEAD SEA by Brian Keene
• GHOUL by Brian Keene
• KILL WHITEY by Brian Keene
• TERMINAL by Brian Keene
• URBAN GOTHIC by Brian Keene

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About Alan Cranis

Alan is a staunch Defender of Genre Literature in Most of Its Forms. He lives in Los Angeles.