Why are so many modern horror stories centered on kids? Who are we going to blame this on? Stephen King? William Peter Blatty? Ray Bradbury? Yeah, probably King. Even though Blatty was there first, he didn’t make a career out of frightening children the way King has. You wanna know what I think? I think making a child the victim is it too easy. And by now, it’s gotten pretty corny as well. Easy and cheesy. Pass the Ritz crackers.
Brian Keene’s GHOUL is set in a small Pennsylvania town in 1984. Timmy Graco and his two best pals, Barry and Doug, are looking forward to a long summer of not doing much but hanging out in their secret hideout, dug into the cemetery where Barry’s dad is caretaker. Timmy is a comic book fanatic, Barry’s rough around the edges, and Doug is perpetually ill at ease for reason his friends can’t begin to guess.
The guys have two things to be on the lookout for: One is the gang of slightly older boys who like to make their lives miserable through intimidation and the occasional shove off a bicycle, and the other is the fact that people are starting to vanish from the immediate area, especially the area around and including the graveyard.
A couple goes parking and disappears. The car and the boy are found in a nearby field, the boy’s body left in the trunk in an advanced state of putrefaction. The girl, well, who knows where she is?
Perhaps Barry’s father does, an alcoholic brute of a man who beats Barry and his mother. Barry notices that dear old Dad has been wearing jewelry lately that the boy hasn’t seen around the house before. He even has a ring that looks just like the one Timmy’s grandfather was wearing when he was buried.
We learn pretty early in the story that Pa has begun playing Renfield to a monster living under the cemetery soil. Keene explains the creature’s presence by “powwow,” a mystical tradition brought to Pennsylvania by Germans in the early 18th century. Some believe it to be a healing art while some, principally conservative Mennonites, think it is a form of Satanism.
Keene, who lives in Pennsylvania, has used powwow as a force in other of his stories as well, and we welcome this variation on the same old same old voodoo. Now, as for the use of children: Keene makes it work by surprising us at novel’s conclusion as to the real nature of the monster at work. I can’t go into detail without giving too much away, which wouldn’t be fair to the author or to potential readers. Just this: If you’re as tired of horror stories with children as I am, stick with this one. The kids are not used just to push your emotional buttons. There’s a reason for them.
GHOUL may not stay with you for years, but it will remain at the back of your mind for a few days, and in the world of pop horror novels, that’s saying a lot. —Doug Bentin
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE CONQUEROR WORMS by Brian Keene
• DARK HOLLOW by Brian Keene
• DEAD SEA by Brian Keene
• KILL WHITEY by Brian Keene
• TERMINAL by Brian Keene
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Didn’t this book come out a couple of years ago?
It came out last year. We can’t get to everything right away … but we try!