Dammit, I know you get tired of reading reviews of new horror books that whine about how much they remind the reviewer of one or more old books (or old movies, or TV shows, or issues of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine, or whatever it is that the reviewer is familiar with from decades of wallowing in creepy stuff), but in this case, that’s tough. Honesty demands that I tell you Ronald Kelly’s HELL HOLLOW is patched together from pieces of Stephen King (there’s a coming-of-age element to the plot), early Michael McDowell (it’s all Southern-fried) and, of course, visual clichés from films.
“It was when Allison turned back toward the bathroom mirror that the decision of whether to go home to St. Louis or continue with her search was made for her. Staring back at her starkly, in puffy pink flesh and ugly brown scabbing, was the word that Jackson had so meticulously and gleefully carved into the flesh of her chest, just above the swell of her breasts.”
See what I mean? All that needs is a shock chord on the soundtrack.
But look again at the quoted paragraph and note how overwritten it is. You don’t need that initial “It was.” You don’t need “or continue with her search,” or the adjective “ugly” to describe the scab. Have you ever heard of attractive brown scabbing? You don’t need “just above the swell of her breasts.” Well, maybe you do need those additions. Not to make your points, but to pad out the book to 498 pages.
The main storyline features Keith Bishop, a kid living in Atlanta with parents who are about as concerned with him as they are with their pets. Maybe less. After all, when they decide to go to Europe, they wouldn’t leave the dog with Michael Vick, but they do allow Keith to stay with his grandfather in Harmony, Tenn.
Not that the old man seems all that bad, but the woods near his house are lovely, dark and deep, with emphasis on dark and deep. Contained therein is the spot known as Hell Hollow, where evil goes soul-shopping, as Keith and his three new buds quickly find out.
Okay, I started off by ripping this novel more than I should have. Sorry, but I have grown weary of some of the tricks of the trade Kelly uses here. Bottom line is while the book is way too long — if at least one of the subplots were jettisoned, the main story would tighten up considerably — Kelly frequently delivers satisfactorily. The reader just has to be more patient than I tend to be these days. —Doug Bentin
Related posts:
- Dark Hollow
- Exile on Main St.: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones
- Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth’s Surface
- Hellboy: Emerald Hell
- Who the Hell Is Pansy O’Hara?: The Fascinating Stories Behind 50 of the World’s Best-Loved Books
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Hey, if it were up to me, he would have worked “the swell of her breasts” into the title somewhere.