Popular mass-market horror novels come and go, unless they’re written by someone calling him/herself V.C. Andrews, and then they just come and come and come…
You could be forgiven for thinking that the late Richard Laymon (1947-2001) is almost as prolific after death as Andrews is, but his website assures us that he left only three unsold manuscripts behind and that the previously unknown titles Leisure Books has been issuing originally had seen publication in other parts of the world. Laymon fans must wish these novels were better than they are. I suspect they remained unsold because they needed one more pass through the rewrite machine.
Not so with one of Laymon’s earliest novels, a book that can truly be called “infamous.” It’s 1980′s THE CELLAR, which has just been revived by Leisure.
On the surface, it’s about a youngish redhead named Donna who escapes with her daughter Sandy about 24 hours before her ex-husband Roy shows up on their doorstep. Roy has just been released from prison where he’s done six years for raping the girl. The two gals take off up the California coast. Running off the road in a thick fog — nicely described by Laymon, who was excellent at taking familiar tropes from horror stories and getting more from them than you’d ever expect anyone could – Donna punctures her car’s radiator and is forced to stay in a small town until it can be replaced.
She and Sandy meet Larry and Jud, two men who are there to kill a monster. This town is the home of Beast House, a place that makes most fictional “bad places” look like Pollyanna’s dollhouse. People get murdered there like doughnuts get scarfed at Krispy Kreme. Larry, who was attacked by the beast when he was a kid, has hired Jud to help him slay the dragon. The narrative shifts around from Donna and Sandy, to Larry’s bad memories, to Roy’s murder-and-arson rampage as he kidnaps a 10-year old girl named Joni to be his girl-toy and works his way along the coast in search of Sandy, for whom he has very special plans.
That’s the surface story, and it’s as brutal, ugly and vicious as an Eli Roth/Rob Zombie double feature. That kind of thing may not be every horror fan’s cup of industrial waste, but if you like it, you’ll like it. If you’re coming to this book for the first time you may be surprised that anyone was writing such hardcore stuff 26 years ago.
Under the surface, but just slightly, the book is about the varieties of sexual experience and how closely some of them border the horrific. It’s all here, folks – a garden of Sadistic delights: incest, pedophilia, rape, bestiality and just plain old rough sex. Add the constant threat of psychopathic violence, and you have the book that opened the door for Clive Barker, Skipp and Spector, Shaun Hutson, Poppy Z. Bright, Michael Slade, Rex Miller and any number of others.
Perhaps the book’s most shocking revelation is that anyone may discover fun in the pain and humiliation of aberrant sex and violence. It takes all kinds, and that means you.
Laymon added two more books to the Beast House saga (BEAST HOUSE and THE MIDNIGHT TOUR) and here’s hoping Leisure decides to reprint them as well. Let’s show these “Splat Pack” horror movie directors how it’s done when you don’t have to worry about MPAA ratings. –Doug Bentin
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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• AFTER MIDNIGHT by Richard Laymon
• COME OUT TONIGHT by Richard Laymon
• ISLAND by Richard Laymon
• THE LAKE by Richard Laymon
Related posts:
- The Lake
- Leisure reveals rest of 2006 horror slate
- After Midnight
- Leisure builds solid horror lineup for 2006
- Island
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It’s all here, folks – a garden of Sadistic delights: incest, pedophilia, rape, bestiality and just plain old rough sex.
Was he writing from personal experience?