The Totem By David Morrell

The Totem
By David Morrell
1979, Fawcett Crest
Paperback, 255 pages

                                               

    Boy, I really wanted to like this book more than I did, but you just can’t win them all. It’s got everything I usually like; possible monsters, possible rabies scare and possible good story-telling. But overall, this became a slog to get through for me.

    One big problem? The main character’s surname is Slaughter. The author even comments how it’s a silly name, unbefitting the character, but it still managed to bug me. Anyhoo, Nathan Slaughter left the police force in Detroit for a quieter life in a small town in Wisconsin. When the job of Sheriff became available he took it, figuring he’d be living an easy life. Until bodies started stacking up.

    The bodies show signs of rabies and eyewitnesses describe some sort of monster with antlers. The bodies, however, don’t stay dead. They get up and start a reign of terror. This is no ordinary rabies. When a rabid young boy becomes an instrument of terror, biting his mother, the town is on high alert.

    I do like when Morrell is telling the tale from the monster's point of view, whichever infected being it might be at that time. Called only “it”, it’s nice to see what is going through the head of the victims of this plague. Some pathos is worked up for the kid who turns. The main characters, Slaughter, the doctor who is trying to sort out a lot of shit with very little information, and Slaughter’s old pal, the drunken reporter, are all right, if at times a little predictable. It’s just that by the half-way point, I became a little agitated and bored with the book. I mean, it’s OK, but I just didn’t get absorbed.

    Morrell, the man who invented John Rambo, had his original manuscript cut down before publication, so maybe some tidbits of story got the axe but I don’t think I could have made it through the book if it was any longer. The longer, original version was published in 1994, bumping it up to over 400 pages. No thanks. Admittedly, I grabbed this Fawcett edition for the groovy cover, which is far less spoilery than the images on other editions.