By Joseph A. Citro
1987 Zebra
Paperback, 366 pages
You really never know what
you’ll get with an old Zebra paperback. The title and the blurb on the back
make it sound like a typical creepy-kid Zebra novel and the cover makes it look
like a creepy clown story. It isn’t either. There is a kid in it (who
has a clown-with-balloons nightlight… that’s it) but the kid is really just a catalyst,
a plot point to make the evil more evil. As I dug in, it appeared that there
would be whimsical “little people” in it and I became wary again. I decided to
just shut up and read and I was rewarded with a well-written book that actually
gave me a few tingles along my spine.
Suffering from the death of his
wife, Eric Nolan accepts an invitation from his cousin Pamela Whitcome to join
her and her family at their grandfather’s former house, now owned by Pamela and
her husband Clint. The cousins, Clint, and Luke, the kid, all get on very well,
even though this is the place where Eric’s brother disappeared all those years
ago. Well, a few more disappearances occur, a few deaths and they have all
happened since Eric showed up. A historian becomes interested in a stone “root
cellar” on the Whitcome property, which also sparks Eric’s interest in the
local folklore. Too bad the historian becomes one of the missing. Then Clint
thinks he shoots a kid up on the hill and soon he is among the missing.
Just what the hell is going on?
This is an excellent folk-horror
novel that manages to keep the pages turning, even during slower passages, with
a town populated with excellent, full-blooded characters and a sense of
impending dread that never lets up until it fully explodes. These stone cairns
are littered throughout the Vermont mountains in real life, so that lends an
extra layer of creepiness to the tale. While one’s suspension of disbelief has
to be turned up to eleven in the third act, Citro’s prose is good enough to
make that not so difficult. His “monsters” are pure badassed evil and will do
everything to keep their secret. You get some suspense, some gore and plenty of
secluded hopelessness.
One gripe, for me, was the
character of Pamela. While all of the men in town had full-blown storylines and
dimension, Pamela was merely there to be a wife and mother, plan meals and read
Redbook. When Clint is missing, she becomes a possible “will they or
wont they” incestuous partner with Eric, or am I the only one that thought
that? At least local historian Elizabeth McKensie, a wheelchair bound elderly
woman, gets to use her brain to help out the troubled family.
Better than a lot of Zebra
releases, I have no problem recommending this one, warts and all. Citro is a
good writer and I will look for more of his stuff. (I have no idea how I came
into possession of this one!) A sequel, Guardian Angels, came out a year
later, also from Zebra. I have that one, too but again, I know not from where
it came. Maybe the little people dropped them off.
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