By Graham Masterton
1976 Pinnacle Books
Paperback, 216 pages
I really wish I’d read this back
when it came out as it would have turned me on to Masterton’s craziness years
before I actually dove in to his work. I’m eternally grateful that I still
haven’t seen the film adaptation directed by William Girdler in 1978 because there’s
no way I would want to picture our narrator and main character Harry Erskine as
Tony Curtis. I promise to watch the film some day but Curtis is not Erskine!
Not in my mind’s eye, anyway.
So, Karen Tandy has a lump on
her neck and doctors, including a tumor specialist, want to remove it. Nervous,
she visits phony psychic Harry Erskine the day before the operation to see if
he can figure out her recurring dream. Even though he’s a fake, Erskine sees
something in her dream and makes some scary discoveries. Her lump surgery
doesn’t happen as it’s revealed that something is growing in her “tumor” and
it’s attached to her nervous system. After a séance, things become clearer;
Karen has an ancient Native American medicine man named Misquamacus growing on
her neck. But of course!
Yeah, this gets bonkers quickly
and the reader reaps the rewards. Though X-rays have deformed our medicine man,
he still grows to full size (albeit with stunted legs), stretching Karen’s skin
and effectively killing her, but she still has a chance. Once he bursts out, he
starts to summon demons to fuck up the hospital. With the help of modern
medicine man Singing Rock, Dr. Hughes and other medical folks who buy the
preposterous story (because nothing else makes sense), can Harry defeat not
only Misquamacus but The Old One, an invincible demon?
The Manitou is a ton of
fun but don’t expect a fifty year old book to not have plenty of things to make
the modern reader squirm. Native Americans are referred to as red Indians, red man,
redskins and even savages, all in front of and by Native American
characters. Poor Karen, just about the only female in the book, is just there
to host the manitou (an Indian Spirit, by the way). If that bothers you, just
don’t read it. You’ll miss great gobs of gore (people being turned inside out),
cool demons, a bad-ass main monster, and some crazy imagination on the part of
Masterton. This book is non-stop from page one and it’s very well written so
it’s not like a William W. Johnstone kind of lunacy, but it’s just as nuts. An
excellent sense of humor runs throughout too, which helps to accept the interesting
but ridiculous storyline.
I normally do not like stories
told in the first person but Harry is an affable enough chap where I got over
it. Be sure to grab the original Pinnacle edition (which can still be found at
a reasonable price) so you can enjoy Ed Soyka’s excellent step-back cover art.
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