By Gary Brandner
1977 Fawcett
Paperback, 223 pages
Yes, we’ve all seen the movie The Howling (Joe Dante,
1981) but who has read the source material? I never had, so I thought it was about
time to correct that. If you plan to take a first read of this novel, do
yourself a favor and forget the movie completely. John Sayles’ script for the
film bears almost no resemblance to this book. I can’t imagine what the folks
who bought this after seeing the film thought of it, especially Fawcett’s
reprint with the movie poster art.
Karyn and Roy Beatty are the perfect California couple;
blonde, wealthy and happy, with a little bun in the oven. All is well until
Karyn is sexually assaulted in her home and she loses the baby and, obviously, develops
some serious post-trauma problems. Loving Roy rents a place far enough away from
Los Angeles, in the town of Drago, to help his wife recover in relative safety.
The tiny town is peculiar, but Karyn tries to make the best of it. The Beatty’s
sex life is in shambles, though, as you might imagine. Roy, who is a scumbag
after all, soon succumbs to the dark charms of Marsha, a shop owner in town.
Meanwhile, Karyn keeps on hearing… something howling.
Sure that it is a wolf she is hearing, she orders a stack of
books from a neighboring town’s library, and they are delivered to her by Inez,
a woman who knows quite a bit about wolves and, more importantly, werewolves.
Could someone in town actually be a werewolf? Eventually, Karyn shoots at a wolf-like
figure in her yard and blows off its ear. Seems like it should be easy to
figure out who is a werewolf now, but the long list of suspects and the speed
at which werewolves heal are two things that make the investigation difficult.
And Roy is no help because he’s getting laid on the side and feeling quite
canid himself.
The book is slathered with plenty of gore, attacks and sex.
The rape scene is particularly rough and, of course, hiding away the victim and
keeping her drugged might not be the best treatment. Karyn’s isolation is well established;
she doesn’t drive, it’s a two mile walk into town, and Roy isn’t any help after
he goes Marsha-crazy. Karyn and Inez are a team worth rooting for.
Brandner was back with two sequels to this one with The Howling II (1978) and The Howling III (1985) (both Fawcett), the first of which continues this storyline. The third entry goes back to the olden days. A film was eventually made that was closer to this first book, Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (John Hough, 1988). The British editions of the three books, all published by Hamlyn, have great covers and different titles for the two sequels; The Return of the Howling and The Howling III Echoes.
Hamlyn's 1978 edition Hamlyn's 1983 movie tie-in
