Gravetapping by Ben Boulden |
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Posted: 05 Oct 2015 03:16 PM PDT
Richard Laymon is a legend in the horror genre. His work is brutal, violent and, at times, almost pornographic. His novel Come Out Tonight is no exception. It is the story of Sherry Gates and her scrape with a demented underage serial killer.
The novel opens with Sherry sending her boyfriend, Duane, to a local convenience store for condoms. When he doesn’t return she gets nervous and goes out looking for him. She finds Duane’s van, but she doesn’t find him. This sparks an all-night search, a chance meeting with a helpful older man and an encounter with two charmingly innocent teenage boys. And, somewhere in between, she is kidnapped, beaten, and raped. The plot takes a number of surprising turns. And in the end, it becomes difficult to tell the good guys from the bad.
Come Out Tonight opens with a bang. The prose is quick and sharp. The story is interesting and the characters are fun, even if a little familiar to anyone who has read Richard Laymon’s work. It is dialogue rich, and a very quick read. Unfortunately, like many of Laymon’s novels, it lacks a certain amount of believability. It is difficult to ignore the glaring fact that all of this pain, fear and horror could be escaped by simply picking up the telephone and dialing three numbers: 9-1-1.
While the characters motives are suspect, and not adequately explained, this is still a fun novel. The reader just has to ignore the obvious holes in the plot, and the fact that Laymon’s characters never make the right decision. They always run down the wrong corridor, or choose the wrong road, or alley. They are innocent, or ignorant, of their true situations, and they always think they can handle it. They never, when it is available, ask for help. And, of course, their actions always lead them into deeper, darker and more frightening places.
Fortunately, it isn’t very difficult to ignore the novel’s weaknesses. Richard Laymon can weave a damn good story and make you want to ignore the blemishes. He does it with a sturdy understanding of the tale and its impact on the audience. He tightens the suspense like a noose around the reader’s neck. He makes you want to believe the tale. It is very much like a campfire story. You know it is not real, and could never be real, but somehow it still enthralls and even scares you.
The action is violent and stuffed with sex—most of the novel is filled with sexual torture, but somehow, as written by Laymon it is less disturbing and nasty than it could be; perhaps because it is seemingly written through the eyes of a thirteen year-old boy. It is more fantasy than reality. And that fantasy is somehow innocent and almost coy.
Come Out Tonight is not for everyone. If you are offended by violence, sex, or just about anything else, avoid this book. If, on the other hand, you like a little heady action and quick-shot violence you just might like this offering. Be careful and don’t take it too seriously, or we all may have to question both our sensibilities and our sanity.
This review originally went live April 5, 2007, and since it is October I dusted it off and made it new again.
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2 comments:
Great review. Indeed, Laymon's work needs to be taken with a grain of salt. If done so, boy, are you in for a thrill ride.
"It is very much like a campfire story. You know it is not real, and could never be real, but somehow it still enthralls and even scares you.
The action is violent and stuffed with sex—most of the novel is filled with sexual torture, but somehow, as written by Laymon it is less disturbing and nasty than it could be; perhaps because it is seemingly written through the eyes of a thirteen year-old boy. It is more fantasy than reality. And that fantasy is somehow innocent and almost coy."
Well said, Ed. Laymon has his ardent fans (like me) and his detractors, but the frustrating thing about the latter group is that they seem to miss the "campfire" quality of Laymon's work, his fantastical spin on a violent sub-reality that makes great, fun reading of what would in lesser talented hands otherwise be simply exploitative and prurient.
It takes a special talent to do what Laymon did in the themes in which he chose to work, and to do so consistently and with such apparent ease and narrative simplicity (writing simply is often the hardest trick of all, they say). The world, the sub-reality, in which he set all his books is as campfire-fantastical as Lovecraft's or any other author's arcing mythos, and read in that way his work, his skill of constructing a narrative thrust that races from page to page, cannot help but be admired by those readers willing to take the journey to that world and leave this reality's value assignments in their checked luggage.
His is a talent I miss very much.
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