Synopsis:
A young musician finds himself locked inside a gas station bathroom in the middle of the night by an unseen assailant, caught between the horrors on the other side of the door and the horrors rapidly skittering down the walls inside.
Review:
Grisly and absurd in more ways than a centipede has legs, “Rest Stop,” by Nat Cassidy is well-stocked with terror. Bountiful with creepy crawlies, googly eyes and some truly stomach churning body horror, Cassidy’s latest is quick and impulsive, yet thrumming with loaded themes- he says a lot in so little. A sprawling and spiralling descent into madness that reads like “Gerald’s Game’s,” weird cousin, I was sure prior to picking up this one that I needed to read more Cassidy, and am now ashamed that I haven’t! A claustrophobic fever dream mostly contained to a grotty gas station bathroom, complete with blood and spiders and snakes oh my, “Rest Stop,” is gore-packed but not gratuitously so. Its undeniable genius lies in its flawless character study, dissecting themes of religion, insanity and morality, amidst quite literally painting the walls red. Bristling with dread, and dizzying in a way that would make Dante queasy, “Rest Stop,” a (slim 124 pages) was but a brief detour from my TBR, that was well worth the ride.
We follow Abe, who finds himself driving in the dark at 1:45AM. With his narcissistic and callous grandmother Bobbe, having suffered a stroke, he finds his thoughts are too complex to be alone with, and pulls into a gas station to stock up on snacks and drinks for the remainder of the trek. He finds it completely empty. To kill the time, he decides to run to the bathroom, having decided if there is still no attendant when he gets out, he will grab his snacks, leave a 10 dollar bill, and get back on the road… if he happened to grab more than 10 bucks worth of supplies, then their loss. Turns out that that was very much wishful thinking, when, having done his business, he goes to leave, only to find that the door has been locked… from the outside. The impression some harmless practical joke has been played, or an innocent mistake has been made, fades rather quickly, when spiders and snakes, and other things that have too many legs, or indeed, none at all, begin to descend from the vent on the ceiling. Will our protagonist make it out alive, or has he pissed his final piss? In case you ever doubted the horror of a filthy gas station bathroom, “Rest Stop,” will make you think twice about using one without a hazmat. It’s truly scary, but probably not the main focus of the novella.
Nat’s latest is sticky, viscous and gag inducing in all of the right places, but what sets it apart from your run of the mill splatterfest is its commitment to character over carnage. When he’s not battling rattle snakes, or fleeing from spiders (relatable) Abe does a whole lot of thinking, which allows Cassidy to study intergenerational trauma, religious disillusionment and the weird, pre-emptive, unresolved grief that he has for his grandmother. This relationship plays a central role in the story, with Abe being taunted and strangely comforted by Bobbe’s voice throughout the debacle. Her commentary about whether or not Abe is “A good jew,” and her experiences in post-war Poland hold space for examinations of historical trauma and cultural displacement, but also whether such pain should be inherited, passed down, and weaponised, as Abe’s grandma is guilty of doing.
Cassidy’s choice of setting, as everything in this book is, is deliberate. The gas station is a place of transition, a functional yet forgettable space that exists only in the middle of nowhere… “Rest…Stop…” I mean, can you get more liminal? This dingy, gross, nasty, gas station bathroom serves as a rather chilling metaphor, with our protagonist having reached a similar strange, metaphysical purgatory in which his relationships and identity are somewhat up in the air. It’s quite clever really.
Full throttle and blood drenched, “Rest Stop,” is a novella not about survival, but the quiet violence that we all carry, wounds of family, faith and “compromise,” that can reopen unexpectedly. The question Cassidy poses is not “Would you make it out alive?” but, “What parts of yourself would you sacrifice in the process?” Horror at its prime, and a masterclass in spectacle and introspection, I think that all there is left to say is bravo.
Leave a Reply