Synopsis:
Five childhood friends are forced to confront their own dark past as well as the curse placed upon them in this horror masterpiece from the bestselling author of Come with Me.
Maybe this is a ghost story…
Andrew Larimer thought he left the past behind. But when he receives a late-night phone call from an old friend, he finds he has no choice but to return home, and to confront the memories—and the horror—of a night, years ago, that changed everything.
For Andrew and his friends, the past is not dead, and the curse that has befallen them now threatens to destroy all that they’ve become.
One dark secret…
One small-town horror…
Review:
First of all, a big thankyou to Titan Books for my Arc!
Not least because of the obvious parallels between the synopsis of this book and Stephen King’s IT, the title of Ronald Malfi’s latest novel, Small Town Horror, leaves you with certain expectations for the story. Horror novels set in small towns are characterised by desperately dark secrets hidden away from the rest of the world, by rebellious and ambitious teenagers who aspire to ‘escape’ the town, and by an Us vs Them mentality from the town’s inhabitants, with the Them being othered and ostracised. The small town of Kingsport holds these characteristics within, and more, but where Malfi’s novel differs and excels is through the unique gaze he adopts over the town of Kingsport.
The novel follows Andrew Larimer, a soon to be husband who is dragged back to Kingsport after an ominous message from an old friend. In returning to Kingsport and reuniting with his group of childhood friends, Andrew and his cohort are forced to reckon with their dark past. Whereas novels set in small towns tend to follow the outsider or someone of morality, integrity, and ambition to escape the town, Malfi subverts this trope. Although unclear at first exactly what, it is obvious pretty quickly that Andrew and his friends Eric, Dale, Tig and Meath harbour ghosts in their past rooted not in personal trauma inflicted upon them, but in guilt and injustice. The group has done wrong, and just as small towns do, it has been covered up and swept away. Andrew and co are the benefactors of the negligence and indifference that can exist in tight-knit communities, and it was fascinating to both view the story from this perspective and to see the consequences of it.
Reading the story through the lens of the perpetrators rather than the victim allows guilt to thrive in the story. The story reeks of the ire of injustice; the sense that a reckoning is coming looms over the story like the specter that is Andrew’s past, and this creates increasing panic and disorder as the story progresses and unravels. Small Town Horror craves accountability and it will not relent until it gets what it wants.
‘Secrets, much like the things that lurk far below the surface of the bay, can stay buried for a very, very long time. But in the end, everyone pays.’
Rot permeates throughout the town of Kingsport and leaks into every page of this story (if you are a fan of birds then maybe give this one a miss!). Small Town Horror puts childhood friendship under the microscope and examines just how firm and resilient these long lasting bonds can truly be. As the foundations of their friendships begin to crumble, so to do the characters. The town, stained by its past, its prejudices and its indifference, is potent ground for this decay and deterioration.
Small Town Horror is a book rooted in traditional small town and gothic tropes that still manages to conjure something original and terrifying. Malfi is an author whose writing exudes confidence and comfort in his own abilities, and Small Town Horror is the horrid manifestation of his mastery of the craft and genre.
Find Small Town Horror in your local bookstore from June 4th
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