56. Slade House

I’ve been really feeling I need to read something that isn’t weird and wonderful lately. Literature is a wonderful buffet and I have a tendency to pick at what is already comfortable to my palate. I read Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas a few years ago and thought it revealed a lot about Mitchell as an author attempting something dynamic and different within his novels. Slade House is again an unusual read and I prefer it to Cloud Atlas as it is sophisticated but retains an air of engaging simplicity.

Unfortunately this novel doesn’t really fit the bill of not being weird and wonderful. Slade House is one of those novels that really enjoys itself and goes to great lengths to keep itself believable and interesting. It is the moreish minted pea dip, or the good beetroot humus at the buffet table that you can’t keep your fingers or breadsticks out of. It’s a little bit ghosty, there’s a bit of soul-thievery, there’s a little bit of reality bending, there are some creepy twins and you know, that staircase. That staircase you see in every horror film that you should never run up no matter who or what is chasing you through the house.

Slide House – David Mitchell

But even though it has that staircase and a slight Amityville Horror feel to it, I didn’t find it terrifying because I believe Slade House aims for enjoyable-creepy and that vending machine of horror tropes that are stirred in with hilarity and cultural nods. Honestly all that is missing from this novel are small children staring blankly and bleeding walls. Slade House uses tropes very well and seems to make them a little fresher or to hum to a new beat. It was a difficult book to put down and perhaps that is because it is very different to some of the things I have read lately but it is very well written and a joy to read.

The novel is built on 5 short stories staggered in 9 year intervals. Each short story has Slade House itself at the epicentre somehow, a woman and her son invited to the house, a group of paranormal nut teenagers stumble into finding it, a police officer finding it by chance during his investigation for example. But each time the discoverers of the house find themselves at the mercy of the occupants, twins Norah and Jonah Grayer, and they disappear without a trace.

Norah and Jonah Grayer are the only two characters that feature throughout the novel in a big way. They are a little like the archetypal bad-guys, they just want to live forever and party around the world, but they have to commit to a ritual on the same day once every 9 years to do it. To begin with they seem a little like menacing caricatures, and had this novel been formulaic in its method of capturing innocent people they would have remained so. But Mitchell gives the twins some diversity once you have a handle on what is going on in this novel.

I feel as if Mitchell’s timing is handled really well in this novel, he never reveals too much to give the game away but keeps the reader interested until the last page. Particularly with the way he handles his characters. Mitchell seems to have really nailed down the separate voices of Slade House, but he does work with familiar characters that you have seen hundreds of times in other novels. The odd Nathan Bishop who is aware he is peculiar thanks to his highly strung newly divorced mother who is broke, timid Sally Timms who is has a desperate crush on her friend, and the rough around the edges cop, Gordon Edmonds are all brilliant examples of this.

These characters are so easily found that perhaps Mitchell has banked on a lot of the characterisation being done for him as they are familiar faces. I have met Nathan Bishop at least twice recently. They may be easy characters to pull out of a writer’s toolbox but Mitchell doesn’t make them seem cliche or boring. They are also really easy to summarise into sentences which I’ve done below just for fun:

Nathan takes his highly strung mother’s valium because he believes it makes him act more appropriately. Sally is riddled with self loathing and is terribly jealous of her older sister and her insecurity has made her shy about approaching her crush. Gordon is racist, divorced, brow beaten and presumably henpecked from his previous marriage.

Running throughout Slade House is the investigation into the disappearance of the Bishops and other characters in a who-dun-it style. The reader knows who the culprits are and the curiosity of the novel is how or if, the other characters of the novel will find out. Of course there is also mystery around Norah and Jonah and the truth of what Slade House is.

This is a great novel and difficult to put down and extremely surprising. I was not expecting to enjoy this as much as I did or it to be this novel. I highly recommend it if you’re feeling your to-read pile is getting a little like the same plate over and over from the literature buffet.

50. Your Servants and Your People

You may remember that I started this trilogy last year. Your Brother’s Blood is an enigmatic read, economic, beautifully written, and highly engaging. Not to mention that it is unusual. As a zombie-western, it began this trilogy with such a jolt to the senses it was the perfect novel to read during finishing off my Master’s Dissertation. I have secretly been keeping this one for the right day and now almost six months after handing my Dissertation in I was finally ready to return to that world that I now associate with that point in my life.

Your Servants and Your People – David Towsey

Your Servants and your People, is quite an enigmatic read and for a long time I was very curious about the prologue. It is that little itch a novel can give you, “but please… you haven’t explained this yet… give me the big reveal…” Since starting Jordan’s Wheel of Time series I have become a big fan of the prologue that reveals some enigmatic element of the story that is only understood later on. This prologue reveal, strikes you off balance with wonderful tenacity.

Anyway. You may remember from Your Brother’s Blood that the narrative was saturated with religious doctrine and murderous acolytes, conflicting choices, families, and a lot of feelings. As all good sequels should have, there are echoes of Your Brother’s Blood, but this novel moves away from it enough any further beyond I do not think it would be as successful and too close and it would’ve been a very different novel.

In this instalment, our Walkin’ hero Thomas McDermott has a few different choices to make and all of them concern his family.

Seven years on, many things have changed. The Walkin’ are shown to be tolerated a little better but still discriminated against. They find work as labourers which is work that they excel at as they never tire, never need to eat, and never complain when the work would be hard for a living person. But Thomas McDermott is a Walkin’ who still has his very much alive family and wants to be left alone and to be able to ensure their survival and peace. They have been forced to move from place to place by fires and intolerances that seemed to have changed Sarah and their daughter Mary. Sarah is somehow harder, perhaps colder and Mary has grown up into a bitter teenager who dreams of fires, and doesn’t flinch when she is physically assaulted by strange men.

The novel opens with the family traveling with an escort, a group of soldiers heading to the remote outpost Fort Wilson. The unpopulated, harsh country is where the McDermott’s intend to survive far away from the prying eyes of society, hoping to finally be safe. Luckily for the McDermott’s they do not experience the horrors of the Bryn and the other soldiers at Fort Wilson. Bryn takes up the other half of the novel, finding himself avoiding death by chance and then witnessing his confused comrades waking from it. Bryn is a sweet character, though throughout the novel he seems at best disorientated and a little unfortunate. He experiences his comrades struggling with their new found identities, and seems to loose a little of his own along the way.

This novel has much less urgency and much more horror than it’s predecessor, Your Brother’s Blood thrives off of Thomas carrying his young daughter across the unforgiving waste while being pursued by those that would kill them both. But now the McDermott’s stake claim on a piece of land as a family and Thomas begins his unyielding work at building them a home. However, the pace lulls you into a false sense of security, it promises that the threats faced in the first novel are extinguished and gives you hope for the McDermott family. But this is all a rouse and slight of hand on Towsey’s part, letting him successfully drop bombshells on you while you are fumbling in the dark.

This novel is again wonderfully written, characters are strong and rich and there is no doubt about that they show more of their character through actions than the reader being told who they are. The ending of the novel leaves several strands open for the final part of the trilogy which I am eager to follow, although I am riddled with anxiety over what this novel will bring!

Your Servants and Your People plays it’s cards very close to the chest, but when they are laid down to be examined we see that this is a world where the unexpected happens and nobody is safe from it. This is a very good sequel and I again recommend this trilogy for it’s enigmatic narrative and the strength of it’s characters.

33. Your Brother’s Blood

Oh hey! I bet you’d thought I’d vanished for good right? Wrong. Here I am, it’s been a really busy month finishing off my dissertation and I had very little energy for anything else. But while battling through my month the book I chose to see me through was incredibly well written and a very good choice. Your Brother’s Blood is something I’ve been meaning to read for a very long time, I am a little biased because I know the author, but I am so glad I finally got around to this novel.

Your Brother’s Blood – David Towsey

Your Brother’s Blood is an exceptionally vivid novel. Through my busy month it was a very easy novel to dip in and out of and remember where I was. It’s elegantly written and a little playful at times. But Towsey has a masterful grasp on his writing style, it grips you, it is Bradbury-like in how vivid and surprising it can be, and it never feels overwritten or long winded. Images are exciting, engaging and generally this is an economic book that achieves an enormous amount in a short space.

When I say this is a zombie novel, do not mistake me – this is no ordinary zombie novel. This is an exciting read because it is far from ordinary. It is not your typical ‘we’ve sodded up the earth and now a virus is making people eat people’ narrative. No no, this novel is set a hundred years from now in a western, cowboy style America and is a little different.

Technology has vanished almost all together and humanity has continued on in a revived Old West where the relics of the Automated Age have no place. As such the small town of Barkley is like something out of a John Wayne movie, if that John Wayne movie was subjected to a severe religious doctrine. Yes! There are spitting gunslingers who you will love every inch of. Yes! There are some characters who will make your skin crawl. But the religious frame work was really something I did not expect at all from this novel and it is utterly brilliant. I feel this is something very difficult to do well and Towsey absolutely achieves it with flying psychedelic colours.

So what’s going on then? Okay, where do I start?

Sarah McDermott is living the nightmare of loosing her husband to a Civil War. Her and her daughter Mary, are surviving grief and the day to day of running their shop. But little do they know that Thomas was indeed one of many casualties in his particular battle but the bodies haven’t been disposed of correctly in his mass grave. So Thomas wakes as a Walkin’ (zombie), he is slight burnt, confused, and very different from your typical brains eating guy.

Thomas can feel no pain, he cannot dream, he doesn’t need to eat or sleep and he won’t die again unless he is burnt or beheaded. But he has all of his memories, he remembers being alive, he remembers his family and everything up until the moment he dies. This significant change into his second life, is also wracked with choices. (Very much like being a graduate.)

Does he try to take his own life now he has become what his small religious town has taught him is evil and wrong? Does he even try to go back to his family? Does he take a new direction with his new found second life and bumble around looking for purpose? (Honestly, so so much like being a graduate… wait… am I a Walkin’?) His choices mount up while he explores the damage to his body which have to be some of my favourite descriptions of a zombie corpse ever. I haven’t found more satisfying descriptions of a bayonet wound.

When he does eventually limp back to town he risks dragging his entire family into a battle of ambitions, religious ideas, and world views. Thomas of course has to go on the run and is pursued by a posse that couldn’t highlight this conflict better, a religious acolyte ready for blood, his own brother Samuel, the reluctant Grave Keeper, and the Law-Man. There is a lot going on in this novel and it is great!

He spins a wonderful yarn. Rich characters that are well thought out and as believable as his world. There is also a very well balanced view of humanity the good, the bad and the ugly (No I couldn’t resist. Not apologising). But also there is real success within Your Brother’s Blood to give dignity to the Walkin’ and in encouraging questions as to who the monsters really are in this novel.

If you can’t tell, I really enjoyed it, and I’d read it again. I’ve been telling everyone I can about it. I’ve also bought the second in the trilogy so prepare yourself there is so much more to come.