Post by BloodyMonkeyZ on Jul 29, 2013 8:50:42 GMT -6
[editorial note: This review was written by Sara Larson, but she sadly passed away in 2012. I have been asking past reviewers to post their material here, but that was not an option here. I didn't want anyone thinking I was claiming authorship of this review - JimmyZ aka BloodyMonkeyZ]
On the advice of his wife, Paul Rice is making plans to attend his 10th year High School reunion. Returning to his boyhood home of Harmony, Indiana, he finds that he is still haunted by memories of that time—memories of Deidra, his first love, and memories of the Wide Game. It was ten years ago that Paul and his friends watched their day of fun become a race for their lives, a fight for their very souls.
Now, as he meets the survivors of that day once more, Paul makes a chilling discovery: the incomprehensible forces that toyed with them have yet to finish playing their own game.
I’ll confess right up front, in spite of the fact that I’ll be baring my lack of sophistication in public – I’m a sucker for a monster story. Not just any old shambling zombie or slavering werewolf will do it for me, but a good, old-fashioned monster story gets me every time. And The Wide Game got me right in the fear center of my lizard brain.
In the classic monster story style, West leads the reader alongside Paul Rice as he experiences his senior year in high school. First love, first sex, big plans for the future, and lots of fun as he sets out to play the Wide Game, a race through the local corn fields to the old swimming hole. Great times. Yeah, right. And as if things aren’t frightening enough in flashback, there’s a whole ‘nother mess of terror when he goes back for the reunion. Out of the light and into the dark, that’s where Paul’s going, and West draws the reader along into the shadows. And I didn’t see the ending coming, a nice little bit of authorial slight-of-hand that keeps The Wide Game from being just another formulaic monster story.
The Wide Game is a period piece, mostly set in 1987 (oh, gods, did I just call my youth a “period piece”?), but West manages to avoid the pitfall of so many writers who overload their work with cultural references to the point of nausea. Bits of nostalgia are sprinkled around, 80’s band t-shirts and cassette tapes for example, but not a relentless pounding of detail. Enough to lure you back, if you were there, and enough to orient you in time if you weren’t.
Michael West’s story telling style takes me back to the glory days when horror spoke in the voice of the boy next door and had me looking over my shoulder when I went out in the dark. West doesn’t put the reader through torturously artsy sentences whose convolutions would send a Cirque du Soleil acrobat back to gymnastics class. He doesn’t deconstruct squat. His low-key, unobtrusive style lulls you into a comfort zone and then he zaps you with big-time scary. West’s portrayal of Paul’s emotions, both as a teenager and as an adult with a wife and children, speaks with a sympathy that is the key to the buildup of fear. Themes of loss, grief, and atonement run through The Wide Game, and it’s in the art of making the reader feel Paul’s pain that West shines.
And you’ll never feel the same about corn fields ever again. 4.5 stars
On the advice of his wife, Paul Rice is making plans to attend his 10th year High School reunion. Returning to his boyhood home of Harmony, Indiana, he finds that he is still haunted by memories of that time—memories of Deidra, his first love, and memories of the Wide Game. It was ten years ago that Paul and his friends watched their day of fun become a race for their lives, a fight for their very souls.
Now, as he meets the survivors of that day once more, Paul makes a chilling discovery: the incomprehensible forces that toyed with them have yet to finish playing their own game.
I’ll confess right up front, in spite of the fact that I’ll be baring my lack of sophistication in public – I’m a sucker for a monster story. Not just any old shambling zombie or slavering werewolf will do it for me, but a good, old-fashioned monster story gets me every time. And The Wide Game got me right in the fear center of my lizard brain.
In the classic monster story style, West leads the reader alongside Paul Rice as he experiences his senior year in high school. First love, first sex, big plans for the future, and lots of fun as he sets out to play the Wide Game, a race through the local corn fields to the old swimming hole. Great times. Yeah, right. And as if things aren’t frightening enough in flashback, there’s a whole ‘nother mess of terror when he goes back for the reunion. Out of the light and into the dark, that’s where Paul’s going, and West draws the reader along into the shadows. And I didn’t see the ending coming, a nice little bit of authorial slight-of-hand that keeps The Wide Game from being just another formulaic monster story.
The Wide Game is a period piece, mostly set in 1987 (oh, gods, did I just call my youth a “period piece”?), but West manages to avoid the pitfall of so many writers who overload their work with cultural references to the point of nausea. Bits of nostalgia are sprinkled around, 80’s band t-shirts and cassette tapes for example, but not a relentless pounding of detail. Enough to lure you back, if you were there, and enough to orient you in time if you weren’t.
Michael West’s story telling style takes me back to the glory days when horror spoke in the voice of the boy next door and had me looking over my shoulder when I went out in the dark. West doesn’t put the reader through torturously artsy sentences whose convolutions would send a Cirque du Soleil acrobat back to gymnastics class. He doesn’t deconstruct squat. His low-key, unobtrusive style lulls you into a comfort zone and then he zaps you with big-time scary. West’s portrayal of Paul’s emotions, both as a teenager and as an adult with a wife and children, speaks with a sympathy that is the key to the buildup of fear. Themes of loss, grief, and atonement run through The Wide Game, and it’s in the art of making the reader feel Paul’s pain that West shines.
And you’ll never feel the same about corn fields ever again. 4.5 stars
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