The Woods Are Dark - A Review of Richard Laymon's Novel
Richard Laymon was a name I came across while researching
authors of horror novels. Having not been a great student of the genre, horror
novels that is as horror movies I have been a fan of all my life, I must admit
I had never heard of Laymon. After reading a few reviews I found a repeated
theme; over the top violence and sexual content. Up until this point Stephen
King was the only horror writer I had read, and I was looking for horror
writers with an established reputation and a decent library of books, Laymon
had both, and despite the comments I was reading in regard to his work the
presence he appeared to have and his books were described with such distinct
uniqueness, I felt compelled to read. I had never really read anything sexual,
of any kind so I didn’t really know what to expect, and to be honest I actually
disregarded any notion of effect reading sexual content might have on me.
Splatterpunk was the subgenre his work is categorised as, and I thought this
would be a good break from reading the slow burn style of King. I decided
Laymon’s work was a must, I had to experience it for myself. Well, I found
myself a collection of 15 use Laymon books online, so I’ve pretty much gone
all-in on Laymon. I decided to start on this one as it is one of his earliest,
and it was the shortest I had, a good place to start, I think.
Well the story didn’t take long to get into it, to set the
scene and get to the meat and potatoes, so to speak. No time was wasted
building the characters. You were given enough to know what you needed to know,
Laymon almost uses clichés to establish characters, and this works. What is
missing from a slow burn style, depth of character development and details of
the setting for example, is more than made up with fast paced action. It is during
this frenetic action where we get insights into the characters, from their
reactions and as they are thrust into extraordinary situations, we see their
character come out in the actions they take. It really is a great writing style
and a real change for me from Stephen King, I loved it.
The story is set in the backwoods town of Barlow which holds
a terrible secret deep in the woods. We follow the course of 3 groups of people
who, inevitably, end up meeting and facing their fate in the woods together. The
local townspeople of Barlow have a past time that is rather inhospitable
towards visitors, and when Neala, Sherri and the Dills family find themselves
in town for a short visit, well the visit becomes a little longer than they had
anticipated. The townspeople’s attitude towards locals that object to what is
going on is not much better, in fact, they are treated with the same contempt.
John Robbins finds this out, as he finds himself catching romantic feelings for
one of the town’s victims and, while attempting to save her, becomes a target
for the very terror he first inflicted, then tried to save the girl from. The way the 3 plot lines are structured and
come together really is very good, there is a lot going on at times and each chapter
does flick back and forth between the different characters scenes, but it all
comes together nicely.
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Richard Laymon
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Ok, so I want to address the sexual content of the book.
This being my first Laymon novel, and as I stated earlier I was aware of his
reputation for the way he uses sexual content in his writing, maybe if I were
to read more of his work the “shock and awe” effect would dull down to a
normality and I wouldn’t have to mention it. But this is my first time reading
Laymon, and some of the sexual “scenes” were a little uncomfortable, some just
plain horrible. I say “scenes” as most of the sexual content involved assault
and/or rape, and when I say horrible, I’m not meaning it was badly written,
rather it was terrible thing. After reading one particularly horrific rape
scene in which a 18 year old girl is gang raped by 3 boys, I
stopped and thought to myself, why am I reading this, this is morally horrible.
But, really, it’s probably the first thing that has truly made me feel horror
in a long time, definitely the first to make me feel as gutted and desolate
towards humanity as this did. So perhaps it served purpose, it managed to
horrify me, which is the goal of a horror novel. It did not glorify the
assault, and the way the victim dealt with it added to the character
development and to the story as a whole. This can be said of all the scenes of
a sexual nature, for this was not the only assault.
What was a little strange, I found, was the inclusion of sexuality
at inapt moments throughout the book, it really took me by surprise the first
time. The first time being just 4 pages in mind you, as one of the female
characters take a simple stretch and we are treated to an insight to her inner fantasies
of having a man’s hands on her breasts and nipples. It really is a, “wait,
what!?” moment. But they can be pass off as simple quirks in the writing, I guess.
Similarly, the over the top reactions of some of the characters, and how
quickly they can turn into psychotic killers themselves could be seen as over
the top, but then again how would somebody react in the situation I suppose. In
the end the graphic sexual content, or violence as it is really, isn’t overly
done, just the right amount, if there is such a thing. There is plenty that
goes on, or is alluded too, throughout the story (the bizarre unexpected ending
among plenty of others) that is not fully explained. The who, what or how of a
lot of things is left a mystery, not sure if this is deliberate, but it does
create an atmosphere of uncertainty and craziness. It let’s you get lost in the
unbelievability of the story, and you really don’t notice it unless you start
to knit pick.
For my first Richard Laymon read I have to say I’m not blow
out of the park, but I’m not disappointed either. It was a short interesting
story, well written, with enough uniqueness to make me want more. I have read
that this is known as one of Laymon’s, if not the, worst book he had written.
If this is the case, then I have a lot to look forward to.
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