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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
Growing up, there sat behind Alex's house another house. Not a neighbor's house behind his backyard, but another house altogether within his backyard, one that shifted and altered the landscape of the territory around it. It was a house that should not have been, but inexplicably was. It came and went on its own accord and, perhaps more troubling still, Alex was the only one that could see this other house.
As an adult, Alex has suddenly found himself laid off in the midst of corporate downsizing as everybody grapples with COVID-19 and the ensuing quarantine lockdowns. His former co-worker, Britta, has come up with a genius idea of starting her own personal delivery business akin to companies like DoorDash or GitHub but far more niche, specializing in the delivery of rare, hard-to-get items. To the dismay of his wife and in-laws, Alex jumps aboard as a partner and goes from rising-star capitalist to delivery boy. He finds himself loving the job, though, and it gives him a chance to see a side of his city he'd never noticed before, to become intimately acquainted with these strangers and their hobbies, their hidden loves and secret vices. As the pandemic progresses, though, the orders and deliveries grow ever stranger, the clientele increasingly odd.
And the house behind Alex's house has returned...along with its inhabitants.
Bentley Little's Behind is a slick, muscular little number, one you can't help but squeeze tight and ride on through late into the night. Unlike last year's satirical and increasingly goofy DMV, Little plays it straight and deadly serious here. It's an unexpected knife slash across the throat of a book, one that grows increasingly tense with each shifting of the landscape and each new oddball delivery order. Like Alex, the reader is never quite sure what they're going to be in for with each turn of the page and you can't help but try to peek around the corner to see what's coming up, hoping for the safety of something familiar and recognizable.
Little has crafted here one hell of a haunted house book with a truly unique take where it's not a ghost inhabiting a house that makes it haunted, but the house and its inhabitants themselves that do the haunting, taking over entire streets and towns, twisting and changing that which surrounds it. It's a brilliant and uncanny change from your traditional house of horrors, one that thematically echoes the state of America circa spring 2020 and the years beyond.
Behind presents Alex with a funhouse mirror of the city and the people he thought he knew, and he's confronted with these feelings of being displaced, of being a stranger in an increasingly strange land. Little echoes here a lot of what many of us white folk, once secure in our little bubbles and echo chambers, felt following Trump's election in 2016, of waking up the morning after the election to confront a country that we thought we knew and understood only to discover that it had radically shifted. People and places that had once been known and familiar had turned into nightmarish versions that no longer felt safe and welcoming, and grew worser still in the face of a global pandemic with the ignorance of anti-masking brigades turned proud of their anti-science stupidity. A land that once felt promising and safe was revealed to be populated by selfish, hate-filled monsters championing violence en masse. Alex is forced to confront these horrors as he's drawn ever deeper into their world and their threats to consume his home, his family, and his life. All that's missing are the stupid little red hats.
As an adult, Alex has suddenly found himself laid off in the midst of corporate downsizing as everybody grapples with COVID-19 and the ensuing quarantine lockdowns. His former co-worker, Britta, has come up with a genius idea of starting her own personal delivery business akin to companies like DoorDash or GitHub but far more niche, specializing in the delivery of rare, hard-to-get items. To the dismay of his wife and in-laws, Alex jumps aboard as a partner and goes from rising-star capitalist to delivery boy. He finds himself loving the job, though, and it gives him a chance to see a side of his city he'd never noticed before, to become intimately acquainted with these strangers and their hobbies, their hidden loves and secret vices. As the pandemic progresses, though, the orders and deliveries grow ever stranger, the clientele increasingly odd.
And the house behind Alex's house has returned...along with its inhabitants.
Bentley Little's Behind is a slick, muscular little number, one you can't help but squeeze tight and ride on through late into the night. Unlike last year's satirical and increasingly goofy DMV, Little plays it straight and deadly serious here. It's an unexpected knife slash across the throat of a book, one that grows increasingly tense with each shifting of the landscape and each new oddball delivery order. Like Alex, the reader is never quite sure what they're going to be in for with each turn of the page and you can't help but try to peek around the corner to see what's coming up, hoping for the safety of something familiar and recognizable.
Little has crafted here one hell of a haunted house book with a truly unique take where it's not a ghost inhabiting a house that makes it haunted, but the house and its inhabitants themselves that do the haunting, taking over entire streets and towns, twisting and changing that which surrounds it. It's a brilliant and uncanny change from your traditional house of horrors, one that thematically echoes the state of America circa spring 2020 and the years beyond.
Behind presents Alex with a funhouse mirror of the city and the people he thought he knew, and he's confronted with these feelings of being displaced, of being a stranger in an increasingly strange land. Little echoes here a lot of what many of us white folk, once secure in our little bubbles and echo chambers, felt following Trump's election in 2016, of waking up the morning after the election to confront a country that we thought we knew and understood only to discover that it had radically shifted. People and places that had once been known and familiar had turned into nightmarish versions that no longer felt safe and welcoming, and grew worser still in the face of a global pandemic with the ignorance of anti-masking brigades turned proud of their anti-science stupidity. A land that once felt promising and safe was revealed to be populated by selfish, hate-filled monsters championing violence en masse. Alex is forced to confront these horrors as he's drawn ever deeper into their world and their threats to consume his home, his family, and his life. All that's missing are the stupid little red hats.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Behind is a haunting exploration of childhood fears resurfacing in adulthood. Alex Lowry’s seemingly quiet life is upended when he begins to hear a mysterious song from a house only he can see, drawing him back to unsettling memories from his past. Set against the backdrop of the Covid pandemic - which is no small task to take on for an author - it locks on to the isolation, fragility, and chaos of those early days.
One aspect I really enjoy about Little’s writing is his ability to turn seemingly everyday moments into sources of unease - making the reader question what lurks just beyond perception.
Little’s portrayal of Alex’s journey into a simpler, yet increasingly eerie existence reflects the struggles many faced during this period. And while the ending may not have fully convinced me, the buildup to it is well crafted, and engaging.
One aspect I really enjoy about Little’s writing is his ability to turn seemingly everyday moments into sources of unease - making the reader question what lurks just beyond perception.
Little’s portrayal of Alex’s journey into a simpler, yet increasingly eerie existence reflects the struggles many faced during this period. And while the ending may not have fully convinced me, the buildup to it is well crafted, and engaging.
dark
mysterious
tense
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Little’s 30th novel continues with concepts explored in his recent novels THE HANDYMAN and GLORIA, even hinting back to ideas presented in THE HOUSE and some of his classic short stories.
After being laid off from his job during the Covid pandemic, Alex joins his (also) laid off co-worker Britta in a start up delivery service, which becomes successful. What makes them different from other delivery services? They find a niche in catering to those who request strange and rare things not found on Amazon. This lets BEHIND feature a barrage of demented characters and situations who add to Alex’ unwanted problems, including…
…it seems a “ghost house” he used to see in his yard in Maryland as a kid has returned. It now sits in his west coast back yard, and eventually not only can his wife see it, but his co-worker sees one in her own yard. And they seem to be appearing all over the place.
Alex then has to confront a strange religious man and his female harbinger who were responsible for his parent’s deaths, who along with the ghost houses, have finally located him across the country.
BEHIND is almost like 3 novels in one, full of shifting dimensions, weird time frames, and all the macabre goodness Little fans have come to expect. It makes a nice “double feature” read with the author’s first novel THE REVELATION, and features an ambiguous ending that will surely divide readers (I thought it fit the tone perfectly). Fans of weird, religious-themed horror should eat this up, as well as those who might be looking for a modern Twilight Zone.
Behind is another of Little's "more abstract" books, a bit more like Gloria or Dispatch than DMV. It's pretty ambitious, there are interesting themes that combine elements of the Covid pandemic and ideas about cities and buildings themselves. It's a novel specifically about LA during the lockdown, a quiet world with a different universe underneath that peaks out now and then. I just found a lot of this to be mysterious, there's a unique Americana to it. The Pasadena suburbs are melting and you only have your spouse and your work friend to keep you from floating away. It's funny too, and scary; full of the classic witty banter and food-eating nightmares the author is known for. This one and Gloria are some of his best stuff. Sure, the pace is non-existent and the ending is underwhelming, but it's almost like an Angeleno Ramsey Campbell novel.
Interesting Concept……
I’m intrigued by Bentley Little’s mind. How does he come up with this stuff? The book dragged at times but was mostly fascinating. It was also frustrating having to deal with the house behind the house and the yard behind the church behind the house, etc. But I guess if we, as readers, felt frustrated, imagine how it would feel to actually experience it. The thought is utterly terrifying. Good read!
I’m intrigued by Bentley Little’s mind. How does he come up with this stuff? The book dragged at times but was mostly fascinating. It was also frustrating having to deal with the house behind the house and the yard behind the church behind the house, etc. But I guess if we, as readers, felt frustrated, imagine how it would feel to actually experience it. The thought is utterly terrifying. Good read!
When he was a child, Alex started seeing a house behind his house. Where he'd always seen his backyard before, there was now a building that looked somehow wrong—and Alex was the only one who could see it. Then, before long, he started to hear a woman singing inside...
As an adult, Alex has pushed these memories to the back of his mind. After losing his job following the pandemic, he starts a business with a former colleague, delivering specialty items to clients who are unable to go out, and finds himself enjoying a quieter and less pressured job. Then he begins hearing the singing again. The requests clients make start getting stranger and more violent—a vet who wants a constant stream of stray dogs, people ordering knives, rope, and a crossbow. Before long, Alex sees another house that should not exist, and the veil begins to lift between our reality and something else. Something behind.
"Behind everything normal was something that was...not."
This was my first time reading a Bentley Little book, and I was pleased to find a story that was very much to my tastes. On paper, the idea of a house that shouldn't be there feels almost trite, and there are countless horror stories told that take this concept in predictable directions. Behind, however, takes an almost Lynchian approach to how it views the city of Los Angeles—in the same way there is a previously unseen house behind his, Alex discovers there's another city lurking just out of sight of his own. His job opens his eyes to the seedy underbelly, to degeneracy, to violent and twisted individuals. What he doesn't know is how many of these people have always been there and how many have started appearing along with the house that only he can see?
One of the things that really gets under my skin is a sense of unreality, of wrongness. The idea of your home, your town, your world no longer being what you know is something that can really creep me out, and Little utilises it effectively. While I wouldn't call the book scary per se, there was one part towards the end that genuinely unnerved me.
I know a lot of people did not enjoy Stephen King's Holly, partly because of its references to political issues and COVID-19. If so, you're likely to feel the same here—the book begins as the first wave hits the US and continues from there, through the next year or so. It doesn't overwhelm the book, but it is a looming spectre throughout, often shaping character motivations and behaviour. Something to keep in mind if you're planning to pick it up.
However, I'm hard-pressed to find another reason why I wouldn't recommend it to someone. It won't tie up every question you have neatly by the end, but it does have a satisfying ending, and the story and strong writing combined to make it a book I couldn't put down. If you're a fan of uneasy, cosmic, or cult/religious horror, I think that there's a lot here for you.
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Behind
By Bentley Little
I really had to take a moment and think on how I wanted to write this review, and how much to actually give away. I’ve settled on very very little. So without further ado:
Bentley Little has stepped outside of his normal satirical & formulaic writing with this one. This is dark, and had quite a few very creepy moments. While still being a fun book it is much deeper than anything else I’ve
read by him before.
Wouldn’t you know, I had an amazing quote, that summed up everything perfectly. Saved and ready to use, but I somehow deleted it, and now I can’t remember it, or where exactly in the book I read it 🤦🏼♀️
I am not going to misquote this master, so you’ll just have to trust me and read the book.
My final thoughts are, while I love everything I have read by Little so far, this is a different and darker side that I very much enjoyed and hope to see more of in the future.
Thank you so very much Dan Franklin Cemetery Dance Publications for this amazing arc!
Book releases in July, add it to your ever growing tbr lists 🫶🏻
By Bentley Little
I really had to take a moment and think on how I wanted to write this review, and how much to actually give away. I’ve settled on very very little. So without further ado:
Bentley Little has stepped outside of his normal satirical & formulaic writing with this one. This is dark, and had quite a few very creepy moments. While still being a fun book it is much deeper than anything else I’ve
read by him before.
Wouldn’t you know, I had an amazing quote, that summed up everything perfectly. Saved and ready to use, but I somehow deleted it, and now I can’t remember it, or where exactly in the book I read it 🤦🏼♀️
I am not going to misquote this master, so you’ll just have to trust me and read the book.
My final thoughts are, while I love everything I have read by Little so far, this is a different and darker side that I very much enjoyed and hope to see more of in the future.
Thank you so very much Dan Franklin Cemetery Dance Publications for this amazing arc!
Book releases in July, add it to your ever growing tbr lists 🫶🏻