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A review by lmt01
Gone South by Robert R. McCammon
4.0
It was hell's season, and the air smelled of burning children.
There is a story behind GONE SOUTH, as there is a story behind most novels, that makes reading it a lot more entertaining. Knowing the circumstances in which something was made makes that thing a lot more interesting. For example: Zach Snyder's Justice League. In the theatrical cut, the original director, Zach Snyder, had to stop filming his superhero movie in order to tend to a wound in his family made by the suicide of his daughter. The director reigns were handed to Joss Whedon, he of Firefly and Avengers. I can understand why Whedon was brought in to direct Justice League--he had, after all, directed the successful Marvel movie in which a group of heroes band together to save the world. However, the theatrical version of Justice League--which I will call the Whedon Cut--was a complete failure, and was lightyears worse than Batman Vs. Superman. Whedon was obviously trying to imitate his other super-buddies movie, making Batman into a "funny" character and including the same inter-team conflicts that we saw in The Avengers. Now, Sometime this year, DC released what I will call the Snyder Cut on HBO, a four-hour-long film directed by Zach Snyder. The Snyder Cut is what the director had in mind for the Justice League's first movie, and it is probably one of the best superhero movies to have ever been made. Almost everything about the Snyder Cut is perfect; the care that it takes, the lore it explores, the scenes of character development included, the action (gore!), the grit (though the Snyder Cut isn't as bleak as BvS, and pretty much everything else. Hell, the Snyder Cut even makes BvS a better movie by exploring some of the plot devices introduced in it. Let's face it, though: if not for Whedon's atrocious version, Zach Snyder's Justice League wouldn’t be as good as it is now.
Enough with the Snyder Cut, though; we're not here to talk about that movie's backstory. Instead, let me tell you about that of Robert McCammon's 1992 thriller, GONE SOUTH. Following the release of his highly-acclaimed BOY'S LIFE, McCammon was interested in steering his writing away from horror and exploring new territory. However, his publishers hated the idea, telling a disappointed McCammon that his fans would be outraged due to expecting a certain kind of novel from him but receiving another. They were afraid of the risk that would come with shifting genres, denying McCammon the ability to stretch his literary muscles. McCammon, however, wasn’t afraid. In fact, he welcomed the risk. This is a quote from the foreword:
For a writer - or anyone in the arts, really - not doing something that involves risk is a path to a slow death.
And so he wrote GONE SOUTH, a novel that is psychological horror at best. The story of McCammon's dedication to Art is one that I can't help but admire; like Clive Barker, he is an author who would rather die than let his writing be limited by what is perceived to be "acceptable". McCammon fought against his publishers, and did so for Art's sake. I may believe in God, but I also believe that Art is a deity in its own right, even if it exists only in the minds of those who follow it; if Art is a deity, then McCammon is one of its prophets; it's a damn outrage that his books are so hard to get*.
(*If you want a good website to order rare or non-mainstream books from, I recommend using World of Books. It is from there that I managed to buy books by Robert McCammon and Peter Straub for reasonable prices; for example, I bought SHADOWLAND from World of Books for about $15, while elsewhere it is normally over $50. Honestly, I'm begging you, use World of Books!)
GONE SOUTH is the story of Dan Lambert, a former Vietnam veteran who is suffering from leukemia following exposure to Agent Orange. He has years to live, his head seeming to explode almost every day, yet he manages to get by with his truck, slowly accepting that he doesn’t have much time left until his expiry date is reached. One day, however, he gets a note that crushes his heart: his truck's loan has run out, and the bank is coming to take it. Hoping to settle things peacefully, a confrontation with his loan officer culminates with the BLAM! of a gunshot and the pitter-pattering of blood hitting the floor. The blood isn't Lambert's, though the responsibility of it is. Wracked with shame and fear, he flees the scene and—hating the thought of spending his last years of life in a tight, cold prison cell—becomes a fugitive. Along the way, he will meet a disfigured woman with a plan, two abnormal bounty hunters and an assortment of other colourful characters as he, and possibly his mentality, go south.
I haven't read a McCammon novel for a fair amount of time; the first book of his I read was SWAN SONG, which I absolutely loved when I finished and still adore now. The style in which McCammon wrote his horror epic--like a rug weaved from beautiful material--makes all 900 of its pages frequently readable. Up until I read SWANG SONG, I actually struggled to read "properly"; I rarely picked up a book that I didn’t grow bored with halfway through, the pacing not to blame but something inside of my mind. Ever since I read SWAN SONG, however, I haven't had that problem. I'm just speculating here, but I have a theory that McCammon's novel reminded me of how wonderful reading is, and that it the time spent with my nose in a book is absolutely worth it. It's like a box of chocolate on Valentine’s Day: it reignited my love-affair with literature.
GONE SOUTH is a completely different novel to SWAN SONG in quite a few ways. While the contrast between the plots is obvious, the tones of the two differ. In SWAN SONG, everything is grim up until the end of the novel, at which point hope prevails as the sun shines through the clouds for the first time in years. GONE SOUTH, however, is a novel that blends bleakness and humour; it is at some moments crushingly depressing, at others charmingly funny, and manages to weave these two moods together in a way that doesn’t feel convulsed. For example:
The Snake Handlers, that’s what they’d been. Not afraid to stick their hands in the jungle’s holes and pull out whatever horror might be coiled up and waiting in there. They had not known, then, that the entire world was a snake hole, and that the snakes just kept getting bigger and meaner. They had not known, in their raucous rush towards the future, that the snakes were lying in wait not only in the holes but in the mowed green grass of the American Dream. They got your legs first, wound around your ankles, and slowed you down. They slithered into your guts and made you sick and afraid, and then you were easy to kill.
The above quote is quite a grim one—and yet it manages to appear in a novel in which the main character is hunted by two bounty hunters : one has an abnormality which I won’t spoil for you (you learn about it almost as soon as you meet him, but you’ll definitely be disturbed), while the other one dresses up as Elvis Presley . The two hunters are constantly clashing, making most of the humour in the novel. This may sound ridiculous, but as I said before, the humour and the darkness don’t feel like they are at odds, instead merging to make GONE SOUTH have a tolerable, not-too-gritty-not-too-silly tone.
GONE SOUTH has quite a few things that are similar to SWAN SONG, the most notable of which being its theme of finding and holding onto hope even when all seems lost. In both novels, our protagonists have nothing to keep them going, have no reason to trudge through the literal and metaphorical wastelands of their lives, and yet find reasons to do so through hope. While both novels are fairly dark, they show their characters either wielding hope like a weapon or undergoing journeys that will help them find it.
In her right hand was clutched the small pink drawstring bag containing what had become her talisman over the years, and she fixed her mind on Jupiter’s voice saying that this was the man God had provided to take her to the Bright Girl. She had to believe it. She had to, or all hope would come crashing down around her, and she feared that more than death.
Speaking of the characters: those who populate the pages of GONE SOUTH are characters you have probably never even before in any other novel. Maybe you’ve read the journeys of a Dan Lambert-like character (who, funnily enough, I kept imagining as the smooth-voiced Andrew Lincoln, who played Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead) who is trying to help a woman in trouble—but have both man and woman been troubled characters, both with their own problems that alter their lives? Then we have our bounty hunters: as I’ve said earlier, these two are pretty odd, and I’m almost certain that you’ve never read a novel in which an Elvis interpreter and a freak (again, I won’t spoil what he is) team up and form a bounty-hunting duo. You may not like all of the characters, but you will be stunned by them, along with how real they seem; McCammon really fleshes them out, making even the villains exist in a sort of grey area that most authors don’t bother with anymore.
Although not as good as the first McCammon novel that I read, GONE SOUTH is still an amazing book that will leave you with one wish: that the adventures of Dan Lambert had lasted longer.
There is a story behind GONE SOUTH, as there is a story behind most novels, that makes reading it a lot more entertaining. Knowing the circumstances in which something was made makes that thing a lot more interesting. For example: Zach Snyder's Justice League. In the theatrical cut, the original director, Zach Snyder, had to stop filming his superhero movie in order to tend to a wound in his family made by the suicide of his daughter. The director reigns were handed to Joss Whedon, he of Firefly and Avengers. I can understand why Whedon was brought in to direct Justice League--he had, after all, directed the successful Marvel movie in which a group of heroes band together to save the world. However, the theatrical version of Justice League--which I will call the Whedon Cut--was a complete failure, and was lightyears worse than Batman Vs. Superman. Whedon was obviously trying to imitate his other super-buddies movie, making Batman into a "funny" character and including the same inter-team conflicts that we saw in The Avengers. Now, Sometime this year, DC released what I will call the Snyder Cut on HBO, a four-hour-long film directed by Zach Snyder. The Snyder Cut is what the director had in mind for the Justice League's first movie, and it is probably one of the best superhero movies to have ever been made. Almost everything about the Snyder Cut is perfect; the care that it takes, the lore it explores, the scenes of character development included, the action (gore!), the grit (though the Snyder Cut isn't as bleak as BvS, and pretty much everything else. Hell, the Snyder Cut even makes BvS a better movie by exploring some of the plot devices introduced in it. Let's face it, though: if not for Whedon's atrocious version, Zach Snyder's Justice League wouldn’t be as good as it is now.
Enough with the Snyder Cut, though; we're not here to talk about that movie's backstory. Instead, let me tell you about that of Robert McCammon's 1992 thriller, GONE SOUTH. Following the release of his highly-acclaimed BOY'S LIFE, McCammon was interested in steering his writing away from horror and exploring new territory. However, his publishers hated the idea, telling a disappointed McCammon that his fans would be outraged due to expecting a certain kind of novel from him but receiving another. They were afraid of the risk that would come with shifting genres, denying McCammon the ability to stretch his literary muscles. McCammon, however, wasn’t afraid. In fact, he welcomed the risk. This is a quote from the foreword:
For a writer - or anyone in the arts, really - not doing something that involves risk is a path to a slow death.
And so he wrote GONE SOUTH, a novel that is psychological horror at best. The story of McCammon's dedication to Art is one that I can't help but admire; like Clive Barker, he is an author who would rather die than let his writing be limited by what is perceived to be "acceptable". McCammon fought against his publishers, and did so for Art's sake. I may believe in God, but I also believe that Art is a deity in its own right, even if it exists only in the minds of those who follow it; if Art is a deity, then McCammon is one of its prophets; it's a damn outrage that his books are so hard to get*.
(*If you want a good website to order rare or non-mainstream books from, I recommend using World of Books. It is from there that I managed to buy books by Robert McCammon and Peter Straub for reasonable prices; for example, I bought SHADOWLAND from World of Books for about $15, while elsewhere it is normally over $50. Honestly, I'm begging you, use World of Books!)
GONE SOUTH is the story of Dan Lambert, a former Vietnam veteran who is suffering from leukemia following exposure to Agent Orange. He has years to live, his head seeming to explode almost every day, yet he manages to get by with his truck, slowly accepting that he doesn’t have much time left until his expiry date is reached. One day, however, he gets a note that crushes his heart: his truck's loan has run out, and the bank is coming to take it. Hoping to settle things peacefully, a confrontation with his loan officer culminates with the BLAM! of a gunshot and the pitter-pattering of blood hitting the floor. The blood isn't Lambert's, though the responsibility of it is. Wracked with shame and fear, he flees the scene and—hating the thought of spending his last years of life in a tight, cold prison cell—becomes a fugitive. Along the way, he will meet a disfigured woman with a plan, two abnormal bounty hunters and an assortment of other colourful characters as he, and possibly his mentality, go south.
I haven't read a McCammon novel for a fair amount of time; the first book of his I read was SWAN SONG, which I absolutely loved when I finished and still adore now. The style in which McCammon wrote his horror epic--like a rug weaved from beautiful material--makes all 900 of its pages frequently readable. Up until I read SWANG SONG, I actually struggled to read "properly"; I rarely picked up a book that I didn’t grow bored with halfway through, the pacing not to blame but something inside of my mind. Ever since I read SWAN SONG, however, I haven't had that problem. I'm just speculating here, but I have a theory that McCammon's novel reminded me of how wonderful reading is, and that it the time spent with my nose in a book is absolutely worth it. It's like a box of chocolate on Valentine’s Day: it reignited my love-affair with literature.
GONE SOUTH is a completely different novel to SWAN SONG in quite a few ways. While the contrast between the plots is obvious, the tones of the two differ. In SWAN SONG, everything is grim up until the end of the novel, at which point hope prevails as the sun shines through the clouds for the first time in years. GONE SOUTH, however, is a novel that blends bleakness and humour; it is at some moments crushingly depressing, at others charmingly funny, and manages to weave these two moods together in a way that doesn’t feel convulsed. For example:
The Snake Handlers, that’s what they’d been. Not afraid to stick their hands in the jungle’s holes and pull out whatever horror might be coiled up and waiting in there. They had not known, then, that the entire world was a snake hole, and that the snakes just kept getting bigger and meaner. They had not known, in their raucous rush towards the future, that the snakes were lying in wait not only in the holes but in the mowed green grass of the American Dream. They got your legs first, wound around your ankles, and slowed you down. They slithered into your guts and made you sick and afraid, and then you were easy to kill.
The above quote is quite a grim one—and yet it manages to appear in a novel in which the main character is hunted by two bounty hunters : one has an abnormality which I won’t spoil for you (you learn about it almost as soon as you meet him, but you’ll definitely be disturbed), while the other one dresses up as Elvis Presley . The two hunters are constantly clashing, making most of the humour in the novel. This may sound ridiculous, but as I said before, the humour and the darkness don’t feel like they are at odds, instead merging to make GONE SOUTH have a tolerable, not-too-gritty-not-too-silly tone.
GONE SOUTH has quite a few things that are similar to SWAN SONG, the most notable of which being its theme of finding and holding onto hope even when all seems lost. In both novels, our protagonists have nothing to keep them going, have no reason to trudge through the literal and metaphorical wastelands of their lives, and yet find reasons to do so through hope. While both novels are fairly dark, they show their characters either wielding hope like a weapon or undergoing journeys that will help them find it.
In her right hand was clutched the small pink drawstring bag containing what had become her talisman over the years, and she fixed her mind on Jupiter’s voice saying that this was the man God had provided to take her to the Bright Girl. She had to believe it. She had to, or all hope would come crashing down around her, and she feared that more than death.
Speaking of the characters: those who populate the pages of GONE SOUTH are characters you have probably never even before in any other novel. Maybe you’ve read the journeys of a Dan Lambert-like character (who, funnily enough, I kept imagining as the smooth-voiced Andrew Lincoln, who played Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead) who is trying to help a woman in trouble—but have both man and woman been troubled characters, both with their own problems that alter their lives? Then we have our bounty hunters: as I’ve said earlier, these two are pretty odd, and I’m almost certain that you’ve never read a novel in which an Elvis interpreter and a freak (again, I won’t spoil what he is) team up and form a bounty-hunting duo. You may not like all of the characters, but you will be stunned by them, along with how real they seem; McCammon really fleshes them out, making even the villains exist in a sort of grey area that most authors don’t bother with anymore.
Although not as good as the first McCammon novel that I read, GONE SOUTH is still an amazing book that will leave you with one wish: that the adventures of Dan Lambert had lasted longer.