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gerhard 's review for:
Unbury Carol
by Josh Malerman
Wow, I loved this book! I knew Josh Malerman was a writer to watch following his Bird Box debut, which I thought was interesting, but did not push its concept far enough, and also had a far too conventional ending.
No lollygagging with Unbury Carol: the High Concept here is balls-to-the-wall crazy, and Malerman twists it and pushes it in directions that leave the reader reeling with shock … and what a surprising, yet beautifully fitting, ending.
Though the two novels seem worlds apart in subject matter, style, and execution, there is a similarity in how Malerman interrogates his world-building, and his predilection for deeply-flawed characters pushed far out of their comfort zones, to the point of existential disintegration.
And then there are the villains (actually, everyone seems to have some shade of villainy in this book). At first glance, Smoke seems like such a preposterous character. James Moxie partakes of the supernatural, while Rot is just plain infernal. But Malerman is so adept at telling details that humanise these monsters.
Malerman loves to mix genre elements into a heady stew. With Bird Box it was horror and apocalyptic SF; with Unbury Carol, it is the Wild West and fairy tales (in particular Sleeping Beauty), and a good dash of Grand Guignol, baroque, Lovecraftian excess for seasoning.
I think a lot of readers will be taken aback by Unbury Carol’s deliberate weirdness. It is as if Malerman went out of his way to write as much of a polar opposite of a novel to Bird Box as he could.
But for me that is always the mark of a great writer: experimenting, and not being afraid to antagonise your readers, for they will eventually see the light. Or, as in this case, the cloying dark inside Carol’s buried coffin.
No lollygagging with Unbury Carol: the High Concept here is balls-to-the-wall crazy, and Malerman twists it and pushes it in directions that leave the reader reeling with shock … and what a surprising, yet beautifully fitting, ending.
Though the two novels seem worlds apart in subject matter, style, and execution, there is a similarity in how Malerman interrogates his world-building, and his predilection for deeply-flawed characters pushed far out of their comfort zones, to the point of existential disintegration.
And then there are the villains (actually, everyone seems to have some shade of villainy in this book). At first glance, Smoke seems like such a preposterous character. James Moxie partakes of the supernatural, while Rot is just plain infernal. But Malerman is so adept at telling details that humanise these monsters.
Malerman loves to mix genre elements into a heady stew. With Bird Box it was horror and apocalyptic SF; with Unbury Carol, it is the Wild West and fairy tales (in particular Sleeping Beauty), and a good dash of Grand Guignol, baroque, Lovecraftian excess for seasoning.
I think a lot of readers will be taken aback by Unbury Carol’s deliberate weirdness. It is as if Malerman went out of his way to write as much of a polar opposite of a novel to Bird Box as he could.
But for me that is always the mark of a great writer: experimenting, and not being afraid to antagonise your readers, for they will eventually see the light. Or, as in this case, the cloying dark inside Carol’s buried coffin.