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A review by sausome
In the Shadows of Men by Robert Jackson Bennett
5.0
This book was a beautifully dark and horrific tale. It felt like returning to Bennett's earlier "Troupe" novel, which I loved. Dark, gritty, violent, but some earnest and true grappling with core elements of good and evil. There is a supernatural element of a place legitimately haunted by evil, and it was a slow and terrifying creep of a read.
What makes a man; how does he grow to fill his own life when his father and his father's father took it away through violence and anger? Is he doomed to repeat atrocities of his forebears, or can he hope to find a small bit of light through the cracks in his tumbled down life? These are the true issues of this story, though it is told through truly creepy, terrifying means. Descriptions of sexual violence are found in the book, but how Bennett ultimately treats this topic is with the weight it deserves.
This book was haunting, scary, and dark, and that Robert Jackson Bennett wrote so beautifully of such horrors is a testament to his true talent as an author. His descriptions evoke a desolate, gritty, dirt-filled place, full of men desperate to make it in this life. It feels like a place on the outer edges of society, wreaking of desperation, where little is monitored, and bars are filled with rough, grime-covered day laborers who always end up in a brawl.
If you have enjoyed his canon, from "Mr. Shivers" and "The Troupe" to "American Elsewhere" and his growing fantasy works, such as the "Divine Cities" and "Foundryside" series, you are sure to appreciate this dark, powerful work.
What makes a man; how does he grow to fill his own life when his father and his father's father took it away through violence and anger? Is he doomed to repeat atrocities of his forebears, or can he hope to find a small bit of light through the cracks in his tumbled down life? These are the true issues of this story, though it is told through truly creepy, terrifying means. Descriptions of sexual violence are found in the book, but how Bennett ultimately treats this topic is with the weight it deserves.
This book was haunting, scary, and dark, and that Robert Jackson Bennett wrote so beautifully of such horrors is a testament to his true talent as an author. His descriptions evoke a desolate, gritty, dirt-filled place, full of men desperate to make it in this life. It feels like a place on the outer edges of society, wreaking of desperation, where little is monitored, and bars are filled with rough, grime-covered day laborers who always end up in a brawl.
If you have enjoyed his canon, from "Mr. Shivers" and "The Troupe" to "American Elsewhere" and his growing fantasy works, such as the "Divine Cities" and "Foundryside" series, you are sure to appreciate this dark, powerful work.