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hobbes199 's review for:
The Bright Lands
by John Fram
I'll be honest with you...I've slept on this since finishing it yesterday and have downgraded it to 3* and here's why: although the book stays with you, it's not for the right reasons. The more I've thought about the novel and its characterisations, the crosser I've become. On reflection, I knew very little about the (countless) characters in The Bright Lands other than the events that were happening at that moment. Two characters, Brittany and Kimbra, are particularly wasted until the last quarter of the novel (merely acting as plot devices up until that point) when all of a sudden they have personality, bravado, and super-human strength. Our main protagonists, Clark - a one-note small-town cop, and Joel (who seems to spend the entire novel in a guilt-ridden sulk) do very little to get you on their side, and I feel that at times Fram didn't know how to balance the narratives between the expansive character roster.
What lifted the novel for me was the atmosphere; Fram has a deft touch with tension, scene-setting, and building up towards the explosive finale. The town of Bently comes at you without remorse, and you are sucked into every grimy, superficial, and relentlessly awful aspect of it. Yes, the 'small-town and it's secrets' trope is a well-worn one in all media, but here it's ramped up to 11. Again, it can be hard to keep track of who's who, especially as Fram has a tendency to switch between first names and surnames when referring to peripheral characters, but trust me when I say that by the end of The Bright Lands, very few of Bentley's residents come out bathed in glory.
A word of warning: the novel is not for the faint-hearted. Depictions of graphic sex, homophobia, drug use, extreme language, and violence are constant so proceed with caution.
Will I seek out Fram's future novels? Probably. He does have a touch of King, Layman, and Herbert in him when it comes to the horrors of the supernatural and the real world, and let's face it, their early works were character hell as well so there is hope.
What lifted the novel for me was the atmosphere; Fram has a deft touch with tension, scene-setting, and building up towards the explosive finale. The town of Bently comes at you without remorse, and you are sucked into every grimy, superficial, and relentlessly awful aspect of it. Yes, the 'small-town and it's secrets' trope is a well-worn one in all media, but here it's ramped up to 11. Again, it can be hard to keep track of who's who, especially as Fram has a tendency to switch between first names and surnames when referring to peripheral characters, but trust me when I say that by the end of The Bright Lands, very few of Bentley's residents come out bathed in glory.
A word of warning: the novel is not for the faint-hearted. Depictions of graphic sex, homophobia, drug use, extreme language, and violence are constant so proceed with caution.
Will I seek out Fram's future novels? Probably. He does have a touch of King, Layman, and Herbert in him when it comes to the horrors of the supernatural and the real world, and let's face it, their early works were character hell as well so there is hope.