Desolation (Leisure Horror) [Mass Market Paperback]

Tim Lebbon is a master at crafting intelligent and entertaining horror tales. He can deliver the shocks (Nature of Balance) or great psychological thrills (Face). Desolation stands somewhere between those two and the result is disappointing. It's not that Desolation is a bad book. In fact, there's a lot to be found in this short tale of psychological horror. It's just that the story offers very little to like, or dislike.

Cain has been released from the only place he knew as home. His father has kept him prisoner for years, doing psychological experiment on his young self. But now that the old man is dead, Cain is freed from the prison he was trapped in. He moves into an apartment complex in the hopes of starting his life anew.

Only problem is that everyone in his new home is just a little off. As soon as he moves in, Cain has horrible nightmares. And some of his childhood fears come back to haunt him. And soon enough, he discovers that everyone out there is out to get him. This house hides many horrible secrets, all of them tied directly to his father and his past. Now Cain has no choice but to face his fear and to accept the monster that resides within him.

Desolation offers very little to enjoy. The pacing is slow and often tedious and none of these characters are likeable. In order to make a horror tale successful, you need a hero to root for. But Cain is way too boring and quiet for you to actually like him. Often, you just want to slap him, wake him up and make him smell the coffee.

And, although the pacing is slow, the whole thing also feels rushed. It's almost as if Lebbon just beefed up a novel outline he had lying around without giving any real effort to the process. Scenes appear out of nowhere, discoveries are made out of the blue and thigns are revealed that never truly explain anything or make any sense. Although some vintage Lebbon appears in the tale (like shapeshifting humans), it's nothing you can call genuine Lebbon.

I'm a big Lebbon fan. And every author is entitled to his or her mistake. This is the first book of story of Lebbon's I have disliked. Here's hoping that his creative juices are still flowing and that his next one will outtop Desolation.

DESOLATION
by Tim Lebbon

A Book Review by Steve Vernon

Tim Lebbon's new Leisure Horror release, DESOLATION, reminded me a little of David Lynch's ERASERHEAD. I wasn't always certain what was going on, but I'd be damned if I could look away. Taut, bleak, compelling - a long slow bath in icy cold vinegar. We are brought into the life-space of a character named Cain. He moves into a sort of halfway-home from a sanitarium where he's been recuperating from his childhood. His father seemed to have problems distinguishing the difference between a cradle and a Skinner box.

The neighbourhood is initially fraught with biblical metaphor. The caretaker's name is Peter. Peter lives in Heaven, (the name of the house that is). We meet a woman named Magenta. She changes shape as often as Star Jones changes her shoes. There's also a sexual flying nun, a pied piper with a hobby that Norman Bates could really get behind, and a werewolf, sort of.

None of these characters seem to be overly influence Cain. He is more a spectator in a peepshow of the damned, trying to figure out how to act based upon the actions of a twisted band of outsiders. Cain has spent his entire life in a virtual isolation tank, and a great deal of this novel has to do with him finding himself. It's kind of like a "coming-of-age" novel written by a drunken Sartre.

The pacing is very sedate. Like watching maggots grow upon paved over roadkill. There's a lot that seems to be happening between the lines. I would have liked to know more about this character, and I would have liked to have seen Cain actually interacting with his world. He seems a little stuck in the meditative, a perpetual spectator, calmly staring at the landscape he's awoken in. We are watching a man making up his mind, in the same way a man might make up an acre of beds. Calmly, methodically, dispassionately. Think of MY PRIVATE IDAHO, and you'll have captured the flavor.

DESOLATION is not a novel for every reader. It's a bit of a "head-game" that you need to steep in. Soak it up, breathe it, get to know this character. Anyone who digs the long drawn out scrolls of flesh and ink that Ramsey Campbell loves to pen will enjoy DESOLATION. It's an affectation, a pose, a style and a taste that is definitely hard to acquire, but worth the knowing nonetheless.

I think DESOLATION was a bit of an exploration for Lebbon. He's trying a new style. You will find yourself being wrapped up in Lebbon's own straight jacket, you'll feel his fingers busily tightening the stitches about your confinement, and then when you feel there is no escape, he will dig the needle in a little deeper. You keep waiting for something to happen, but it doesn't. The stitchwork grows a little tighter, and you're trapped.

DESOLATION is a walk through a strange man's mind. A story told with a tight cloistered dispassion. There's a lot that happens, but it doesn't really happen to the character. It happens around the character.

The ending was fun, a little rushed, and didn't quite seem to fit. Turning this character into what he finally becomes seemed a little like a cop-out. If Lebbon felt the need to end it this way, I wish he'd shown us more of the character in action. I kept waiting for him to clean up the snake-hole he'd landed in, but he was too busy indulging in his slow and torpid metamorphosis. Trapped within a cocoon of his own making. Lebbon makes a half-stab at turning Cain into an action hero, but in the end the character seems to be only a shadow cast upon a madman's walls.

To sum up, DESOLATION was as compelling as peeling scabs. You didn't always like what you might find underneath those shells of dead flesh, but you couldn't turn away, now could you? Don't read this book for pacing or action. Read it to experience it. Read it to get to know it. It's a bitter draught, but well worth drinking.

(review originally appeared in Cemetery Dance Weekly - April 27, 2005)

It seems people either loved this book or not. I fall into the later category. The premise is fantastic, but the execution is weak. Lebbon's new style of writing tries to mimic Tom Piccirilli and T. M. Wright, but doesn't come anywhere close. What took Lebbon over 300 pages to write should have been a 100 page novella. Yes, there are a few great and original moments, but I think this book should have been in the fantasy section, not horror. It was as scary as an episode of Seinfeld.