The Concrete Grove (The Concrete Grove Trilogy) [Paperback]

In the Concrete Grove, Gary McMahon successfully fuses grim urban realism with the spiritual mysticism of Machen and Blackwood. There are other echoes here too; creatures wander abroad in the grey environs of the Grove that made me recall late-night sessions of playing Silent Hill and a particular breed of demon evokes the grotesque visuals of Aphex Twin. The characters who inhabit The Concrete Grove are, on the face of it, familiar types but they are soon fleshed out as the story goes on until they become people. They are distinctive, damaged and none of them come to quite the end you might well expect.
The Concrete Grove is a work of thoroughly contemporary horror whilst not being knowingly modern or hip. The influences, literary, cinematic and pop culture, are all blended together to create an environment that becomes as real as those depicted on the evening news and as disturbingly imaginative as you could hope for.

Gary McMahon's The Concrete Grove (2011) is disconcerting little standalone - combining the grim reality of urban poverty with the supernatural horror of ageless otherworldly entities. It is, in short, exactly the sort of book you shouldn't read on the tube at night.

"The Concrete Grove" is the accepted nickname for Hailey Fraser's new council estate home. The estate, with the decrepit and towering Needle at the center, is the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder - "the bottom of the pile" as Hailey's mother phrases it. Hailey, 14, is a bright kid and a sensitive one. Although she puts on a brave face, she knows that she and her mother, Lana, are in trouble. At home, Hailey escapes with the television. Outside of her front door, she keeps her head down and walks as softly as possible. Her only real privacy comes when she sneaks into the abandoned rooms of the Needle - a meditative escape under tons of crumbling cement.

Although a pencil sketch of Hailey (smart, pretty, 14 and a bit gothy) makes her sound like the prototypical urban fantasy heroine, she's not actually all that likable. She's strong for her mother's sake - at least, she thinks she's being supportive - but from Lana's viewpoint we see Hailey as distant, uncooperative and very often cruel. The opening chapter concludes dramatically with Hailey blacking out while adventuring in the very darkest part of the Concrete Grove. There are strong inferences of some sort of eldritch possession going on. However sweet she may appear (and honestly, she doesn't seem all that sweet), the book essentially begins with a narrative caveat emptor. This girl is not to be trusted.

Nor are the rest of The Concrete Grove's cast any more trustworthy. Lana is trying desperately to hold things together, but due to her (deceased) husband's foolishness and a few of her own dodgy decisions, she's wound up in debt to a local gangster, Monty Bright. Lana is caught between her nostalgic middle-class pretensions and the awkward (and cruel) reality of her surroundings. When Hailey starts to go... funny... Lana loses her last point of stability. This, of course, leads into the third protagonist - Tom. Tom is a rarity because he's from the outside of the estate. He encounters Hailey at random and then finds himself drawn to her mother. His own marriage is failing and he becomes swiftly obsessed with the beautiful, seemingly-distressed Lana. She's an adventure to him, and he needs an escape.

Tom, like Hailey, is attuned to the supernatural. He sees things where things ought-not-be, and spots bizarrely misshapen figures gallivanting on the edge of the horizon. Even when he's outside of the Concrete Grove, his visions follow him home, and, soon, nowhere is safe from these nightmarish apparitions. If Lana is the only one of the three not plagued by entries from the Dictionnaire Infernal, she's also the one with the most pressing real world problems. Loan shark Monty Bright is a squamous horror in and of himself.

Although not quite a morality play, The Concrete Grove is a self-contained drama about a group of lost souls clawing some breathing room at the "bottom of the pile". There's no victory or mission - just survival. Also, Mr. McMahon has erred wisely on the side of realism instead of immediate engagement. Hailey, Lana and Tom aren't nice, good people that we're supposed to connect with - they're eerily accurate pencil portraits of real people with hyper-real problems. Real people don't need to be nice or good, they merely need to be understandable. In the case of The Concrete Grove, they occasionally achieve "admirable", but that's all that's required.

The Concrete Grove is also an adventure in continuous bleakness, but, again, that morbid tone fits this book well. Both the real and the supernatural elements are, in a word, horrifying. The first chapter alone contains enough trauma to last for a series. Mr. McMahon applies more pressure from there, grinding down the characters until they either explode or are crushed. From visions to missing televisions to demons in the woodwork to terrifying gang violence, The Concrete Grove is a series of shambling steps heading towards a cataclysmic conclusion.

Mr. McMahon primarily uses the supernatural as an added layer of horror. A character will enter a room or casually look around and then, like the Layar app of the damned, eeeeevil will swim to the surface. There's a lovely simplicity to the mechanic. Occasionally, unpredictably, someone blinks and monsters come through the television. More often, they don't. The trick falters somewhat at the book's conclusion, when a bit of rationalisation occurs. Fortunately, although the Big Reason becomes (murkily) visible, most of the individual terrors remain pleasantly unknowable. To his credit, Mr. McMahon also doesn't fall into the Needful Things trap of crediting the actions of the characters (white hat or black hat) to the supernatural influences. People, permeated by the all-Horror or not, are held accountable for their own actions.

As Mr. McMahon paints it, the reality of the modern class system has become indistinguishable from the fantasy of Lovecraftian monsters. There are soulless predators, screaming prey and a universe packed with indifferent bystanders. There's no happy ending - only escape. No victory - except survival. No great acts of significance - only individual sacrifice. Overall? The Concrete Grove might be a miserable picture of the world, but that didn't stop me from thoroughly liking it.

This review contains minor spoilers. If you don't want to know, don't read on.

I recently stated that I believe Gary McMahon is fast becoming the master of urban horror - and with THE CONCRETE GROVE, he again proves my point.

Unlike his previous effort, PRETTY LITTLE DEAD THING, which is a disturbing crime novel with horror elements - much in the same way as John Connolly and his ilk - THE CONCRETE GROVE is a traditional horror involving a world within a world, a psycho trying to get from one to the other, an innocent child and a distraught mother - oh, and a carer who cannot abide the woman in his charge (aka, his wife). So all in all it contains most of the elements required to make an intriguing story. Some characters are despicable, others you want to slap while there are those you want to care and protect - which is ideal because you want to have a reaction to the characters. Like them or not, the worst thing a writer can do is produce a character no-one cares anything for. The plot is relatively simple - but then, surely the best ones are? - and handled with the appropriate care and attention. The only time I felt a slip up (for me personally) was the manner in which the mother (Lana) decided to wipe her debt. This monumental decision was made very quickly and just after she'd started a new relationship. Why someone would be willing to let themselves be gang-raped when on the cusp of a new love life is beyond me but then, I've never been in that situation and so I was willing to suspend my disbelief. And perhaps that's why this is a slight moan because Gary has this amazing ability of making fantasy horror seem real. Suddenly you believe there is another world just out of reach; you do think about the things you see in your peripheral vision. This willingness to be a lamb to the slaughter just seemed a little far-fetched (and yet is probably the closest thing to genuine fact). But it is a minor quibble and besides, once you find yourself reading the woman's treatment you find your heart quickening, your sweat seeping and your anger rising. So in that respect, it's job done!

My only other issue is that I would have enjoyed the thoughts of the 'sea cow' as she battled with her guilt for making her husband give up living his life to care for her after the fallout of the sins enjoyed with her lover. But I can understand why that wasn't included because it would affect the book's perfect pace.

Speaking of pace, Gary's work has been accused in the past of being too dark and too bleak. Well, THE CONCRETE GROVE is a fast read. A couple of days at most. If his novels were so dark and so bleak, surely it would be harder work to get through? A couple of days for each chapter perhaps? Not the case.

This is horror writing at its near best. There are only a few horror writers out there writing with Gary's skill - and Clive Barker and Stephen King (Gary's heroes) are not among them. I'm looking forward to the follow-up, SILENT VOICES, which I believe will genuinely cement his status as the top urban horror writer working today.