The Mall [Paperback]

I'll cut to the chase: The Mall is absolutely brilliant.

I had thought that the last word on consumerism came with Fight Club and No Logo, and anything that followed would be a retread of familiar ground, but SL Grey has somehow managed to make this well-trodden theme and everything that goes with it seem fresh again.

I would never have expected this to happen within the narrative of a psychological horror/thriller - I was expecting a simple, lean mash-up of Saw, Cube and Fight Club going by the blurb - so what I read was a nice surprise. Character-wise, I was really turned round on the lead character of Rhoda (an object lesson in how to make an initially unsympathetic person compelling enough to want to be around), and the places that she and other lead Dan are taken emotionally are surprising yet always feel authentic.

What's best about the book is that its premise screams "commercial" but there's more to it than what's on the surface. Part two's bravely luxurious pace allows the character stuff the space to breathe, and while a return to The Mall always seems inevitable (and it's brilliant how it actually seems possible that such a return is desirable), the discoveries that Rhoda and Dan make about each other, and how far both characters have come since the opening of the novel, make their realisation of what they must do have an emotional truth that's pretty rare in today's commercial fiction.

Therefore, what could easily have descended into gratuitous schlock-horror is, in fact, a great character piece. There are still scares galore for horror fans, though, of course. And the narrative is littered with witty, cool stuff. Text messaging from hell. A restaurant called McColons. Shoppers like you've never seen before. There's a bucketload of imagination on display here and I loved reading it.

So my advice is to buy The Mall - right now if you're lucky enough to own a Kindle, but definitely when the book is released in hardback later this year. As others have already said, you'll never look at a shop mannequin in the same way again. More importantly, though, after reading this book you'll be counting the days until SL Grey releases his/her next novel.

The Mall is edgy, spooky and real...ANd also really funny. Fargo meets the Matrix meets Das Kapital. I loved the satire, the description and the action. McColon's Big Fat Number 2 (eeeeuuuu, puke, retch!), the delightful Colt's body image issues, Dan's angst and little neuroses, Rhoda's kickass grit, the buffoon security guards... And the surprisingly normalness of it all. Very vivid. I felt like I was reading a movie. This book is hard to categorise but really fun and freaky at the same time. I can't walk past shop mannequins in the same way again!

S.L. Grey is the pen name of the writing team of Sarah Lotz and Louis Greenberg. This is their first collaboration and marks an impressive step forward for South African genre fiction.

Don't you just love this cover? Mannequins are a bit creepy at the best of times, but this one puts them to shame. Those too human eyes staring out from the cover are more than a little disconcerting and I love those full red lips with the droplet of blood suspended from their edge. This cover takes an everyday object and, with some subtle changes, makes it something unsettling and gruesome. This mirrors the book in many ways and I offer my compliments to the design team at Corvus for this awesome piece of design work.

In my opening paragraph I mention that The Mall is a step forward for genre fiction in South Africa. I just wanted to clarify what I meant - for years a lot of people have associated South African literature with stories about apartheid and the political and racial struggles that were a part of life at that time. I include myself in that group. So whenever I wanted to read something from a genre such as sci-fi, horror or fantasy I had to turn to American or European authors for my fix. This is slowly changing and South African authors are branching out into genre fiction and exploring the possibilities there.

There are two main characters in The Mall - Rhoda, a young street-wise black woman who has lost the young boy she was looking after at the mall and Daniel, the emo bookstore employee who drifts, dissatisfied through his life. Neither character is particularly likeable when we first meet them and I'm impressed that Grey managed to pull this off. You may not like them initially, but the story will suck you in and by the time you notice them again, the characters have started to grow and adapt. For me this was a great illustration of an author using the characters that would tell the story best and then trusting that the reader will come along for the ride. And it's a ride that definitely worth a try.

The book is written with the chapters alternating between Rhoda and Daniel's viewpoints. Even more interesting for me was that Rhoda's sections are all written by Lotz and Daniel's by Greenberg, yet there is no disjunction in the story and the two styles compliment each other. The horror depicted in The Mall doesn't rely on slasher gore, but it rather more of the unsettling variety and that tingle down your spine will likely stick with you for a while after you finish it. I think the trick here is that Grey leaves a lot to your own imagination, painting just enough of a picture for you to complete it in your mind. And once it's there, that image will stay with you.

The Mall is an unsettling tale that will have you questioning your reality.