Ash Wednesday

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It's packaged like mass-market crap but aspects of it resemble literature. It's an entertaining and easy read, but thought provoking and fascinating. The concept for this book is brilliant. The silent, unmoving wraiths are so much more haunting and troubling than any active ghoul. This is what horror novels should be.

Imagine waking up one morning to discover that your home town is now host to dozens of transparent blue wraiths. Silent and stationary, the revenants, remnants of former denizens of your town, stand or lay in the posture in which they died. This is exactly how Chet Williamson opens his classic horror novel, Ash Wednesday. Williamson uses this extraordinary situation to delve into the psyches of the townspeople of Merridale, PA, a stand-in for myriad hamlets across America. In fact, the entire action of the book is dependent on the citizenry's reactions to the eerie specters. Some question their religious beliefs. Others relive their pasts. Some view the spirits' appearance as sign of the end times. A few experience apocalypse or epiphany. Williamson explores several notions in what he has labeled in interviews as his "passive horror novel". One is the idea of the isolated town in modern day America, a notion which he quickly dispels, as, within hours, the entire world becomes aware of the phenomena. Another is humanity's capacity to adapt to even the most extreme situations; within days, the excitement caused by the ghosts dissipates, as people go on with their lives. Finally, there are the parallels to Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim, as one of the novel's chief protagonists, ex bus driver Jim Callendar, is forced to examine his behavior after a tragic school bus accident that killed his son and several other students. Callendar's suffering, coupled with his interactions with troubled Vietnam vet Brad Meyers (who also lost a son in the accident) imbues the book with a poignancy most horror novels only hope to achieve.

I read this book close to 10 years ago, and it still pops up in conversations dealing with horror novels I have enjoyed. This book isn't a cheap thrill, run-of-the-mill slasher book like countless others that have driven the horror fiction industry to the brink of death. This novel brings the concept of horror to its' true home. The human heart and soul. The fact that the apparitions are not animated in any way forces the characters as WELL as the readers to examine themselves in a way many might not find so comfortable. You dont need a scaly monster or a knife weilding maniac to instill fear, or to haunt. Sometimes, all you need is a clear view into the depths of the human soul. There is where the real horror lives.

Of this excellent book! They complain that the ghosts don't do anything, that the book focuses on how people react to them... But this is exactly the point! Any great fiction utilizes a device such as ghosts to give us a mirror with which to see ourselves a bit more clearly. That is exactly what Williamson does in Ash Wednesday. The ghosts aren't just spirits of the dead, they represent all of the past sins committed by the people of the town, and serve to remind them that no matter how deeply the past may appear to be buried, a day of reckoning will come for them.

chet williamson is one of the most underated of all horror authors. the review i read online does not understand one of the most powerful concepts of horror fiction: mystery. williamsons depictions of ghosts that don't move or speak let's us use our most powerful device for trancendental horrific experiences: the power of IMAGINATION. highly recommended.