Deep Night

There's a moment in the movie THE THING (the 1951 version) when a blizzard has been raging throughout the night, and the people in the outpost suddenly realize they're trapped with some unnamed horror. Even repeated viewings don't diminish that chill. Snowfall can be terrifying. Ask any of the characters in Greg Gifune's Deep Night. As always with Gifune's work, the muscular prose gets a headlock on the reader almost at once. A night of snowbound trauma permanently marks a group of friends, one of whom has suffered from night terrors all his life. (In a curious way, it gives him an advantage, because unreasoning fear constitutes a new experience for the others.) When they can't bring themselves even to discuss the events of that night, demons track them down, one by one, an easy task since the group now carries a spiritual infection within them ... and demons of course thrive on this sort of thing. Be warned. The level of creeping dread grows increasingly intense. This is a profoundly unsettling book, on many levels a philosophical consideration of the nature both of demons and of evil itself. Greg Gifune's writing rarely offers conventional thrills. Nothing so obvious. Though enough visceral terror lurks in these pages to satiate even the most avid pulp fan, the horrors at the heart of Deep Night are no less existential than those haunting The View from the Lake or The Bleeding Season, never mind the flashes of razor-sharp wit or the complex moral issues presented. "Their eyes met as both men tried their best to quiet the echoes of screams bellowing in their minds - screams of relentless agony and terror - all the while ignoring the shadows growing along the walls and everything hidden within them." Strong stuff, but then Gifune's work has never been for the weak hearted. Or the weak minded. He remains the thinking reader's horror writer, and his fiction always evokes serious issues. For instance ... what is insanity? What if it could be spread like a disease from mind to mind, plunging individuals into never-ending nightmares. And if reality is nothing more than consensus, what happens if all members of a group have gone mad? Or have they? Maybe it's all true. Demonic possession. Alien abduction. Everything people fear in the dark. Perhaps there are malevolent entities that exist between worlds. And perhaps some "gifted" individuals really can see them. And be seen. Imagine being trapped in an elevator with a madman: no escape ... until the cable snaps. That experience is not unlike reading a novel by Greg Gifune. Deep Night offers all the joys (and metaphysical terrors) that his ever-growing number of fans have come to expect: three-dimensional characters so richly conceived as to be virtually unique within the genre, fascinating and natural dialogue (an especially high order of accomplishment considering the heightened unnaturalness of the situations), and the inexorable horror of a plotline constructed l

Deep, according to the ninth definition, is 'Large in quantity or size,' and truer words were never used in a title. At over 500 pages, I dreaded how long it would take me to get through this in my moribund spare time. This was definitely not something I expected to whip through during a busy holiday weekend yet, somehow I did just that. I jotted one note near the beginning, 'don't use the word vague when trying to describe vague,' and that was the last time I looked up. Well, almost the last time. The story, using the evil but effective method of slowly remembered memories, gives you just enough to urge you forward, making you curious and crazy all at once. The characters were real, these people existed, and even though they're not all that memorable afterwards, they did their job and shut the curtain of disbelief, trapping you in there with them. Pace was completely controlled by story, characters and an unabashed desire to know more about both--without shame I ignored my in-laws and kept reading. The atmosphere was simple yet richly detailed; you felt the frustration of the characters in your temples and the cold of the blizzard in your toes. Gifune's style was smooth but jarring. Easy to read, relaxed language was overshadowed by a feeling of force occasionally. Two chapter endings in particular stand out. More memorable than any of the characters, these contrived breaks built the tension to the last sentence for the sole purpose of making you turn the page--but they weren't subtle about it. They jumped up and down, waved flags, and screamed "Look at me! Turn the page!" Other than those few little bumps, I thoroughly enjoyed it, going back to reread certain sections immediately upon finishing. At first I thought it would be my first five of the year, but then I started thinking about those chapter endings that bothered me, and the fact that the characters were no longer alive for me...and the ending. Sometimes, the best way to answer is to be ambiguous enough, or deep enough, to make those listening wonder if you answered at all. Then again, sometimes, the best answers are those left completely unspoken. 4 - and hey, this Greg guy? Yeah... he's worth watching.