In Darkness Waiting

A great example of small town horror at its best, In Darkness Waiting tells the story of young Perry Strandman, who accompanies his Aunt June on a trip to the isolated town of Jasper, Oregon. June is traveling to the small hamlet to assist her friend Sandra Cummings in the care and treatment of her daughter Tetty, who has recently begun to display uncharacteristic violent tendencies. Even as they enter Sandra's home, the pair can sense something's very wrong with Tetty, who must be restrained for fear of her doing damage to herself and others. Perry soon learns that the wrongness he feels permeates the entire town. Eventually, he learns the true cause of that wrongness, a truth so fantastic he can barely comprehend it. Accepting that truth allows him to survive even as the rest of the townsfolk slowly succumb to an internal evil that apparently only requires extreme anger to emerge. Reminiscent of David Morrell's The Totem, In Darkness Waiting is, as Shirley himself notes in his fascinating introduction, an exploration of man's inhumanity to man, a search for an explanation of people's ability to dehumanize their fellow human beings to the point where their humiliation and torture become acceptable, even the norm. Unfortunately this tendency is not some historical or isolated oddity. Although Shirley cites the Nazi soldiers who killed millions of Jews as a primary example of this sickness, he can also refer to the recent atrocities which occurred at the Abu Gharib prison in Iraq to illustrate his point. This being a Shirley novel, however, means that his search is approached in fictional terms, through the vehicle of story, rather than through an analysis of dry, clinical data. Taking this tack, Shirley combines elements of both quiet horror and splatterpunk to great effect, slowly creating a palpable sense of menace which culminates in one of the most horrific and surreal set pieces you're ever likely to read. Doing so, Shirley once again proves that his name should be included among the ranks of those considered as the modern masters of horror. If you haven't read this novel in its previous incarnation, then by all means do so now.

I was one of the few remaining, disintegrating legion who eagerly devoured this horror story shortly after it originally came out in an onyx paperback in '88 -- I probably read In Darkness Waiting about 4 yrs after that seemingly innocuous date. It was as fine and focused a dark gem of terror as one could covet, back in the day. Now through a fortuitous chance, seventeen years later, this somewhat overlooked novel gets the treatment it deserves, with a "Director's Cut" edition finely housed in a sturdy hardbound tome with as slick and glossily evil a cover jacket as could do justice to the dark interiors reflected within. Just as the title itself beckons, no -- dares the reader to lift the cover and embark, I implore any purveyors of the shades of literary darkness to place this tome as high on your priority list as you possibly can. It is waiting to devour you.

I have a voracious appetite for horror novels (as my wall of books will attest to,) and I can honestly say, out of the hundreds that I've read, this is one of the creepiest books ever. Few horror novels really get to me (most of them are just fun thrill rides through the dark,) but this one gave me the honest to God heebie-jeebies. The doctor's "Lord of Dark Corners" in the attic freaked me out. Do yourself a favor and track this book down.