The Stake

Richard Laymon's sudden passing on Feb. 14, 2001 was a serious blow to horror's literary validity. Anyone who has read more than one of Laymon's books will know that. The Stake is a particularly good one, alternately fall down funny and curl up into a fetal position and cry for momma scary. A horror writer (who seems to be made from a mold quite similiar to Laymon's, judging from the little writer details and scrumptious in-jokes he throws in), his wife, and their neighbors/best friends find a gruesome secret in an old, deserted ghost town. The corpse of a woman with a stake driven through her heart. This is only the first in a long line of frightening and mysterious events that befall our characters, they're far too realistically drawn to be called heroes.As with Laymon's other stories I have read, the human monsters (which include a sadistic rapist and one loony vampire hunter) are far more disgusting and evil than the fantasical creatures that usually inhabit these sorts of tales, this makes the novel far more realistic and disturbing than its contemporaries. As with Laymon's other books I was sorry to see it end, I wanted to hang around the characters some more and see how the events colored the rest of their lives, they were THAT well drawn. Definitely a novel I will be revisiting and one I highly recommend.

I am a fan of weird authors- Hunter S. Thompson, Bret Easton Ellis( Who is my fav.) etc etc. But I was told that The Stake was a good book. I hate horror novels, ever since I read Stephen King, But I got this, and what I found was that this is one of the best books about Obsession ever. We follow two stories in One.The first is Two Couples stumble upon a Coffin with a body with a Stake through it's chest. Larry, a horror novelist, becomes obsessed and He and Pete, the other guy, plan to write a novel about it. So while Larry is finding out who the "Vampire" Is, he bcomes obsessed with who or What it is.The Second being Larry's Daughter who has the hots for her English teacher, who turns out to be a bad person.This book is beyond brilliant, PLEASE BUY THIS BOOK.

I've been reading vampire novels for years, and have even written a few of my own (unpublished). Since cutting my eyeteeth on the greats like Stoker, Rice, and Lumley, to the random paperbacks by unknown authors, I thought I'd learned all their tricks. Richard Laymon proved me wrong. This is not a vampire novel. This is a novel about being human in a dangerous, confusing, and above all unpredictable world. And that's exactly what makes it believable. The characters are real: full-fleshed and multi-faceted, with all the quirkiness of normal human beings. And whatever Laymon throws at them, they rise to the occasion admirably, with equal helpings of heroics and cowardice. The horrors they face are not just pulp-comic monsters, but far worse, because you can turn on the TV news and watch them happening every day. And yet there's still the underlying threat of the vampire...or is there?There's so much more I'd like to write, but I wouldn't dream of spoiling the story. If you're a fan of vampire books, or the horror genre in general, this is a must-read, and you won't be disappointed. If you've never picked one up before, make this your first. You won't regret it.

This was the first book of Richard Laymon's that I read, and if all his books are like this he's just earned himself another fan. The use of explicit violence and sex was so different from what most mainstream writers will allow (or be allowed, grrr, editors) in their books. The unabashed approach to horror and the use of rape (which is pretty high up there on my list of fears) is something not usually found in mainstream Horror. I can only think of one other author to pull out all the stops like this and that would have to be Bentley Little.The way Laymon makes humans out to be more terrifying monsters than anything supernatural was great. Reading this was like watching some B-grade horror flick and I loved it. This book was near impossible to put down, I had to force myself to get some sleep. A highly original vampire tale that is not for the weak-stomached. I am definitely looking forward to reading more of Richard Laymon's work in the future, and if you take this book for a spin you will too.

Having read some 10 or more of Richard Laymon's novels over the past 2 or 3 years I found this, in it's own subtle way, to be close to the best. To find a "staked" corpse in a Ghost Town is one thing, but to hide it in your garage and fall in love with it - that takes the cake !! Make the hero a horror writer and it only adds to the intrigue of the story. This one gets a "9" only because I've saved the "10" for "Savage". ps - just about all of Laymon's books can be found in any popular bookstore in Australia so I'm a bit confused about the "hard to find" classification.