I have found the secret to making the shift go by faster – bring a good book. Yesterday I brought Tess Gerritson’s new book which I had to finish when I got home. The book was good and I enjoyed it a lot – it kind of prepared me a bit for the next book in that I found that both books had the common theme of evil walking the earth.
Today I brought John Saul’s new book “In the Dark of the Night”. I’ve been a fan of John’s for many years now so when I saw his latest book in the stacks of the “New Book” section of the library, I had to check it out.
The book was good – the plot, in a nutshell, was about a psychologist who collected items from renowned seriel killers such as Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jack the Ripper, and of course Lizzy Borden (pretty much had to be her as there aren’t too many famous women serial killers). The items, he found, held the spirit of each killer and that whoever touched these items would start hearing the serial killers voices to kill more victims in the same manner that they had. The doctor drowns, his estate is locked up and everything is fine until the All American Family rents the estate for the summer. The killings start again and everyone is a suspect.
My beef with the book is not it’s plot line – that was rather intriguing though brought to mind other similar plots. What got to me was the books “gross out” factor. Why do authors think that adding all this gore makes their story more popular? This book rated a ten on the gore meter – so bad in some places that I literally felt like vomiting. Now that I’m done with it, I feel numb and in despair. Why? Because I know that what he described in such detail is probably nothing compared to the true crime scenes the officer’s had to see. People really did these kinds of horrible things and worse.
The thing is – I don’t want to know the gory details. My imagination works just fine – if someone is decapitated, I can picture that just fine without the added details this author just had to include. I know how blood congeals so I don’t need an in depth description of how it feels when it is congealed. The book was ruined for me because of the gore, and I have a pretty high tolerance for such stuff.
I know what you are thinking – why did I continue reading the book if it disturbed me so? Two reasons really – first is that the concept and characters were interesting and secondly, I was too far into the book to stop. Once I have a vested interest in the characters, I have to finish the book. If a book fails to pique my interest in the first few chapters, I’m fine with not finishing it.
Maybe they could put a warning in the margin at the beginning of the paragraph and then at the end of the ghastly stuff. A simple “gore” and an “end of gore” comment would be sufficient. None of the gore was pertinent to the plot and not reading it wouldn’t have made a person feel like they were lost in the storyline. It was all frivolous fluff.
I am thankful that I didn’t finish the book at night – I wouldn’t have been able to sleep. No one enjoys having nightmares or even bad dreams as not all bad dreams are nightmares. Saul has another book I haven’t read called “The Perfect Nightmare”. Even though I’m a fan, after reading this book, I don’t think I can trust a book of his not to be gory.
Excessive gore, like excessive sex, makes me think the author wasn’t confident in his ability to paint a proper picture for the reader without it. If they can’t, then I don’t need to read their book.
It is imagination that gives shape to the universe. –Barry Lopez
