11. Wake In Fright

By Kenneth Cook             

This 1966 debut novel exceeded my expectations.  I had an idea of what I’d be in for having seen the 1971 film by Ted Kotcheff just weeks ago.  Though I didn't know it yet, this would be the most faithful adaption of a book I’ve ever encountered. The only time  the film took a different approach was with the ending.

It took me two years to summon the courage to watch Wake In Fright on Shudder.  Why?  You might ask.  

Because the kangaroos.  

It's not a spoiler because everyone reading this would know about the kangaroos (and no one reads this blog anymore anyway).  I admit I shut my eyes when the scene kept going.  I, who could otherwise stomach rape revenge films and torture porn, drew the line at animal cruelty.

Olman has yet to watch the film, but he had this 1967 Penguin copy for a while (it was first published in 1961) and decided to finally read it.  And when I saw that he was reading it, I wanted to read it.    

The writing was exceptionally good.  Apparently Wake in Fright was billed as the first Outback horror story.  But it's also psychological and existential horror, as there were no traditional monsters, psycho killers nor the occult.  There were certainly horrific situations, and men with monstrous appetites, but no pure evil was portrayed.  There were awful, pathetic, mundane situations that only a weak, meek, hard-up man like John Grant would let himself be caught up in a living nightmare of his own making.

Some of the situations I personally found horrifying did not involve the slaughter of wild animals, or any violence for that matter.  Rather what really struck me were passages describing the visceral claustrophobia of being trapped inside a baking car in the middle of a wasteland inhaling the stench of sweaty people that you mildly despise:

     They were on their way, four men and a dog, stewing together.

     When you travel by road in the west you travel with a cohort of dust which streams up from your tyres and rolls away in a disintegrating funnel, defining the currents of air your vehicle sets in motion.  And somehow a lot of dust comes in the windows and settles in your hair and your clothes and most of all in your eyes and throat.

     And the heat is unthinkable, no matter how widely the windows are open, and the sweat streams off your body and into your socks, and if there are a number of people in the car their body stenches mingle disagreeably.

Now that to me is true horror!

There was also a lot of drinking and all the consequences of out of control boozing.  And boy, were there consequences, and it didn't just stop with the consumption of kangaroo testicles.  All this and more, laden with a fair amount of sardonic humour via the thoughts and observations of our hapless and arrogant anti-hero, John Grant.   Here was a passage which struck me as sharp and funny:    

     Hynes talked continuously through dinner.  Mrs. Hynes laughed politely sometimes, said ‘My! My!’ at appropriate points and displayed absolutely no interest in either Grant or Hynes. Janette said nothing. Grant gained the impression that Hynes was recognized as the head of the family and that his wishes were more or less law, but that nobody thought much of him. He had encountered similar situations in other western families.

Both book and film languished in obscurity for a while, especially Australia where locals did not take well to the unsympathetic portrayal of their own kind, but both had some acclaim overseas, and are now recognized as Australian classics.

10. Odd Thomas

By Dean Koontz         

9. Sleeping Giants

By Sylvain Neuvel    

Another sci-fi book lent to me by my boss.  It was a personal favourite of his, partly because the writer is a local boy (hails from Quebec) and partly because the novel reads like a screenplay (it was also written originally in English for accessibility). 

The hardback languished on my desk at work for a number of months.  My company was undergoing renovations, so I had to move to a different area (after years and years of staying put!).  I finally decided to take the book home with me to read.  

The story unfolded in the epistolary format where each chapter featured a character being interviewed by a high-ranking government agent.

The writing was easy to read but I didn’t really like it.  Characterizations were rather two-dimensional and the dialogue often hokey and somewhat juvenile.  There were parts that were amusing and enjoyable, but the overall style was rather derivative and clichéd.   

Olman was interested in reading Sleeping Giants after I was done.  Although I gave him fair warning about how I didn’t like it, he thought he should read it out of obligation as the writer is Quebecois.  When he finished he had similar feelings as I although he was more generous in his review.

SG is first in a trilogy of which my boss has all the books.  When I informed him that I finished SG, he immediately offered to lend me the rest.  I rather abruptly declined, saying that I needed to catch up with other books in my pile, which was true, but I still felt a bit awkward about my sudden refusal!   This book was just not for me.

8. The Passenger

By Lisa Lutz    

The Passenger (2016) is my first Lisa Lutz novel that's not part of the Spellman universe. It’s a departure from the witty caper humour that I associate with that well-loved series.  It seems that Lutz wanted to jump on the Gone Girl bandwagon and try her hand at a dark psychological crime thriller.

 

I’m writing this review four years after having read The Passenger so I don’t recall much of the plot, though I do remember the twist, which veered into soap opera territory.  Something about Jo’s (the real name of protagonist) mom having a secret affair with Mr. Oliver, the rich, powerful guy in town.  Jo grows up ignorant of who her dad was, and of course, ends up falling in love with the wrong boy – Mr. Oliver's son, her half-brother, unbeknownst to the young lovebirds.  Some terrible accident happens involving Jo, and Mr. Oliver helps her leave town with a new identity and enough money to start a new life elsewhere.

 

But before all this got revealed, the novel begins with a dead husband, a fleeing widow and a mystery of who Tanya Dubois is and why keeps running off and changing identities.  

 

The official blurb summary:

 48 hours after leaving her husband’s body at the base of the stairs, Tanya Dubois cashes in her credit cards, dyes her hair brown, demands a new name from a shadowy voice over the phone, and flees town. It’s not the first time.

She meets Blue, a female bartender who recognizes the hunted look in a fugitive’s eyes and offers her a place to stay. With dwindling choices, Tanya-now-Amelia accepts. An uneasy―and dangerous―alliance is born.

It’s almost impossible to live off the grid today, but Amelia-now-Debra and Blue have the courage, the ingenuity, and the desperation, to try. Hopscotching from city to city, Debra especially is chased by a very dark secret…can she outrun her past?

This review also provides a good summary that helped me recall events.

 

As one Goodreads reviewer said: “this is a three-star book but I had a four-star time reading it.”   

The Passenger was definitely flawed in its execution, but I was immediately drawn into the central character and the fairly gripping narrative. Lutz has always had a way of making her protagonists relatable and likeable, despite their tragic flaws.  She's definitely become one of my fave contemporary genre writers.

7. Recursion

By Blake Crouch            

 

6. Crazy Rich Asians

By Kevin Kwan  

CRA was everything I expected it to be.  Breezy, comedic and romantic with a dash of amusing insight.

My SIL quite enjoyed CRA and was already reading the sequel when I saw her last Xmas. She preferred reading the book first before watching the movie as the book goes into more detail about the familial relationships and social hierarchies of Singaporean high society.  But I had already watched the movie during my flight to SF, which btw, was the perfect flick to pass the time, so it worked out anyway despite my SIL’s regretful projections on me.  

For my friend’s birthday last September, I bought her this copy as the movie had already been out and was a runaway hit.  And she told me she thought it was better to watch the movie first, then read the book as the film did such a wonderfully lavish job with the production design and fashion, that her pre-envisioning of that world would have paled in comparison.  My friend gladly lent the book to me, which was how I got to read it.  Win-win!!