If I have misspelled anything in this post, forgive me. I wrote a lot. Needless to say, there are spoilers. I don’t know how many people keep up to date with the current trends of horror books. I am not 100% up to date myself.
I heard about it by chance from another blogger. Who said they were reading it. After reading the description, and also hearing a small excerpt from the audiobook on YouTube, I was hooked. But I am warning you now, I’m going to whine a lot. I have a love/hate relationship with this book.
I imagined something akin to Goonies. Or maybe even Super 8. Or perhaps It. What I got wasn’t at all what I wanted. In fact, by the end of it I was left feeling empty.
Dissatisfied. I mean I don’t know the whole story behind this book. But I wonder why the author wasted so much potential. It wasn’t intentional I think. But I personally felt cheated.
And I am restraining myself from over criticizing the book. Because despite that, there were still parts that I liked. Parts that showed promise. And the author should have expanded those parts out. Or maybe even just concentrated on them way period.
But without further adieu, here’s my review.
Originally, I gave it 3 stars instead of five. I mean don’t get me wrong, the writing is superb. And the character of the Ghoul was the most fascinating person of all. Which caught me off guard. If Ghouls are real, this sounds like what a ghoul would really be like.
Not the dumb, shuffling, zombie like creatures you’d imagine. He’s actually kind of intellectual. But gross and disgusting for more reasons than just what he is. So for those two reasons only did I give it a 4 out of 5. The premise and plot was masterful.
And the villain and child heroes were perfect. I just don’t think the book lived up to it’s potential. For starters, the book is way too short. With the Prologue and Epilogue included, it’s only 233 pages long. Now to someone who doesn’t read much, that sounds like a lot.
But trust me, it isn’t. That’s barely the beginning for most books. And that isn’t really a lot of time for you to tell a story. But I figured,
“Well maybe the author is going to jam pack most of the chapters with a lot of information. So that there’s a lot of chapters in just 200+ pages,”
Sadly that didn’t happen. The most you see of the Ghoul, is at the very beginning during the Prologue. And sometime before and after Chapter 10. Almost the whole damn book is nothing more than the typical, boyhood, coming of age story in a small town.
And life’s hard lessons yadda, yadda, yadda, I get it.
Joss Whedon did the same thing with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Every monster she ever faced was a “metaphor for growing up”. But at least he didn’t make it obvious. He masqueraded it behind monsters. Including the end of the world. And interesting plot points. He didn’t do that.
And there’s no attempt to hide it or turn them into something more interesting and fantastical. It’s not about a young boy thrust into a world of magic and the supernatural. It’s more like a random monster thrust into an overly mundane world. One that is as corrupt as the decaying flesh of the cemetery. In fact you get the symbolism of the decaying flesh being moral decay of society.
When he mentions the lives of all the dead people buried in the cemetery. In particular he mentions a boy who was shot by his brother. After his brother caught him being pleasured by his family pet (I won’t go into that further). It’s a small foot note within the story. But it illustrates the point well.
That the Ghoul is merely feeding off of the existing corruption of this new world. And I’m sure someone reading this is going to say “but that’s awesome!” Eh, it could be made interesting. But not in this case.
The Boys & the Town
Half of the book was about Timmy Graco and his two friends. Doug Kaiser and Barry Smeltzer. And the horrors his friends face at home. Doug, is the victim of rape. By his alcoholic, pedophile, mother.
Who was kicked out of her job as a school nurse for unspecified reasons. But I’m sure we can all figure out why. And to make it worse, when his father found out, he abandoned the household. Without his son. So let me get this straight, he knows his wife is a pedophile, and he allowed her to stay with his son? Did he ever care about him?
Then of course we have Barry Smeltzer whose father is an abusive bastard. He beats the crap out of his wife and son on a near daily basis. Timmy’s parents are more or less. They aren’t physically abusive. But they are a bunch of assholes.
His father is one of those toxically masculine men. Who wants his son to be an athlete. And he thinks his 12 year old son is gay. Because he likes comic books instead of football. Yeah you read that right.
And he keeps pressuring his son to stop watching cartoons and reading comics to join the foot ball team. You know, with a bunch of older boys who will probably beat the crap out of him on the field. But yay! At least it’ll drain the gay out of him right? He’s not gay by the way. He’s in love with the Pastor’s daughter, Katie Moore. I’m just clarifying so people don’t think it’s a story about him being in the closet.
Since all the personal stories seem to take up this book. I felt like I was reading a damn soap opera in the form of a novel. Instead of a horror novel. For fucks sake, if I wanted to read something like that, I could have read The Catcher in the Rye. Or Native Son (which is more my type of book).
His mother enables his father’s toxic behavior. Backing him up even though she knows he’s wrong. I would classify Timmy’s parents as emotionally abusive. Rather than physically abusing. His Grandfather is the only real guiding light in his life.
He’s an awesome man. And I wish his character had actually lived. He would have been a great person for Timmy to have in his life. And again……. the Ghoul is absent. For most of the story, everything is kept separated.
Before the Ghoul himself was unleashed, the boys played in the cemetery all of the time. It’s one of the few interesting places in town. They’re very ingenious. They figured out how to make a special hideout for themselves. Instead of the typical treehouse you would expect, they created the Dugout.
They dug a deep pit inside the cemetery grounds. And they turned it into a club house. One with comics. Crayons and arts stuff. Which they use to create a map of the town itself.
The map itself is impressive. Loved it. They placed a stove with a pipe leading outside to the surface. In case they need to warm themselves up. They got a wooden door with a latch on it.
To cover the dugout. And of course dirty magazines. I laughed so hard at that. Timmy’s grandpa even put a large table into the dugout for them to use. I wish I had a place like that growing up.
That sounds way better than a tree house. It’s like a little bunker. And the map that Doug draws, has the whole town mapped. Including the tree house used by their arch enemies : Ronny and his friends.
A group of older kids who like to cause problems for them. Despite that, they seem to enjoy the rivalry. It’s fun to have an “enemy” for them to fight. Unfortunately, Ronny and his friends tried to find the Dougout. But what they found instead was a sinkhole.
Leading directly into the Ghoul’s lair. Ronny tried to escape. But Clark Smeltzer blocked his way out. And let the Ghoul end him.
Eventually, the people and authorities begin to believe that this is the work of a serial killer. And the children are ordered to stay at home by their parents. The first people to go missing was Reverend Moore’s eldest daughter, Karen. And her lover Pat Kemp. Nobody knows if they are even alive.
As a reward for his services, the Ghoul grants Clark Smeltzer all the jewelry and other valuables from the graves. The rings and even money that people leave in the caskets of the dead. Thinking that these things won’t be touched. And that they are better left with the dead. Clark is suddenly able to give his wife and son fancy gifts.
And even to take them out to nice restaurants. His Master true to his word, gives Clark all the valuables. Even the money that Ronny and his friends had in their wallets prior to death. It amazes me that not a single person, not even his family, thought that this was weird. Like how could a person with such low pay, suddenly have all this money? And didn’t anyone notice the jewelry that his wife had on? It should have been obvious that something fishy was going on.
But as you read the story, it’s obvious that the adults have their heads shoved so far up their own asses it’s a wonder they could breathe. Even when Timmy flat out tells his parents that Doug was being abused by his mother, they never bothered to look into it. They just assumed he was angry at them and making a horrible lie to shock them. The adults aren’t just the real monsters. They’re the real idiots.
The Legend of the Ghoul
A long time ago, the people who lived in that small town, had immigrated from Germany and other parts of Europe. They were the Pennsylvania Dutch. They used magic that actually comes from ancient pre-Christian religions. But then later was Christianized.
This is actually real.
And this brand new magical practice was created called Powwow. The name was obviously taken from Native Americans. But still to this day nobody knows why they called it that. The towns people used sorcery from the spell books, “Powwows or Long Lost Friend” by John George Hohman, and The Daemonolateria.
When the Ghoul was haunting the people in the town and causing disappearances, the people united.
And they drove the Ghoul back to its underground caves. Then they carved a magical cross used in Powwow to bind the demon. It was carved on a gravestone. So that no one would ever touch it. This is a real symbol against black magic and evil spirits used in Powwow.
Here it is, as depicted in the book.
But Clark Smeltzer in a drunk stupor, accidentally bumped into the stone. And it fell and broke in half. Which breaks the spell. Effectively releasing the Ghoul from his paralysis. Because this whole time, the thing has been alive and awake.
It’s just been unable to move. And the seal bound it to the spot. And kept it from using higher brain functions. It was as if it was drugged.
With the seal broken, it suddenly becomes fully aware again. And is now mobile. The Ghoul isn’t a Vampire per say, but similar. It has super speed and strength. And the ability to spontaneously regenerate from any wound.
The only way to kill it, is through sunlight. And it’s skin glows a pale blue. While also exuding a slime through its skin that allows it to move underground. And long, razor sharp talons. What gets me is how evolved the Ghoul is.
It’s obvious these are traits of evolution. Glowing skin to navigate in the dark, slimy skin to move effortlessly in the dirt, and talons and sharp teeth for shredding and eating corpses. It has all it needs to survive. What neither the book illustrations or the movie depiction show however is the big bulging belly. It’s usually tall and skinny though.
So I don’t know if the belly is due to it having eaten. When it rises from the grave, Barry’s father who is the undertaker of the property is the first person he meets. And it forces Clark Smeltzer to kidnap women for him. To have a harem of wives.
In order to re-populate the Ghouls of the world. Since the last time he was awake, he had only seen one other ghoul in hundreds of years. He suspects that he’s the last one. And he aims to bring back his lost race.
As you can imagine, he’s a violent rapist.
Who feeds his “wives” the flesh of the dead.
The most interesting parts of the book are the Ghoul himself. His mind for example.
In his moments of introspection, he speaks of the Vampires.
The Fallen Demonic Spirits. And the Pagan Gods. As well as the Christian God. Granted, he calls the Pagan Gods “small gods” which I find hard to believe. A God is a God.
And a demon would fear them no matter what. And he talks about the commandment that the Monotheist God gave to the Ghouls. That they can only eat dead flesh. Never the living. This isn’t entirely wrong. The concept of the Ghoul comes from ancient Pagan Mesopotamian lore.
In Mesopotamia it was called the Gallu. Later Islam, popularized the creature again calling it a Ghul. Though in Islamic lore, a Ghul is always a female. Specifically it’s the spirit of a dead Prostitute who becomes a demon after death. Feeding on dead flesh and blood.
However, contrary to the book they actually can eat the living, and drink living blood. So they are related on some level to the vampires. But this Ghoul seems more like an ancient Mesopotamian Gallu rather than a Muslim Ghul. Gallu are usually male. So that would mean a Gallu is a male Ghoul.
And a Ghul is a female Ghoul. This isn’t in the book. This is just me talking about the possible origins of Ghouls. Since it acknowledges all Gods, it would have to be ancient. And probably saw the Gods when they would appear on Earth.
He has a deep hatred of all things holy. I have to give the Author credit. The Ghoul is the best literary villain I have read in some time. Not a typical flesh eating monster. It has intelligence beyond that of what we are all used to seeing on tv or reading in books.
Where undead creatures are normally portrayed as stupid. Drone like even. Even in modern slang, a person in a vegetable state is called a “zombie”. Where they just zone out. The Ghoul is far from that. He’s intelligent.
And while he can be and act primitive due to his instincts and desires. But it’s clear that he has a sentience and even a wisdom about him. But it’s a dark and twisted wisdom. Known only to those creatures that live in the grave. And have seen the passage of time in the decay of monuments.
In the fall of civilizations. In the shadows of the human heart and the night. It also seems to have powerful psychic abilities. Even when it was paralyzed, it could sense Clark Smeltzer’s innermost self. Before he was released, he described Smeltzer as having a “mind like a hive of bees“.
Describing Smeltzer’s emotional state as a mixture of anger, sadness, confusion, and the drunkenness. And this was all from beneath the ground. At just a small portion of it’s powers. It could tell all of that with just a moment’s focus. And it’s ability to smell and hear is heightened as well.
Despite it’s obvious evil, the Ghoul has some measure of human qualities in it too. It allows itself to die in the heat of the sun chasing Karen Moore. Because on some sick level, he really thought he loved her. Thought that is. You don’t don’t do those things to people you love.
But it wanted her to bare his children. So he could be a father. And he loved his people so much. That he asked for these women. So that he could try to save his own race.
An almost human quality to it. The way it does this is despicable. But he believes he is justified in what he is doing. He wants to save the ghoul race. And he refers to the kidnap victims as “his wives”.
But rather than a derogatory or mocking way, he seems to take this seriously. As if it were a relationship sealed by the Gods. He feeds them because he takes on a Hunter gatherer role for them. And when Smeltzer brought the second victim to him, he placed her over his shoulder and tried to soothe her. Saying that he would take care of her.
Please don’t misunderstand me. The Ghoul is an ancient misogynistic asshole. He has no morality. And he is cruel. But he does have something inside of his heart that allows him to at least simulate a version of love.
If only his version. Which is twisted. He begs for Karen to come back when he chases her saying “come back my wife! I can’t be alone again,” In many ways, this vile monster is a tragic character. A creature both alive and not alive. Who probably didn’t ask to become this way.
Truly a worthy villain for any book. When Timmy cries at the Ghoul’s death, because he sees it as nothing more than an animal. An angry and wounded animal, he asks a question. He asks why he would he enter the sunlight knowing that he would die. And Barry surprisingly answered : Because he didn’t want to be alone again.
Even demons of the night need companionship.
And back to the Drama
That’s pretty much all the insight into the Ghoul you are going to get. Because “the real story” is about kids being abused and how it’s part of growing up. And how adults are fucking liars. Clark Smeltzer beats the crap out of his son and his wife. Timmy doesn’t go through that, and is mostly normal.
Sometimes you see Clark Smeltzer serving the Ghoul by kidnapping women. Or hiding dead bodies etc..but those are more like footnotes. The real “action” is the stuff that happens behind closed doors to the kids. Barry beaten almost to death. Doug crying because his mother is trying to break down the door to rape him.
And Timmy eventually having his asshole of a father destroy his comic book collection. Because he told his son he could tell him anything. So when Timmy tells him that he believes a Ghoul is killing people and that it probably devoured his grandfather’s body he goes insane. Granted I can sort of understand the reaction of hearing a child nonchalantly mention a corpse of a dead loved one being eaten. This boy really should have thought that one through.
But instead of at least understanding that his son might be going through a phase, he decided to scream at him. And destroy his comics. Grounding him for the rest of summer. And forcing him to watch the destruction of his comics. Telling him that if he looks away, he’ll ground him for another month.
And all of this is to make him “grow up” and get serious about life. You know, like any typical 12 year old. Which pretty much proves that adults are all liars. And that they are the real monsters. He tells him he’s doing something for “his own good“.
That’s what they always say, but it’s usually for there’s. Not his. So imagine reading seemingly endless pages about just that. And all the while I’m waiting to get back to the real reason I picked up this book in the first place : the Ghoul. So when do I see the damn Ghoul story? Chapter 10.
Which is page 131.
It’s already more than half of the book already. And NOW is when Timmy finally realizes something weird is going on. He and Katie Moore find the broken Gravestone with the Powwow cross on pages 141-142. And then, at page 143-144 Reverend Moore finally tells them the legend of the Ghoul and how it was trapped.
Finally we see things start to move. After the molasses slow burn. The problem is, now everything speeds up way too fast. And the Ghoul is defeated that very same night. Unfortunately, that night Doug has to escape from his house.
You see in both the movie and the book, he put a padlock on the door of his room to keep his mother out. But the nasty drunken predator is so desperate to violate him, that she actually tears the screen down and opens the window of his room. And then climbs inside so she can rape him again. He runs away. And goes to the dugout.
The problem is, that he sees Clark Smeltzer talking to the Ghoul. And the Ghoul catches his scent. And then it follows Doug to the dugout and takes him. We don’t see how Doug dies. Only that he’s been ripped down into a hole in the Dougout made by the Ghoul.
And this ends up being the very last scene we ever see Doug in. Unless you count his corpse which has been shredded to pieces and eaten by the Ghoul. And his head which the Ghoul holds up for Timmy to see. In order to mock him when he goes to rescue Karen and the other victim.
Now the rest of the book is the night when Timmy both discovered the story of the Ghoul, and then killed it. And he was unable to save Doug. He only managed to save Karen Moore, Katie’s big sister. The other girl was presumably killed by the Ghoul when she attacked him in self defense. That’s it.
What a fucking waste. All that sermon about how adults are the real monsters. And the hard lessons of life. All that slow burn presumably leading up somewhere. And it was for nothing.
I read 10 Chapters on the evils of the adult world. And the meaningless existence of small town life. But not enough time on the Ghoul. Over all, I was disappointed and left feeling hollow at the end of the book.
Final Thoughts
Doug Keizer, Timmy Graco, and Barry Smeltzer
One of the first gripes I have with this other than the length of the book, is wasted potential. The Reverend Mentions a character you never see in the story. His name is Nelson LeHorn. This man is the last Powwow practitioner in the whole area. And that’s it. That’s all you hear of him.
I mean call me crazy. But, the author has Timmy do research on the Ghoul. Using comic books. Wouldn’t it have been better if you have all three kids track down LeHorn and learn more about the Ghoul from him? Like it’s true origins. Why did it come to the town instead of stay in the Middle East where it came from.
How did it come to the Americas in the first place? What is the true demonic nature of a ghoul (their origin) etc..
There’s a lot of potential here. And LeHorn could have show them the truth. Or even given special charms or prayers to ward it off. It makes sense for them researching, and eventually fighting the Ghoul. And two, if you want to make this whole thing about boys growing up, wouldn’t a literal wise man be the one for them to talk to? To give them magic charms to fight the damn thing? Or maybe even LeHorn and the Pastor working together.
One using his Priestly authority and the other using his faith and divine grace through Powwow.
Then we have Dane Graco (the Grandfather). Why kill him? The Grandfather would have been a powerful ally. He would have given Timmy the benefit of the doubt. Even if not initially believing in the Ghoul.
He would have seen that Timmy laid out a perfect timeline for the disappearances and that something was off. This would have been a better father figure than his actual father. And would have been better for the message of a boy becoming a man. By having another older and wiser man helping him. And thus you would have a modern, literary version of the three Wise Men or Magi from Christianity.
Helping a group of child heroes also in threes. Three young men and three old men. Which would also have symbolized the Triple God. Or even the Fathers, the Sons, and the Holy Spirit being their faith. Plus, he was just introduced in chapter one.
And almost immediately he died of a heart attack. Seriously? Such a waste of a good character. In some ways it’s an even bigger waste than Nelson LeHorn’s potential character not being used.
Then the Ghoul kidnapped the girls with the intention to breed a whole new race. And we know he’s raped them repeatedly.
At the end he dies because Timmy has helped Katie’s older sister escape. And rather than be alone and not having children, he follows them into the light. Where he basically melts and dies. And that’s it. Instead of that dead pan ending, why not make it so that the girl who died bravely facing the monster, was pregnant at the time.
And then we could have an eerie ending where the baby ghoul devoured its way out of the dead mother. And that as the children were now adults in the epilogue, so too was the brand new ghoul. That would have been a far better ending. You could even see the strange sinkhole activity starting up again. It could also have ended with Karen Moore becoming LeHorn’s apprentice in Powwow.
Since magic users in that culture can’t teach people of the same gender. It only makes sense. Karen could even have eventually become a Reverend herself. Combining Powwow practice with conventional religion. That way she could save herself philosophically speaking instead of being a damsel in distress. And become the new protector of the town. Maybe even creating a secret society to keep the town safe and preserve powwow. Which would lead to her to being an important figure in the future. Instead of a throw away character.
Her sister Katie could also be trained by LeHorn. And become an exorcist or hunter. Creating a militia out of the local towns people.
Which leads me to something else : why is there no magic?
The kids know they are going up against a demon. Why not get crosses or holy water or something to fight it? Or at least a Bible. They could even have, again asked Reverend Moore for such things. Make up a story so that they could acquire the things they needed. And maybe the town has other churches they could go to. And make themselves an arsenal of holy weapons. Even the kids from Stephen King’s It had a magical ritual called the ritual of Chud that allows them to battle the monster in the first and second book. Taught to them by the world turtle Maturin.
So they made weapons by merely believing that the objects they had could hurt Pennywise the clown. These kids come from a magical town. They have potential weapons there. Why wouldn’t you have them take advantage of that? Don’t tell me that Timmy, a kid who reads comics about magic and monsters, wouldn’t have automatically thought of that. He’s the most ingenious of the three. He’s not stupid. He would have done that.
Instead we got Doug eaten by the Ghoul. Tim left his home and became a comic book writer which I guess is cool. Though he seems to have fallen into a white collar life. And worst of all, Barry became an abuser just like his father. He beats his own son. And now works at the cemetery just like his Dad before him.
And finally, Why, why did they have to kill Doug?
Like the pain these kids went through wasn’t bad enough. But the graphic way in which Doug died. If anyone deserved a happy ending it was him. So what was the point of this story? To endlessly preach about how unfair and cruel life is? There are tons of books that are already dedicated to that subject. Horror fans want an actual horror story.
Not a bunch of drama with just a tiny smidgen of the supernatural horror.
Finally I was even more disappointed watching the TV Movie from Chiller Channel. It was obviously intended for children. Not adults. But worse than that, it totally demystified the story. The Ghoul wasn’t even a real Ghoul.
Just a messed up miner who lost his mind when his family died. It managed to cut the story down even shorter than the book did. The one and only redeeming quality was that Doug Keiser lived. And since the epilogue was cut, you can at least imagine they had a better future than the one in the book. Plus the parents of Timmy weren’t as much of the pretentious assholes they were in the book. Though it’s unknown if poor Doug ever escaped his rapist mother.
So that’s it.
Pros
So now I am talking about the Pros of the book. Despite my criticisms, the writing is superb. The world building is also good. The characters have different sides to them instead of being one dimensional. And he truly does have a great insight into the mind of children and teens.
Not the stereotypical authors who think they know the young. And really don’t. Each character had their own soul and personality. So that they seemed to be their own creations almost. And not connected to the person who wrote them,
As if the author based them on real people. And it did make me feel like a child again. If this was a book about real life lessons and experiences, and I knew that going in, I wouldn’t have cared. I would have read this and loved it. The problem is, that’s not what this book was supposed to be about.
So I went in there under almost false pretenses. And I didn’t get what I paid for. Not the way I wanted it at any rate. But if re-written just to be a real world story, I would have enjoyed it. It is possible to meld the real and the fantastical into something unique.
I loved reading about how they explored places. Like the Forrest and the roads and everything. It reminded me of my childhood.
It made me realize just how much of our lives we waste on electronics and social media. In the old days kids used to play outside and have adventures. Now I admit that even the older folk are stuck behind a screen. And I realized just what I never got to do when I was a child. And I regret it.
This story, didn’t live up to its full promise. But I would still have read it even knowing all of this. The book was still good. And I do intend to give this author another chance. And read more of his works.
Over all I would still recommend this. Just go in there knowing not to expect too much. Normally I don’t expect much of any book or show. But in this case, I was hyped up because of what I heard and read on this book. He has made other books on the undead. Like the Rising.
So I intend to read his other books. I don’t want to be a snob. Happy Friday the 13th everyone,
– M
Adventures of A Mage In Miami 