The plan is to reread all of Brian Keene’s available works in roughly the order that they were published. I’m doing it because I’m an author in need of improvement and a reader who enjoys a storyteller willing to bleed out on the page in a powerful and interesting way. I’m a fan of Keene’s work. I think there is something to be learned through this process.

You can also go back to the Introductory Post: A Gathering of Books to read more about the how and the why of this or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out the Master List of all my #BrianKeeneRevisited posts.

Holy shit. That first line. You’ll just have to pick up Dark Hollow to read it for yourself. Why would I ruin the discovery of that perfect first line for you?

I read the 2012 Deadite Press re-release of the novel.

Brian Keene is writing about a writer in the grand tradition of authors like Stephen King. Keene borrows heavily from his own experience of going full-time as a writer for this character. Through the years, he’s talked often about how autobiographical his writing is. He borrows heavily from his own life and experiences time and time again. In this novel, much like others that will follow, he borrows from his most painful experiences. He wrings his own heart out on the page instead of choosing any less painful details.

The loss of a pregnancy is told in heartbreaking detail. This is easily his most emotionally impactful writing to date, and Ghoul is still sitting over there, on the shelf near me, just a couple reads away, ready to top this. I don’t think I’m out of line in mentioning these miscarriages are taken from his own life experience too. In more recent years, he’s discussed in public writings that he was going through this with his then wife in these years when this novel was written. It shows on the page. It shows in the too real torture of the characters. All that pain, loss, and brokenness bleeds right out of the words.

Powwow and personal magic play a big roll in this story. This folksy mythology dovetails into the mythology of Keene’s own universe. Everything from blessing horses to eating poison ivy leaves to become immune escalates into the possibility of doorways to other worlds along with Ob and his brethren waiting at the center of things. The 13 in the Labyrinth are mentioned. A character interested in opening a door to another world is found covered in fungus. Maybe he found the Earthworm Gods universe. With some uncooperative trees, we get a hint that the Elilum and Ab might be involved.

We get a Lord of the Rings reference. Also, the dude had a fifty-disc CD changer! That is a lot of hardware to randomize your playlist. You did what you had to do back in the day.

Detective Ramerez was part of the team that dealt with the robbery in Terminal. We also learn the fates of those characters. Being a character in a Brian Keene story is not good for your career.

Levi Stoltzfus is mentioned in a list of powwow practitioners. I think the spelling might have been different, but that was consistent with the writer of the text they found. This was his first mention in novels, I believe. I’m not sure if Keene had published short stories that introduced his Levi character at this point or not. “On account of what happened to that girl.” We’ll get Levi’s story later.

Some of the town gossip includes who got hurt at the foundry last week. That place sounds like no fun in or out of the Keene universe. That’s where Ob should live.

“The last truly good night’s sleep I remember having.” Great set-up. Just as the first line kicks this story into gear, Keene leaves chapters with lines that pull the rug out from under the narrative, cause plot reversals, or foreshadow the next wave of violence or horror.

More than once, two different characters have dialogue in the same paragraph. I didn’t know that sort of thing was allowed. Keene makes his own rules with narrative, so who am I to dictate rules to him?

Blue collar villagers put together their modern day pitch forks to go after the monster threatening their women. Smoking is their number one pastime, followed maybe by day drinking. Maybe there’s some personal powwow magic in those vices as well before it’s all over though.

These men contemplate God as they go to see about supernatural things. Like the country and mountain magic they’re investigating, they look for answers in a blend of American dark arts and the Christian God as well when facing an evil that walks the earth with cloven feet and burning lust. They find some texts that explain some of these secrets, but not quite enough for a clear path to salvation. The lead-up to the discovery sets it up pretty well. Belief is shown to be an important ingredient in any talisman or powwow.

There are great reversals in this story and brutal turns. All of it leads to a dark, ugly, unflinching climax and ending. The story forms a “nice” circle where details that seemed interesting in their introduction prove to be key as they return to close the story in Keene’s unapologetic horrific style.

Keene has mentioned Earthworm Gods as a turning point for him in finding his storyteller voice. This novel may be strong evidence in favor of that argument. From what I recall of the next few novels in his catalog of work, the evidence mounts. This feels, on the whole, like a more cohesive story than Earthworm Gods, but still told in a voice I recognize as his.

My next post in this series will be Running with the Devil #BrianKeeneRevisited which can be found on the Master List of all my #BrianKeeneRevisited posts. Note: The photo of Brian Keene used in the banner image of these blog posts was taken by John Urbancik and used by permission of both Keene and Urbancik.

Jay Wilburn

Jay Wilburn has a Masters Degree in Education that goes mostly unused since he quit teaching to write about zombies. Jay writes horror because he tends to find the light by facing down the darkness. His is doing well following a life saving kidney transplant. Jay is the author of Maidens of Zombie Kingdom a young adult fantasy trilogy, Lake Scatter Wood Tales adventure books for elementary and middle school readers, Vampire Christ a trilogy of political and religious satire, and The Dead Song Legend. He cowrote The Enemy Held Near, Yard Full of Bones, and The Hidden Truth with Armand Rosamilia. You can also find Jay's work in Best Horror of the Year volume 5. He is a staff writer with Dark Moon Digest, LitReactor, and the Still Water Bay series with Crystal Lake Publishing.

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