This was an intriguing mini spook tale but it was slightly too tame for my taste - especially coming from Jeffrey Ford!

It's like early Stephen King meets Scooby Doo, with an open ending (please not for a sequel; there's no need). I read it last week and I've mostly forgotten it. You know sometimes a book is just... okay? Not bad, not good. This is okay.

This book was entertaining. I liked the cast. The one guy that was dating a dude was my favorite.

“You can’t kill the dead. You’ve got to outsmart them.”

Tor.com released a “Tor.com Publishing's Fall of Fear Sampler” sampler which included A Long Day in Lychford by Paul Cornell, Switchback by Melissa F. Olson, The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson, and this title. This one enticed me the most. I’m also a terrible sucker for a great cover, and this one is a winner. It gives you the impression the story you’re about to embark on is atmospheric and eerie, and something perfect for any horror fan. Admittedly, I had high hopes having heard great things about Jeffrey Ford but this one a total dud. The blurb on the cover “Richard Linklater meets Stephen King meets Indiana Jones meets, well, Jeffrey Ford” by up and coming author Paul Tremblay is admittedly extremely off base. Just because something is tagged as horror doesn’t make it the next Stephen King and just because there’s some mild excavation of an old house doesn’t make these characters the next Indiana Jones, let’s be real.

The Twilight Pariah is a novella that tells the story of a final college summer between three friends. Maggie, the budding archaeologist of the group, convinces Russell and Henry to help her excavate an old privy at the Prewitt mansion. Ironically, the only thing I kept thinking about was an article I had recently read about archaeologists digging up Paul Revere’s outhouse. But also, there’s nothing particularly horrifying about the prospect of digging out an outhouse. Of course, finding a skeleton of a horned child should change things when shortly after a series of horrifying murders start taking place in town, but that sense of horror simply never coalesced. The characters are nothing but cardboard cutouts with a few quirky descriptive lines thrown in as a half-assed attempt to differentiate, which is pretty typical of characters in most short stories/novellas but there isn’t a credible plot to at least support the lacking characters. Ford tries to take this centuries-old mystery and link it to the present but it was a pretty flimsy connection, to say the least. And that ending. It felt like the author realized he was past his word count limit had to wrap shit up, pronto. Lackluster characters, middling plot, and an inadequate conclusion. Disappointing.

I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I only got a few pages in before what I think was supposed to be a joking scene between a man and his friend used a derogatory female word and I immediately stopped. It didn't seem very funny or friendly in that moment.

“All Maggie, Russell, and Henry wanted out of their last college vacation was to get drunk and play archaeologist in an old house in the woods outside of town. When they excavate the mansion’s outhouse they find way more than they bargained for: a sealed bottle filled with a red liquid, along with the bizarre skeleton of a horned child

Disturbing the skeleton throws each of their lives into a living hell. They feel followed wherever they go, their homes are ransacked by unknown intruders, and people they care about are brutally, horribly dismembered. The three friends awakened something, a creature that will stop at nothing to retrieve its child.”

This is one of those books that’s hard to write about, not because of anything outstandingly good or horribly bad, but because it’s so mundane. It’s the sheer lack of anything that stands out that defines how I feel about this book. A bunch of kids (and yes, even though they’re in college, they’re still kids) go to a haunted house, disturb something creepy, do research to find out about it, and eventually stop it in the nick of time. There’s the Smart Girl, the Strong Guy, the Strong Guy’s Boyfriend, the Professor, and the Stoner. There’s even a dog, belonging to the Smart Girl. It sounds like the makings of a Scooby Gang of one kind or another. And for me, really, the characters never progressed much beyond these stereotypes.

And yet, I can’t say that this was a bad book. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it, aside from a huge lack of originality. The story was tight (it’s only novella length); the characters didn’t do anything, well, out of character; and the circumstances of the haunting didn’t contradict themselves. Looked at purely from a technical perspective, the story is okay. But this view doesn’t take into account the many questions that I was left with at the end–questions like “How did the horned child’s skeleton stay intact through all the handling?” and “What triggered the entity to go out killing?” (because despite what the story wants you to believe, the mention of killings over the course of decades negates the idea that the skeleton’s exhumation was the key) and “Why did nothing bad happen to anyone close to Maggie since she’s the one carting the skeleton around in her car trunk?”

Something else confused me. At the end, it seems like Ford is gearing up for one final revelation when Maggie calls everyone together one more time. Is she actually dead? Has she uncovered one last piece of evidence? What is it? It turns out to be… nothing. She just wants them to come out and see something she found on an archaeological dig. It felt like Ford was heading towards one last big explosion of activity, and then he got bored and just ended the story. I actually wondered if my advance copy was missing some pages. That’s not a good sign.

So, long story short, the book leaves dangling plot threads, has one-dimensional characters, and serves up nothing new under either heaven or earth. As I said earlier, there’s nothing wrong with this book, but there’s not really anything right with it either.

https://lynns-books.com/2017/09/14/the-twilight-pariah-by-jeffrey-ford/
3.5 of 5 stars
I read the Twilight Pariah a couple of weeks ago. It’s a fairly short story (approx 180 pages) and is actually a very quick read with some really good elements. I didn’t quite love it as much as I hoped but I can’t deny that it was an enjoyable read with an interesting premise.

The Twilight Pariah brings to us three young friends spending what is likely to be their last vacation together. Maggie, Russell, and Henry. At the insistence of Maggie the three embark on a project out at an old mansion set within the woods. An abandoned mansion with a curious history. Maggie wants to dig up the outhouse and see what the three of them can find. What they actually find defies explanation. A child’s skeleton that actually appears to have horns is what they come across – now frankly, if that was me I definitely wouldn’t have been keeping that unknown entity but Maggie is determined to find out what it is and that’s when things take a turn for the worse. Really – anyone knows not to disturb old skeletons don’t they! Anyway, I guess it would have been a very short story if they’d just returned the skeleton and filled the pit.

After their discovery the three of them start to experience strange occurences. Something is definitely pursuing them and it doesn’t take too long before somebody turns up dead.

I have a conundrum with this book. It was an enjoyable read and it really had the possibility to give me the serious heebie-jeebies but it just didn’t quite succeed in creeping me out. I thought the author’s style was good, I enjoyed the dynamic between the three lead characters, it was an interesting concept, but, for me it just fell short on the tension and the conclusion was simply too quick. Given another hundred pages this book could have been a proper chiller with the sort of tension that you can cut with a knife – but that’s probably just me to be honest. I can’t help wanting more, I’m just greedy I suppose but I would have liked that slow build up. I would have liked a bit more about the friends and I particularly would have liked them to demonstrate a bit more fear in the face of what they came across.

As it is though this is very readable, I didn’t have any struggle whatsoever finishing it and I did find the writing persuasive. It might not be the chiller that I was hoping for but if you fancy a quick read on a dark night this could be the perfect read.

I received a copy through Netgalley courtesy of the publisher for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

A group of old high school friends dig up more than just old trinkets when they decide to excavate an old septic system in this cracking novella by Jeffrey Ford. A chilling supernatural thriller that proves some secrets are best left buried, it’s a fun, dark read that brings a fresh spin to the usual ghost story and takes you to a few places you don’t expect.
Ford’s style is drenched in atmosphere, creating a lingering sense of unease as he draws you into the story – which is delivered with an enthusiastic and snappy pace. Highly recommended.

An entertaining horror novella, but not a particular memorable one. It’s OK if you just want a quick spooky (not terrifying) read to kill a couple of hours, but I’m a great fan of Jeffrey Ford and I tend to expect the best from him, so this book turned out to be a bit of a letdown for me.

Uno de los últimos lanzamientos de Tor.com dentro de su colección de novelas cortas es The Twilight Pariah del norteamericano Jeffrey Ford. Ante la evidente pregunta de por qué me decidí a leer esta novela corta lo cierto es que, como interesado en esta colección, revisando sus últimas novedades descubrí que Ford es un experimentado escritor de relatos y novelas. Ante mi desconocimiento y sorpresa también me di cuenta que fue publicado en nuestro país en varias ocasiones gracias a Minotauro y la desaparecida La Factoría de Ideas, algo que me había pasado desapercibido. Atendiendo a su bibliografía aparecen nada menos que una centena de publicaciones bajo su nombre, muchas de ellas en algunas de las revistas más reconocidas del género fantástico: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, MAD Magazine, Weird Tales, Clarkesworld Magazine, Tor.com, Lightspeed… Por si esto fuera poco para dar una oportunidad a esta obra, Jeffrey Ford ha ganado los premios Nebula, Shirley Jackson y el World Fantasy en varias ocasiones.

A pesar de este bagaje, el argumento a priori no indica que The Twilight Pariah vaya a ser una historia para el recuerdo. Tres jóvenes de vacaciones se dedican a pasar el verano tomando cervezas antes de regresar a las clases. Una de las protagonistas, Maggie, es una curiosa de la arqueología que propone a sus dos amigos pasar unas cuantas noches excavando en el terreno de una casa abandonada en medio del bosque. ¿Qué puede salir mal? Evidentemente, todo. Palada a palada irán descubriendo objetos sin valor hasta que sacan a la luz un bote con un extraño liquido rojo y, todavía más importante, unos huesos que dan forma a un cadáver al que se le intuyen cuernos y rabo. Desenterrar esos restos traerá más consecuencias de las legales que, en un inicio, puedan venirnos a la mente, dado que pronto comienzan a tener lugar sucesos extraños que esconden un oscuro secreto, oculto durante casi un siglo.

Como decía anteriormente, no parece un argumento que vaya a marcar un antes y un después. Y, efectivamente, no lo hace. Sin embargo, a fuerza de ser sincero, The Twilight Pariah se lee de manera fluida dado que apenas cuenta con relleno que impida su lectura ágil. En mi caso, la he devorado en apenas dos buenas sentadas en el sofá. Ayuda cómo Ford introduce en la trama unos pocos personajes secundarios que añaden profundidad y detalle a unos protagonistas que, a pesar de ello, se hacen ciertamente planos.

El blurb

La novela tiene un grave problema de tono que lastra toda la lectura. Quizá debí haberlo visto venir con el blurb impreso a la ilustración de cubierta. Lo que aparentemente se vende cono un relato de terror dispuesto a tenernos en tensión durante buena parte del mismo, en apenas un tercio de páginas se viene abajo convirtiéndose en una historia de humor adolescente americano. Las actuaciones y comentarios de los tres protagonistas cuando las situaciones comienzan a desencadenarse están fuera de lugar en una narración que se presuponía de terror. Y cuando, en el tramo final, Ford intenta arreglarlo incorporando un texto encontrado durante la investigación, es ya demasiado tarde para recomponer un relato carente de identidad. No queda más que tomarse un poco a broma muchos de los comentarios que se van sucediendo y alguna situación ante la que estás más pendiente del chascarrillo o gracia de turno que del susto o la imagen horrenda que cabrían esperar.

La frenética resolución no ayuda a mejorar la sensación de que, a pesar de la demostrada experiencia de Jeffrey Ford a la hora de dar forma a los textos,The Twilight Pariah es una novela que no termina de cuajar. El argumento peca de simple y el misterio es fácilmente identificable desde su primer tercio. Apenas puedo recomendarla para un rato que tengáis libre en algún viaje de tren o avión en el que necesitéis una lectura de género ligera e intrascendente.

Three high school friends home from college between their junior and senior years embark on a project one of them wants as part of her prep for archaeological field work. Excavating an old privy seems more likely to be gross than productive, but after nearly a century, not as disgusting as it might have been. But a surprising discovery about 75 years down changes the whole thing. The casual and light tone for the first half of the book suck the reader into the story--and then things get tense.

Okay, um... I'm confused. Look, this book wasn't bad. Actually, it was pretty good and thoroughly entertaining. But it was good for the wrong reasons.
Let me explain.

The cover, the blurb, the shelving... all those things promised for this to be a creepy and tense experience. So that is what I was expecting and looking forward to. Some scares, some blood, and lots and lots of suspense and atmosphere.
What I got instead, though, was... humor? And I'm not even sure whether this was supposed to be a funny read or not, but I found myself snorting and laughing like every other page. I loved the narrators wry sense of humor and that simplistic minds of his, his common sense (well, some might rather call it cowardice instead) and stoner attitude.

The problem is that, while it was greatly entertaining to read, due to all of that the mood suffered terribly. It did not feel like a horror/ mystery novel, and despite a neat premise and an original storyline, the execution fell flat for me. Add to that a rather rushed and choppy style of narration that, again, would have worked perfectly if the author hadn't been trying to tell a horror story, an anticlimactic climax and an ending that wasn't entirely satisfying, and you have all the reasons why, in the end, I was a little disappointed and could not rate this higher even though I really liked it.

Nice, entertaining story. Probably a little too short, and the ending was rushed. Too bad, because the author has the skills to write a stronger story that'll leave a more lingering impression.

The Twilight Pariah by Jeffrey Ford was a book I came close to abandoning to the DNF pile. There was a lot of pot use here, and aside from being disgusting, it always make me wonder if it's going to be one of those questionable tales where the horror might have been real, or might just have been stoner hallucinations. Screw that. Be stoned and paranoid on your own time. I want the horror to be real, brutal, and unflinching.

As for the story, I liked the archaeological approach to exploring an abandoned mansion, and thought the details around process and technique were actually quite solid. I was as curious as to what would come out of the pit next as I was about anything supernatural, but that horned baby skull with the vestigial tale certainly did the trick.

The supernatural element was interesting, although I am still not entirely sure I buy the explanation for what happened to the family. There were some genuine scares and some really creepy moments, and I loved the frantic assault on the old woman's house, but where it fell apart for me was at the climax. It was over far too easily, and far too quickly, concluding with a whimper rather than a bang.

All in all, an entertaining diversion, with some real ingenuity, but a little too thin to be truly memorable.

This was a good little horror story. But was very short and felt a bit lacking in details and depth. It would be a perfect quick little horror read for an evening or lunch break though.

The horror genre is so intrinsically limited in scope that the past one hundred+ years of such stories have brought us to the point where the only way to be original is to instill new genre blood (romance, fantasy, etc.). All other stories have been written, or the interstices are so minimal as to be almost negligible. This means writers who want to till the same ground must bring their best chops to the table to ensure their oh so familiar material is at least sound in technique, and thus make the reading enjoyable at the surface level. I believe this is the best way to describe Jeffrey Ford’s 2017 The Twilight Pariah (Tor).

A haunted house story, The Twilight Pariah tells of a trio of friends on summer break from university. Maggie is studying archeology, and convinces the other two, Russell and Henry, to join her on a mini-venture to an abandoned mansion to dig through the outhouse pit in the hopes of finding some antiques that might earn them a little spending money. The digging needing to be done at night as the three are unsure who has property rights to the mansion, strange sounds accompany their late night excavations, culminating in an unbelievable, otherworldy find at the bottom of the pit. Wrapping and stuffing it into the trunk of Maggie’s car, the three head back to town, only for stranger things to start happening. People being murdered in their sleep as the trio seek answers to their find, the sleepy little Midwestern town will never be the same.*

Almost as traditional as horror can be, The Twilight Pariah follows through with the story one would expect after such an intro—shadowy demons, an unsettlying mansion histor, and a real and present danger that wants to kill. It has great pace—not frenetic, but just the type of rhythm that complements the type of story being told. To be fair, Ford does pull his punches in a few scenes where letting loose might have been the better option—a greater sense of urgency or fear the result. But overall, he sticks the formula.

In the end, The Twilight Pariah is a classic horror story set in contemporary times. The three main characters communicate with cell phones and use facebook (and smoke the occasional joint), but the heart of their plight still lies in the unearthing of strange, dark beings of centuries past and the terror they bring. Essences of Poe and Lovecraft lingering, fans of those writers will undoubtedly find something to love in Ford’s novella. Diehard fans of Ford’s work, however, may find the offering simple fare compared to the majority of his other fiction.


*If you can somehow, avoid reading the official backcover blurb. It gives away almost three-quarters of the plot, and with such stories, major plot reveals are about the only thing to hang your hat on.

I hate to say it, but this just wasn't scary at all. I was hoping for creepy or disturbing or terrifying, and instead I got mild action and characters who very blase about the whole thing. I mean, if I found a demon child skeleton I'd be freaking out. In addition, they found the whole history behind the mansion too quickly and easily - there was no tension at all.

A lacklustre by-the-numbers ghost story with little character development. It really didn't hang together well. He's certainly no Stephen King. That said, I did finish it