The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

Paul Tremblay’s ter­ri­fy­ing new novel THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD plays on the fear of the dan­ger that shows up out of the blue– bru­tal and over­whelm­ing, but also inscrutable. Are the bad guys an assort­ment of psy­chos who found each other online or are they basi­cally decent peo­ple try­ing to save human­ity from annihilation?

And if your life and the lives of your loved ones are at stake, how much does the dis­tinc­tion really matter?

Mar­ried cou­ple Eric and Andrew are faced with that ques­tion when they and their adopted daugh­ter Wen are spend­ing what was intended to be an idyl­lic week­end at a remote cabin. Wen catches grasshop­pers. Andrew and Eric relax on the porch. A man walks up the road and talks to Wen. He seems ami­able and harm­less, but he also makes promises to the lit­tle girl that, as the reader will soon find out, he is pow­er­less to keep.

Using a mas­ter­ful take on the hor­ror of home inva­sion, Trem­blay keeps the reader guess­ing right to the last para­graph, as Andrew, Eric, and Wen strug­gle to out­wit cap­tors who are by turns, politely apolo­getic for the incon­ve­nience and stun­ningly vio­lent. Are they insane? Or are they four self­less heroes forced into an unthink­able sit­u­a­tion? Or is the whole night­mare an act of vengeance insti­gated by a vio­lent homo­phobe, as Andrew theorizes?

As the ordeal pro­gresses, each man forms his own ideas about how to deal with their sit­u­a­tion. Do they pla­cate their cap­tors? Fight back? Try to make them see reason?

Or, most fright­en­ing of all, do they con­sider the pos­si­bil­ity that maybe, just maybe, these peo­ple aren’t crazy at all and what they’re claim­ing is actu­ally true?

Therein lies not just the road to mad­ness, but also a hel­luva good novel.