The Bewdley Mayhem: Hellmouths of Bewdley, Pontypool Changes Everything, Caesarea

by Tony Burgess

Three celebrated books ― all of which harbour a twisted ambition to physically alter your imagination ― together for the first time.The Hellmouths of Bewdley is a series of 16 stories hiding in a novel about a small town in Ontario’s cottage country. Navigating through drunk and dead men, prisons and suicides and mad doctors, these short stories act as a halfway house for literary delinquents.Pontypool Changes Everything is the terrifying story of a devastating virus. Caught through conversation, once it has you, it leads you into another world where the undead chase you down the streets of the smallest towns and largest cities.In Caesarea, everybody's embarrassed and nobody is mentioning the mess. Caesarea, you see, is the town that can’t get to sleep at night. Only Burgess demands answers to the really big Who’s been sleeping in your bed?

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Unfinished

747 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 30, 2014

About the author

Tony Burgess is a Canadian novelist and screenwriter. His most notable works include the 1998 novel Pontypool Changes Everything and the screenplay for the film adaptation of that same novel, "Pontypool" (2008).

Burgess’ unique style of writing has been called literary horror fiction and described as ”blended ultra-violent horror and absurdist humour, inflicting nightmarish narratives on the quirky citizens of small-town Ontario: think H. P. Lovecraft meets Stephen Leacock.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to rate a book that's really three in one (or more, in this case, depending on how one wants to split the whole mess up).

Overall, the books are an uncomfortable thing to read. It's not the violence or drugs or sexual references of a most deviant sort; it's none of that. The discomfort emerges in his wording and in the dizzying shift of perspectives. While this perspective shifting is most prominent in "The Hellmouths of Bewdley", it does make an appearance in the other two books. "Hellmouths", at least, has the excuse of being a series of short stories; the others have a tendency to skip with less frequency from mind to mind to omniscient presence and back again.

But that's a minor thing, in the end.

It's the language that's unsettling - the sort of thing that sinks into your skull and settles, like so much strange sediment, into the soul. Rereading sections for clarity is as effective as cleaning glass with a wire brush; in the end, there will always be parts that are meant to be left alone, lest the reader drive themselves mad with the effort to decipher them.

Perhaps that's the point.

Ultimately, I enjoyed my strange trip to Bewdley and Caesarea and all those points in between - but I'll be glad to return to solid ground in another genre for a while.

[Brice · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an odd thing when fiction works when, really, it shouldn't. Such is the case with everything I've read by Canada's own Tony Burgess. His voice, to make an understatement, is unique and bizarre. His storytelling is anything but typical, non-linear at times and even, at certain junctions, seems to completely ignore everything else that has come before it. For those reasons, it shouldn't work. Yet, in this author's capable hands, it always works and leaves the reader with a itching sensation on the back of their neck.
The Bewdley Mayhem contains three novels - The Hellmouths of Bewdley, Pontypool Changes Everything; and Caesarea. To summarize any is nearly impossible but it is easy to say each is unlike anything you've read before. Of the trio, I prefer Caesarea. While Bewdley and Pontypool are strong (Pontypool being the weakest of the three from this reader's point of view) Caesarea captures both the quaintness and terror of smalltown living expertly.
If you haven't read Burgess you should, but be warned, he's not a flavour for everyone and may just leave your mouth tasting of something pungent and peculiar.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this omnibus on the strength of the horror film PONTYPOOL. I was expecting something close to that. My expectations were not met. I made it all the way through Hellmouths (repurposed review below) and was unsatisfied. I attempted to see if Pontypool was closer to what I wanted, skimmed enough to determine that it was more of the same as Hellmouths, so I bailed early. I can’t recommend this omnibus.

Let me start that I came to this collection (The Hellmouths of Bewdley) expecting horror stories. Considering the use of “Hellmouth” in the title, I was expecting something at least vaguely connected to or hinting of the supernatural, and was terribly disappointed. Considering all this, I don’t get this (tenuously) braided short story collection. I had high hopes from all the reviews mentioning that it is unsettling. I found it to mostly consist of weird (or banal) shit happening, and then the story stopping. Occasionally it borders on bizarro and occasionally on litfic and sometimes maybe could be both. It’s frequently incoherent and unsatisfying, particularly if you’re looking for a traditional narrative arc. The closest we get to that traditional arc is in the sexxxploitation women-in-prison story in the middle.

[Douglas Dorn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Being totally honest I was a little disappointed. I went into this having enjoyed "people still live at Cashtown Corners" but for me the style of the writing was a little too over-written, to the point where the story-line got lost. I would probably say Caesaea was the best of the three for me as the story was the most coherent.

I will likely still try and read the sequel to Pontypool Changes everything to see how the story ends, but overall I'd struggle to recommend this compilation.

[Steven Kinzler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really compelling ideas and imagery, but all too often florid and overwritten.

[Chuck McKenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tony Burgess is one of my all-time favourite authors of dark fiction, and the three novels in this omnibus amply showcase his ability to spin tales that are equal parts high literature, drama, crime noir, and horror. My favourite of the three is Pontypool Changes Everything (upon which the excellent movie Pontypool was based), in which a zombie virus is spread via language; it's unique and inventive, with a darkness that creeps up on you due to the beauty of the prose. If you love being utterly drawn into a book whilst simultaneously feeling deeply unsettled, I can't recommend Burgess highly enough to you.

[Dann · Rating 1 out of 5]

I saw the film version of Pontypool, and when I found out that it was based on I book, I knew I had to read it. I absolutely loved the movie, and I figured the book would be even better. Unfortunately, I only made it through about a quarter of the book. Maybe not even that much. Hellmouths of Bewdley was one of the strangest, most discomforting things I've ever read. The stories are incredibly weird, and very often seem to have no point. A couple people will interact, then the interaction will end, and then the story will end. The only thing that I can think of that the author was going for with these stories is to create a strong feeling in his readers, which he might succeed in—the characters are strange, and sometimes awful, as well. I figured I'd stick it out, though, and that it would be worth it. It wasn't.

After Hellmouths, I wasn't super confident that I'd like Pontypool, but because I loved the premise so much, I gave it a shot. It was no different from the previous short stories. The plot was a bit more coherent, but there were the same ramblings that didn't seem to advance the story or accomplish anything other than making me uncomfortable.

Skip the book. Go watch Pontypool. It's awesome.

[Ben Joplin · Rating 2 out of 5]

After having seen the film of Pontypool, I was under the impression that the other novels in this series would somehow be related to the zombie outbreak narrative, but they aren't. The IDEA of a linguistically-borne illness of infected words sounds great, but there isn't enough about language itself here--much more appears in the film, which involves a talk radio DJ (much better). We need a writer-protagonist in the novel, or a journalist--something more than what's here.

[tlev 4242 · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found these to be very long on gore and general ick and short on well, anything I would enjoy. I'm sure there are fans of this stuff, and I used to think I was one, but clearly I must no longer be one of them.