Shock Totem

by Thom Metzger

Little Brian has the unique ability to store electricity and use it for his own means, a talent that leads to shocking results

Genres: Horror

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t let the cover deceive you into thinking this is some sort of “evil child” novel (the main character is 17 or so and not evil), or a Robin Cook-esque medical thriller either. I don’t even know what to categorize this as, other than bonkers. I’ll be glad to tell you all about it when I get a minute, but for now just check out Phil’s excellent review.
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OK I’ve got a minute.

There are lots of horror boom-era novels that deal with the whole “kid with supernatural or preternatural abilities on the run from government spooks” trope — King’s Firestarter and Farris’s The Fury being the most famous, though I think Michael Kurland’s Button Bright and Gerald Suster’s Striker are even better. This one separates itself a bit due to the protagonist Brian being entirely … well, “batshit” seems a little insensitive, but basically he suffers from something like schizophrenia, as well as anhedonia — the inability to feel pleasure. He’s grown up mostly in a mental hospital in upstate New York. Not just any mental hospital either, but one that experiments on its patients, some of which are even funded and watched over by a shady Illuminati-esque brotherhood involved with top-secret black programs.

The experiments on Brian were all electricity-related — he had “shunts” implanted in the base of his skull so that electrical charges go straight into his brain, causing him to “break on through to the other side” with visions of the future, events happening elsewhere in the present, and memories of the dead. This makes him extremely valuable to the Men in Black-types, so when he (of course) escapes (spoilers), they mean to find him before his doctor and semi-guardian/mother figure Dr. Haak does. And they’ll kill anyone who gets in their way.

This took a little while to totally capture my interest, but Brian’s many quirks and eccentricities soon won me over. For instance, he’s obsessed with 60s/70s funk and soul, and he’ll start uncontrollably dancing and shouting phrases like “Shake that booty!” or “Too hot to stop, say it. Say it!” Then whoever he’s with will have to say the phrase or else Brian gets stuck in a neverending loop where he just keeps repeating the same thing over and over. It’s a little grating at first, but like I mentioned, I soon warmed to it. Oh and he’s literally addicted to electricity. It’s like a drug to him.

It’s basically a road trip novel, where Brian meets a lot of interesting and oddball characters along the way, only it’s a road trip that gets extremely bizarre and tripped-out at times. And intense. After the opening chapters, the plot moves at a pretty fast clip. It was marketed as horror, but I’m not sure this qualifies. I don’t want to say too much more as it’s probably best to know as little as possible when reading this (I barely scratched the surface with my synopsis). I just know I need to get me some more Metzger, even though he isn’t exactly prolific, at least when it comes to novel writing*. He’s certainly unique, if this book is anything to go by, as well as judging by the titles of his non-fiction works.

He also knows a hell of a lot about electricity and all things related, like AC vs DC, the Tesla-Edison rivalry, and such. It’s all integrated into the story well, however, and never feels like info-dumps even though they pretty much are. I had a blast throughout, despite the somewhat slow beginning.

*though he does have several YA-ish fantasies under the name Leander Watts.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Metzger serves up a bizarro tale here with a touch of horror, or maybe horror infused with bizarre, take your pick. Onyx's marketers gave this a cover of a young boy and deemed it "A novel of medical terror" but just ignore that. Please. Shock Totem does feature an 18 year old protagonist, and there are some strange medical things here, but Metzger deftly cut his own tale here unlike anything I have read in some time.

Shock Totem begins at an insane asylum in up-state NY, the asylum that gets the worst cases. Brian, our main character, has been here over a decade after being picked up as a stray around Love Canal. Remember Love Canal? Toxic waste out the ass! Anyway, Brian's main doctor, Caroline Haak, has been giving Brian some type of electro shock treatment, but obviously a bit hinky. Brian has 'shunts' on his spine that plug right into his nervous system (and so does Haak!); with the right amount of juice, Brian goes 'over to the other side', which seems to allow him to access the memories of the dead among other things. Further, when Brian is hooked up to Haak, he can give simulate her pleasure centers in a way that seems to be physically impossible for her. What a team!

It soon becomes apparent, however, that the 'shunts' are part of either a deep corporate or government experiment. Many people have had them surgically implemented (although most unknowingly) over the years. What exactly the purpose of the experiment are stays pretty hazy, but with Brian, they allow him to store energy he can discharge at will (he also soaks up energy from the sun, power lines, etc.). When the agency (it has some connection with a secret cabal at Cornell) decides to take Brian for his fate, Haak helps him escape and the chase is on...

I loved Metzger's writing style and the bizarre plot quickly became immersing. Brian often groves to the beat of old funk and I had Parliament in my brain as I read along; it seems Brian grew to love funk when he was living feral after the Love Canal disaster that killed his parents. A few things were never very clear, however. A strange bolus that emits electricity plays a role and Brian often has visions of Tesla and Edison duking it out over inventions and whether or not AC or DC will be the future. After reading this, I am definitely ready for Metzger's other novel Big Gurl if I can ever find a reasonably priced copy. Ready for something completely different? Do you like surreal and maybe even bizarro? Give this a whirl. 4 strange stars!!

[Conal Cochran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Criminally underrated (as I'm beginning to suspect is the case with everything Metzger's done--pity he only has two novels and a handful of short stories for the adult market), bonkers novel from half the team that brought you Big Gurl. Don't be fooled by the cover, which looks like a classic "medical horror" + "creepy kid" cover from that period, and are two genres that you, if you're like me, tend to skip over in disappointment when browsing the horror paperbacks at a used bookstore. Still, publishing is a business, and you have to sell a product, so I can't blame the folks at Onyx/NAL for desperately grasping on the most marketable angle for this odd book.

This is the story of Brian, a teenager diagnosed with schizophrenia whose inner monologue reads like George Clinton lyrics (and is one of the parts here most similar to Big Gurl) and is the subject of intense, unhealthy interest both from an ahedonic, Dr Channard-esque ECT expert and from a Syndicate-style conspiracy headquartered at Cornell. Closest reference points are maybe, as hinted, Hellraiser 2 and the first 3 seasons of the X-Files, but also Scanners in a big way, and some other elements of American history and para-history that you'll just have to find out for yourself.

If you've read Big Gurl (and why haven't you?) then this will at first seem almost disappointingly...safe? Truth be told it is more tethered to reality and and more easily readable than Big Gurl, but rest assured it's much, much more than the Robin Cook knock-off the cover suggests. This is a real high voltage pleasure blast of nutzo horror fiction that feels like X-Files Season 3 put in a blender (well, maybe not the episode about killer Ecuadoran cats) and poured into a DIY electrical circuit in your neck.