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Black Creek Crossing

John Saul

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Oct 15, 2018 Werner rated it did not like it

Shelves: supernatural-fiction

Note, Oct. 19, 2022: I've just lowered my review of this book to one star (down from three). That's a fairer reflection of my actual reaction, since I didn't ultimately like the complete work (it was ruined by its ending).

This haunted house novel, set in the fictional contemporary small town of Roundtree in western Massachusetts, whose history stretches back to the days of 17th-century witch hunting, was a recent common read in the Supernatural Fiction Readers group. I'd actually suggested it my Note, Oct. 19, 2022: I've just lowered my review of this book to one star (down from three). That's a fairer reflection of my actual reaction, since I didn't ultimately like the complete work (it was ruined by its ending).

This haunted house novel, set in the fictional contemporary small town of Roundtree in western Massachusetts, whose history stretches back to the days of 17th-century witch hunting, was a recent common read in the Supernatural Fiction Readers group. I'd actually suggested it myself, since I'd read promising-sounding reviews of it in the library trade journals when it was first published, the BC library has a copy, and the author is a big name in the "Horror" genre, with some 30+ best sellers under his belt; I'd thought his work might be worth exploring. "Horror" (a term I don't really like as a genre designation), in modern book-trade parlance, can simply designate a book with supernatural elements --which this one certainly has. It often, though, seems to denote --and this seems to be what hard-core self-described "horror" fans crave-- writing or cinema that just conjures unrelieved horror in the gut meaning of the term, evocative of moral and physical repulsion, with a maximized grisly-gory quality. That turns out to be the meaning here; and if this is typical of Saul's work, it would suggest that he delivers what that particular market wants (hence my recommendation of the book to "horror" fans). I'm not myself part of that market --I like the fiction of the supernatural, but I respond more congenially to a different kind of envisioning of it.

This is definitely a much darker read than any of the older reviews in the library professional media prepared me for; and for many readers, it might need to come with "trigger warnings" galore: for teenage bullying, spousal and child abuse (including sexual abuse, though there are no overt acts), and animal abuse. (I was a bullied kid myself, from grade school on into high school, and like Seth here I was disciplined with a leather belt --not, in hindsight, unjustly, and not with the same kind of sadism his father displays; but it still left a psychological impression, so that for me this was not a particularly pleasant trip down memory lane, and for some readers it would probably be worse.) Readers also need a high tolerance for gruesome, bloody violence, since a few scenes are basically splatter-punk. The book could be said to have thematic affinities with both The Turn of the Screw and the Haunting of Hill House; but Saul's literary gifts aren't in the same league with either Henry James' or Shirley Jackson's. We could also fairly say that the novel might be characterized as Exhibit A for the general thematic criticisms of contemporary "horror" expressed by pundits like Paul Leggett ("Of Heroes and Devils: The Supernatural on Film," Christianity Today, Nov. 18. 1977) and Lint Hatcher ("The X-Files and the Return of Metaphysical Horror," Rutherford, Oct. 1995).

That said, the writing style here is effective, the plotting taut and page-turning, and the characterizations, IMO, realistic; I formed a bond with both Angel and Seth early on. The prologue is undeniably attention-grabbing, and the author brings the spooky atmosphere, and the supernatural occurrences that invade our mundane world (a motif I like) to life very well. There's no sexual content, except for the pedophilia manifested (but not consummated, at least not anywhere in the text) in certain quarters; and while there's a fair amount of bad language, including profanity and obscenity, it comes from the kind of characters who could realistically be expected to talk that way, rather than being dragged into every character's speaking style. Saul's own attitude towards religion, as declared in an online interview at the Writer's Write site (https://www.writerswrite.com/journal/... ) is pretty much one of prejudiced hostility, which by his own statement hasn't been changed since his childhood; but the story-line here doesn't demonize Christians --Angel's mother tends to mistake Christian love for being a doormat for abuse, but Father Mike is one of the more sympathetic characters here. For much of the read, I was actually liking the book relatively well; but without resorting to spoilers, it was completely ruined by the denouement. (To give credit where it's due, Saul does achieve his obvious aim of creating a gut-punching surprise ending that doesn't violate the internal logic of the story.)

One other note is demanded by the history major in me. Saul makes reference here to witches being burned in Roundtree in 1693. I'm sure he would assert that, "Yeah, sure, everybody knows that the Puritans burned witches in the old days, duh!" The problem with that is, as I once told one of my college history classes, that what "everybody knows" is often simply a bunch of handed-down hooey; and that's the case here. "Witches" were burned on the European mainland, and in Scotland, but in England and its American colonies, the law prescribed hanging as the form of execution. Anybody with any familiarity with New England history knows that the accused witches at Salem and elsewhere were hanged --you don't even have to be a student of history to know that; you just need to have read or watched a performance of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible (or even seen Hocus Pocus!). So, memo to writers: if you're going to use historical backgrounds, at least do enough minimal research about them to avoid ludicrous inaccuracies!

This was a hard book to rate fairly. I don't think it lived up to its potential, and I'm not motivated to seek out any more of Saul's work. ...more

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