When it was originally published in 1981, Richard Laymon's second novel was heavily altered from the author's original conception. In his memoir of the craft, A Writer's Life, the author commented that the novel would never be recoverable, due to the many rewrites and general publishing skullduggery performed during that novel's release. Several years after his death, Richard Laymon's daughter Kelly has managed to perform a surgical feat: recovering the lost manuscript from no less than three different stacks of loose pages. Now, readers can see Richard Laymon's novel as originally intended.
When two groups of strangers arrive in Barlow, a small, forested town, they expect simple rest and food, a stop off on a journey to somewhere, anywhere else. They do not anticipate being taken captive by some crazy folks and brought deep into the surrounding woods, chained to a tree and left for a mysterious race of savages, called Krulls. What follows is a single night and day of pursuit and horror, with fates such as murder, rape and unspeakable depravity awaiting them...The Woods Are Dark is a curious presentation of some absolutely disgusting material, and amply demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses found in just about all of Richard Laymon's work. Plot is king here, and this plot moves along with the expected bullet speed found in Laymon's better works. A close second to plot is imagery. The novel begins with a strange and engaging image, a pair of lovely young ladies speeding along the roads are forced to a stop when they encounter a curious shape crawling across the road, who then throws a grisly offering to them.
The language is like the plot: clear of distractions, and very straight ahead, tackling only what is needed and then moving on. Scenes are described with a kind of minimalist technique, and yet there is a quality of the vivid to the situations. What details are given are carefully chosen, leaving plenty of room for the imagination to fill in the blanks.
Too bad some of the more cruel moments are not handled with the same selectivity. Nope, the sexual and bodily assaults are all presented right in the middle of the mind's eye camera, little left to the imagination. The horror in this book is not of the supernatural variety, but of the awful things that human beings do to one another. For purposes of survival, sometimes. However, the most gut wrenching are those deeds performs out of a curious sort of joy. Oftentimes, these deeds are performed by characters that were originally presented as "sympathetic".
Really, there are very few sympathetic characters in the book. Many of them are vacuous shills, bodies whose only purpose is to be carved up or to do the carving (on a couple of special occasions, some do both). The men are a bit better drawn than the women (who often read like men with ample bosoms, alas), and as might be expected, the narrative finds nothing attractive about its females save for the size of their breasts. While this reader finds beauty and delight in the plentiful other curves of the human form, those do not have a place in this book.
Some of the horror is intended to be found in the disintegration of the civilized, as one of the protagonists finds a killer (and worse) lurking inside himself. However, this character's descent into the barbarous realm feels so fast as to be unbelieveable.. Then again, much of what happens is a little bit fast... The novel itself is about 210 pages, all told (with 5 pages of introduction about the new edition, and a lengthy preview of the next Laymon novel due out from Leisure), so there is little real room for such niceties as character development. Instead, characters seem to almost transform from one mindset to another, with very little rational reason.
Can an educated, civilized man (who considers himself a pacifist) spontaneously transform into a murderous monster, who not only takes delight in schatenfreud, but excels at killing other human beings? Why yes. Psychologically speaking, even the most stable personality type can become unhinged, particularly in such trying circumstances as are presented in this book. However, this reader would expect such a development to come about over the course of more than one day, not (possibly) two hours. This reader, this reviewer does not buy it.
The Woods Are Dark is a gruesome story, much in the flavor of the sort of "Don't Go In The Woods" slasher-type horror films that are once again en vogue in horror cinema. It's long about time that director Tobe (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) Hooper directed one of Richard Laymon's novels, they seem to stem from the same horror aesthetic and share plenty of themes and motifs. This novel in particular would make the basis of a fine Tobe Hooper picture. As a novel, however, it feels a bit light.
The Woods Are Dark by Richard Laymon
By the Mass Market Paperback
215 pages
July 2008
Leisure Books
Buy the Hardcover (Limited Edition)
240 pages
August 2008
Cemetery Dance Publications
Author's Website
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