Author Alex Grass has created an intricately woven fantasy that combines the secrets of the carnival world with the overarching realm of pure evil and self-sacrificing good in Black River Lantern.
Eddie is the son of aging carnival owner Papa Marivicos, who still knows how to manipulate the son for whom he has little affection, keeping him safe and fed mainly because he has a gift for mind reading – and what carnival doesn’t need a good mind reader for the sideshow? Eddie did not always have the true gift of intuition – it comes upon him when lonely and desperate in his life with Papa in the riverfront town of Kayjigville, where he hops a freight train to make his escape.
Vagabonding “a waaaaays down south,” he meets the beautiful Chantell. They marry and have two children, but Papa wants his money-winner back, and gets back at Eddie in the worst way possible. Eddie realizes he has been overpowered by Papa Marivicos, who is also involved in a scheme with a greedy hotelier, Clara Guadali. She proposes to enrich Kayjigville with a fleet of riverboats whose trade will thicken her bankroll, and his.
Papa orders Eddie to “envision” a winning lottery ticket number to draw even more attention to the Marivicos show. To do so, Eddie goes into a heavy trance, hearing words from the enigmatic book, then vomiting and coming back to consciousness with a heavy slosh of booze. He will announce the winning number while bathed in a terrifying, blinding glare. He finds some respite with reformed prostitute Lexi, under the protection of Dr. Chain, a goodhearted physician who welcomes Eddie as the son he never had, but havoc soon reigns as a light-filled monstrosity appears on the scene.
Grass has gathered a fascinating cast of characters, each speaking in unique accents and playing interlocking roles that take the tale to an unexpected climax – a tapestry of personalities that is just as fascinating as the intricately woven storyline. Eddie is both shy and awkward in private, and a charmingly dominating presence in his role as sideshow psychic. His best carney friend is foreigner Abakoum, whose communications in unskilled English are often hilarious. It is Abakoum who introduces the young man to the charms of “paying whores to make sex-money,” through which venture Eddie meets Lexi, whose rough but world-wise take on events provides yet another layer to the plot. Guadali embodies all that the upper levels of corporate greed are noted for, while Papa Marivicos is a study in wickedness whose comeuppance will be welcomed by readers, as the story weaves in and out of fantasy and trenchant commentary.
It is this mixture of the outlandish and the real where Grass most shines as an author. As the cover might suggest, there is a cartoonish quality to the novel, but what good carnival story doesn’t veer into this direction. However, the book excels as well at literary subtlety, which is quite striking given the story on display. At its core, this is a book about outcasts, and covers a lot of emotional ground in that respect, and Grass is just as adept at conveying genuine horror as the more nuanced horrors of everyday life. These emotional moments are not always seamlessly woven into the story, as there is something of an uneven quality to character interaction – with some emotional bursts seemingly coming out of nowhere, as if the author felt his character’s plight, but didn’t necessarily express this clearly on the page – but by and large it is a successful work of gothic fiction.
Any criticisms are minor in what is an electric, genre-busting novel – at once family drama, macabre horror, and character-driven literary fiction. It’s difficult to categorize, but this is fundamentally what makes it such a strong and original debut. Grass, who modestly describes himself as “a person who is good at writing word-sentences,” proves himself here, and there is much to look forward to with this new writer’s output.
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