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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.185.23.36
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 08:27 am:   

Concrete Grove by Gary McMahon: review by Gary Fry

I’VE BEEN CARFEUL TO AVOID SPOILERS, AND HAVE INDICATED WHERE THERE MAY BE ONE

Look, he’s my good mate, right, and you all know that, so you’re thinking: how can he possibly be objective? And yes, I accept the fact, but I’ll try and resist the temptation of saying this book is utter shite (as a good mate would, natch) and try and be objective.

I won’t bore you with plot details; if you want the plot, read the book. Let me get to the meat of the matter.

From the first page, we’re in classic McMahon territory: broken Britain, a housing estate in the North of England. Rather than focus on this setting explicitly, he shows it through the eyes of his characters, principally a guy looking after his ailing wife (Tom), a mother struggling after her hubbie has bitten a bullet (Lana) and her daughter (Hailey). There’s other folk, too, including a thug on the fringe of reform (Francis Boater), the villain of the piece (Monty Bright), and several other minor characters.

The characterisation is good throughout. McMahon paints a sympathetic portrait of his three central characters, with Tom’s mixed emotions regarding his wife’s indisposition very convincing (I work with carers, so I knows what I’s talkin about); Lana’s fall from grace likewise; and Hailey (tricky business, writing about kids) spirited in her innocence, with a tacit “knowingness” owing to her incipient "condition" that I found compelling.

The villains are also extremely well done, with Boater’s violent psychology evoked well in one fine chapter (I suspect some autobiographical material here), and Monty Bright suitably gruesome, especially one line in which McMahon points out that he wants to consume people so much “he eats their tears”. Chilling.

Which brings me to the prose. It’s wonderful throughout: poetic, snappy, full of ear-pleasing cadences and “throwaway” insights. I liked the way Tom was described as having “chosen his life many times”, and how he can never “run away from himself”. Ain’t that the truth? The descriptions throughout are telling and resonant. Trying to get hold of a slippery thought is like trying to grab a “thrashing fish”. Another’s mind is described as a “crowded schedule of TV-learned emotions”. Simple-complex, unobtrusive, memorable stuff.

The supernatural scenes in the Grove are really well done, too. Although I’d have liked a little more description of this area in the earlier stages (if only to allow McMahon to thoroughly violate this landscape later in the book - there’s a chapter in which Lana cannot find her way home which, I feel, would have benefited from this additional detail), the invasion of the Other World, when it comes, is creepy and evocative. There is one chapter I found particularly powerful, ironically not set in the Grove (though it has Grove-impact later): a day trip to Hadrian’s Wall contains some powerful, oblique imagery, which both makes sense psychologically and remains just outside the grasp of assimilation – as the best horror-y stuff should always do in my opinion. As I say, this sets up a set-piece later involving Tom waking up in his home which is as powerful as anything I have read in years.

In fact, there’s a whole sequence at the end of Part Two which is so harrowing and powerful, I found myself squirming with delight while reading – the way I felt while reading, say, the desecration scene in Ramsey Campbell’s The Influence, or watching the final scenes in Les Diaboliques. Truly brilliant: McMahon doing what he does best – combining high and low imagery (some so incongruously surreal you think “WTF!?”); hinting intuitively at deep themes, like familial violence and associated rage; riffing on classic material and dragging it screaming into the latter-day. Awesome. And please don’t remind of that handless stump . . .

Indeed, the coupling of brutal urban degeneration with the unspoilt fragments of nature (hummingbirds, a manatee, rich vegetation) that Shouldn’t Exist Here is wonderful, making for some striking and memorable passages. There’s truly a sense of awe to be derived from trying to figure out what the hell is going on. The imagery mounts up in your mind, like it does in the best horror stuff such as Blackwood’s The Willows or Lovecraft’s novellas. A fine achievement.

Okay, before the old fucker gets too big headed, let me mention a few stuff I didn’t think worked quite so well (well, I did promise to be honest). The first – very minor – thing was that when Monty starts going on about his explorations in the Grove, it felt a little expositional and robbed the book, which had by this stage built up a full head of steam (definitely something toxic and hallucinatory), of a little of its inherent mystery. As I say, not a big problem, but I just felt it could have remained vaguer here, maybe cut down in length, or have Monty just mutter mad hints through his scenes.

Another thing I had problems with (and I mentioned this to the author after reading the original short story from which it was derived) was Lana’s motivation for doing what she does to deal with her debt. I realise that she’s in a desperate situation, but it just didn’t ring true to me. She asks for no more assurance that the debt will be cleared than Monty’s word, and she ain’t stupid. It seemed obvious what would happen. Maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t think she’d have gone through with what she did without a better assurance of debt clearance.

Some other stuff: first, Lana again. There’s a scene in which she and Tom go back to her place in the late-afternoon. Licentiousness follows, but then the phone rings. They break off, at which point Lana realises that her daughter should be home from school. The night before, something happened to her daughter which involved outrageous physical horror. And today she thinks Hailey’s back at school? And Lana is happy with that? Sorry, I didn’t find that convincing, either, least of all because Lana had just been about to get jiggy with Tom at a time when, even if we accept that she thinks Hailey has gone to school, her daughter is due back at any minute. The whole scene, I felt, needed a little work.

Next, what happens to Monty Bright. POSSIBLE SPOILER HERE. It all seems a bit of an anti-climax. I would have liked to have seen him put up some kind of fight. He’s a horror story villain, after all: he has to be killed 17 times! I jest, perhaps, but all the same, I do think this scene needed a bit more grandstanding. He just kind of disappears. (Similarly, I think arguably the book’s most intriguing character, Francis Boater, would have benefited from just a bit more airspace. But this was less of an issue for me.)

I don’t know whether there was a fixed word count for this novel, but I actually think the ending would have benefitted from more space and detail. The inside of the Needle is brilliantly evoked . . . as far as it goes. But I think these powerful, resonant scenes could have borne even more description. But I know McMahon is a concise writer and perhaps he knows what he’s doing here. So I’ll shut up, shall I?

What I did like about the ending was – POSSIBLE SPOILER – its refusal to do the Hollywood reconciliation thing and have all ends tied up and all protags hugging like loons. One subtle thing (and I hope I interpret it correctly) that really struck me was Lana’s inability to understand Tom’s nuptial plight. He’s repeated told by her that his wife has changed because of emotional duress and not in the way he keeps claiming. What actually happens to his wife is a masterpiece of surreal imagery, but only he can see it. Nice touch. And the way McMahon ends this story-strand is convincing because it has been psychologically prepared for in this way. The message seems to be (bleak, yes, but if you want optimistic, fuck off and read someone else): we’re all ultimately alone in this world, whatever tenuous bonds we forge with others along the way.

Overall, then, I thought this was a marvellous piece of work, with one sequence in particular – hell, it lasts four chapters! – as good as anything I’ve ever read in the genre. The writing is crisp, concise and evocative; the characterisation strong (bar, IMHO, the few issues I’ve discussed above); the story creepy and compelling. In short, a great start to the trilogy and a teasing promise of much, much more from a horror writer who’s indisputably a class act.

(A final word about production values: the cover is beautiful; I just want to eat this book. And the text is almost perfect; I spotted just one typo and a missing speech-mark. Top marks here.)
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.5.144
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 09:04 am:   

"And the text is almost perfect; I spotted just one typo and a missing speech-mark."

Usually however hard the author works to get it right, the copy-editor introduces a couple of dozen errors.

This does sound good. I look forward to its release (when the probation terms have been agreed).
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.209.217
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 09:30 am:   

I can confirm it's every bit as good as the Prof says. That McMahon; if I didn't love him like a brother, I'd hate the bastard for being so good. And there's no finer compliment from a writer than that.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.185.23.36
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 09:31 am:   

Let's eat the bastard.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.156.210.82
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 10:03 am:   

Wow, thanks Gary. I seriously appreciated such a thoughtful and impartial review. It's very much appreciated, sir!
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.185.23.36
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 10:04 am:   

I'm still going to eat you, you bastard.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.156.210.82
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 10:12 am:   

There's a lot less meat on me these days, mate; it may be a rather spartan meal.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.185.23.36
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 10:20 am:   

Your bones haven't shrunk. Those are the bits I'm really interested in.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.209.217
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 10:21 am:   

Save the liver for me. I have some Fava beans and a big Amarone.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.156.210.82
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 11:03 am:   

"And the text is almost perfect; I spotted just one typo and a missing speech-mark."

I have to say, here, that the editing team at Solaris - namely Jenni Hill and the big man Jon O were wonderful. Jenni was astonishingly insightful when it came to the in-depth editing stage.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 11:10 am:   

Thank you sir. You're not so bad yourself.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 01:19 pm:   

That's good to hear. Good editing – as opposed to cost-effective negligence or control freak ghostwriting intervention – is rare and precious.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.156.210.82
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 01:58 pm:   

Really, Joel? I must say, the editing team at both Solaris and Angry Robot have been brilliant.
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Mark West (Mark_west)
Username: Mark_west

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.39.177.173
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 03:47 pm:   

I'll just weigh in with my agreement - it's fantastic and sometimes so harrowing it's difficult to read.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.27.14.15
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 08:24 pm:   

Honestly, I write a massive review and folk pick up on the footnote! :-)
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.40.254.25
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 10:33 pm:   

From the first piece of Zed's I read, I thought he'd do well, always assumed he'd be successful.

Never imagined he'd get a good review as well, though. ;-)
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 11:05 pm:   

Tosser.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.40.253.247
Posted on Friday, June 24, 2011 - 12:42 am:   

Aye, lad.

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