Cormac McCarthy | Musings of the Monster Librarian

Book Review: Little Heaven by Nick Cutter

Little Heaven by Nick Cutter
Gallery Books, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-1501104213
Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, Audible

Nick Cutter is one of the hottest names in horror fiction, and for good reason. I have read all four of his books now, and I the praise for each was certainly warranted. I enjoyed The Deep and The Acolyte but his debut novel, The Troop, is outstanding. At a time when major publishers were shy about hardcover horror, this wicked intense, character-rich, body horror novel was a major hit. It worked in part because, despite a modern setting, it felt retro in all the right ways, like a a golden age of horror paperback classic. People rightly compared to it to classic Stephen King. I thought it was an effective and disturbing horror novel that made the best of a lean prose style.

Little Heaven, Cutter’s fourth book, is a masterpiece of horror fiction, and a tribute to the 1980s, even more so than The Troop did. As good as his last two books were, they missed the retro feel that made The Troop special. Although some readers have compared Little Heaven to classic King, it’s more influenced by the work of Clive Barker and Robert McCammon. The setting and characters suggest that Cutter was also influenced by Cormac McCarthy, and the structure and dialogue are reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino. Take all this narrative chemistry, and it adds up to a novel that feels like others, but is actually like nothing I have read before (it’s also nice to see that he has escaped the Bentley Little title disease– finally, a novel that is not The ___ Whatever “.)

Little Heaven is the story of four trained killers given the mission to rescue a young boy whose father has taken him to a compound called Little Heaven, in the New Mexico desert. Cutter clearly has fashioned the cult after real-life cults. We soon learn that the killers are not normal humans. The supernatural elements have a surreal quality that brings to mind early Clive Barker. Monsters, such as the Long Walker, were disturbing in how unnatural they were, yet described so well you can see them in your mind. It’s nothing short of creepy. Cutter creates vivid landscapes, and the horrors pop off the page, causing several cringeworthy moments of supernatural horror.

The narrative switches back and forth from the mid-60s to the 80s, and the structure unrolls the story in an unconventional but very effective manner. We know the four mercenaries survived something which changed them, and they are haunted by what they have seen. As in Robert McCammon’s Gone South, the characters are both scary and hilarious at times. The prose itself is excellent. This novel delivers exactly the feeling of the classics, and causes me to turn the pages, and that’s all I’m asking for. I think this is the best Cutter book to date, and the best horror novel in years. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by David Agranoff

Here’s an audio review David did of Little Heaven with fellow author Anthony Trevino.

Booklist: Basement Nightmares

The basement from Cabin in the Woods

Basements are creepy. Underground, dark, leaky, moldy, musty-smelling, and full of miscellaneous junk, they’ have the potential to house and hide many horrors and obsessions. Our own basement has been all of those things, and we have been trying to reclaim it for the past six months. Leaky foundations led to mold, then mold remediation and waterproofing. An exploding pipe led to replacing drywall, painting the walls, reclaiming furniture, installing electrical lights (yes, there were no electrical lights) and recarpeting the entire thing. Which meant packing up all the junk and having the furniture moved into storage while the carpet was replaced. Let me tell you, you don’t know what you actually have until you empty out your closets and drawers.

Yesterday our new carpet was finally installed (it’s beautiful), and today all of our stuff was moved back in. It looks like we’ve resolved the dark, leaky, moldy, and musty-smelling issues, although there’s nothing we can do about the underground part, and there seem to be a lot of boxes labeled “miscellaneous” or “random stuff”. You can’t have it all, I guess. In honor of the six month long basement nightmare that now appears to be almost at an end, I have for you a list of books with basements in them that are sure to give you nightmares, too. Myself, I am looking forward to finally getting some peaceful sleep.

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

Airline pilot Chip Linton’s jet crashes into the Hudson River, with virtually no survivors. Guilt-ridden, he moves to a crumbling Victorian house in rural New Hampshire. While he works on remodeling the house, he discovers human bones in the basement, and the murderous ghosts of his passengers from Flight 1611 begin haunting him and demanding that he provide them company. This is a creepy and chilling story, especially, I think, if you are a parent.

The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

The Amityville Horror is supposed to be based on a true story. George and Kathleen Lutz moved into a luxurious house in Long Island knowing that brutal murders had taken place there the previous year. Twenty-eight days later, they fled, leaving all their possessions behind. Horror fans are probably familiar with the story already– if they haven’t read the book, they probably have seen the movie. Put this in your next “if you liked the movie, try the book” display, and see what happens.

The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum

This novel is based on the events of the Sylvia Likens murder. After their parents are killed, Meg Loughlin and her sister Sarah move in with their aunt and cousins. The girls’ aunt turns on them, eventually locking Meg in the basement. Meg’s aunt draws the neighborhood children into participating in her insanity, making them complicit in Meg’s torture and debasement. Graphic, explicit and horrific, The Girl Next Door is an extremely disturbing exploration of human evil. The Girl Next Door is a horror classic, but definitely not for the faint of heart. The Girl Next Door has also been made into a movie.

The Siience of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

I have to admit that I have not actually read Silence of the Lambs, but I was at an impressionable age when I first saw the movie, and Buffalo Bill’s basement is permanently imprinted in my brain. According to this article, Buffalo Bill’s basement was modeled on a real serial killer’s basement torture chamber. All these novels based on true stories make me reluctant to ever go into any basement but my own.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

This bleak novel about a father and son traveling through a post-apocalyptic landscape includes a house with a basement butcher shop where people are imprisoned and dismembered by the cannibal inhabitants. I feel ill just writing that down. Mold and moisture aren’t seeming like such a big deal now.

Now that our basement has lights, dry walls and floors, and new carpet, I don’t think we’ll have to lose sleep over it anymore. But stories about basements like these certainly put it all into perspective!