by Jack Ketchum, Lucky McKee
Genre: Horror
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. The opinion in this review is unbiased and reflects my honest judgment of the book.
The story begins with a couple in their prime. Love is grande, sex is good, careers are soaring. Their pieces fit together so well. They know how to touch each other, mind, body, and soul. And then that fear creeps in, well in advance, that familiarity with each other will breed contempt and isolation. And god-dammned does it ever.
I sprinted through this novella at record speed. Sprinted. This is as riveting and lean a prose as you will ever read, and a longer novel written like this might be dangerous. The subject matter is bold and daring. If this weren't written with such careful hands, it might seem like smut. Instead, it's a relationship horror masterpiece. The authors are able to make a thirty-something woman turn into the most convincing 6 year old. When the character continues to object to being called Sam with "I'm Not Sam!" you don't disagree for a second. Lilly becomes as real as the woman named Sam from whence she came.
And to me that is what the story is about. Losing our loved ones and what they represent and provide for us. They slip away. Sometimes slowly over the years, sometimes overnight. One day you are cool together, and then you wake up and don't know the person. You are disconnected from what you once were. You do all you can to get them back. The tiniest glimpse comes through reflection and sentimentality, such as the main character putting in the wedding video and hoping this brings something recognizable back. When it does, it is for a glimpse that only makes the isolation that soon follows that much more sad and tragic. There is loving going on, but it is more just caretaking where we agree to clean the brown stained skivvies of our loved ones and buy them enough toys to keep them happy.
Morality play and sexual ethics are always surging through the pages of "I'm Not Sam." There is a tug of war between visceral, physical urges of love and the emotional, mental, and even spiritual nature. Did we marry a human body, or marry a human soul? Which one do we truly love?
The first person narrator is one who keeps you guessing. Is he trustworthy or not? As an artfully drawn protagonist, you feel for him but compare how he reacts to how you might. Like his doctor, you will have recommendations that go unheeded. This couple lives in an isolated area, and you wonder how much the narrator is living in his own, isolated reality. Reality slips a bit, and it's just all so very cool.
In the end, our family and loved ones become our beloved play things that we can pick out amongst the crowd of faces, who we cherish at first, but as time goes on they get a bit ravaged by what we do to them. When we see the damage, all we can do is fix it best we can.
~Mark Matthews, author of On the Lips of Children
The Bookie Monster's Rating:
Now I'm way beyond confusion.
Now I'm scared.
I've slid down the rabbit-hole and what's down there is dark and serious. This is not play-acting or some waking bad dream she's having. She's changed, somehow overnight. I don't know how I know this but I sense it as surely as I sense my own skin. This is not Sam, my Sam, wholly sane and firmly balanced. Capable of tying off an artery as neatly as you'd thread a belt through the loops of your jeans.
And now I'm shivering too.
In some fundamental way she's changed...
Length: 175 Pages
Published by: Sinister Grin Press
Publication Date: October, 2012
Where to Buy:
Amazon
Goodreads
Barnes & Noble
Published by: Sinister Grin Press
Publication Date: October, 2012
Where to Buy:
Amazon
Goodreads
Barnes & Noble