A review by verkisto
The Dead Path by Stephen M. Irwin
4.0
There's a lot about The Dead Path that's reminiscent of Stephen King's It: a man returns to his hometown to face an evil that terrorized him as a child; the evil returns every set number of years to prey on children; and this evil lives deep in a near-impenetrable maze. This isn't a clone of It, though, because Irwin tells a very different tale, not just in the specifics (the source of the evil, and the means by which the main character goes to defeat it, are different), but also in the themes. Here, the story isn't about childhood friendships, but about singular grief.
The tone of the books are also very different. Where King's book has the kind of folksy charm that all his books have, Irwin's is much, much darker, much more cynical. There are some truly horrifying scenes in the book, ones that will live with me for years, but beyond that, Irwin's language is much more introspective and claustrophobic. Even his choice of similes and metaphors are intended to evoke dread. It's a very different experience.
The book suffers from some repetition in the second act, and has some associations that border on misogyny (using spiders to represent aged female sexuality, though I'm not sure Irwin set out to make that parallel), but there's so much done well in the book that it's simply not a three-star book. Let's make it 3.5 stars, rounded up, because this is a debut that shows tremendous potential for future books.
The tone of the books are also very different. Where King's book has the kind of folksy charm that all his books have, Irwin's is much, much darker, much more cynical. There are some truly horrifying scenes in the book, ones that will live with me for years, but beyond that, Irwin's language is much more introspective and claustrophobic. Even his choice of similes and metaphors are intended to evoke dread. It's a very different experience.
The book suffers from some repetition in the second act, and has some associations that border on misogyny (using spiders to represent aged female sexuality, though I'm not sure Irwin set out to make that parallel), but there's so much done well in the book that it's simply not a three-star book. Let's make it 3.5 stars, rounded up, because this is a debut that shows tremendous potential for future books.