A review by raincorbyn
The Gulp by Alan Baxter
4.0
This was my first Baxter and will not be my last!
Why do we (or maybe just I?) find fucked up little towns with dirty secrets so alluring, if not cozy? Who wouldn't want to grab a drink at the Hotel California bar, a coffee in Twin Peaks, or to do the time in Jerusalem's Lot to become a barely tolerated interloper?
Alan Baxter shows us why, and how, so lusciously, believably, and at our own risk. In 5 intertwining stories, we learn the ins and outs of a small Australian fishing town that is easy to miss, and hard to leave. Maybe there are crime syndicates, Mum-shroom-trauma, Lost Boys, and fishing up eldritch horrors to scare you off, but I came away knowing which of the two pubs would be my local (Clooney's all the way!) and feeling a sick fondness for the ghastly denizens of the Gulp when they turn up over and over to wreck the protagonists' lives, and their own.
The pacing gave me pause for a bit at first, but I now think that was a good choice to depict the small town that is used to its own bullshit: nothing happens until it all does and then, whoops, "shit happens," and we all sweep it under the rug and carry on. Many ideas were set up, presumably to be expounded on in the next volume, and I'll be right there to read about em. I did think many characters' voices were quite similar, and that the more blatantly supernatural segments shone better than the crime stories. Yes, as many horror writers have shown us, it takes moral rot to let supernatural decay in, but I sometimes wished the stories interconnected thematically as well as plot-wise.
All that is to say though that this is a town Baxter invented, and which now is a place I believe in, have invested in, regrettably have a stakes in, and cannot wait to read about its future, ideally with it all falling into its own fetid ocean of garbage, blistery kelp, just-okay fish and chips, and human failure. You've got a new fan in me, Mr. Baxter!
Why do we (or maybe just I?) find fucked up little towns with dirty secrets so alluring, if not cozy? Who wouldn't want to grab a drink at the Hotel California bar, a coffee in Twin Peaks, or to do the time in Jerusalem's Lot to become a barely tolerated interloper?
Alan Baxter shows us why, and how, so lusciously, believably, and at our own risk. In 5 intertwining stories, we learn the ins and outs of a small Australian fishing town that is easy to miss, and hard to leave. Maybe there are crime syndicates, Mum-shroom-trauma, Lost Boys, and fishing up eldritch horrors to scare you off, but I came away knowing which of the two pubs would be my local (Clooney's all the way!) and feeling a sick fondness for the ghastly denizens of the Gulp when they turn up over and over to wreck the protagonists' lives, and their own.
The pacing gave me pause for a bit at first, but I now think that was a good choice to depict the small town that is used to its own bullshit: nothing happens until it all does and then, whoops, "shit happens," and we all sweep it under the rug and carry on. Many ideas were set up, presumably to be expounded on in the next volume, and I'll be right there to read about em. I did think many characters' voices were quite similar, and that the more blatantly supernatural segments shone better than the crime stories. Yes, as many horror writers have shown us, it takes moral rot to let supernatural decay in, but I sometimes wished the stories interconnected thematically as well as plot-wise.
All that is to say though that this is a town Baxter invented, and which now is a place I believe in, have invested in, regrettably have a stakes in, and cannot wait to read about its future, ideally with it all falling into its own fetid ocean of garbage, blistery kelp, just-okay fish and chips, and human failure. You've got a new fan in me, Mr. Baxter!