A review by thomaswjoyce
Things You Need by Kevin Lucia
4.0
The book opens with the unnamed narrator telling his story in first person, recounting his previous career as a salesman for magazine subscriptions, who specialises in visiting high schools across the country and convincing the students to sell subscriptions to raise money for their schools. He’s good at it, too. His advertising degree is put to good use. But it’s left him in something of a rut. Moving from town to town, delivering his shtick to the students before moving onto a bar in a neighbouring town to drink away his blues and probably hook up with a lonely woman for the night. But the twenty-somethings have given way to forty- or fifty-somethings and even the motel rooms are beginning to look the same.
Then he arrives in the small town of Clifton Heights, the setting for all of Lucia’s published work to date. He immediately feels a wrongness about the town, especially when dusk falls and his thoughts turn to the .38 revolver he has in the motel room. Instead of following his usual behavioural pattern of picking up a stranger in a nearby town, he wanders around Clifton Heights. And finds himself outside Handy’s Pawn and Thrift. After a strange encounter with the man behind the counter (though not the proprietor; nobody sees the elusive Mr. Handy), the narrator finds himself seemingly alone in the empty pawn shop, surrounded by items both mysterious and mundane. And, as it happens, his story serves as the frame story as he wanders the store, interacting with certain items.
The final story has a special resonance and relevance for the unnamed narrator, leaving him with even more questions. But the strange shopkeeper chooses this moment to return and reveals a little more about his history. He also makes the point that Handy’s has things you need, and this may not necessarily be things you want. In the end, the narrator gets what he has been missing for most of his life; a purpose, a role to fill. It is a fitting and satisfactory end to an interesting book. Most of the individual stories are straightforward, but the way Lucia creates his worlds and their inhabitants is masterful. And the way he crafted the book as a whole, using each story to not only entertain the reader but reveal a little of the narrator’s character before his emotional conclusion, is especially well done. We’ll be returning to Clifton Heights in the future.
To read a more in-depth review, please visit This Is Horror.
Then he arrives in the small town of Clifton Heights, the setting for all of Lucia’s published work to date. He immediately feels a wrongness about the town, especially when dusk falls and his thoughts turn to the .38 revolver he has in the motel room. Instead of following his usual behavioural pattern of picking up a stranger in a nearby town, he wanders around Clifton Heights. And finds himself outside Handy’s Pawn and Thrift. After a strange encounter with the man behind the counter (though not the proprietor; nobody sees the elusive Mr. Handy), the narrator finds himself seemingly alone in the empty pawn shop, surrounded by items both mysterious and mundane. And, as it happens, his story serves as the frame story as he wanders the store, interacting with certain items.
The final story has a special resonance and relevance for the unnamed narrator, leaving him with even more questions. But the strange shopkeeper chooses this moment to return and reveals a little more about his history. He also makes the point that Handy’s has things you need, and this may not necessarily be things you want. In the end, the narrator gets what he has been missing for most of his life; a purpose, a role to fill. It is a fitting and satisfactory end to an interesting book. Most of the individual stories are straightforward, but the way Lucia creates his worlds and their inhabitants is masterful. And the way he crafted the book as a whole, using each story to not only entertain the reader but reveal a little of the narrator’s character before his emotional conclusion, is especially well done. We’ll be returning to Clifton Heights in the future.
To read a more in-depth review, please visit This Is Horror.