03/20/2017
At the start of Malerman’s deeply weird second novel (after 2014’s Bird Box), Philip Tonka awakens from a six-month coma, with his memory in disarray, to the news that every single bone in his body has been broken. Flashback to a day in 1957, when Philip and his fellow WWII vet bandmates in the Darlings of Detroit (aka the Danes) are approached by Secretary Mull, a government man who has a job for them. Military radio operators have intercepted a sound that causes violent illness and that disables weapons from nuclear warheads to side arms. Mull hires the Danes to go to the Namib Desert to locate the sound’s source. The action alternates between Philip’s recovery at the secretive Macy Mercy Hospital outside Des Moines, Iowa, where mad Dr. Szands administers a strange drug that speeds his healing, and the Danes’ expedition to the Namib, where they discover bizarrely misshapen corpses. In the end, this creepy supernatural thriller delivers only a partial explanation for the odd phenomena. Some readers are apt to feel befuddled. Agent: Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary Agency. (May)
In a genre not known for restraint, his uncluttered prose evokes awe and terror, and resonates with the chilling strangeness encountered in the fiction of 20th-century writers Robert Aickman and Shirley Jackson. Readers of weird, atmospheric fiction with a conspiratorial bent will enjoy Malerman’s latest offering.” — Library Journal (Starred Review)
“Malerman’s follow-up to Bird Box (2014) is completely unpredictable and utterly bizarre in all the best ways. Fans of off-the-wall fiction will enjoy this, and horror fans would do well to pick it up for some truly terrifying moments.” — Booklist
“Malerman’s striking originality can’t be denied. Dark, brooding, and slightly unhinged, Malerman’s unusually compelling second novel is certifiably unlike any you’ll read this year.” — Kirkus
Malerman’s follow-up to Bird Box (2014) is completely unpredictable and utterly bizarre in all the best ways. Fans of off-the-wall fiction will enjoy this, and horror fans would do well to pick it up for some truly terrifying moments.
Malerman’s follow-up to Bird Box (2014) is completely unpredictable and utterly bizarre in all the best ways. Fans of off-the-wall fiction will enjoy this, and horror fans would do well to pick it up for some truly terrifying moments.
★ 03/15/2017
Members of the fading 1950s rock band The Danes are approached by an agent of army intelligence to help trace an uncanny, apparently malign (causing vomiting and extreme emotional upset), sound recorded in North Africa. Later, lead singer Philip Tonka wakes from a coma in an anonymous clinic, with nearly every bone in his body broken, cared for by Ellen—a nurse who is more forthcoming than the secretive doctors and military types. As Philip's healing mysteriously speeds up, he struggles to untangle his confusing memories of what happened in the desert. The prevailing icy paranoia beneath the fractured time line builds tension and creates a very real feel of fear and falling into suffocating existential traps (here a genuine danger). Malerman (Bird Box) explores—and tests—the limits of psychological horror. In a genre not known for restraint, his uncluttered prose evokes awe and terror rather than horror and revulsion, and resonates with the chilling strangeness encountered in the fiction of 20th-century writers Robert Aickman and Shirley Jackson. VERDICT Readers of weird, atmospheric fiction with a conspiratorial bent will enjoy Malerman's latest offering. [See Prepub Alert, 11/27/16.]—William Grabowski, McMechen, WV
A 1950s band from Detroit is recruited by the government to find the source of a mysterious, evil noise in the African desert. Robertson Dean alternates between a steady, deep-voiced narration and dialogue that he sets apart with varying tones. But what really stands out are his emotional inflections, especially for a patient in a hospital who is undergoing treatments for agonizing injuries and his benevolent nurse. The psychological thriller is told through shifts between flashbacks of the band in the desert and the scenes in the hospital. And while the story takes on a fantastical nature, Dean makes it sound credible and worthwhile. M.B. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
2017-03-07
In 1957, faded Detroit rockers the Danes were hired by the U.S. government to investigate a malevolent sound emanating from Africa's Namib Desert. Having had every bone in his body shattered by the sound, or something, Danes leader Philip Tonka lies in an Iowa hospital making a rapid recovery—too rapid, thinks his devoted nurse.The elusive, vaguely musical tones, which seem to emanate from below the desert sand, make people sick to their stomachs. More significantly, they seem to have neutralized one of the U.S.'s nuclear warheads. Having had two regular platoons fail to crack the mystery, the military turns to musicians—ones who served in World War II—to record and analyze the sound. Nothing is as it seems in the coastal desert, where, in due course, the mystically inclined Philip experiences visions involving goats, Civil War ghosts, and shipwrecks. One of the band members disappears. An actual dead body is discovered. Back home, where he initially can't so much as move a finger, Philip is given a series of injections that have him back on his feet so quickly, his nurse concludes, "This mystery, this healing, is not for his sake." Malerman, who charted similarly strange territory in his exceptional debut, Bird Box (2014), in which a young woman blindfolds herself in an attempt to survive creatures who cause people who look at them to go mad, affirms his mastery of paranoid suspense. Ultimately, the book's payoff is less inspired than the oddly unsettling setup, but Malerman's striking originality can't be denied. As a bonus, drawing on his real-life experience as leader of the rock band The High Strung, he brings fresh musical insight to the story, in which a song plays a significant role. Dark, brooding, and slightly unhinged, Malerman's unusually compelling second novel is certifiably unlike any you'll read this year.
