Customer Reviews

The Dust of Wonderland

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

News that his son was the victim of a brutal assault brings Ken Nicholson back to New Orleans, where he spent most of his young adulthood, and the city where he "came out" to his (now ex) wife and family, who still live there. From the voices in his head, Ken soon suspects that the attack on his son was premeditated to make him return, part of the plan of the sinister and mysterious Travis Brugier, the owner of a unique French Quarter gay brothel that served the city's powerful and elite, where Ken worked for a time. But Ken had seen Travis die, right in front of him, so many years ago. Can this really be him back from the dead, are the voices some kind of sick joke or plot, or is he just going crazy? It's a life-and-death dilemma that Ken needs to solve, before his ex-wife, surviving daughter, and former lover become its next victims.

I'm not really a usual reader of the "horror" genre of gay novels, but this unique "horror-mystery" came highly recommended, and I enjoyed it a great deal. Classically well-written and suspensefully crafted by a talented author, it provides the perfect mixture of page-turning thrills and pure entertainment. I give it five stars out of five.

OK, I cribbed that line from the covers of DC comics' SWAMP THING during Alan Moore's remarkable run, but Lee Thomas's THE DUST OF WONDERLAND is no less remarkable and the blurb is appropriate and deserved. Thomas brings a literary sensibility not unlike that of Peter Straub's to this tale of dark magic in New Orleans. This is no story of a boogeyman, but rather one of deep, reality emotions trapped in a nightmarish Other World. Take a chance on this mature work and you won't be disappointed.

Thomas' Dust of Wonderland is the beautifully written story of a conflicted man who returns to his estranged family and former lover upon the mysterious death of his son. Though the descriptions of Wonderland are fascinating, what engaged me most about this novel was its utterly believable characters. The ex-wife who refuses to accept that her gay husband will never love her the way she needs; the angry, flawed daughter; the slighted lover; and finally Kenneth Nicholson, the man whose inability to choose has spiraled the people he loves toward destruction. It has all the elements that make for great horror: strong, complex characters, a wise voice, a lush setting, and most importantly, heart.

Tell me a story. Those words haunted Kenneth Nicholson for years, terrorized his waking hours to the point where he had been forced to abandon his family and the man he loved to start a new life in another state. Not that his new life was anything to brag about -- work and a string of meaningless relationships -- but it wasn't haunted by his past.

When the phone call comes from his ex-wife to tell him that their son has been brutally beaten and his chances of survival are slim, Ken is forced to return to New Orleans. Nobody except his ex-wife knew he was coming back, so when the phone rings and a woman on the other end says, "Welcome home, baby," followed by, "Tell me a story," Ken knows there is something more to his son's attack than just a random beating. When it is discovered that his son's fiancee has vanished, Ken believes she had something to do with it. This is confirmed when the address the woman has given turns out to be where Ken spent a portion of his youth -- and the source of his nightmares.

The home is a rundown mansion formerly known as Wonderland. It was also the home of Travis Brugier, Ken's one-time lover and a man of formidable wealth, influence, and Power. Ken knows in that instant that Travis is responsible for what happened to his son. But Travis is dead by his own hand. The man committed suicide when Ken made it known he wanted out. Now Travis wants him back, and he will stop at nothing until Ken returns to him, even murder, as he demonstrates when Bobby, Ken's son, is killed while in the hospital. Can Travis be stopped before everyone close to Ken suffers?

Rarely have I been blown away by a book the way I was with The Dust of Wonderland. I bought it a couple of years ago and just let it sit on my shelf. It's published by Alyson Books, an established gay and lesbian publisher, and that in itself was enough to make me keep it on the shelf. It has been my experience that many of the gay and lesbian novels I have read are so poorly written and boring, it takes me forever to get through them. In short, I was afraid to pick it up because I didn't want to be disappointed. After reading Lee Thomas' novel, I can only say, What the hell was keeping me from this book?

With The Dust of Wonderland, Lee Thomas has created a haunting, heartbreaking masterpiece that will have you on the edge of your seat to the very last page. He paints a portrait of a man who is forced to confront the nightmares of his past in order to save the ones he loves. You can feel his terror and his despair as he tries race against the clock to stop a creature that has the ability to reach from beyond the grave. Thomas' novel is well written and well paced. Each chapter ends on a note that keeps you wanting to read on to find out how things turn out. The Dust of Wonderland is an excellent novel and is one that should be on everybody's MUST READ list.

Travis has a hold on Ken, a hold not even death could break. It's almost as though he didn't die at all, but his evil lives on, and it seems to speak to Kenn out of the mouth of a woman now that Travis of old evil has died. I have read hundreds of horror novels in my life, but never one that spoke so clearly about an agonizing dilemma:

And the book really rubs your face in it,

What would *you* do if an ageless, deathless evil made you choose between an ex-wife Paula, whom you had walked out on once years before, and your two children, a boy and a girl? And on the other half of the giant Libra scales, was balanced the life of the man you loved passionately, body and soul, for yes, it had come out that you were gay and that is why you had left Paula, and initially, the reason who Travis the clubowner had been able to seduce you, by arousing your basic nature? Now the ultimate Sophie's choice--which would you let die, your children or your boyfriend? Once you realize the trap Ken Nicholson is in, you won't be tempted to tell him that all of this is his fault; you'll be rather more sympathetic, for who knew that beyond Travis' suave, sophisticated good looks lay the loathsome face of an evil beyond category?

Lee Thomas makes the relationships understandable, except between Travis and Vicki. Is Vicki a real person, or just another face of the old evil Travis? She speaks and looks like a woman (although she doesn't act like one). She tempts Ken into betraying his family on the one hand, and poor misunderstood David on the other. David and Ken share some sexy love scenes that are undeniably vivid and arousing, but yet would you give up your only surviving daughter for the love of this man?

What would *you* do, reader? Answer that question and then see what Ken Nicholson does on his return to a shadowy, dangerfilled New Orleans, the city that care forgot but horror remembered.

The past's influence on the present is an enduring theme in literature and the arts in general. For some, the past is a lifeline that helps them make it through the challenges of the present and onward toward the promise of a future. For others, like the protagonist in Lee Thomas' "The Dust of Wonderland", memory is a disease that infects the present and threatens the very concept of a future. In his stellar third novel, Thomas personifies the memories of the past in the images of dust:

"Always there, history, like dust, frosted the present. It could be wiped away, scrubbed, and for a long time forgotten, but it always returned, settling on life's ornamentation. If left unchecked it grew thick and opaque, covering all that might be with the filth of what had already come to pass."

Ken Nicholson is a man running from his memories, haunted by the events of the past during which questioned sexuality and the hedonistic pursuits of youth combined to lure him into the web of a seductive club called Wonderland and the seemingly unending clutches of its proprietor, the enigmatic Travis Brugier. Years after Wonderland and its owner came to a violent end, Nicholson fled his New Orleans home, plagued by terrifying hallucinations that play out like waking nightmares. But despite the physical distance he puts between himself and his nagging past, he is summoned home by his ex-wife when his son is viciously attacked. "Dust" tells the story of Nicholson's homecoming during which he must confront the mistakes of his past while doing battle with a cunning evil he thought long dead in order to protect his loved one's and his own sanity.

Thomas fashions a classic ghost story, with enough twists and turns to qualify "Dust" as part mystery, and strong characterizations that power the narrative forward like a solid psychological thriller. It's often tricky business when writers blend genres, but Thomas pulls off his ambitious narrative undertaking so well here that the lines between supernatural ghost story, psychological drama, and suspense thriller are marvelously blurred - ultimately creating a wholly satisfying reading experience. He sets his story against the richly atmospheric backdrop of New Orleans - overplayed and clichéd in the hands of lesser writers - in which the fabled French Quarter and the bars of Bourbon Street come alive as secondary characters yet never overshadow. Not since Christopher Rice's gothic gay coming-of-age tale, "A Density of Souls", has a novel so seamlessly integrated the New Orleans mystique or so perfectly captured the dichotomous melancholy and pure, hedonistic charisma of the region.

The key strength in "Dust" is the author's masterful use of characterization to create layers of internal and external conflicts for his players, at once humanizing them and investing the reader in their struggles. Nicholson, in particular, is a marvelously flawed creation, the embodiment of an entire generation of gay men for whom Stonewall came too late to save them from having to travel the heterosexual highway before realizing that they had missed their homosexual exit. In Nicholson, readers are made acutely aware of his struggle toward self-acceptance and how real and very difficult that struggle to reconcile the divergent aspects of family, friends, and faith can be. Nowhere in "Dust" is this recurring idea of the sheer messiness of the human condition more brilliantly captured than in the scene in which Nicholson stumbles upon the cathedral in which his severely injured son was to have been married:

"After several minutes of uncertainty, looking into the vast and ornate temple, Ken left the church. He was being foolish, ridiculous, and desperate. He felt weak and hated himself for it. How many of his friends had he watched in their last moments of life, friends who had despised the intolerant religions of their birth, turn back to inefficient faiths? People needed their gods, he knew, and Ken wished he had found one to believe in so his prayers wouldn't feel like the ramblings of a hypocrite, but he wasn't going to indulge in foxhole Christianity. Not yet. Such a turn would mean all other hope was lost."

Thomas is one of a newer crop of horror writers whose writing clearly seeks to transcend the limits of a genre frequently dismissed as disposable and criticized for its excessive indulgences in violence and bloodshed that (sadly) often forsake narrative structure, mood and nuance. Thomas' rich prose harkens back to the moodier works of Straub's "Shadowland" or King's "Dolores Claiborne", while reflecting this newer and welcome trend toward literary horror from the likes of newcomers like Sarah Langan and Alexandra Sokoloff. Thomas demonstrates time and again throughout "Dust" that true horror need not be visceral to get under one's skin:

"How long he stood in front of the gate to Wonderland Ken couldn't say, but he found himself terrified by the place. Like a wasp's nest, this structure and its grounds had served as a shelter for vicious and poisonous things. History and the disease of memory emanated from the decimated structure. Windows, filthy and dark, played the films of history; they showed a magnificent courtyard and bubbling fountain, and they harbored a unique master with incomprehensible power. Ken remembered numerous wonders, numerous pleasures and a single atrocity in which four children had battled for their lives. A soft bed spoke words of confused sensuality. Hallways led visitors through priceless ornamentation. Wandering these halls were the ghosts of children who were lost in their pursuit of happiness as they served their benefactor. All was brilliant light. All was unfathomable darkness. All was fractured light. All was a story."

And, like the best supernatural horror writers, Thomas ably conveys the paranormal without getting bogged down in over-explanation or talking down to his audience. In getting across the essence of the horrifying mind control games that plague the central characters, Thomas conveys this rather abstract concept through simple dialogue between the characters. When one character likens their psychic torture to being caught in "...a virtual reality game without an Off switch" the audience understands it.

At the core of all great stories is the human condition and our endless attempts to quantify, qualify, and question it. In "The Dust of Wonderland", Thomas explores that totality of the human experience like a master painter, first with broad strokes to color the palate then with a fine-point brush to bring forth the depth and detail. While dodging the literary snowballs that Thomas skillfully laces with the genuine chills of an old-fashioned ghost story and hurls liberally throughout, readers will be ensnared in the intricate web of humanity he casts out over his characters, caught blissfully unaware by this dazzling portrait of human hope and heartbreak.

A terrific page turner about the un-dead excesses of the past infecting a supposedly safer, more mundane present. Great characters, evocative descriptions, plenty of scares and an intimate, creepy vision of New Orleans.

This book is highly recommended. You won't be disappointed. I remain in awe of Lee Thomas's writing. He consistently shows the kind of control and mastery over language that makes for a full and vivid read and The Dust of Wonderland is no exception ! I loved the way New Orleans is presented but more so the richness and depth of the characters. Not to be missed.

I had heard good things about this book and its author. However, I felt dirty after reading this novel. Not because many of the characters are homosexual - that did not bother me - but because of several scenes of abuse of underage characters. These seemed added for the shock factor, rather than to benefit the plot. Horror should make your skin crawl, but not with moral disgust.

Normally when I finish a book, I donate it to my local library. This was the first novel I've ever thrown in the trash. I was too embarrassed to give it away.

Ken Nicholson returns to New Orleans after his son is hospitalized and encounters all of the mistakes and mysteries of his past. Years ago, he lived in a strange club called Wonderland which closed after the tragic events of a single night; now, its influences return to haunt Ken and threaten his family. This is, for me, an unusual review: I am reviewing the book without finishing it. I found The Dust of Wonderland so bad, with poor writing and ill-paced plot, that I was unable to finish it. As other reviews are uniformly positive, I feel obligated to provide a negative review to warn readers: some people may not enjoy this book or impossible to read. I don't recommend it.

Since I didn't finish this book, I can't properly critique it as a whole. Perhaps it contains carefully developed themes or characters that can only be appreciated over the course of the entire novel. What I do know, however, is the book's writing style: it is poorly written, rife with italicized flashbacks and thoughts, fragmented sentences, and passive voice. The flashbacks and Ken's thoughts serve to give the reader a peek into Ken's dark past and his terrified emotions, but they are amateur attempts which destroy the story's flow. Why Thomas uses fragmented sentences and passive voice, I'm not sure; they only serve to make it an effort to slog through each poorly written page, and they make the plot feel random and undirected.

The plot is similarly ill-written: the premise of a haunted past is interesting, but Thomas destroys his plot even as he builds it. Flashbacks give up too much information about the past and steal time from the present so that the current plotline seems to go nowhere. Moments of extreme violence, some of which are only hallucinations, begin so early and occur so frequently that they lose their impact. Ken is a passive protagonist (especially when narrated in passive voice), blundering into plot points and victim to his situation, and the reader quickly loses interest in--and track of--his story.

As evidenced by other reviews, some readers enjoy and appreciate The Dust of Wonderland. I don't hold it against them, but I also don't know what they see. Personally, I found this book disappointing and, more importantly, unreadable. I made it halfway through, but the writing style made it too painful to continue and, without any attachment to Ken or interest in his story, the plot gave me no reason to try. Therefore, I strongly recommend the reader against The Dust of Wonderland--this book is not as good as other reviews make it out to be.