Customer Reviews

The Fallen

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have to admit that when I picked up Dale Bailey's The Fallen, I was not expecting much. After all, the book is very thin and it comes from a first time author. There are no reviews or quotes on the book imploring its greatness. But from the very first page, I was gripped by the story and by the author's beautiful style. Not only is The Fallen a great horror story, it is also a very literary one at that.

Henry Sleep returns to his hometown of Sauls Run when he gets the news that his father has just passed away. It is in that town that Henry's old flame, Emily, still resides and where his once-friend Perry is now holding the reins of the family business.

Only, Henry doesn't believe that his father did commit suicide. And his suspicions are confirmed when strange things begins happening in Sauls Run. Saying anymore about the plot would be ruining a very original and very enthralling story. I will only say that you will be hooked from the very first page and that you will not want to see the book end.

It's hard to believe that this is Bailey's first book. The writing resembles that of someone who has been doing it for decades. His prose is beautifully descriptive and even poetic at times, which is something that you rarely find in a horror novel. And yet, The Fallen offers fully fleshed characters that you will care about and love. Even the so-called 'bad guys' will evoke some sympathy from you.

My only reproach is that the book was too short. I wanted more. I would have taken a lot more. Then again, the pacing is just perfect in The Fallen. There is never a dull moment, but you will get everything you need to know about the characters and their past, everything you'll need to enjoy this perfectly crafted story.

The Fallen is one of those rare gems that takes you my complete surprise. I can't wait to read another book by Dale Bailey. If his next one is half as good as The Fallen was, then we'll be in for yet another great treat!

It takes a bunch to impress this old country boy, but Dale Bailey has done it. Over the years, working in a truckstop and driving eighteen wheelers, you read a bunch of horror and SF books that all read and sound the same. Well, not the Fallen. I was blown away by how well-written this book is! Every chapter played on my mind's eye like them midnight flicks at the all-nite drive-in here in Texas. Full of dread, wonder, and suspense, Bailey's book puts alot of these new fangled spooky writers (and some of the older ones too--you listening, Dean Koontz?) plumb to shame. I hope he does a sequel. Heck, make it a series. These characters are made for a more drawn out story they are so well developed. And the mystery involved is so deep and profound that you'll be thinking about it for days after you finish it wondering if you really saw what you thought you saw. It reminds me of HP Lovecraft where the hero only gets a glimpse of the monster, but it is enough to send his hair white. Bailey does this with the Fallen. A great first book and I cannot wait to get in something else by him!

Every once in a while there comes a novel that incorporates the best of several genres, that crosses and blends and makes startlingly new. The Fallen is one of those rare treats, a murder mystery, a contemporary fantasy, a meditation on religion. The cherry on top: the book is beautifully written, a musical tumbling of words.

Fans of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction already know Dale Bailey, author of such stories as the Nebula-nominated "The Resurrection Man's Legacy," Touched," "The Anencephalic Fields," and "Death and Suffrage," In his first novel, Bailey returns to his beloved West Virginia Appalachia, the hardscrabble lives of miners, and makes it as heart-breaking as Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha, as gritty as King's Castle Rock.

When his father supposedly commits suicide, Henry Sleep is called back to his hometown, the sleepy mining hamlet of Sauls Run. Upon return, Sleep discovers secrets by the dozen: murder, intrigue, and something utterly fantastic. Henry, his ex-girlfriend, and a cancer-riddled newspaper reporter unite against the forces that hold Sauls Run, venturing deep into the Appalachian mines. What they discover is a wonder that could quite possibly change their world.

This is an amazing first novel, one that introduces a marvelous new writer, one who simultaneously handles words like silver and forges a wonderful story. Highly recommended.

If you read only one book this year, let it be this one. The Fallen is a good, engrossing story -- part suspense, part police procedural, part horror/fantasy, part philosophical thriller. Its characters are psychologically complex, doing what is understandable but not predictable. When the protagonist gears up for his fight against evil in the final pages, don't assume you know the rest. You don't. If Henry Sleep has trouble loading a gun, you can bet he is not the typical mass market paperback hero. And this is not the typical mass market paperback. It is literate and sure to make you think if you are so inclined, but entertaining enough to keep you happy if you are not. Don't miss this one!

I wasn't certain I wanted to read this book. I saw a preview of it in a book club catalog and decided to give it a try. I am so glad I followed my gut: This was a great book. I was hooked at the first chapter and never looked back.

Henry Sleep is a young man running from something, he's not sure what. He suffers from nightmares he can't explain and has memories of his childhood that are disjointed. He grew up in a place called Sauls Run. After losing his mother at age 12, he spent the next few years hating his father, until he was able to flee town and run from -- what? He couldn't quite remember. His father's suicide brings him reluctantly home to face the stuff his nightmares are made of.

Henry left behind two people, Emily and Perry, who hate him for fleeing Sauls Run and leaving them behind. Henry struggles throughout the story to remember what he did to cause Perry to hate him so.

The story is filled with deep, rich storytelling. The characters are so alive they feel like old friends ... or enemies.

The book is brief and left me eager for Bailey's next effort. Bravo to him for resisting the urge to yammer on long after the story was over, like too many of his colleagues seem to do.

Each year brings a new crop of first novels, many of which are, quite predictably, substandard in terms of quality. Every so often, however, a first novel appears that sets itself apart from the pack; as readers, we experience that special thrill of recognition that announces, "Here is something special." 2002 was unique in that it saw the publication of several novels that provoked such a reaction, among them Alexander Irvine's A Scattering of Jades, Dale Bailey's Fallen Angels, and Glenn Hirshberg's The Snowman's Children.

The best of the three is Irvine's gripping secret history of the United States, which opens with the great New York fire of 1835 and ends in Mammoth Cave circa 1843. In between, it relates the story of newspaperman Archie Prescott who seemingly stumbles on the story of the century, one that centers on the mad ambitions of con man Riley Steen. Believing that great power and influence will accrue to him as a result of his schemes, Steen implements a plan to resurrect the Aztec god Tlaloc. This plan's first step is to animate Tlaloc's avatar, a Mesoamerican mummy known as the chacmool. Once revived, however, the chacmool proves to have a mind of his own, embarking on a journey of death and destruction. Having witnessed the chacmool's bizarre rebirth, Prescott follows the deadly creature across America, eventually coming to realize that their destinies are intertwined.

Masterfully weaving period detail, historical fact, and compelling characters both fictional and real (Edgar Allen Poe, Aaron Burr and P. T. Barnum all make cameos), Irvine creates an absorbing tale whose historical elements are as intriguing as its more fantastic elements. Irvine's imaginative energy brings the period to life in all its gaudy, dirty splendor, detailing a 19th century America whose glorious promise is diminished by the petty schemes and ambitions of the mere mortals who inhabit it. His greatest accomplishment, however, is to have made this tale of the fantastic a very human one, focusing on the passions, ambitions, strengths and failings of his expansive and variegated cast.

Dale Bailey's Fallen is another winner. Set in the isolated mining town of Saul's Run, Pennsylvania, it tells the story of Henry Sleep, a young man who returns to his hometown to bury his father, whom the local police believe took his own life. Not willing to accept this conclusion, Henry begins poking around in his father's affairs. Suspense builds as Bailey artfully raises the stakes, plunging Henry into an investigation that uncovers unwelcome childhood memories and the fantastic secret of a town whose inhabitants almost uniformly live long, untroubled lives.

Although Bailey trods familiar ground in his debut (there are smatterings of works as diverse as IT, Ghost Story, and The Killer Inside Me), he does so with such confidence and bravado that similarities to other books are easily overlooked. At heart a mystery, the book's satisfying payoff is decidedly supernatural, calling to mind William Hjortesberg's Fallen Angel, although not for the reasons you might assume. The build up is slow, slow, slow, but it pays off grandly in the end. Bailey creates a palpable sense of menace and dread, made all the more unbearable due to the readers' increasing involvement with the book's winning cast.

Like Henry Sleep, Mattie Rhodes, the point of view character of Glen Hirshberg's The Snowman's Children, returns to suburban Detroit seeking answers to questions that have plagued him since childhood. Mattie is hoping to reconnect with old friend, Spencer Franklin, who, he hopes, will lead him to yet another friend, Theresa Daughrety. The trio share common backgrounds and, sadly, common traumas. In the late 1970's, they lived through a reign of terror created by the deplorable acts of "The Snowman," a serial killer who, over the course of several winters, abducted and killed several children. The killer's presence had a profound impact on their childhood, and influenced some unfortunate decisions on their part which they still struggle to deal with as adults.

For a first time novelist, Hirshberg displays an extremely deft touch, a sharp eye for detail, and a firm grasp of the delicacy and complexity of human relationships, especially those between youthful friends and between parent and child. It's depressing serial killer subplot aside, The Snowman's Children is at its core a novel about growing up, about either conquering or assimilating the events of childhood so that you can get on with your life. No matter how significant, letting your life be defined by a single event is the ultimate tragedy.

These are the kind of books that keep you reading well into the night; you're actually disappointed to discover you're reaching the end. Yet you can accept this disappointment, cherishing the promise that each author has shown and what that promise augers for the future. The novel is alive and well because writers like Irvine, Bailey and Hirshberg care enough to craft books like these, books with the power to renew our faith in written word.

I found THE FALLEN to be a much more enjoyable book than Bailey's subsequent HOUSE OF BONES. Bailey gives the story a foundation of atmospheric tension, a puzzling mystery, a connection between past and present events which he brings together in the final pages.
Henry Sleep is a likeable character; his past haunts him still and his relationship with Emily is strong, though tentative. Ben Stranger is another good character, a newspaper writer given a reprieve; Harold/Grubb is a complex and unique type of psychopath, whose conflict with his two personalities forms an important part of the plot.
Set in a rural West Virginia town, Bailey knows how to use blizzards and small town life effectively.
There are no real surprises here, but it's an entertaining journey and displays the writing talent of Mr. Bailey.

Be it called "horror," "SF," or "suspense," THE FALLEN is nothing if not literate. It is a grand read that grabs one from the initial page and will not turn loose until the last. Morever, one finds oneself saddened to see it end as Henry Sleep and Sam and all the rest of the inhabitants of Saul's Run become hugely interesting. Bailey's ability to draw the reader into the characters and elicit empathy for them is an important part of the successful suspense novel. Only when the reader truly cares for the charaters can any suspense be drawn. One only worries about someone one cares about; the characters in THE FALLEN are those people.

As a final positive to this finely crafted first novel I say this: any book that has me wondering what the characters are doing while I am at work is a great book. Only Dan Simmons, Robert McCammon, and Chet Williamson have ever accomplished this.

Now, add Dale Bailey to the mix. Try THE FALLEN. You will love it.

Dale Bailey, The Fallen (Signet, 2002)

I've now read all three of Bailey's full-length fiction releases (two of them novels, one a book of short stories), and I have to say that this one, the first of them, is the weakest. Putting a positive spin on it, boy got real good real fast-- House of Bones is a whipcrack of a novel, and if you want to get hooked on Bailey, that'll do it.

Not to say The Fallen is a bad book by any means, it just seems as if the ground's been trod a tad often. Which is interesting, given that House of Bones takes one of the oldest plots in the world, the haunted house novel, and makes it fresh and exciting. (It likely also doesn't help that the cover of The Fallen pretty much gives away the big reveal at the end.)

The devil in the details, though, has been Bailey's from the start. His name choices are wonderful, almost Dickensian in their combined whimsy and appropriateness, and he's great at stringing the reader along. Perhaps it's better to think of The Fallen not as your typical horror novel, but as a tragedy; "predictable" doesn't enter into it that way, because you've already got the plot laid out for you and have since you first read Sophocles. Bailey puts some twists on it, though, and gives it a modern feel.

A good debut, but save it till last if you're working your way through Bailey's fiction writing. *** ½

Dale Bailey has the rare talent of combining chair-gripping suspense with breathtakingly magnificent prose. He is the most promising new writer to hit the fantasy/horror scene. Readers of short fiction will also love his short stories, some of which have appeared in publications such as THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. What a remarkable gift he has!