Customer Reviews

Grimm Memorials (Onyx)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It's funny how this book got in my hands, and it was totally by accident. I have recently renewed my library card, after not using it for years and browsing with my friend, while she found this book. One look at the cover and I knew I had to read it, luckily she had other things and she didn't think she could tackle too many books at one time and I got it.

I have never heard of Gates before but after reading this book I'm a fan for life. This must be one of the scariest horror/fairytale books I have ever read. It was gruesome and fast paced and I totally adored Jackie, the little boy who was the wisest, most creative and likable character I have encountered in a book, and mind you he was 6 years old.

The book is about a family who moves to Northwood, away from the concrete jungle of Boston and settles in a new home surrounded by charming woods and spooky Victorian mansions. Heavily pregnant Diane, Steve, Jackie and Jennifer Nailer are a tightly knit family. However when they move they cross paths with one of the most evil to the core characters book world has ever invented; Eleanor.

She is the witch character that was so real, I started getting nightmares and was worried that she's getting to real in my subconscious mind and it made the book so much scarier. She kidnaps kids from all over and has to perform a sacrifice ritual of black magic, which was totally terrifying to read. She possesses a give called The Machine that enchants the town's people, including Jackie and Jennifer's parent's to the point where she gets them in her claws for satanic ritual that would made her immortal according to the Necromonicon she had.

There were moments when I was reading this book that my heart was squeezing hard because it was so intense. I highly enjoyed reading this and I read it in a matter of days only because mundane things such as going to works were getting in the way. All I wanted to do was read the book, I guess it enchanted me just like the with enchanted the kids in the story. Highly recommended for all horror and sci fi fiction!

It was purely by coincidence that I discovered R. Patrick Gates and managed to get my hands on this classic of horror. I was at a dusty old used bookstore searching for out of print Edward Lee books. Not surprisingly I didn't have any luck but the store owner suggested that if I liked Lee, I ought to try ought Gates. I read the back cover and was impressed, it seemed like an ideal read for the halloween season. I'm really glad Gates was brought to my attention because Grimm Memorials ended up being the most successfully horrifying novel I have ever read. Ever.

The story centers around Steve Nailer, his pregnant wife Diane and their two kids Jackie and Jennifer. When Steve is offered a teaching job in the small, ideallic New England town of Northwood, he jumps at the opportunity, and the Nailers soon move into a nice cozy little house on the edge of the woods. One afternoon while the kids are exploring the woods behind their house and going maybe a little bit farther than they should, they discover an old, seemingly abandoned funeral home with a sign at the front that reads: "Grimm Memorials." Little do they know that a witch lives there. An old witch named Eleanor who is seeking eternal life. For her to gain immortal life she must perform a sacrifice on the night of Samhain that involves the sacrifice of thirteen young boys and one pregnant mother. Only a few days are left untill the night of Samhain and Eleanour will stop at nothing to get the little boys that she needs.

Grimm Memorials really turned out to be the perfect halloween season read. It takes place duing the same season, has scenes involving lost children in the woods, a gothic New England setting and a witch who has to be one of the most evil characters ever created in horror fiction. She shows absolutely no remorse for the atrocities she commits on the children. The gore scenes in this novel are beyond belief. Like an Edward Lee or Charlie Jacob novel, I found the gore to be so mind-shattering that I was re-reading sentences twice just to make sure I was not hallucinating and had really read what I thought I'd read. There are some scenes that are simply too outrageous and must be read to be believed. One scene involves a middle-aged man in a bar who sees a gorgeous 20-something blond beauty. Soon after, he is having sex with her right on top of a table. What he doesn't know is that the woman he's having sex with is really the witch Eleanour who put a spell on him. To outsiders in the bar (like the 3 college jocks at a nearby table) they are watching a guy giving it to a 90-year old woman. This scene plays out over several pages and simply must be read to be believed.

I have tried to find out more about Gates but there's next to nothing about him on the internet. He wrote a handful of novels in the early to mid 90's but has seemingly dissapeared since then. All of his novels are sadly out of print but if you can find Grimm Memorials in a used bookstore like I did don't pass it up. It's even worth hunting down if you are a fan of extreme horror looking for a book that will stretch your limits.

I was leary to read this book based on the synopsis, fearing that it might be a cheesy, childish attempt to lump together fairy tales in a modern setting. In truth, this book is a wicked work of art that would make the Brothers Grimm shivver with fear.

Early on in this novel, it becomes apparent that Gates took painstaking care to create a novel that operates on many levels. He crafts in Elenore Grimm a villian who is rumored to be a descendant of the Grimm brothers from whom the story takes it's name. As such, she's always been gifted with the storytelling creativity that her ancestors were known for. A former crematoritum operator who seeks eternal life through the dark arts, Elenore possesses a paranormal abilty referred to as "The Machine", which she uses to read the minds of others, toying with their perceptions and bending their wills to do her bidding. The hallucinations of the victims take the form of viciously distorted fairy tales.

Consider yourself warned. This is not a novel for the squeamish or faint of heart. This is extreme horror at it's most intense. The pages are splattered full of canibalism, torture, and darker things than most minds could imagine. At the same time, Gates has created a world full of characters who you will feel as if you know, which makes their demise all the more frightening.

Amusingly, each chapter of this book begins with a quote from a fairy tale, which manages to sum up that chapter's contents in some way, shape or form - an effort that must have taken much of the writers time, but adds an excellent touch.

This novel may have elements that are familiar to fans of Stephen King, but will definitely appeal to afficcionados of more extreme writers such as Edward Lee or Jack Ketchum. My guarantee is that once you finish this novel, you'll want to start immediately on the sequel, Grimm Reapings, and will then begin to beg for the rumored third book.

R. Patrick Gates was my writing teacher not so very long ago. And I think this book is no doubt about it, his best. Ive read all but one of his books, and this is the positive outlier in his collection. Yes, I agree that the book has lots of sex, some not neccesary, but HOPEFULLY YOU are capable like MOST PEOPLE to put it to the side and really read the book. This book definately was well thought out and very creative. The character are very unique in my opinion especially Eleanor.

Steve and Diane Nailer are trying to get away from it all by moving into a new house in Northwood with their family of three, consisting of two kids with a third on the way. At the last moment they discover trouble lurking in the towns old mortuary which settles on the path of a trail that makes its way through the woods leading into the Nailers new back yard. Trouble keeps coming and fear builds up, but they cant stop it, for they cant control anything including themselves.

I read this book several years ago and my friends agree with me. It's simply the best horror book ever written. It conjures up scenes and characters so vividly that you'd swear you were watching a movie instead of reading a book! I hope if it's ever made into a movie that it's not ruined - they usually are. The only other book I've read by him was "Fear," which I remember being not too thrilled with. I do have his other books in my line-up and intend to read the rest. If "Grimm Memorials" is still out of print you owe it to yourself to get a copy now!

Though it has many flaws, "Grimm Memorials" has plenty for horror fans to love: it has loads of nasty violence and gore, its villain is remorselessly evil, it's creatively shocking at times, and once the story gets going it runs at an intense pace.

Taking fairy tales and nursery rhymes and exposing them for how ghastly and violent they are, "Grimm Memorials" tells the story of an evil old woman, who can control people's minds, who's collecting innocent little boys for a black-magic sacrifice to gain immortality.

The Nailer family, with its pregnant matriarch, who have just arrived in her small town and moved by her house (a creepy funeral home in the woods), are the final pieces that she needs to make the sacrifice work.

This book comes hyped as a gore-galore affair, and it mostly lives up to it. There are occasional scenes of stunning depravity (even a little bestiality). Gates does a really good job of picking up the pace after a slow opening and the novel starts to whip along, at its best, as Eleanor (the "witch") gets more frantic as she tries to put everything in place for the sacrifice. As she furiously sets everything in order, the violence spirals out of control and the bodies pile up. Eleanor's health is deteriorating and she has to hastily tie up loose ends. No one is immune from her brutality, and some characters meet abrupt, messy ends.

There are some miscalculations in this novel, too. Though I enjoyed it, I found the main conceit of the "witch," Eleanor, using fairy tales to entice children naively unrealistic. I seriously doubt modern kids know much about fairy tales, and I also doubt you could use them to lure them anywhere. (Eleanor isn't, after all, a real witch, and some of these scenes come off as silly.) Gates cheats a bit in irritating ways, too. Eleanor has grave health issues and has at least one heart attack during all this. She's so weak she can barely walk, yet she's constantly hauling around sacks of kids and at one point overpowers a terrified teenager, who from pure adrenaline would have broken her in half. This novel also teaches us this basic truth: if a dog "the size of a lion" is loose in a house you've entered unbidden and you see it eating human remains, don't ignore it and move on.

The other problem is the writing itself. I don't expect great prose from these types of books, but some of the writing is distractingly bad. Sentences are awkwardly constructed (too much information is jammed into them) and the characters are pretty shallow. The opening chapters focus too much on the young boy Jackie, who is whiny and annoying. I couldn't wait for the witch to turn him into stew. His parents and sister are much more interesting, and luckily they are the main subjects for the rest of the novel.

"Grimm Memorials" is far from perfect, but once you get into the meat (no pun intended) of the story, it really starts to pick up steam and charges ahead to its blood-soaked ending. It could have been even better with a little sharper editing, but I recommend it unreservedly to anyone who likes a little gore with their frights.

I heard so much about this novel, that I had to read it for myself...Well, there is no doubt that Gates' plot is a doozy and there are scenes of undeniable power and menace. I was not, however, completely sold here. The problem lies in Gates writing (and believe me, I am not an overly critical reader). I found it to have a streak of immaturity. It was redundant, explained to much and Gates seemed to have an 18 year old's grasp of the real world. An example: the protagonist quits teaching, goes back for his masters on money he saved up (hah) and writes his thesis paper on; get this: "american poets"....That's like a geologist writing a paper on "rocks". I wish I had professors that leinent!...Thats just one example...I would have given this novel 3.5 stars if I could. It does have an undenible power and contains some gruesomely effective scenes, if you can get over some occasionally cloddish writing.

I read this book when I was 13 and it kept me up at night. I just finished reading it for the second time at 21 and it's even scarier than the first time. This old woman portrays exactly what kids are scared of. This is a story of Hansel and Gretal gona bad. JESUS, I don't think I could ever read this again.

While I do not speak from first hand experience, I understand the original Brothers Grimm fairy tales were quite genuinely creepy; before they were watered down and rendered politically correct. Gates seems to have an excellent grasp on what I imagine the original tales must have been like. His wicked, child-eating witch Eleanor is perfect. I did not find the gore to be over the top, but there were a few scenes that were notably disturbing. Gates does a wonderful job portraying Eleanor throwing herself into her rituals with glee, gusto and such obvious enjoyment that it is chilling.
Why then only 3 stars? Unfortunately there were a couple of points towards the end of the novel that seemed dragged out. Instead of heightening the tension as I assume was the intention, I found myself getting bored and a bit annoyed. I also found it hard to connect with and really identify with/care about any of the characters. The adults were all under Eleanor's mind control for almost the entire book, so while their behavior was understandable given the circumstances; the characters were never really fleshed out. Jackie, the main protagonist, engendered sympathy but was hard to identify with simply because he was 6. My other main complaint is that Gates did not delve deep enough into Eleanor's past and back ground. As a fan of horror fiction, I found Eleanor to be the most fascinating aspect of the story.
In summary, despite my at times overy critical nature; Grimm Memorials is definitly worth checking out by all aficionados of the horror genre.

Being from Massachusetts, and one who love the Halloween season in New England, I thought I would give this book a shot. It is a very easy read and the author does display a talent for creating apt metaphors and descriptive writing. I do believe the author has created a story worth writing but I felt his execution just lacked something. I felt as (as another reviewer mentioned) that it was far too formulaic, especially earlier chapters. It then became redundant and dull in later chapter as Eleanor made sacrifice after sacrifice. Towards the very end it just became "Nightmare on Elm Street" silly. I also felt there was an obvious character flaw with Jackie. The author had developed his character as a normal 6 year old kid who had fears of the unknown but in later chapters (without ruining it for anyone) he made Jackie into an extremely precocious kid who was relentless in the face of adversity....just a bit too hard to believe. I thought that the gory parts such as bodies being shredded and cooked during the Witch's ritual did help the reader identify with Jackie and Mark's shock but much of the gore and sex in the book was unnecessary. I enjoyed the book as a nice Halloween read but a lot of the fat could have been trimmed.