Customer Reviews

Laughing Man

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

 

 

Some 'horror' authors just want to build suspense and scare you, which is fine because that's all many of us ask. However, there are a few authors that have a little extra going for them. T.M. Wright is one of the latter.

Jack Erthmun is a New York homicide detective with an odd way of gathering information at crime scenes - he gets it by reading the corpse, a sort of bonding with the deceased. His partner thinks he's crazy, and finally he is taken off a troublesome serial murder case due to his escalating bizarreness. For a while he is even a suspect.

Flashbacks to Jack's childhood help reveal some of what's going on. We meet his angry father, his haunted mother, his sisters...and the creatures in the woods. But even at book's end, not everything is clearly explained, which may frustrate some people, although it shouldn't. Some things cannot be explained, or are better left to the imagination, making this novel ideal for contemplation and discussion.

There is much pain and violence in LAUGHING MAN, but it's a book with a beating heart, and it bestows upon the reader flashes of insight into the human condition. Not bad for a 'horror' novel.

"Laughing Man" is the fifth in Mr. Wright's "Strange Seed" ("children of the earth") series, begun, of course, with "Strange Seed" (1978, Everest House, then pb by Playboy and TOR Books), and followed by "Nursery Tale," "The Children of the Island," and "The People of the Dark." Those who haven't read at least one of these books won't completely understand "Laughing Man." I've read all of them and I found "Laughing Man" quite absorbing.

I pride myself in finishing what I start. Reading this book was one of those times where I had to put in an "effort" to finish what I began. The writing was good, but too often nonsensical. To those who say "but it's part of a series," I say, why didn't the publisher note this on the cover. I realize the answer is few people will first buy and read the fifth book in a series without reading the first. That is why I would have chosen to know it was part of a series. The entire time I read about Jack Erthmun, the echoing detective, I felt as though I had missed something. Horrific murders, half eaten corpses with their mouths full of chocalate, beautiful nude murderesses, a haunted small cabin in the country.....were all interesting in and of themselves, but there was no narrative flow and this kept me from "getting into" the book. It almost seemed as though I was reading a book of short stories with no common theme. Maybe Mr. Wright could set me straight and explain what the point was.

Jack Erthmun ,the protagonist of this book ,is an NYPD homicide detective of deeply unothodox hue.A sufferer from echolalia-a tendency to repeat the last words of what the last person said to him -he is withdrawn ,solitary and has working methods that trouble his superiors.He seems almost to bond with the dead-------he "hears" them speak andthey feed him clues .
He is assigned to a series of notably brutal killings--the victims have chocolate stuffed into their mouths and have been cannibalised.The slayers are a series of women who are clearly not of natural origin ,and there are clear signs that Jack himself is linked in some way to them ,and may himself be the product of a union between his mother and one of these creatures who home is in the woods near the family residence in the Adirondacks.

The book -initially tightly controlled and unsettling -spirals out of control and gets more and more ambiguous as it develops .Indeed the open ended conclusion suggests to me that Mr Wright himself did not know how to end the book .
Some scenes are of a gut clenching intensity that belies the author's reputation as a purveyor of "quiet horror" but overall this book confirmed my view of the author from previous encounters-that he is pretentious and does not possess a strong narrative sense.
Others -it is clear from the reviews on this page -rate the book highly but I do not recommend it to devotees of horror fiction who like emphasis on plot and narrative as it sems to me to be deficient in these matters

In "Laughing Man", one could argue that the story falls apart the same as the character does. That his world spirals into madness and confusion, and we, as readers, are expected to take the ride with him. Okay, that's fine. I understand. But confusion does not satisfy my need for a solid, scary story. I'm someone who needs a payoff. Yes, the book is well written and starts off very powerful, but I had to work hard to get through the last 100 pages. I usually love this writer, and although I was still entertained by "Laughing Man", I would recommend some of T.M.'s other work for new readers. "The Last Vampire" and "Sleepeasy" are both much better.

While it makes sense now that I find out this is part of a series, as a stand alone novel, well, it's without question the worst book I've ever read. I'm always angry when I waste time reading an entire book that is as foul as this one, I always like to give a book the benefit of the doubt. I should have stopped reading after the first chapter. If you're a fan, I suppose you're reading the series, if you are considering reading this as a stand alone, don't. Even if it's free, even if you are stranded on a deserted island and it's the only book that washes up with you. You'll be disappointed in the complete lack of plot, ridiculous characters, and completely unsatisfactory 'ending'.