The Lost [Mass Market Paperback]

Jack Ketchum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

It was the summer of 1965. Ray, Tim, and Jennifer were just three teenage friends hanging out in the campgrounds, drinking a little. But Tim and Jennifer didn't know what their friend Ray had in mind. And if they'd known, they wouldn't have thought he was serious. Then they saw what he did to the two girls at the neighboring campsite--and knew he was dead serious.

Four years later, the 60s were drawing to a close. No one ever charged Ray with the murders in the campgrounds, but there was one cop determined to make him pay. Ray figured he was in the clear. Tim and Jennifer thought the worst was behind them, that the horrors were all in the past. They were wrong. The worst was yet to come.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This prose equivalent of an X-rated slasher flick is the sort of nasty book that gives horror a bad name which is a pity, since Ketchum (the pseudonym of Dallas Mayr) writes with genuine skill; he knows precisely what he wants and can manipulate his readers as easily as he does his characters. Ketchum's 1996 novel, The Girl Next Door, gained him deserved fame and notoriety. Its subtext of inhumanity on a larger, national scale beyond that of the novel's punk protagonists was felt, and gave an unpleasant story a special significance. In subsequent books, such as 1999's The Right to Life, the subtext has all but vanished, while the violence level has gone way up. Take the prologue to the present novel. In June 1965, in the northwest New Jersey lakes area, sick teenager Ray Pye satisfies his need for a new thrill by shooting two young women campers because they appear to be "lesbos." ("The one still standing had given him a clean head-shot and he'd taken her out with a single shot to the eye.") The police suspect Ray committed the crime, leaving one victim dead and the other on life support, but can't prove his guilt. Retribution comes four years later. After a m‚lange of sex, drugs, foul language and every clich‚ associated with human weakness as well as the Vietnam War era, a host of relentlessly wafer-thin characters die in a climactic maelstrom of blood. Ketchum pulls in the Manson-Tate murders in an attempt at relevance, allowing one of the more sensitive characters to muse, "basically, the world sucked." That's about as deep as this book gets.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Leisure Books (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0843948760
• ISBN-13: 978-0843948769
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,205,297 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jack Ketchum is the pseudonym for novelist Dallas Mayr. He was born in Livingston, New Jersey in 1946. A onetime actor, teacher, and lumber salesman, Ketchum credits his childhood love of Elvis Presley, dinosaurs, and horror for getting him through his formative years. As a teenager, was befriended by Robert Bloch, author of "Psycho" who became a mentor to him. He supported Ketchum's work just as his work was supported by his own mentor, H.P. Lovecraft. This relationship with Bloch lasted until his death in 1994.

A pivotal point in Jack Ketchum's career came while he was working for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency. He met Henry Miller and assisted him as his agent until shortly before his death in 1980. His extraordinary encounter with Miller at his home in Pacific Palisades is one of the subjects of his memoir in "Book of Souls".

In 1980, Jack Ketchum published his first novel "Off Season". Stephen King said in his acceptance speech at the 2003 National Book Awards that "Off Season set off a furor in my supposed field, that of horror, that was unequaled until the advent of Clive Barker. It is not too much to say that these two gentlemen remade the face of American popular fiction." Ketchum has received continued praise by King throughout their friendship. King has said he is "is on a par with Clive Barker (Hellraiser), James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential) and Thomas Harris (The Silence of The Lambs)," and that "the only novelist working today that is writing more important fiction is Cormack McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, The Road).

Ketchum's work is largely based upon true events. The Girl Next Door , for example, was inspired by the 1965 murder of the young Sylvia Likens. In the special edition of the novel, King, who volunteered to write the preface, wrote one of the longest introductions of his career. He later went on to say that the movie adaptation of the book was "the first authentically shocking American film I've seen since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer over 20 years ago. If you are easily disturbed, you should not watch this movie. If, on the other hand, you are prepared for a long look into hell, suburban style, The Girl Next Door will not disappoint. This is the dark-side-of-the-moon version of Stand By Me."

Ketchum has received numerous Bram Stoker Awards for works such as "The Box", "Closing Time", and "Peaceable Kingdom". As his books gained in worldwide popularity, they also began to be adapted into feature films, the first of which was "Jack Ketchum's The Lost" which went on to be a cult success, followed by the highly controversial second film "The Girl Next Door". However, the main launch for Jack Ketchum into international commercial and critical success was the long-awaited release by Magnolia Pictures of the film Red, based on his novel, starring Brian Cox (The Bourne Supremacy) and Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan). After favorable reviews at The Sundance Film Festival, the movie made a critical showing in the United States and enjoyed relative success internationally with subsequent translations of the novel.

Jack Ketchum continues his rise with the present showing of "The Woman" at the Sundance Film Festival 2011 co-written by Ketchum with director Lucky McKee. The novel is to be released this year.

Kethcum lives in New York City where he continues to write, articles, reviews, short stories, novels and screenplays. For more information go to international website: www.thejackketchum.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ketchum Does Suspense, Too, September 19, 2002

By 

Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lost (Mass Market Paperback)

After having read several Jack Ketchum books recently, I've finally discovered the secret to his success; he opens a book about true-life serial killers, picks out some psycho, and uses that as a basis for a story. Ketchum's "The Girl Next Door" utilized the case of Gretchen Baniszewski, "Joyride" borrowed elements from the case of spree killer Howard Unruh, and "Off Season" apparently took material from the Sawney Bean family. In "The Lost," Ketchum continues this trend to tell a story that is more suspense than horror, and he sets it in the tumultuous 1960's.

This isn't your typical whodunit; the book starts off with a double murder committed by three teenage friends. They commit the murders because they want to see what it feels like to kill people. The rest of the story is a flash forward four years into the future. One of the teens, who evades capture by local police, is living the high life as a local drug dealer while living and working at a motel run by his parents. Despite (or perhaps because of) his vanity, his cruelty, and his sociopathic tendencies, he is able to gather around him a motley assortment of losers who follow his every order and whim.

Since we know who did the crime right from the start, we're left wondering where Ketchum is going to take us. There is no need to worry about that. Ketchum populates his novel with more than enough intriguing characters. Two of the most important characters are the cops who investigated the original killings, and who are still attempting to pin the murders on the teens. One of the cops, Ed Anderson, who retired after the killings, comes to see that he has a personal stake in catching the killers. The other cop is Charlie Schilling, who delights in harassing the suspects in an effort to get a confession.

The ringleader of the three killers is a fictional representation of real life murderer Charles Schmid. Schmid killed several women in Arizona during the 1960's. Even a cursory comparison shows that Ketchum borrowed heavily from the Schmid case in order to create his killer. Schmid excelled at gymnastics during high school, wore makeup, stuffed his boots with paper to make himself look taller, told outrageous stories to attract followers, and even walked with an unusual gait. Ketchum's killer shares every one of these traits.

This book reminded me of Ketchum's "Joyride," but this book is developed better and is more fun to read. One reason is length; Ketchum gives himself 400 pages to draw deeper characters and better atmosphere. Everyone comes across as authentic, from the teenage killers to the young ladies who may end up as victims.

What doesn't work as well here is the time frame. The book takes place in the late 1960's, but Ketchum gives only a few references to that effect. He does throw in a few references to the moon landing and the Manson murders, but there were many times that I forgot the time frame of the story. Ultimately, I think the story would have worked just as well if it had been set in modern times.

"The Lost" is one of Ketchum's better novels. I really had no idea how the story was going to end while I read the book. You do know that there is going to be some type of gruesome scenario (it is Ketchum, after all), but he hides it so well that the ending surprised me. This is a good read for those who like suspenseful books, as well as those who don't get enough Jack Ketchum in their diets.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A blast from the recent past, 1969 to be exact., August 17, 2001

By 

Henry W. Wagner (Rockaway, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lost (Mass Market Paperback)

On the surface, The Lost is about the escalating conflict between a murderous sociopath and a zealous lawman. Look closely, however, and you'll find a book dealing with questions about the nature of love, the price of loyalty, and the difficulty of facing overwhelming personal and cultural upheaval. Gripping due to the constant potential for sudden violence (this is a Ketchum novel, after all), The Lost thrills as much for its psychological and emotional richness as it does for its pervasive violence and suspense.

The tale begins in 1965 with an act of sudden, unexpected carnage when sociopath Ray Pye shoots two female campers in cold blood after one of the pair rejects his pitiful romantic advances. The vicious attack, witnessed by Pye's stunned companions, Tim Bess and Jennifer Fitch, leaves one woman dead, the other in a coma.

It is the death of the second camper in 1969 that signals the true beginning of Ketchum's story. We discover that Sparta, New Jersey Police Detective Charlie Shilling has spent the past four years searching for evidence linking Pye to the crime. Bess and Fitch have kept their silence, perhaps from a sense of misguided loyalty, perhaps out of love. Pye, practically daring Shilling to arrest him, has also kept his cool, sticking to a story the detective can't contradict. Frustrated by his failure, Shilling intentionally provokes Pye, finally pushing the mentally unstable killer over the edge. Using the same weapons he carried that fateful night four years earlier, Pye takes gruesome revenge on his real and imagined enemies.

In tone The Lost recalls Red, but, unlike that book, has a much broader scope. Ketchum purposefully adopts a slower pace, so as to more completely explore the complexities of his numerous characters' personalities and relationships. The small vacation town of Sparta acts as a microcosm of the country, as the characters deal with the unpleasant reality of random violence as part of everyday American life -- suddenly, it's not something that only happens in the big city (the Tate-LaBianca killings perpetrated by the Manson family are prominently mentioned, inspiring Ray Pye to further mayhem). As such, it also holds a mirror up to today's world as well, where children practice drills to prepare them for the eventuality of their peers shooting up the school. It takes courage to look into that mirror, but Ketchum's never been one to flinch from unpleasant tasks. He exposes the lies we tell ourselves so we can rest easy at night in the knowledge that it couldn't possibly happen here.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Ketchum Twisted, August 11, 2001

By 

Sebastien Pharand (Orléans, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lost (Mass Market Paperback)

Jack Ketchum has written some very disturbing tales; his The Girl Next Door is one of the most affecting book I've ever read. He is a so-called horror novelist who blends natural, every-day horror (the darkness of a person's mind is always prominent in his books) with great stories. Now comes The Lost, his most mature and most affecting since Girl Next Door.

A melee of characters in 1969 are trying to cope with something horrible that happened five years ago; the cold-blooded murder of two young female campers. You have the murderer, Ray, his two accomplices, Jen and Tim, some of their friends, the cop on the case, Charlie, and a retired cop who helped Charlie with the case five years ago, Ed. All their lives are about to crumble together as the horrors of the past event resurface to haunt them once more. Ketchum has no remorse for any of these characters; he shows to us that no one, no matter how good, is safe from a twisted mind.

Ketchum is at his affecting best with this book. His prose grabs you by the guts and never intends to let go of you until the final page. The regular Ketchum reader will recognize all the trademarks that made this author such a cult phenomenon. But new readers beware; this tale is more slow moving and nostalgic than his other books (a lot of the book was obviously inspired by old 60s music, rock icons and films). Still, with its bloody finally and believable characters, The Lost is Ketchum's best in years, and that's saying a lot!