Ordinary Horror [Hardcover]

David Searcy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 29, 2001

A spectacular debut novel, in the tradition of such masters of the contemporary Gothic as Shirley Jackson, Flannery O'Connor, and Ian McEwan

Here's a horror story for you..."David Searcy's first novel tells the story of Frank Delabano, a seventy-year-old widower who lives a perfectly quiet life in an aging tract house neighborhood, where he keeps to himself, tending the flowerbeds in his small backyard. When his beloved roses are menaced by some sort of mysterious burrowing pest, Mr. Delabano mails away for an organic remedy he sees advertised in the local paper: gopherbane, an exotic South American plant guaranteed to get rid of garden varmints "but harmless to pets and everything else." The strange, blue-flowering plants do the trick, but the claim about their being harmless to everything else proves to be false advertising-to put it mildly. As incidents of "ordinary horror" mount daily, Searcy's tale gradually builds to an unforgettable apocalyptic climax...

Ordinary Horror marks the debut of a singularly original new voice in American fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Those in search of subtle literary horror need look no farther than this fine debut novel. Frank Delabano is a quiet, elderly man living alone in the great flatness of an aging housing development. His rose garden is out of the ordinary in this most ordinary of places. "It's the sentimental absorbency of roses that's most valuable to him, in factArelieves him of any lingering sorrows, draws them off and releases them to the air." When little piles of dirt erupt in the flower beds, Mr. Delabano suspects gophers and is determined to be rid of them. He mail-orders some "gopherbane," an exotic nonflowering South American plant guaranteed to repel his garden varmints without harming anything else. The plants turn out to have buds that blossom into odd large blue flowers, but they do prevent the pests. Once the plants are part of the garden, however, ever-increasing feelings of disturbance and fear pervade Mr. Delabano's existence. His neighbors, the Getzes, and their troubled little daughter, Janie, become part of the uneasy new atmosphere. As the reader is drawn into its mystifying strangeness, the novel's progress depends on its characters more than plot. One is never quite sure of what to be sure of. Is the mounting sense of fear real or an extension of distorted psychology? Poetic present-tense prose enhances the disconcerting sensation. Audaciously original, emotionally effective, this is a more than ordinary horror novel. (Jan. 29) Forecast: Literary horror can be a difficult sellAmany readers of "literature" scorn horror, and horror fans are likely to return the favorAbut the purchase of serial rights to this novel by Grand Street should help reach the high-lit readership. That the story deals with a malevolent plant may
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Frank Delabano has lived alone since his wife died, content to tend his rose garden, eat TV dinners, and keep to himself. When it seems that gophers have arrived in his garden, his quiet life is disrupted, forcing him into action to protect his prized foliage. It is Delabano's choice of weapons against his foe that leads him to embark unwittingly upon a journey toward the book's apocalyptic climax. In Delabano, first novelist Searcy puts a new spin on the unreliable narrator device, taking the reader into the mind of an old man often obsessed with fearful thoughts and easily distracted by everyday occurrences. Unfortunately, although Searcy's intention may be to show us the "ordinary horror" that exists at the onset of senility, the abundant expository passages intended to portray the workings of Delabano's mind have little contrast, slowing the novel's pace and dulling its message. For larger collections.DNancy McNicol, Hagaman Memorial Lib., East Haven, CT
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Edition edition (January 29, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670894761
• ISBN-13: 978-0670894765
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #379,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Engaging, but disappointing, March 30, 2002

By 

Thomas Strong "wheatthin" (Atlanta, GA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ordinary Horror (Paperback)

I found "Ordinary Horror" compelling at the outset. It draws the reader in immediately with a terrific first paragraph, vivid imagery, and a story that suggests an ominous, cynical adaptation of "Little Shop of Horrors." The first third of the novel reads well, has an unusual, well-drawn protagonist, and moves along at slow but tantalizing pace. I did not want to put it down.

By the middle of the book I could not stop putting it down. Every chapter seemed like a challenge to finish, for the simple reason that Searcy never tightens the story's early sensation of creepy uneasiness. Instead he just draws it out, until every ominous symbol becomes watery-thin. It becomes boring, which is terribly unfortunate given the promising start. The book jacket promises a riveting climax as the payoff, but I found the finale confusing and artificial, tacked-on. There was no horror, no tension, no interest left for me at that point. Inertia alone led me to finish the novel.

Searcy is a fine prose stylist, and much of the imagery in "Ordinary Horror" is memorably vivid. But there's too much of it, and too little emotion. One of the reviewers -- I think it was Russell Hoban -- compared him to Borges, and I think the comparison is valid. But Borges was a brilliant editor as well as an ingenious storyteller, which is why almost every story he published was less than 15 pages long. Had Searcy applied the same level of intensity to his own rewriting, "Ordinary Horror" might have been something special. Instead, it is a messy first novel by a gifted author. Despite my criticism, I look forward to reading Searcy's next book.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars What was the Point?, February 28, 2001

By 

Pelke (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ordinary Horror (Hardcover)

I think the FBI needs to investigate David Searcy. His book, Ordinary Horror, is obviously an encoded message, intended for Russian Intelligence. A message that I certainly was unable to decipher.

To his credit, the author has a wonderful command of the English language. He describes simple, even mundane, objects and events with such vivid detail, you form a stunningly clear image of what's going on. You can really feel the emotions of the characters and understand their experiences. However, the author never takes the story beyond a series of excruciatingly detailed observations, and the detail finally becomes overwhelming.

At the start, the story seems to hold so much promise -- a mysterious plant that wreaks havoc on it's owner and his neighbors. But, the author quickly swerves away from this plot and never really explores any of the wonderful possibilities that it holds. Disparate elements of the plot are thrown at the reader throughout the book, but in the end are never explained and never tied together. Just as you think things might be starting to come together, the story slams into yet another dead end. Another red herring -- you realize that the agonizing discourse on Amazonian biotoxins that you just trudged through leads the story nowhere -- in fact has nothing at all to do with the outcome.

The cover jacket promises: "As incidents of 'ordinary horror' multiply, Searcy's extraordinary tale gradually builds to an apocalyptic -- and unforgettable -- climax." Unfortunately, the story builds and builds, but never reaches the promised climax. As I turned the last page and finished the last paragraph, I remained hopeful that something brilliant would rise from everything that had been constructed up to that point. In the end, I was just left asking: "what was the point?".

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What's not to get?, November 4, 2004

By 

Tooloud (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ordinary Horror (Paperback)

I'm surprised nobody has reached the same conclusion as myself.
The plants were an opiate, an hallucinogenic... they had the neighbours and Frank stoned out of their minds for months. The effects were like LSD, where Mr Delabano found himself losing hours at a time staring at minute details, hence the narratives long, ponderous attention to the explicit details. It is why he couldn't recognise a dead animal, or Janie at the window. It also mirrors the outline of the book he has on Amazonian botany which features similarly pointless stories - and similarly pointless photos of seamingly nondescript pathways which are labelled 'luminesence'. The authors were clearly exposed to the same plant. Hence the title Ordinary Horror. Ther horror was not lurking within some monster, it was in the tedium of suburban life as highlighted and drawn into focus by the effects of the plants. ie. the sisters fixed to the TV. The horror....the horror.