Toplin [Hardcover]

Michael McDowell (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

McDowell is a well known author of occult tales (The Amulet, The Elementals) who now offers an ambitious novel of psychological horror. The unnamed narrator relates his twisted view of life so transparently that we can see through his demented thoughts to the reality beneath. He thinks that everything happening in his decaying urban neighborhood holds a personal message for him and when he decides his destiny is to kill a hideously ugly woman, it is clear that only he sees any deformity. In the details of his madness (an obsession with numbers, a fascination with and repugnance for the flesh, his pathetic fallacy, etc.), the book vaguely recalls such great works of monomania and solipsism as Samuel Beckett's Three Novels, but any other comparison is invidious. Like the surrealist illustrations that objectify the narrator's visions, this novel is occasionally distasteful but mostly unmoving. December 15
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A nameless, paranoid narrator, compelled by mysterious warnings and sourceless messages, sets out to kill a deformed waitress whom he feels wants to die. With every revelation of the narrator's bizarre lifestyle and unusual acquaintances, the reader is less sure of what can be believed, until the line between actuality and fantasy disappears completely. McDowell has crafted an explicit and unusual nightmarish vision of contemporary urban life that embraces the range of social and sexual maladjustment. The narrator's calm, understated recitation of the unsavory events only heightens the horror; the fine illustrations match the surrealistic mood perfectly. An offbeat, puzzling, and disturbing work that should interest even the most jaded fans of horror fiction. Eric W. Johnson, Univ. of Bridgeport Lib., Ct.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 186 pages
• Publisher: Scream Pr (January 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0910489114
• ISBN-13: 978-0910489119
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 8.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,317,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Once you've outgrown Bentley Little or Richard Laymon..., November 5, 2002

By 

Church of The Flaming Sword - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toplin (Mass Market Paperback)

...you may want to check out this obscure little gem, if you can find it. Toplin is told from the perspective of a rather peculiar and unnamed gentleman who lives in a Kafka-esque city. This gentleman, let's just say, has a few odd personality traits. He has several identical suits in his closet that are numbered. He only reads cookbooks (nothing wrong with that really). When he cleans house, it is an exercise of intricacy and thoroughness that borders on obsessive-compulsiveness. Even his sex life is structured and monotonous with no wasted movements or wasted time. And adding to all that, he was rendered colorblind at a young age from an attack by seagulls while he worked one summer at a beach. But the story's just beginning.

The real story starts when he visits a particular diner for the first time ever and sees a waitress so hideously deformed, he believes with every fiber in his being that he has to end her life somehow. Along the way, he runs into people like an insane delivery boy who resents the fact the Army won't let him enlist and the "Tempus Fugit" street gang.

Toplin is the first of two books I've read by Michael Mcdowell, the other being the incredible historical revenge thriller Gilded Needles. Even though two may not seem like much, it was enough to convince me that McDowell is every bit as good as Stephen King or Clive Barker (two writers I greatly respect) and far better than so called horror masters like Little, Laymon, or Koontz. Toplin is not a book for all tastes with its extremely dark tone and uncovential plot, but I highly recommend it for horror fans seeking something original.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Creepy and unusual, March 2, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toplin (Hardcover)

First off, this book comes with pictures. Looking at them first will give you an idea of the highly disturbed world you are about to enter. The book is told in first person and you will quickly find that you are inside a truly damaged mind. But not in the way you might think. Not a sociopath or psychopath but someone whose mind is--askew--a bit off. This is probably THE creepiest book I have ever read. Kathe Koja is the only other person I know of that can write in this vein. This, by the way, is the author of the Blackwater series which Stephen King so backhandedly mentions in the intro to The Green Mile. I highly recommend the Blackwater series also but unfortunately it is as difficult to find as this title.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "TEMPUS FUGIT", October 15, 2007

By 

Tyr Shadowblade (TM) (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Toplin (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a very misunderstood work.

Michael McDowell was a brilliant author: "Guilded Needles" and "Elementals" are both outstanding novels in their respective genres. TOPLIN, however, is something quite different -- and most readers just don't get it, and walk away disappointed.

From reading the reviews, I'd assumed that TOPLIN was the story of a delusional psychotic who murders a waitress based solely upon a halucinatory vision only he can see . . . this is untrue.

TOPLIN may qualify as "psychological horror" -- if you need to pidgeonhole it into a set genre -- but it's really more of an experimental novel than anything remotely mainstream. The text is heavy on symbolism, allegory, and metaphor -- not all of which is immediately obvious (hence the confusion of others). Toplin is not necessarilly psychotic -- although he'd certainly be classified as such under the DSM-IV -- but he perceives trhe world with startling clarity. By definition, a delusion is something false, which is not at all the case in this deeply disturbing tale.

It is best to think of TOPLIN as a modernized retelling of the "Fool's quest," as the characterizatrions borderline on mythological, and the tone is downright Lovecraftian.

Highly recommended for fans of Thomas Ligotti, H.P. Lovecraft, or the Chtulhu mythos.