Customer Reviews

The Town

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I'm a fan of horror, no doubt about it. Just about anything remotely creepy, even when tinged with humor or silliness gets my attention. It's only when something ends up being silly, while not origially intended to be, is my faith in the genre shaken.

"The Town" is the first book I've read by Little, and though it is entertaining throughout its first 200 odd pages, it slowly becomes silly and seemingly hurredly summed up.

My gripes: 1) Little throws in characters from literally no where (where the hell did that Mormon shooting spree come from in the last 30 pages?) and then either drops them out of the story, or slaughters them 5 pages after he introduces them. It tends to not make me really care about what happens to them anyway, which leads to my second gripe. 2) The main characters tended to not gain my support. Gregory is a jerk, Julia is a snob, Babunya is overly religious/superstitious, Sasha is a brat, and the other two kids are just OK. Adam ended up a fully rounded character and I gained some respect for Julia and Babunya, but by page 250, I was looking forward to seeing some of these people get eaten, or whatever. Put them out of my misery.

I see great writing in some areas, and the descriptive passages (what there are of them) are nicely done. But some analogies clunked big time with me (i.e. "Like an alcoholic, she took it one step at a time.") Blah.

I will read more of Little's work. I don't dismiss an author with his growing reputation lightly. Even King, Rice, McCammon, Koontz and Straub have their stinkers.

Unfortunately, that is what "The Town" is in my book. A stinker.

My opinion, take it for what you will.

I devoured this one in one sitting. Little strikes again with a pulse-pounding thriller set in the small Arizona town of McGuane. The Tomasov family hits the lottery, pulls up big-city stakes and returns to the hometown of the father, Gregory. But like every good horror thriller, the family fails to heed the warnings of the elderly wise woman, Babunya (the Tomasov matriarch). What could go wrong if the family failed to invite the Owner of the House? Gregory and his wife, Julia, shrug this off as another of Babunya's silly superstitions. Unfortunately for everyone, when the Tomasov's arrive, the town becomes more and more crazy. Bizarre deaths, strange sightings, and more than one thing that goes bump in the night plague the citizens. (Wait till you see what Gregory's friend, Odd, has waiting for him at home.) Throughout is an undercurrent of mistrust for anyone who is considered different; the Tomasov's are Molokans, a Russian religious and social community, and this group has historically been scapegoated within the larger McGuane community. Several themes are at work here: our natural distrust of change and difference, faith, evil, revenge, and on and on. I found myself alternating between cheering for and booing various characters; as each faces the evil let loose in the town, he/she begins to change. All I can say is, don't get too attached to some of these characters!

I've now read 6 of Little's novels. I've liked each one for different reasons. However, I've often gotten to the end of his novels thinking "Big build-up, let-down of a climax." I'm happy to report that THE TOWN delivers all the way to the end. It's a fun read (with very disturbing issues), it's a quick read, and some of the everyday objects turned into the macabre were enough to give me goosebumps! I recommend this one to anyone who likes good, chilling horror. After this, you might want to check out THE IGNORED by Little.

If you have never visited the strangely warped worlds of Bentley Little, but avidly wish to do so, you might want to start somewhere else than "The Town." Or, maybe you could start with this book; it might help you better appreciate his other books. For me, a Bentley Little completist, I cannot say this is his best effort to date. I also cannot claim that it is his worst novel, either. Many lambaste "The Town" for its forced and tepid dialogue, pancake flat characters, and a plodding plot. To some extent, many of the flaws found in "The Town" invidiously wind their way through most, if not all, of his other novels: subplots that go nowhere, unbelievable situations even for a horror novel, and unsatisfying conclusions. Yes, some of those flaws are here, but this tale is nowhere near as bad as many claim.

Gregory Tomasov and his family (wife Julia, daughters Teodosia and Sasha, and son Adam, along with Gregory's mother Agafia) should be riding as high as a balloon. Gregory won the California lottery and receives a cool $80,000 a year for the next few decades, which promises to make life very sweet and easy for a long time to come. Greg decides to take the money and literally run, from gang filled Southern California to his long forgotten childhood home of McGuane, Arizona. McGuane is a rat hole in the desert slowly dying out due to indifference and unemployment. But most importantly for Gregory and his mother, this little town still serves as a center for a Molokan population. Molokans are an obscure Christian sect from Russia that emigrated to the United States and Mexico to escape Tsarist persecution. Members of the congregation practice extreme pacifism with an almost mystical belief in the gospels and prayer. While Gregory and his wife are Molokans, their beliefs are at best extremely dubious and at worst lapsed. Their children have even less interest in the beliefs and rituals associated with the sect.

Things start to change quickly when the Tomasov clan arrives in McGuane. It turns out that the house they moved into was the scene of grisly murders and the rest of the town thinks the house is haunted. Then the killings start, gruesomely hideous crimes that set the town people on edge and stir up latent prejudice against the Molokans. Top that off with the slow disintegration of the Tomasov family, eerie supernatural events, and a 200 year old Russian prophet and you have the essentials of "The Town."

Little indulges in some of his usual unbelievable events. Take the disaster at the coffee shop for starters. It is difficult to imagine this store is big enough to hold that much equipment or that the ceilings are high enough to cause that type of damage, especially in a small town. Moreover, what exactly is the population size of McGuane? The back cover says there are roughly 300 residents, but from the events in the story it seems as though there must be thousands of people. How else could there be a high school and a junior high school full of students? Some of the internal thoughts of the main characters also pose serious problems. Towards the end of the story, Agafia and Julia spend more time wondering why they do stupid things than in trying to do anything else. It seems as though Little is trying to cover plot problems when he has his characters indulge in these inner dialogues. Overall, these aren't fatal flaws, but they are noticeable.

At least the ending is better developed than some of Little's conclusions in other books. I saw somewhere that Little doesn't like to spend much time wrapping his stories up. This is a big problem for horror fans, who always want to see a cataclysmic ending with lots of explosions, gore, or startling revelations. Well, there are some of those characteristics at the end of "The Town," and they do generally work well in the context of the story. Believe me when I say that "The Town" has a better ending than some of Little's other books. If you don't believe me, read "The Return."

"The Town" isn't Little's best effort, but it is far from his worst. The introductory chapter to this story sets an eerie tone, many of the murders are well thought out and gruesome, and the usual Little theme of a family slowly falling apart under the duress of external evils is well done. For more entertaining Bentley Little stories, turn to "The Store," and "The Mailman." Those two books fuse social satire with horror and give much more to the reader than what is found in this tale. After reading "The Town," I can safely say I am still a Bentley Little fan. I eagerly await his new novel arriving in stores later this year.

I've been an avid fan of the horror genre since I was eleven years old....

I'll have to say that I was not overly impressed with this one. The quality of the writing itself is decent enough for the most part, and there is even the occasional poetic flash of something brilliant hiding in the tall grass of the story's pages. The characters just fell flat for me, though. I didn't feel like I was really that involved in the lives of any of the protagonists. I didn't really like them all that much, either. I felt like Little hadn't given me enough meat to sink my teeth into. I didn't feel I could relate to them. But despite the failings of this book, it was still sort of fun to read, and for that reason, I'm going to give Bentley Little another chance. I'll probably try The Ignored. I've heard that's is supposed to be one of his best. We'll see. I'll let you know what I think.

This novel (a reprint of the British novel Guests), is fun, but it's far from the best Bentley Little has to offer. Unlike University, The Store, The Mailman or The Ignored, there's no social commentary or deeper theme here, and unlike Dominion or The Revelation, there's just not a lot of shock value here, one or two scenes aside.

Little's characters tend to be the typical Arizona town residents (see The Mailman or The Store for more of the same), with a little bit more of a dark side. His prose is as descriptive as ever, and his use of religion, both Christian and Native American, is a nice touch, but too much of what happens seems inexplicable -- given the nature of the evil (as an external, physically threatening force), there doesn't seem to be an explanation for some of the actions of the residents, or the way some of the minor characters are killed.

Place this one in the same bin as The House and Evil Deeds -- it's a fun little novel, but not one of the Bentley Little books that's worth re-reading, and should only really enter your collection if you're already a Bentley Little fan.

This book was somewhat drawn out and went around the block a few times or should I say "Town". The best plot was that of the little man who supposedly protects your home. I also loved the grandmother who played an excellent role in the story. This book is for anyone who likes to hear of families gone mad.

This was the first Little story I read, and was impressed by it. The characterizations were very good (a char. has to be well written to be snobbish or a brat...) but I agree with some of the other reviews that it had problems. As with most horror books, it had a rushed bad ending, and there were story threads that were not followed up on. Also, some of the ideas were forced, like the Russian man's shadow and the child's femur, and some were just strange like the spoon found on the hill (???). But if you ignore these small flaws (you usually have to for horror) it was a good book in general. A nice light read with some interesting ideas for killing people.

I'm not calling this is a rip-off, but, looking at the bare bones of the plot, there are enough similarities to make me feel as if I have read this book before, which explains why it took me 2 weeks to read it. I always had that been-there-done-that feeling while reading it. As another reviewer said earlier, there were quite a few interesting possible side tracks that the book could have taken, and which I was actually anticipating, but none were ever really explored. The feeling I got from reading this book was that the author had a vision he wanted to achieve, but ran up against a publishing deadline and had to end the book one way or the other. That is the only way that I can explain such a run-of-the-mill novel from a writer with such an incredibly fertile imagination. No offense to an author who has given me a great deal of pleasure in the past, but I found this effort to be cookie-cutter writing at best. I was going to give the boook 3 stars, but I have taken one away because I have liked his previous books so much.

I like to read anything remotely scary. I didn't get the shocker I expected, like Sasha not really being Julia's daughter or Babunya having an affair with Jim. I learned alot about Russian background and beliefs so it was informative there. The past being brought up 2/3rds through the book was a disappointment. I will read more of his books, even SK writes one every once in a while that leaves me hungry for more story. There were a few mistakes in spelling, but I was entertained for a few days.

The beginning was so slow that I almost gave up on the book. I am glad I didn't. Although it did not contain much Native American lore as some reviewers suggested, I've learned more lore from children stories. As the evil in the town becomes more active, the excitement builds to a great ending that pretty much makes up for the extremely slow start.