Customer Reviews

Walking Wounded

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Robert Devereaux, Walking Wounded (Dell, 1996)

To saw that Walking Wounded is Robert Devereaux's weakest effort is rather like saying that Atom Heart Mother was the weakest Pink Floyd album; when looked at in relation to the rest of the canon, it suffers, but compared to the greater view of the horror novel (or psychedelic rock), you're still head and shoulders above the cloud. The moon can still eclipse the sun, despite its relatively small stature.

Most of my problems with Deveraux's second novel are nitpicky at best, especially in horror. Sometimes it seems that the everpresent perversity is more forced than before (or since, for that matter); I hesitate to use the word "gratuitous," especially where naked flesh is concerned, but every once in a while it reared its ugly head while I was reading. As well, some subplots and minor details seemed to float off into the distance and disappear artificially; for example, one of the main characters finds herself dissociating from her circle of friends as quickly as does the other, despite a much (timeframe is never given, but "much" is the heavy implication) longer association with them; during a later scene, it's almost as if her passing from amongst them has gone unnoticed. Granted, that sort of thing could be (and has been often, in other realms of fiction) a novel all its own, and here it's a plot point at best. Still...

Criticism aside, everything about this book will tell even the most scanty acquaintance of Devereaux's other work that he's crossed into that recognizably-Devereaux territory where even such celebrated libertines as (early) Clive Barker have always feared to tread. Devereaux is the undisputed master of the twisted horror novel. Here, he gives us a woman who finds herself, suddenly, with the power to lay on hands. As with all responsible healer-type horror novels, the healing power also has a darker side. She finds herself in an interesting situation; she knows her husband is cheating on her. She also knows he has Parkinson's. Use the power to heal his disease, or accelerate it? And just to throw a monkey wrench into the works, what should she do with the woman with whom her husband is cheating when the two of them start to fall for one another? A less twisted mind couldn't have come up with stuff half this decadent, much less make it work. Where the novel weakens (and let me stress, pardon the pun, that it never fully gives way as did the other recently-read healer-horror novel I reviewed last month, Saul Wernick's Cain's Touch) is when Devereaux takes this gorgeous framework and attempts to add the garage. There's a reason homeowners' associations don't let you do too much weird stuff to your house. It starts getting ungainly.

In defense of Devereaux, I might have given this book a far different review when it came out. All of the extraneous things tried in this novel succeeded when tried in "Caliban," which also has odd stuff jutting out here and there. Perhaps it's best to look upon Walking Wounded as a first novel, despite the publication of Deadweight some four years previous. (Nothing in the horror genre, still, ten years after its publication, approaches the brilliance of Deadweight.) Some false steps got taken, but they were righted later in the author's career.

I've spent way too much time slagging this novel and not nearly enough praising it. It sometimes seems, though, as if the same compliments can be attached to every book Robert Devereaux puts out. As usual, if you're a fan of horror with a high squick factor, once you've started page one, it's a relatively good bet you won't be sleeping until you've turned the last page. This is both a product of Devereaux's inherent readability and the same function in lizard-brain that makes us all slow down for car accidents (the more violent the accident, the more likely it is traffic will be blocked for miles, natch). Once you're involved, you can't help but stare at these poor, twisted creatures that come out of Devereaux's brain. It's only after you finish the book you realize how much they resemble you (again, with those extraneous parts jutting out). The ending is the kind of thing every self-help "guru" has wanted to write for decades and has never had the cojones to actually set into print. Needless to say, the strong female protagonist is a rarity in horror fiction (let alone a pair of them). All of these are excellent reasons to be reading Bob Devereaux. Despite the relative amounts of space given to them in this review, the criticisms above are in no way reasons NOT to read Devereaux. Recommendation: read his books in the order they were released (and definitely save Caliban till after you're done with this). At a guess, as I said before, the moon of Devereaux is capable of eclipsing the sun of horror fiction, but the twin suns of Deadweight and Caliban are a little too much for the moon of Walking Wounded to eclipse. ...

Robert Devereaux is undoubtedly one of the most talented and versatile horror writers in the game. From the bizarre to the scary and from the commonplace to the cerebral, his prose drips with intelligence and his narratives always pack a deep, dark cosmos that readers can gain access to via careful reading. In "Walking Wounded," Devereaux's latest release with Deadite Press, the author is once again in fine form and the novel, originally published in 1996, is as crisp and tantalizing as ever.

"Walking Wounded" tells the story of Katt Galloway, a woman who discovers she has the ability to heal people by the laying on of her hands. A supernatural gift that could mean a lot of healing turns into exactly the opposite when Katt learns that her husband, Marcus, is cheating on her. It turns out that Katt also possesses the ability to accelerate illnesses and her hands apply their power to Marcus' Huntington's disease. Meanwhile, Katt locates his her husband's mistress, Sherry, on an Internet sex message board and, after some titillating chats, decides to meet with her.

What could have simply been a sick, sexy story about the perfect murder, in the very capable hands of Devereaux turns into a masterful narrative about the deathly maelstrom of destruction that can be created by human emotions. Katt has a mother that hovers above her like a helicopter ready to shoot at the slightest hint of a divorce (the D-thing) and a son that, as soon as Marcus dies, turns into a nuisance, a perpetually present vehicle for Marcus' ghost to ascertain his presence. While Katt fights with the devastating effects of guilt, Devereaux throws into the mix a blossoming relationship between her and Sherry and a "slip" of Katt's hands that puts her son in a very precarious position. Waiting and debating with herself constantly, Katt falls into the perfect state of agitated stagnation.

"Walking Wounded" is a tale of lovelessness, of a couple grown horrendously distant and of how we can convince ourselves that anything is right if the circumstances are bad enough. While on the surface the book strays a bit from the usual gore present in Deadite titles, the story offers a few monsters that are as scary, if nor more so, than any other: a scorned woman with lethal powers, a disease that waits inside your brain like a predator waiting to leap into action, the weight of infidelity on the flesh, a crazed killer with a drill, a specter hiding in the eyes of a loved one and the aches of an incipient love that's been tainted by unfaithfulness, resentment and death.

All of the above come to life brilliantly due to Devereaux's writing chops, which make even the mundane take on a dark, poetic hue: "She'd last a long time and her heady screams would pierce the woods like thin silver wires shot from her mouth at odd angles." The author even manages to use Katt's as a silent but active character that seems to react to her feelings.

If you're craving a cerebral, entertaining and well-written story of darkness, death and redemption, pick up a copy right now.

I was impressed by Robert Devereaux's hard hitting first novel, Deadweight. Although overblown at times, Devereaux's writing struck me with its energy, power and brutality. My major problem with the book was that the sex and violence often rose to pornographic levels, detracting from an otherwise gripping plot. Nevertheless, after finishing Deadweight, I noted Devereaux as someone to watch.

At first, I believed Walking Wounded would fulfill my high expectations. I was immediately hooked by the novel's chilling first line: "The day Katt Galloway decided to kill her husband did not begin unusually." The plot is also intriguing. It seems that Katt has recently developed an incredible power--by laying her hands on someone, she can either cure or aggravate disease. Trapped in an unhappy marriage, Katt uses her gift to trigger her unfaithful husband's inactive Huntington's disease. She wavers between self righteousness and guilt over her actions, her life further complicated by the fact that she has taken a lover--her husband's ex-mistress.

Other positives: I found most of the characters in Walking Wounded realistic and well drawn. Once again, I enjoyed Devereaux's unique writing style--visceral, never flinching from even the most distasteful subject matter. Also, Devereaux cannily keeps the action on a very personal, intimate level, resisting the temptation to pursue the religious angle that's been done so many times before. This intimacy kept me reading, despite the difficulties I had with this book.

My main problem with this novel was its central character, Katt. I spent a lot of time with her, but gained little insight into her character. Katt's healing power is taken for granted almost from the first page--I never got to see her struggling to develop it. The same with her troubled marriage--there is very little buildup to her decision to murder her husband Marcus (it literally comes out of nowhere). I found it hard to believe that Katt's only way out of her marriage was to kill Marcus, despite her family's reticence about divorce. If Katt was clearly insane, or if she had more reason to hate her husband, I might have accepted her decision more easily.

I knew little more about Katt at the end of the story than I did at its beginning--it was almost as if the profound events of the story had absolutely no effect on her. The only credible changes took place in the secondary characters. Katt's lover, Sherry, initially shallow and self centered, becomes a loving, caring human being. Katt's teenage son, Conner, also grew, becoming more accepting of his mother. Even Marcus had an epiphany, coming to realize how shabbily he had treated his wife. Katt, however, remained a cipher--her only positive contribution to the story was to set it in motion.

Again, Devereaux's tendency to go overboard in writing sex/erotica bothered me. At times, I thought the prose degenerated into a bad letter to Penthouse Forum, detracting from an otherwise fluid writing style. Always playful with his language, he sometimes loses control of his linguistic experiments--the word "encunted" is a good example of his excesses. Devereaux also throws a serial killer into the already complex mix, a move that does little to advance the plot (although Devereaux's overheated style is more suited to the killer's sexual rantings than to the other "erotic" passages).

I recommend this book, but with the reservations described above. I think Devereaux could have done a lot more with his intriguing concept, and regret that he didn't. His writing certainly shows evidence that he is capable of better work than he turned in here.