shadow lands Alan Steven Kessler 9780615803890 Books
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Sometimes monsters, the human kind, masquerade as parents. Shadowlands is about the dark side of resiliency. Genre speculative fiction; psychological horror Length 90,795 words This is a coming-of-age story about a young boy who endures abuse by creating a world of shadows where he can escape beatings and the dead. His journey is across a unique internal landscape where there is no borderland between sanity and madness, only a compelling, sometimes horrific blending of the two into a power strong enough to summon love and extract revenge. The novel is psychological horror. In the story the protagonist, Steve Goldblatt, asks that before judging evil we first live with those who made it and taste, as he did, what they put into their witches’ brew. Haunted, Mr. Goldblatt brings the reader face to face with demons--external ones and those living deep within our soul.
shadow lands Alan Steven Kessler 9780615803890 Books
Steve Goldblatt with his sociopathic business dealings is in many ways more chilling than the more commonly written about serial killer. While he will destroy property and lives, he does it without emotion or passion. Having been discarded for all intents and purposes by his parents, he moves into the world with calculation of the harm he might incur to the people he meets. Even those people who touch him at some level are punished by their very proximity to him.I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. It quite honestly was deeply depressing. Now a book exploring the destruction of a soul by the world is not likely to be uplifting, but this book is scary in the intensity of the emptiness inside this boy/man. The book is masterful in its revelation of a deeply damaged human, and spots of lasting joy would be misplaced. Still the book did give me the deep "creeps" for want of a better word. I cannot dismiss it for its depths, but I would not want to revisit it either. It is certainly worth consideration.
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Tags : shadow lands [Alan Steven Kessler] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Sometimes monsters, the human kind, masquerade as parents. Shadowlands is about the dark side of resiliency. Genre: speculative fiction; psychological horror Length: 90,Alan Steven Kessler,shadow lands,Alan S Kessler,061580389X,Fiction - Horror,Fiction Horror,Horror & ghost stories,Horror - General
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shadow lands Alan Steven Kessler 9780615803890 Books Reviews
Shadowlands by Alan S. Kessler is a psychological horror that left me thinking about life as I see it and reflecting on the thoughts of the main character Steve Goldblatt. Shadowlands is written in the first person, softening the impact of the cruelness within whilst creating a novel that plays with your mind in a thrilling yet disturbing way.
Although Kessler has the ability to use strong imagery I found the first few chapters of
Shadowlands a little slow and difficult to follow. I will admit that once I got use to the writing style of Kessler I was reading with intrigue from page to page. For myself part of the slow beginning was due to having to take my mind and place it within that of Steve Goldblatt, absorbing the way his psych works. In Goldblatt Kessler has developed a character that harvests a lot of hurt, carrying a wounded and battered soul. Shadowlands is psychological horror at it’s best. It is difficult to find any normality within the pages. Just when you think you have the mind of Goldblatt figured out along comes a twist that has your own mind whirling.
After reading Shadowlands I was left with thoughts that I found hard to clear in my mind. I found myself doing a little internet searching to see if others had sat in the place I was. It seems the views of Shadowlands are varied but one thing all agree with is that it is a psychological thriller that will leave you as my mind was left - whirling, twisting and wondering. I felt at unease yet wanted to start from the beginning all over again. All agreed that fans of Edgar Allen Poe would thoroughly enjoy the writings of Kessler.
Indie Books R Us [...] writes “ This is truly Kessler’s style–you’re never ever quite comfortable with what you’re reading, and sometimes you’re not entirely sure why.”
I have to say I totally agree with them but just had to keep reading until I was sure I was deeply in the mind of Goldblatt, yet I feel I never was.
In closing Indie Books R Us state “ ...if you’re not okay with not knowing 100% of what’s going on, you may want to pass.”
I am unsure how I feel about this statement. I feel that if I had passed on Shadowlands I would
never have had the opportunity of that of being introduced to the literary world of Alan S. Kessler. I will agree that Shadowlands is not a book for everyone but if the genre of psychological horror is one of interest then Kessler is not to be passed by. On Kessler’s site there is a quote from Village Book Review “ ...Creepy, surreal, unconventional and strange, definitely an original read.”
Original is a word that can be used to describe Shadowlands by Alan S. Kessler but I would more tend to refer to this literary piece as a work of mind blowing psychological suspense that has you turning pages and wondering why and how.
This is the story of Steve Goldblatt. It begins when, as a successful adult, he meets a childhood friend after many years of absence. They go out on the friend’s boat and soon thereafter the friend pushes Steve into the water in a murder attempt. As Steve floats in the water he reviews his life. The rest of the story meanders through Steve’s growing up in a family where he is the oldest child with twin sisters. His mother comes across as a bitter woman who complains constantly; his father can only be imagined through Steve’s apparent trauma. You soon realize, although it is not described in detail, that when Steve transgresses, his father takes him down to the basement and beats him. Steve claims to enjoy this and sees it as a manifestation of fatherly love.
Steve’s mother locks him out of the house during the day, so he spends time with his friend, Tom, and then two new friends, who treat him with the same contempt as his father, which Steve converts to love. As Steve grows into adolescence his personality splits into a different persona – that of Christopher. Christopher is more sophisticated than Steve, a quality that stands him in good stead as he heads for college. We see Christopher take charge of his life and, at the same time, he reveals the sociopathic side of his personality. We realize that he is extremely smart and cynical. As Christopher graduates from college, his father comes more clearly into the story controlling Steve/Christopher’s every move – where he is to live, work, and go to law school.
I found that I wanted to know Steve better, to be able to picture him, I wished for a physical description of him. He comes across as an unlikeable child and I wanted to like him. The other characters in the book were also unlikeable except for Tom. Maybe that was the point. Despite all that, the story is well written, moves quickly, and draws you in all the way to the end.
I’m not normally a reader of psychological horror, so I struggled at times to keep up with what was happening in the story. Kessler is very good at description; he doesn’t tell, he shows, but sometimes not well enough to get the point across. So I was a bit lost as to some details, but the general idea is clear. The horror, however, is subtle. What drove me to the end was the wish to know why Tom has decided to kill Steve. Steve has threatened to out Tom’s wife, who somehow Steve knows is a “whore,” but we are led to believe Tom knows nothing about this. So what then? The ending is one no one would expect.
Steve Goldblatt with his sociopathic business dealings is in many ways more chilling than the more commonly written about serial killer. While he will destroy property and lives, he does it without emotion or passion. Having been discarded for all intents and purposes by his parents, he moves into the world with calculation of the harm he might incur to the people he meets. Even those people who touch him at some level are punished by their very proximity to him.
I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. It quite honestly was deeply depressing. Now a book exploring the destruction of a soul by the world is not likely to be uplifting, but this book is scary in the intensity of the emptiness inside this boy/man. The book is masterful in its revelation of a deeply damaged human, and spots of lasting joy would be misplaced. Still the book did give me the deep "creeps" for want of a better word. I cannot dismiss it for its depths, but I would not want to revisit it either. It is certainly worth consideration.
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