Thursday, August 26, 2021

Oculus Reviews: The past is in your blood

"Have you the blood, John?"

Welcome to the first Oculus Reviews in a year, folks.

If you're like me, you know that hunting down underrated and lesser-known genre books is the literary equivalent of going out into the Wild West - you never know what you'll find along the way. Sometimes you unearth a lost classic like the Terminator novelization; sometimes you find a book that makes you long for the excitement of unloading the washing machine. And sometimes it's Nazi Leprechauns.

Today isn't one of the "lost classic" days, because the book I'm about to review is still in print and relatively easy to find; but it's definitely a quieter gem of the horror paperback boom, one that is little talked about by non-fans of niche horror literature and very much appreciated by fans of it. Which includes me now, because this book bewitched me the way maybe not a single non-King horror read has managed to do.

"Have you the blood, John?" begins Alan Ryan's 1984 novel Cast a Cold Eye, setting the mood with a single sentence for a beautifully written, evocative ghost story, set in the wildest parts of Ireland where the past still rules the present. Jack Quinlan, an American writer of Irish descent, decides to travel to the country to do research for his latest historical novel, which takes place during the Great Famine. At first everything goes well: he meets friendly Irish beauty Grainne, with whom he shares a real spark, and finds himself a nice place for research in the isolated village of Doolin. But Doolin has a few secrets hanging heavy over it, secrets Jack senses immediately: ghostly figures in the road at night, old folk doing something inexplicable in the cemetery, a strange distance in the behavior of the friendly old priest, Father Henning (easily my favorite character in this, besides Grainne). And naturally, the more time Jack spends reaching for the ghosts of the past, the more they reach back for him.

Where do I even begin with this book? Let me say first that the William Peter Blatty quote on the front, unlike a lot of these paperback praise quotes, is entirely accurate: the late Alan Ryan's prose is something to behold. Literate, moody, atmospheric - these are just a few words to describe it. He had a real skill with painting a scene with his words; his descriptions of the gloomy Irish countryside, the lashing cold rain, the muddy sheep grazing on the hillsides were vivid and almost poetic, without ever going into purple prose, the bane of my existence. Listen to these descriptions:

In the village of Doolin, where the breezes carried the salt and scent of the ocean onto the stone-strewn hills, a man named Padraic Mullen was nearing death.

The circle of people stood silent among the graves. Near Jack's feet, a stone, its inscription long ago blurred away by wind and rain, leaned over as if weary of its own weight.

It's books like this that make me want to become a writer myself. The atmosphere, that sense of foreboding and dark secrets, is done perfectly in every single sentence. Even before Jack witnesses the four village elders pouring a vial of blood into an open grave, we already know that Doolin is a haunted place, and I don't mean it in the ghostly sense (oh, that comes later): a place haunted by history and old customs, and by the very real horrors of the Great Famine. Ryan sketches the picture rather subtly, and rarely ratchets up the quiet chill into real terror... but when he does, oh man. The scene where Jack hears a baby crying outside his house on a foggy day and goes to investigate ended with some of the most shocking imagery I have seen in a horror novel; not grotesque like a Barker or in-your-face like a splatterpunk, but something that honestly chilled me to the bone. Too many horror writers never learned how to write a scene like this.

The character portraits, too, are wonderful. Jack, I'll admit, won't be my favorite protagonist ever (if I never see another straight white male writer in a horror story it'll still be too soon), but he does feel like a real person, rather than a blank slate or a thinly veiled self-insert. He's a bit of a tool sometimes: his approach to historical accuracy is basically "if I research too much it'll bog down the book, so I'll just make up a few things" - I can almost feel my writing circle cringe collectively as I write this - and he's not above spying on a funeral if it means inspiration for a new scene. But I'd rather have a flawed protagonist than a bland one, so that's more than fine with me. Jack's chemistry with Grainne is open, easy and sincere, an affectionate but down-to-earth romance that brings a little warmth into the cold seaside air of Doolin. Father Henning, the old men and women and the quiet, hard-faced sons of the village all felt like people I could have met and walked among, the sense of community - one of the central themes of this book - subtly woven into everything they said and did.

The plot of this book is, I think, what will make it or break it for horror fans. Relatively little actually happens: a lot of the story concerns Jack's comings-and-goings, his relationship with Grainne, and his slow discovery that something past his understanding is happening in Doolin. Which, again, is fine with me: the sense of something big slowly approaching, the ghostly secrets teased and hinted at, and the simple, believable character dynamics carried this book forward and absorbed me a lot more than a 100-page trashy romp would have. (Nothing wrong with trashy romps, of course, but they don't attract me nearly as much as thoughtful chillers like this one.) And the finale... "Beautiful" is the only word that comes to mind. But if you like your monsters, entrails and adrenaline, you won't get it in Cast a Cold Eye. What you will get is a haunting, at places almost lyrical slow-burn story of relationships, community, kinship and the power of old traditions. Whether that is your kind of book, I can't tell - but I know it will stay with me for a while.

Writing: Some of the best I've read outside of straight-up literary fiction. 5/5

Availability: While this probably isn't a book you'll find on every bookstore shelf like a King or a Koontz, it never quite fell out of print either, and used copies of it - even the first edition I own with this gorgeous Gothic cover - go for relatively cheap as far as I could tell. And if that's not for you, there's always the ebook. 4/5

Entertainment value: This is one of the most absorbing horror books I've ever read, but I know the slow pace and ominous atmosphere aren't for everyone. 4/5

Do I recommend it?: I'm biased because I love this book, but yes - very much. As a matter of fact, this is a new favorite for me, not just from this year, but from the genre in general. 5/5

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