|
Post by marksamuels on Jan 20, 2008 12:37:53 GMT
Dem I've found you another Gerald Suster to add to your burgeoning collection! It looks truly crazed I'll read it pronto and put up a review with a scan of the cover. After that I'll drop it in the post to you (if you're coming along to the Basil Copper launch, I can give it to you then). All best Mark
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jan 21, 2008 9:02:24 GMT
Hey, thanks for that, Mark - I'm still recovering from the Dan Farson classic you so kindly gave me. I'm sure Steve and Funky mentioned The Handyman on the old forum - something about it having a reputation for being the nastiest of the nasties?
|
|
|
Post by fullbreakfast on Feb 23, 2008 0:48:31 GMT
Hey, thanks for that, Mark - I'm still recovering from the Dan Farson classic you so kindly gave me. I'm sure Steve and Funky mentioned The Handyman on the old forum - something about it having a reputation for being the nastiest of the nasties? You know what, I have an eBay copy of it coming in the next day or two which I bought on the back of reading those same comments a while ago. Funny thing is that I don't actually like the nasty stuff, but at the same time it has a horrible fascination for me. Possibly dating back to childhood recollections of examining Jasper Smith's The Specialist in my local W.H. Smith - I read the blurb on the back but as a nipper the book seemed to emanate evil and I never dared to actually open it... I expect The Handyman will be shite but at 99p for the HB I can't be burnt and will post a view if/when I read it.
|
|
|
Post by marksamuels on Feb 23, 2008 13:26:31 GMT
Hi Fullbreakfast and welcome You can take the review job off my hands! Actually, I'm not sure how it achieved a reputation for the nastiest of the nasties, since it's all pretty much psychological suspense up until the last few chapters when the lead female character gets imprisoned in the cellar and the Handyman gets kinky errrm... well I'll say no more. Anyway I'm passing my copy over to Dem when I see him tonight so we'll see what he makes of it. Mark S.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 23, 2008 14:20:32 GMT
Actually, I'm not sure how it achieved a reputation for the nastiest of the nasties, since it's all pretty much psychological suspense up until the last few chapters when the lead female character gets imprisoned in the cellar and the Handyman gets kinky errrm... well I'll say no more. Mark S. it probably didn't achieve any such reputation and i'm mis-remembering as usual. thanks, mark. looking forward to seeing you again later. i really will smell more rancid than Aqualung this time - all the bloody water's gone off.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 25, 2008 18:28:21 GMT
Gerald Suster - The Handyman (NEL, 1987: originally Severn House, 1985) blurb; He was helpful. He was deft, neat and skillful.
Plumbing, carpentry, electrics, painting and decorating, he could turn his hand to just about anything in the house. He always turned up when he said he would, he tidied up afterwards and his charges were very reasonable. He was the kind of handyman you dreamed about.
And the kind you have nightmares about.
Julie and Bob Foster are a happily married couple with an adorable five-year-old son. Bob is going from strength to strength in his work, and when Harry, a self-employed do-it-yourself expert, arrives to help out aground the home, nothing seems brighter.
But after Harry's arrival, things start to go suspiciously wrong. Harry's cheerfulness and goodwill allow him to be a babysitter as well as helping out around the home and Bob begins to resent Julie's affection for him, suspecting mischief. And then Bob's company goes bankrupt, and after a violent struggle with Harry, he finds himself in a near fatal condition.
Harry has seemingly fixed everything – but in a way no one had ever dared to imagine. For the Fosters, the man who rebuilt their home is subtly, savagely destroying their lives ...
if i abandon Richard Tate's the dead travel fast in mid-read for another title then you know it means i think i'm on the trail of a potential classic. thanks to mark, i now have a copy of 'the handyman' and, despite the low-key approach so far, it's already oozing creepiness. harry the handyman's mum could well be the key - a spiteful, domineering old monster and likely the reason he's never left home. "Wonderful mum. Everything I am today I owe to her". the fosters look like they're in for a tough time of it, that's for sure ....
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 25, 2008 23:09:16 GMT
it's certainly proving very easy to get into. As suspected, old Mrs. Parker is far from the full ticket. A high flier in the local WI and Conservative Club, her proudest moment was meeting Margaret Thatcher. She keeps a framed photograph of someone I assume is the late Mr. Parker for the sole purpose of spitting at and verbally abusing it. Son Harry the Handyman is reputedly slightly retarded although harmless, perfectly harmless. He's also a fledgling paperback fanatic! "One shelf housed luridly covered paperbacks by James Herbert and George Scarman, Nick Carter and James Hadley Chase, Ian Fleming and Mickey Spillane and there was also a stack of Superman and Conan The Barbarian comics". 'George Scarman'? Suster himself, perhaps? Harry is also up for "fifties pop, televised wrestling and table tennis, Practical Household, Walt Disney cartoons and Charles Atlas courses" while his dislikes include "boring intellectual discussions, travel, wine and spirits and indecency, obscenity and blue language" so he's not quite the nailed-on Vault member he first appears. Recently a child was murdered in the area and the police have yet to apprehend the sexual pervert responsible, which is the major reason why Bob Foster is against hiring Harry to babysit five year old Michael, no matter how good he is at putting up shelves, fixing the waste-disposal unit and everything else he turns his hand to. Trouble is, Michael has taken to him and Julie Foster is quietly impressed by the "banal" little man .... After the incredibly ambitious, centuries long global conspiracy of The Elect this is a complete change of pace but no less compelling. Suster is fast becoming a personal favourite. ****** "Life ain't much but it's all you've got, Mrs. Foster, so stick a geranium in your 'at and be 'appy" Grim days in the Foster household when Bob loses his job slap bang in the middle of the recession and his descent into near madness is painful to observe, particularly his wife and son. Bob, an American, has never been unemployed and refuses to claim benefit thinking a man with his expertise in airplane safety will stroll into a new, well-paid position. But no-one wants him. Frustration, anger and self-hate lead him to impotence and the beginnings of a sizable drink problem and, for the first time since they met, there's a breakdown in his relationship with Julie. Speaking of breakdown's, Harry's lost his mother to a fatal heart attack and sold the house. Unfortunately, he's yet to arrange anywhere to stay and, partly out of spite toward Bob, Julie lets him have the spare room for a week while he finds alternate accommodation. He moves his stuff in (you know he's intent on putting up there for the long haul) with a delighted little Micheal showing great interest in his personal effects. "My books ... they don't come any tougher than Mickey Spillane. See, it says that on the back." Michael is impressed: "Funny pictures on the front. Look that woman's showing her boobs." Micheal will definitely write reviews for Vault in later life .... should he only survive this novel. There have been hints of the abuse Harry sustained at the hands of his mother down the years - enforced transvestism being a cert - and a violent encounter with an old acquaintance in a pub lets us know that Harry, in his turn, has dished out some nasty behaviour in his younger days, although we're yet to find out just what the "dirty bastard" did to Phil and the others. Now Bob has come to despise him after the supposedly weedy mummy's boy thrashed him at table tennis in front of his son and followed that by beating him in an arm wrestling contest, too. It's high time Harry hauled ass, reckons Bob, but the Handyman isn't thinking to budge ....
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 27, 2008 13:19:40 GMT
All finished, and at last I've found a decent reference points beyond the glaringly obvious Gerald Suster's Psycho. It's a novel length variation on Charles Beaumont's Miss Gentilbelle - but (at least) one louder. As Mark comments in the first post, the going gets very kinky toward the end as Harry (much put-upon and certainly not the least sympathetic character in the novel) brings his dastardly schemes to fruition and plays out on Julia what he could never bring himself to do to his unhinged mother. It is certainly not the worst of the 'nasties I've read in any sense (but I don't think anyone other than stupid here suggested it was) - Suster doesn't play it anything like as gratuitously sensationalistic as he could have - but he certainly gives good creepy and pervy. What I like is that, of the three of his novels I've read, they're all really different, and, from the reviews on here, The Block sounds like it again breaks new ground. Fuck! What a loss this guy was - and how on earth did I miss him until now?
|
|
|
Post by fullbreakfast on Mar 3, 2008 15:19:20 GMT
I finished this last night but see I've been beaten to the punch with a review!
This was the first thing by Suster that I've read and it's a definite page turner. There were some things I found grating - the secret connection between Harry and the Foster family (geddit??) relies on a coincidence that stretches credulity; the final punchline delivered from the mouth of young Michael also came off as highly contrived to me. But there's much more to enjoy - Harry is a memorably pitiful monster and superbly realised by Suster, his relationship with the boy is excellently done, and the tension really builds throughout the book.
I stayed up much later than I intended finishing it and I won't forget Harry in a hurry - probably a good enough recommendation!
I guess one of the ancestors of Mrs Parker is probably Miss Havisham, another disappointed woman out for revenge on the male sex.
|
|
|
Post by fullbreakfast on Mar 3, 2008 15:23:00 GMT
I forgot to add, if anyone wants to read this and doesn't have a copy just PM me and I'll shove it in a jiffy bag for you.
|
|
|
Post by fullbreakfast on Mar 3, 2008 16:20:04 GMT
'George Scarman'? Suster himself, perhaps? According to my cursory internet research 'George Scarman' was the author of one (possibly juvenile) horror novel published by Arrow in 1978 and/or by Corgi Childrens in 1982: "A chilling novel of an ancient invincible evil. A novel of occult power so terrifying that tonight you'll probably sleep with the light on..." Very probably a Suster pseudonym or associate, since he seems too obscure to merit a reference for any other reason.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Mar 3, 2008 19:25:25 GMT
Thanks for that, fullbreakfast. I know what you mean about that rather convenient huge family connection but can't say it spoiled my enjoyment. 'Definite page turner' is spot on. Of recent weeks I've struggled to finish just about every book I've picked up of late, but fair belted through The Handyman.
I reckon you're right about George Scarman, too, and The Victim (a very Suster-sounding title) is yet another addition to the 'wants list'.
|
|