Guy N Smith - The Sucking Pit

[dem bones]

Boring old 'review'. Can't believe no-one's given this a thread to itself yet ....

Guy N. Smith - The Sucking Pit (New English Library, 1975: Grafton, 1989)

"She needed a man. A real man. Not the boyish Chris Latimer. Someone who would dominate her. Take her as a woman should be taken."

Following the death of her uncle, the gypsy woodsman Tom Lawson, Jennifer reads his 'black book', mixes up a fertility potion, and makes an instant transformation from prim-and-proper typist to hedgehog-splattering, cat-pulverising nude witch. As mentioned above, she needs a man, so she ditches her nice boyfriend and heads for the local meat-rack. Unfortunately, the poor sap she picks up isn't on top of his game, so after a quick shag she takes a knife to his disappointing member and hitches her skirts at landowner Clive Rowlands instead. The frustrated Rowlands is powerless to resist, and they soon come to an agreement whereby Jennifer can keep her uncle's cottage, live there for nowt, and take a regular income from him in return for her favours. She gets by far the best of the deal, because he's pretty hot stuff between the sheets, too.

Enter Cornelius, self-styled "long awaited Messiah of the oppressed race of people" and all-round cantankerous person. He shows up looking for Tom Lawson. Jennifer explains that he's dead, and shows him the black book. Cornelius angrily tosses it into the fire. Her uncle had foolishly been keeping a record of top secret Gipsy lore and spells which could fall into the wrong hands! Jennifer tells him about the potion she's drunk, and the malodorous messiah goes ballistic again. Then he calms down a fraction. For special people, it's OK to drink the potion once, but you must never, never do it a second time. The fact that she's survived means she is a kindred spirit and belongs to him for eternity and has to obey everything he says. Just the kind of guy she was looking for! They shag. Oh joy! He's even better than Clive Rowlands!

Cornelius is a jealous type, but he agrees that she has to keep shagging the landowner until he's included her in his will to the tune of the cottage and "the Devil's Dressing Room" in Hopwas Wood where the sacred stretch of bogland, the Sucking Pit lies. Cornelius takes her out there once they've exhumed her uncle's body from the churchyard (he also batters a harmless tramp to death with a pickaxe in the process), because Lawson doesn't belong in consecrated ground, but the Pit which has served as the gypsies' final resting place for centuries. They lob in the corpse, there is some frightful manifestation, but finally the dead man descends beneath the squelching surface.

Which brings us up to around the halfway mark.

"I've been walking about like this for two days. Had to wear a pair of baggy old plus-fours to hide it!"

Things really step up a gear with the re-emergence of top reporter Chris Latimer, who has been keeping an eye on the cottage since Jennifer gave him the push and is aware of all the sinister goings on. Rowlands' wife, Pat, suspects her husband's infidelity and meets Chris when she sneaks up to the window to catch her wayward husband at it. No prizes for guessing what they'll be getting up to within a few pages.

It all builds, inevitably, to scenes of total ultra-violence at the cottage and a final, dreadful showdown at the eerie, devil-haunted, ever-hungry pit. Personally, I preferred The Slime Beast by some margin, but for sheer energy this is full-on pulp writing at it's most irresistible.

[dreadlocksmile]

Dreadlocksmile Review:

First published back in 1975, 'The Sucking Pit' was Guy N. Smith's second published novel, following the release of his debut novel 'Werewolf By Moonlight' in 1974. `The Sucking Pit' was soon to be haled as an all-time pulp horror classic and subsequently saw itself re-issued in 1978 and 1989. Even a board game of the spectacular `Sucking Pit' adventures was contrived at one stage, but only on a very minimal scale.

Set in the heart of Hopwas Wood, in the rural Midlands, Smith begins his eerie tale of satanic urges. On the night that local woodsman Tom Lawson passes away, his beautiful and sweet niece Jenny unearths a little black book that was left behind by Lawson's young gypsy-wife who had disappeared one night a while ago. Jenny Lawson begins to read the passages contained in this harmless looking book, discovering secrets that should never have seen the light of day. The book details of a strange potion to be consumed on the hunter's moon. Against her better judgment, Jenny Lawson follows the ancient ritual and consumes the powerful potion.

Jenny quickly forgets her old life and now overcome with unquenchable urges, pursues a newly found sexual appetite that the book and its potion have brought to the surface from deep within her Romany blood. Leaving behind her old boyfriend Chris Latimer, Jenny finds herself drawn to the giant gypsy traveler Cornelius.

Lawson's unstoppable appetite for power is boiling away. Cornelius simply fans the flames as they embark on a bloodthirsty quest for power and sexual gratification. Their one true goal is to regain the ancient Romany burial site of their ancestors. Deep within the dark depths of `Hanging Wood' lies a treacherous and seemingly bottomless bog. This fathomless pit holds the dark and ancient secrets of the Romany's. Nothing that falls in ever manages to escape its deadly sinking depths. The bog has a name - The Sucking Pit.

Only one man stands in the way of Cornelius's corrupt plan that is centered around the eerie quagmire. That man is Lawson's ex-boyfriend Chris Latimer, who without giving up all hope on Lawson after her sudden change in character, sets to unearth the dark secrets that surround Lawson's newly acquired company and their attraction to the unforgiving Sucking Pit.

Lasting for a mere 111 pages (158 pages in the larger print re-release) the novel would possibly be better suited as being classed as a novella. From the outset, Smith dives in delivering the set up for a classic pulp horror tale, slotting in plenty of potential for over-the-top violence and sexual deviancy. With the plot quickly established, Smith delivers the goods in abundance. The characterization is somewhat predictable and clichéd in places, with the characters filling their roles within the unfolding tale to a clearly set criteria. Rammed with sex and outrageous violence with a fair old wedge of the occult thrown in for good measure, 'The Sucking Pit' has all the winning ingredients for a great pulp horror novel and a further introduction to what Smith will later have to offer the world. Guy doesn't fail in delivering this to us with the sort of non-stop action packed pulp horror fest we want from him as we lap up this wildly over-the-top tale.

For its simplicities and grossly clichéd aspects, 'The Sucking Pit' is far from one of Guy's more involved and haunting novels. However, the tale is not without its pulp horror charm, unleashing an unashamed abundance of all things nasty with those unmistakable occult undertones that were so predominant in the 70's pulp horror novels.

Jenny Lawson's unquenchable desire for non-stop sex adds the much needed injection of lurid behavior. The murder of a local tramp is deliciously gory, bringing with it a monumental insight into the things to come from this ridiculously prolific writer.

For page after page of pure pulp horror entertainment, this short and sweet novel delivers exactly what you want. The novel was later followed up by its 1984 sequel `The Walking Dead'.

www.amazon.co.uk/review/R1J5YGGS93H60/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

[erebus]

Well I just went back to The Sucking Pit for the first time in over a decade. And the thing that made me laugh was ( as is mentioned above ) Chris spying on his ex girlfriend screwing with the older guy, Up pops Pat the older fellas Missus and a paragraph later they are fondling and have fallen in love. Its simply that easy in a Guy N Smith book.

Same in Slime Beast. Young Liz is helping her Uncle with his research, Gavin helps out too. They don't know each other from Adam. A couple of pages in and He's shagged her and shes askin for more. Bloody marvelous.

[kooshmeister]

The logic in a lot of these seems kind of backwards when it comes to the fairer sex. You'd think that evil Satanic women would want to be the ones doing the dominating, rather than be dominated, preferring weak but still virile men (and such people do exist) they can control easily.

But then I guess this is why women don't usually read these kinds of stories.

[helrunar]

The title alone is hilarious.

I'm gathering that the words "sucking" and "pit" don't have the same... connotations in the UK that they do over here in the glorious States.

Insert eyeroll.

H.

[dem bones]

"Smith, the author of paperback books beyond counting, has written a novel whose title is my nominee for the all-time pulp horror classic: The Sucking Pit." Stephen King, Danse Macabre.

I'll bet he was delighted when The Festering hit the fan.

[helrunar]

The Festering... was the sequel called The Scabbing and the Peeling?


H.

[andydecker]

I re-read this. It is still a lot of fun, lean and fast. The short format suited him well.

[sadako]

Am loving the brevity of Smith’s early novels. A ghastly tale with no subplots.

And thankfully little police procedural (where the detectives know far less than the reader).

It left me even wanted a little more about the mythos of the pit (and the ‘Master’).

Also thankful that he didn’t follow up Werewolf by Moonlight with the rest of the Universal classic monsters. Full marks for originality. Slightly fewer marks for logical characterisation…

[sadako]

Original first UK edition cover from 1975

[helrunar]

Fab cover, even if the tag-line always strikes an absurd note for this reader.

Hel.

[bluetomb]

Oct 24, 2023 1:26:10 GMT helrunar said:

Fab cover, even if the tag-line always strikes an absurd note for this reader.

Hel.

I'm always torn between the two meanings of bog.

[sadako]

Hel.[/quote]I'm always torn between the two meanings of bog.[/quote]

Then I guess this one isn’t for you.

[helrunar]

LOL, Sadako! Looks like somebody is in the bog touching up their eyeliner there. I'm sure that's a fun read.

It looks as if bluetomb made the clever comment about the "bog," though.

cheers, Hel.