Shaun Hutson - Lucy's Child

[andydecker]

Shaun Hutson - Lucy's Child (Little, Brown, UK, 1995, 372 pages)

Mark Taylor

The only Hutson novel of 1995 is billed as a blend of psychological horror and thriller, and it doesn't work well in either category. Nearly the first half of the novel is committed to Lucy, a broke borderline criminal, her sister Beth, who hates her because she thinks Lucy torched the house and killed the parents years ago, and still lets her into her house. Beth can't accept that she is barren, her husband Simon works as a psychiatrist in a clinic in what would be described as a toxic environment today, as his boss hates him. Not to forget Karen, who has killed her little children and is admitted to get her mental health checked.

The usual miserable bunch of Hutson protagonists. But nothing much happens except that Lucy seduces the 17-year old neighbour's son out of boredom and tries to seduce her brother-in-law, Simon doesn't get a handle on psychotic Karen who seems to know details of his home-life and is repeatedly molested by a male nurse when she is drugged up. Then Lucy is braindead after an accident but four month pregnant. Kept alive because of the pregnancy Beth wants to have this child at all costs.

At this point the novel kind of falls apart. Suddenly Karen develops psychic abilities and begins terrorizing both the clinic and Beth and Simon, the friendly neighbour who repairs her garbage disposal unit shouldn't have done so. What the story lacks on drive in the first half, gets kind of a rollercoaster in the rest, up to the point where Simon gets some paranormal investigators into the clinic to investigate his patient. And it gets more gory every page.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}At the end Beth kills the escaped Karen who is possessed by Lucy with a driller through the eye.

The story doesn't work well, the paranormal stuff comes out of nowhere and is not explained. The elements become ever more arbitrary, the bit with the paranormal investigators in the last minute is just filler. On the other hand this must be one of Hutson's most violent novels and has even more sex scenes – both consensual and not – than most. It is quite a shame, because the potential for a good horror novel is here. It just looses its way, and you wonder why editorial didn't step in. This could have been so much better.

[ripper]

This is one that I passed on when it was published. Looking at the blurb on the cover, it just didn't inspire me to part with my cash, nor even seek it out from my local library.