Richard Laymon - Island

[ohthehorror]

First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group 2012



cover photograph by Lucy Baldwin/Shutterstock

Blurb

When Rupert Conway set out on a cruise with seven other people, he planned to swim a little, get some sun and relax. He certainly didn't plan to get shipwrecked. But after the yacht blew up, that's what happened - he and his shipmates were stranded on a deserted island. Luckily for them, the island has plenty of fresh water and enough food to last until they get rescued. And luckily for Rupert, most of his fellow castaways are attractive women.

But that's where his luck ran out - because the castaways aren't alone on the island. In the dense jungle beyond the beach there's a maniac on the loose, a killer with a murderous heart, a clever mind and a taste for blood. He doesn't like his new neighbours and he plans to slaughter them all... one by one.

Having enjoyed The Glory Bus a good deal I jumped right into the next one that caught my eye. Once again, this one seems to be well thought of by most and the odd review of it that I saw even described it as his best work. With this in mind, let's meet Rupert and friends.

It begins with Rupert writing in his journal and it soon becomes clear that this is going to be one of those novels that keeps going back and forth between the writing of the journal and the actual story that has basically already played out. I'm immediately dubious about this method of telling a story. I feel like it places an unnecessary extra barrier between us and the characters and the story itself. There's also the risk of losing any suspense given the fact that since he's writing it down, he has clearly not come to any harm. I don't know how much I like this method. We'll see.

Rupert is your classic Richard Laymon male protagonist, for which I'm always grateful. There's probably not much more I need to say about him that you don't already know given that fact but he's a likable sort and has a girlfriend, Connie, who's invited him along with her and her family on a little holiday cruise in sun-kissed climes. The boat explodes and they all find themselves on a nice little deserted island, apart that is from Wesley who gets the blame for causing the explosion and is assumed dead. Having got far enough into it to realise that Wesley has in fact survived, and not only that but is attacking and killing the men one by one it all has me wondering if there's not more to the whole Wesley part of this story than we're currently being led to believe. Part of my suspicion here is probably due to my having read elsewhere that Rupert may well be a bit of an unreliable narrator. If so, I shall be happy enough since there are no surprises at all so far.

So, we have Wesley popping up at intervals and killing Keith, and now Andrew. Keith copping it by being stripped naked from the waist down and hanged from a suitable tree in the jungle while Andrew catches an axe to the face while swimming out to retrieve the dinghy that has mysteriously floated out to sea. The remaining ladies and Rupert make their plans to lure Wesley into a trap and get him before he gets them, which seemed like a rather unlikely plan to me on paper, but may have worked out in real life I suppose if you add in a big dollop of luck. Anyway a bit of a battle ensues at this point as Wesley seems to fall for the trap and comes running headlong into the fray. This gives our ever-reliable author just the excuse he needs(if indeed any is needed) to indulge in a little b-movie style clothes falling off and breasts falling out type of action as the ladies valiantly do battle and eventually succeed in fighting him off. I suspect he would have copped it good and proper at this point if it hadn't been for his wife, Thelma stepping into the breach and aiding his escape. She henceforth follows him back into the jungle from whence he came. This now leaves Rupert alone with only three remaining ladies all of whom have been dressed in little more than itsy-bitsy bikinis all this time.

It's not terrible as far as it's gone so far. I'm still hoping the journal writing is going to play a bigger part than being simply a novelty for the sake of it, and I have high hopes for Wesley to turn out to be the innocent party in it all or some such thing. I hope there's some sort of 'gasp, ...I never saw that coming!' moment anyway. There have been numerous occasions for Rupert to get all excitable by the girls and their clothing escapades and he even makes note of this in his journal writing when he realises that just maybe he ought to stick to recording the relevant facts of what's happening rather than what he'd like to see happen to Kimberley's bikini bottoms or the glorious way Billie's glistening tan lines catch the moonlight, so it's not as though he's entirely unaware of his wandering thoughts.

I'm quite enjoying it so far, and I'm not really much of a one for sun-drenched desert islands usually either. We'll venture onward then and hope to god Mr Laymon doesn't let us down with his journal entries and his Wesley chappie and so on. It's a big one this incidentally, coming in at 505 pages on the kindle. We're currently at the 32% mark, or page 167 for all you die-hards.

See ya soon for part two...

[ohthehorror]

Just wanted to write a quick update now while it's fresh in my mind. Continuing from yesterday's post, a lot has happened and it's all turned really rather dark, to the point where what I was reading really sent a 'jolt' of shock through me as I was reading. I didn't expect to encounter such darkness in a Richard Laymon novel. I mean, I know there have been moments in other novels, Funland comes to mind maybe, but I think the fact that this next part deals with abuse probably shocked more than it would otherwise have done.

So, Connie is the accidental recipient of a glancing blow from a rock hurled off the top of a waterfall while the girls and Rupert are all having a bit of a bathe in the lagoon. We find out subsequently that it was intended for Rupert and simply hit Connie by mistake. They all assume it's Wesley and Thelma of course and they all head off back to the beach with an unconscious and injured Connie. And here is where it all turns very dark. Thelma comes stumbling across the beach towards them and after they tie her wrists she ends up sitting alone with Rupert while the others are sleeping and telling him what's 'really' going on. According to her, she and Kimberley have long been sexually abused by their Dad(Andrew). He used to make the two of them wrestle naked while he watched, and then joined in himself too. There are details, and descriptions of some of the abuse. Keith(Kimberley's husband) is also accused of joining in for threesomes with her and dear ol' Dad while pliers are used on her nipples as she's tied to the bed. Thelma goes to great pains to explain all this and offers it as an explanation for Wesley killing the two of them. She tells Rupert how Wesley couldn't bare the thought of the girls being trapped on the island with two such abusive men and so takes it upon himself to kill them. She also tells of how Kimberley is in fact a willing participant in the abuse, she's a hopeless masochist apparently and even turned down a place at a good uni to stay with her abusive Dad and husband. 

At this point I'm not entirely sure who's telling the truth and how much of it all is complete lies or just half-truths or what? 

Thelma helps us out a little at this point by escaping her bonds using her feminine charms. She basically drops her shorts(not red unfortunately) and lunges at Rupert with a cutthroat razor, who is of course rendered completely useless by her nakedness. Rupert comes to his senses just in time to avoid being gutted like a fish and Thelma makes her escape across the sand and makes for the inlet whence she swims off into the distance.

The girls and Rupert have a little discussion about it all with Rupert holding back on the full truth a little and Kimberley completely denying the abuse story. It's not all that clear just who is telling the truth even now. It seems likely that Thelma is a complete liar just as Kimberley asserts she's always been, but there's still too much unknown about it all. Things that don't necessarily 'feel' quite right. And it's that doubt that's really turned this story into a really engrossing one now. I love the fact that I've really no real idea what the truth is and who's the goodie and who's the baddie. 

I've just started reading again only to be thrown through another loop when Rupert writes in his journal that he's not sure how many days have passed and that the girls are all missing. He's alone now, and doesn't seem to know what's going on himself. Welcome to my world Rupert old boy. 

[dem]

Here's the hardcover.

Richard Laymon - Island (Headline, 1995)

Steve Crisp

Blurb:
From the journal of Rupert Conway, castaway:

‘Today the yacht exploded. Fortunately all of us had gone ashore to have a picnic on this island, so we didn’t get blown to smithereens.
All of us, that is, except Prince Wesley...’

Eight people take a yachting cruise in the Bahamas. They plan to swim, sunbathe and relax - then the boat blows up. Though they’re stranded on a deserted island things could be worse: their beach camp location has fresh water and fire wood, and there’s enough food salvaged from the wreck to last them out. Just one problem remains, as they wait to be rescued — they are not alone. In the jungle behind the beach there’s a maniac on the loose with murder in his heart. And he’s plotting to kill them all, one by one...

Rupert's round the clock perving aside, main thing I remember about Island is the ending .....

[ohthehorror]

It's a shame they don't put a bit more effort into the ebook covers, but then I suppose since they're all already long-since in print they probably think, 'why bother?'. I don't know, I think it'd be nice to have a decent cover. 

[Jojo Lapin X]

Jan 25, 2021 14:18:04 GMT ohthehorror said:

It's a shame they don't put a bit more effort into the ebook covers, but then I suppose since they're all already long-since in print they probably think, 'why bother?'. I don't know, I think it'd be nice to have a decent cover. 

Not just ebooks. THE RICHARD LAYMON COLLECTION, a set of print books, has covers in the same style. (I just realized I own multiple editions of all of Laymon's books. I must be crazy.)

[ohthehorror]

It's difficult to have too much Richard Laymon I find.

[Jojo Lapin X]

Jan 25, 2021 17:38:22 GMT ohthehorror said:

It's difficult to have too much Richard Laymon I find.

That is so insightful. People think of me as this carefree international playboy and internet "personality," but, yes, indeed, in reality my life is difficult.

[bluetomb]

Jan 25, 2021 19:17:23 GMT Jojo Lapin X said:

Jan 25, 2021 17:38:22 GMT ohthehorror said:

It's difficult to have too much Richard Laymon I find.

That is so insightful. People think of me as this carefree international playboy and internet "personality," but, yes, indeed, in reality my life is difficult.

I would have thought afterlife from your photo...

[ohthehorror]

Alright, I'm gonna do a summary of a good bit of it here.



Rupert and 'his women', as he's suddenly taken to calling them got separated when they went looking for Wesley and Thelma, mainly to see if her story of him being dead was true. They thought they'd found him after finding a man, clearly dead at the bottom of a canyon but they're mistaken. There's a bit of a battle now as they're taken by surprise by Wesley running at them. Rupert get knocked out and the girls are taken by Wesley and Thelma. At this point there's a lot of nonsense with us watching Rupert have dreams while he's unconscious after having been thrown off the rocks into the canyon, but by happy chance he lands on the corpse and all's well. This man is the Father of twin fourteen year old girls(we'll get to them in a mo), there's also the Mother who Rupert subsequently finds with her guts filled with rocks at the bottom of the lagoon. These were the only other residents on the Island and lived in a big house where it all really kicks off.

So Rupert heads off looking for 'his women' and finds them all locked in large spacious cages in the jungle area near the house along with the twins. Wesley and Thelma are hold-up here and have been carrying out all manner of disgraceful perversions on the fourteen year old twins for the past month which includes Wesley having sex with them, as well as beating them with a length of electric cable while Thelma wrestles them naked. Anyway Rupert quite enjoys watching all this sort of carry on as you might imagine, but besides this he spends a good deal of time just blithely hanging around the cages having a rare old chinwag with them all. It's all a bit strange really.

After deciding he ought to actually do something other than hang around gawping at naked fourteen year olds in cages and trying to decide which of his women is the hottest just in case he has to choose which to save, he eventually goes looking for Wesley and Thelma and finds them asleep in a double bed in the house. A chase ensues and Thelma cops it in the most unlikely way when he spends a good deal of time and energy swimming desperately after a dinghy that Thelma has purloined in a bid to snatch the machete she has with her. Of course once he manages to get her out of the dinghy and take it for himself, he then decides it'd be a good idea to simply lob it high into the air and hope it hits Thelma who's floating on her back playing dead. Luckily(again) it pierces her right through to the handle and kills her stone dead. There seem to be a lot of these deux et machina moments.

Wesley and Rupert finally meet at the cages and have a wonderful battle involving gasoline and fire and Rupert slicing bits of Wesley's flesh off him in the end-game(who can blame him?), not to mention Billie's unlikely rain dance, which isn't actually designed to invoke rain but rather builds a sheen of sweat which stops her burning when Wesley tries to ignite her with the aforementioned gasoline. (hmmmm.... really?)

Wesley ends his days chopped into pieces, decapitated(with something unseemly stuffed in his mouth) while the girls wait for Rupert to retrieve the keys that are apparently stashed under the mattress in the house. So Rupert goes off to get them so he can free 'his women'. He comes back empty-handed, and then spends weeks on end tending to the girls needs, all of whom are now destined to spend the remainder of their days locked in cages being perved on by Rupert.

It was a strange one this one. It had far too many 'lucky' moments that made things work when they really shouldn't have. There were points where I was just cringing at what Rupert allowed to happen. A prime example was in the bedroom, Wesley asleep, him with the cutthroat razor against Thelma's throat and her threatening him. He just hands it over asking her nicely not to hurt him? I don't get that at all. Too much of this silliness for me. A bit too far fetched, even for Richard Laymon.

I did enjoy it really, but the silly bits and the numerous instances of Deux ex machina took the edge off a little. Also, the fourteen year old twins are a bit of an 'eek..!' moment on more than one occasion, particularly the bits where Rupert is trying to justify potential sexy times with them by pointing out that other cultures would allow it. I know it's a horror novel, and a 'b-movie' horror novel at that, but even so...

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler- This happens at the end...(but don't read it though, ...probably)}
Rupert is a little tease. It turns out he didn't even bother looking for the keys to the cages and has just spent the last 3 weeks 'not telling' 'his women'. He just enjoys keeping them locked up and viewing them. Nice chap.

[ohthehorror]

Nearly forgot to mention. There's no red gym shorts in this one, although we are treated to a pair of discarded red 'panties' at one point. 

I'm nearly certain they belonged to Thelma.

[Jojo Lapin X]

I am rereading ISLAND now. Is it possibly Laymon's perviest novel? Are minors raped and tortured in any other work of his?

[andydecker]

May 9, 2024 20:15:55 GMT Jojo Lapin X said:

I am rereading ISLAND now. Is it possibly Laymon's perviest novel? Are minors raped and tortured in any other work of his?

I have not read much of Laymon, but The Cellar comes to mind.

[goathunter]

May 9, 2024 20:15:55 GMT Jojo Lapin X said:

I am rereading ISLAND now. Is it possibly Laymon's perviest novel? Are minors raped and tortured in any other work of his?

I think the easier question to answer is, "Do any of Laymon's books not include minors being raped and tortured?" All three Laymons I read did, before I quit reading his work.

[Jojo Lapin X]

May 10, 2024 1:16:18 GMT goathunter said:

May 9, 2024 20:15:55 GMT Jojo Lapin X said:

I am rereading ISLAND now. Is it possibly Laymon's perviest novel? Are minors raped and tortured in any other work of his?

I think the easier question to answer is, "Do any of Laymon's books not include minors being raped and tortured?" All three Laymons I read did, before I quit reading his work.

You may be right, but that is not how I remember it.

[goathunter]

Maybe they aren't raped and tortured. I honestly don't remember. I just remember after each book I read that Laymon wrote like the world's oldest 12-year-old boy who has problems, writing for other twelve-year-old boys with problems. I only read them because they were so popular at the time. I finally just quit reading Laymon altogether.