Horror Novel
Wildwood Road
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Author: Christopher Golden
Published By: Bantam
Reviewed by Justine Manzano
I’m going to go out on a crazy limb and say that, in my humble opinion, Christopher Golden is the newest Horror/Supernatural master! Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system I can explain that I have just completed Wildwood Road by Christopher Golden, and if that’s not a review in itself, I don’t know what is. I could probably stop typing right now, but what kind of article would that make? Wildwood Road isn’t the first book of Golden’s that I’ve read and hopefully it won’t be the last. His Supernatural thriller, The Boys Are Back In Town, was reviewed by me in an early edition of G-Pop and, naturally, it got raves. So why did I love Wildwood Road? Let me count the ways…
The story follows Michael Dansky, the art director of an advertising firm in New England. Michael has the perfect life—he has a job he loves, a house in a great community, and a marriage that couldn’t be happier. Michael loves his wife, Jillian, and she is his guiding light. When she passes out drunk after a surprisingly indulgent night at a masquerade ball, Michael drives her home, sure he hasn’t drank too much. On the road, he becomes sleepy and when he nearly veers off the road, he almost hits a little girl. The little girl, who calls herself Scooter, is okay and Michael decides to give her a ride home. Before she runs out of his car, she makes him promise that he will come find her. Without Jillian conscious to offer her advice, Michael foolishly follows the girl into her home when he feels that she may not be safe. What he finds there is a disorienting experience that he can’t even remember right away when he wakes up.
After the incident, Michael begins to see little Scooter everywhere, along with the smell of homemade popcorn. As her very presence begins to possess him, he begins to search everywhere for where she, or the house he had followed her into, can possibly be. His search raises the ire of “the hollow women”, misshapen colorless women who are stalking him at every turn. Michael soon realizes that he has gotten close to uncovering the truth when the hollow women attack him at home, stealing something valuable away from his wife and making her a cold, heartless woman. They wanted to throw him off of their scent—what they didn’t realize was that hurting his wife wouldn’t scare him away from anything. It could only make him more determined to uncover the truth.
The most important thing that Christopher Golden does with his horror is to always go for the truth of the moment. The disfigured faces of the scary hollow women are not nearly as scary as the idea of waking up one morning and discovering that the person you love has gone completely insane, you may be mad yourself, and the rules of the world are nothing like what you thought they were. It is in these truths that Golden excels—the fears of the real world. Never mind the fact that his pure horror knocks the wind out of you just as well.
Wildwood Road, like every other Christopher Golden novel I’ve read, will knock your socks off with it’s brilliant dialogue, truthful characters, and it’s plot—which always leads you exactly where you would never think you were headed. It’s a good read and I promise you, I didn’t feel too comfortable turning off the lights at night when I was reading this one—a true sign of a new horror classic!
Related Links: The Boys Are Back In Town
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