Bentley Little is indescribable.
He has two different book styles: paranoid Kafkaesque horror on one side and all-stops-out horrorfests on the other. I prefer his Kafkaesque ones, and I recommend them heartily. If you have the stomach for harder horror, his gorefests will suit you just fine. Caveat emptor.
And heck, here's my Bentley Little Top Five, right up front:
1. The Store
2. The Association
3. The Resort
4. The Burning
5. The Policy
He's an addictive writer. His style and book titles are both terse. He gets some flak for using too many adjectives, but descriptive language is forgivable when a writer is working to create a thick atmosphere. And his atmospheres are as thick as they get.
He's inconsistent and he throws in too many plot threads, many left dangling. His characters don't always ring true. And yeah- he's not the best writer on the planet. (If you want fancy-pants literary horror, try Brian Evenson, Thomas Ligotti, or Peter Straub.) But he has great ideas and he presents them with clarity and force.
He rarely shortchanges you, either. As his stories unfold, one layer after another is revealed and things get darker/ more epic/ more suspenseful with each page. His sense of rhythm and structure is one-of-a-kind. This can make his books repetitive, but darnit- they're reliable!
His books are thick with biting social commentary and are rooted in either a) something mundane and annoying turning out to be something huge and horrifying or b) the past coming back to haunt and probably destroy the present.
He gives you just enough information in each book to guess what may be causing all the horror. But he never spells it out. This can be frustrating- some readers want closure and complete understanding. Little is disinclined to acquiesce to this request.
Things simply happen in his worlds. Characters speculate on what's behind it all, but they usually learn just enough to fight it and hopefully stop it. Sometimes things end well, sometimes not. You get no guarantees and that keeps his work fresh.
And speaking of those endings...Mixed bag there. They're abrupt. Lots of buildup, a quick confrontation, and it's over. But they're functional. Stephen King sucks at endings, too, so if bad endings are good enough for the King, they're good enough for Little.
(Side-note: it's not really fair to call Stephen King a "horror novelist." With maybe one or two exceptions, he hasn't written horror since the mid-80's. He gave it up around the same time Clive Barker did. King writes thrillers, sf, and dramas. Little, on the other hand, writes 100% horror. He doesn't seem to mind his pigeonhole. Hey, you got a specialty, you let that light shine!)
He's a secular humanist and his characters tend to preach, but rarely does it interfere with the story or come off as unbelievable in context. Often his characters believe in nothing and are forced to acknowledge there may be something deeper going on and that some higher power may be out there, after all.
His insights into the human condition are solid and he has at least a few quotable lines per book.
He won the Bram Stoker Award- a really big deal in horror fiction- for his first novel, The Revelation. And he's published and sold consistently since then, earning nice blurbs from Dean Koontz and Stephen King ("master of the macabre"), but not a single other award. He recently won a lifetime achievement award, which makes up for this injustice a bit.
I read The Store first and got hooked. This was lucky for me, as that's his mildest book. If I'd read one of his horroramas like University first, I would have written him off as too gross. His books have different spice levels and you have to decide what you can handle.
Bearing all that in mind, here's a little capsule review of each of his works! (I left out some of his small-press stuff. Below are his most easily-available and popular works.)
The Revelation (1990)
This is the book that made his reputation. It won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel. But it's not very good. An evil force is unleashed in a small Arizona town. And that's about it. Some generic spooky stuff happens. This might have been more impressive if I hadn't already read Little's superior, subsequently-written variations on this exact story. The characters just aren't engaging and it drags. The source of the evil- a valley filled with dead babies- is a pretty striking image, but it's forgettable otherwise.
The Mailman (1991)
Little finds his groove here, seizing on a mundane aspect of everyday life- the guy who delivers your mail- and going totally bonkers Kafkaesque supernatural with it. It gets almost too dark and grisly in spots. It hits some issues that, as a parent, absolutely terrify me. But Little manages to bring it around with a darkly humorous ending. The characterization is strong and it flows well.
Little finds his groove here, seizing on a mundane aspect of everyday life- the guy who delivers your mail- and going totally bonkers Kafkaesque supernatural with it. It gets almost too dark and grisly in spots. It hits some issues that, as a parent, absolutely terrify me. But Little manages to bring it around with a darkly humorous ending. The characterization is strong and it flows well.
Death Instinct (1992)
Second-rate. Originally written under a pseudonym, it's very different from his early work. It's more of a mainstream killer thriller with a nasty twist about the killer's identity. A few cool bits, but basically skippable.
Second-rate. Originally written under a pseudonym, it's very different from his early work. It's more of a mainstream killer thriller with a nasty twist about the killer's identity. A few cool bits, but basically skippable.
The Summoning (1993)
Vampires! These are the ancient Chinese kind, shapeshifting and allergic to jade. Fairly long at 541 pages, but it never once lost my attention. The characterization is great, the religious imagery is disturbing, and it keeps the twists and shocks coming. Some of it's maybe too nasty, but stuff like the guy randomly appearing swimming around in a septic tank displays Little at his random and unpredictable best.
Vampires! These are the ancient Chinese kind, shapeshifting and allergic to jade. Fairly long at 541 pages, but it never once lost my attention. The characterization is great, the religious imagery is disturbing, and it keeps the twists and shocks coming. Some of it's maybe too nasty, but stuff like the guy randomly appearing swimming around in a septic tank displays Little at his random and unpredictable best.
University (1994)
This is probably Little's nastiest book. And that's saying something. A university comes alive, basically, turning its students into monsters as every physical part of the university starts attacking, culminating in a seige between the town and the university's sentient buildings. Nutty and sick as it is, there's still a lot of clever social commentary. And the characters are all fully realized. Trigger warning- if anything offends you at all, this will offend you because it has everything.
Dominion (1996)
Another one of Little's "cavalcade of depravity" books. The ancient god of wine visits the Napa Valley and wreaks much havoc. Much, much havoc. There's a nice feminist edge to this one, as the victims are primarily men and the women and empowered and dangerous throughout.
The Ignored (1997)
Really mixed feelings on this one. Loved it, then hated it, then loved it, then seriously questioned what he was trying to say. It messed with me. A guy realizes that people barely notice him and he starts raising hell and people continue to barely notice him. Then he unites with an army of "the ignored" who share his gift/ curse. Things get weird and allegorical from there. This is Stephen King's favorite novel by this author. Fair enough. But man, it's weird.
The Town (1997)
Letdown. With a title like The Town, you expect some pretty grand-scale horror, but all you get is a haunted house and some minor spooky shenanigans around the town. Woman gives birth to a cactus and a Bible flies through the air and bites a guy. Those parts were cool. And the Russian folk magic was different. But the characters suck. And the story never really goes anywhere. Evil spirit is loose, then evil spirit is stopped. Yawn. Little would tackle a similar story later in his career with The Influence and he knocked it out of the park with that one.
Letdown. With a title like The Town, you expect some pretty grand-scale horror, but all you get is a haunted house and some minor spooky shenanigans around the town. Woman gives birth to a cactus and a Bible flies through the air and bites a guy. Those parts were cool. And the Russian folk magic was different. But the characters suck. And the story never really goes anywhere. Evil spirit is loose, then evil spirit is stopped. Yawn. Little would tackle a similar story later in his career with The Influence and he knocked it out of the park with that one.
The Store (1998)
Perfect. A super-evil Wal-Mart-esque store descends on a small town and devours it. The social commentary is Little's best yet and it builds perfectly, with a genuinely disturbing, then darkly funny ending.
The House (1999)
An odd follow-up to The Store, reverting back to all-over-the-place depravity. There's a house that acts as a gateway between dimensions and has existed in various forms throughout time. The walls of reality break down and the house is the key to rebuilding them. Also there's a homicidal clown dwarf army.
The Walking (2000)
Not bad. Not amazing, but not bad. A dark historical secret comes back to haunt the descendants of the perpetrators. They're cursed to walk forever in a state between life and death. I thought this was gonna be a zombie book, but nope. They're just walking here. It's all about reversing the curse and figuring out how it all started. Compelling, but forgettable.
The Association (2001)
This is basically The Store but about a homeowners' association instead of Wal-Mart. Nothing wrong with that. Lots of jolts and Kafkaesque fun along the way, with an absolutely hilarious final confrontation. This book will either make you laugh or drive you up the wall with frustration. Maybe both!
The Collection (2002)
His only short story collection. Some great stuff, like a guy who kills people and feeds them to his macaroni and cheese. But it's awfully brutal and dark. Only a handful of stories- "The Washingtonians," "Colony," "Roommates," "The Mailman"- display his brilliant Kafkaesque dark humor. He seems more enamored of nightmarish vignettes that don't always make sense. Still, every story is very short and it's never boring.
The Collection (2002)
His only short story collection. Some great stuff, like a guy who kills people and feeds them to his macaroni and cheese. But it's awfully brutal and dark. Only a handful of stories- "The Washingtonians," "Colony," "Roommates," "The Mailman"- display his brilliant Kafkaesque dark humor. He seems more enamored of nightmarish vignettes that don't always make sense. Still, every story is very short and it's never boring.
The Return (2002)
An ancient evil in the Arizona desert comes back to wreck everything. This is the only Little book where I found the opening weak. It's got a brief, pointless prologue. Then an overlong introduction to a not-very-interesting main character that could have been summarized in a paragraph or three. It should have started with the boy scout campfire tale about the ancient face-ripping monster. But from there- it's rock solid. Archeological digs turn into massacres. Animated mummies. Rooms and buildings made of bones. Visions of the dead. Shards of ancient relics with modern people's faces on them. Citizens turned into savages, engaging in total warfare. Entire towns get destroyed or disappear. Volcanoes appear. Also- nice touch with the LDS garage sale. It's accurately mundane.
The Policy (2003)
Very funny and very not-right. It's about an insurance company that is- CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?- evil. Their antics and strong-arm tactics get more surreal and insane with each page and the book just never lets up. Kafka would love this stuff.
Very funny and very not-right. It's about an insurance company that is- CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?- evil. Their antics and strong-arm tactics get more surreal and insane with each page and the book just never lets up. Kafka would love this stuff.
The Resort (2004)
A nice trip to a resort in the desert turns into a descent into Hell. This follows up on The Return's concept of an ancient evil older than mankind coming back to possess and destroy all humans. But it's more fun and entertaining, in a very wrong way.
Dispatch (2005)
This is the first Little book I would have given up on, had it been written by anyone else. It's about a guy who writes letters. His letters have power. He gets recruited by a sinister elite Letter Writer organization that seems to be shaping world events and history. It takes over 100 pages to get going, and even then it's an uneven ride with arbitrary and abrupt plot twists and side journeys. His family dynamics are really depressing. The challenge here is that the viewpoint narrator is a monster. His evil is subtle at times, but his abusive treatment of women is totally disengaging. The novel acknowledges that he's evil and that becomes a plot element, but it's still tough to get through, even for a Little completist.
This is the first Little book I would have given up on, had it been written by anyone else. It's about a guy who writes letters. His letters have power. He gets recruited by a sinister elite Letter Writer organization that seems to be shaping world events and history. It takes over 100 pages to get going, and even then it's an uneven ride with arbitrary and abrupt plot twists and side journeys. His family dynamics are really depressing. The challenge here is that the viewpoint narrator is a monster. His evil is subtle at times, but his abusive treatment of women is totally disengaging. The novel acknowledges that he's evil and that becomes a plot element, but it's still tough to get through, even for a Little completist.
The Burning (2006)
Great epic horror. This takes the basic premise of The Return and runs several victory laps around it. The imagery is nightmarish and unforgettable, from mass underground graves full of still-alive victims to the ghost trains made entirely of human bodies running along their tracks, heading for their inevitable collision of apocalyptic doom...doom...doom!
The Vanishing (2007)
Very similarly titled to his other one, The Disappearance. But no connection or similarity in content. Some evil force is making a handful of people go super-psycho. SPOILER: it's due to creatures that were exterminated as Americans went west in the 19th Century. It's an environmental/ anti-Manifest Destiny allegory. Really scatterbrained, with too many characters. Lots of horrifying stuff, but none of it lands because I didn't care about anyone in the story.
Very similarly titled to his other one, The Disappearance. But no connection or similarity in content. Some evil force is making a handful of people go super-psycho. SPOILER: it's due to creatures that were exterminated as Americans went west in the 19th Century. It's an environmental/ anti-Manifest Destiny allegory. Really scatterbrained, with too many characters. Lots of horrifying stuff, but none of it lands because I didn't care about anyone in the story.
The Academy (2008)
A surprisingly effective paranoid tale, his first since The Resort. The books before and after this one are meh, but this one is pretty solid throughout. A public school decides to become a charter school and- wouldn't you know it- everything goes horribly wrong and crazy. Great social satire on the current state of public and private education. Gross, too.
A surprisingly effective paranoid tale, his first since The Resort. The books before and after this one are meh, but this one is pretty solid throughout. A public school decides to become a charter school and- wouldn't you know it- everything goes horribly wrong and crazy. Great social satire on the current state of public and private education. Gross, too.
His Father's Son (2009)
[Didn't read it. I own it. But I've decided I'd like to keep one Little book unread, just for the heck of it. It's like that guy on that Lost episode who kept one permanently-unread Dickens book after reading all the rest of his catalogue. Though I'm not in a Lost episode. I think.]
[Didn't read it. I own it. But I've decided I'd like to keep one Little book unread, just for the heck of it. It's like that guy on that Lost episode who kept one permanently-unread Dickens book after reading all the rest of his catalogue. Though I'm not in a Lost episode. I think.]
The Disappearance (2010)
This one starts strong, with a vivid sequence at Burning Man, followed by a kidnapping. Then it just kind of meanders for 400 pages. Everything drags. The characters repeatedly say stuff like "This is like some cheesy thriller!" or the author says "At this point in a movie, this such-and-such thing would happen. And wouldn't you know it, such-and-such thing really happened!" It grates on the reader. Also there's none of the expected Bentley Little weirdness and no real twist, just a revelation about who the "Outsiders" really are. That's it. It's about a religious cult and we spend a lot of time with the cultists and in their compound, but we never really get a sense of why these people believe so fanatically, nor how the leaders are able to convince people to join the cult. None of it makes sense. "Disappearance"? More like "Disappointing"!
The
Haunted (2012)
This one starts strong, with a vivid sequence at Burning Man, followed by a kidnapping. Then it just kind of meanders for 400 pages. Everything drags. The characters repeatedly say stuff like "This is like some cheesy thriller!" or the author says "At this point in a movie, this such-and-such thing would happen. And wouldn't you know it, such-and-such thing really happened!" It grates on the reader. Also there's none of the expected Bentley Little weirdness and no real twist, just a revelation about who the "Outsiders" really are. That's it. It's about a religious cult and we spend a lot of time with the cultists and in their compound, but we never really get a sense of why these people believe so fanatically, nor how the leaders are able to convince people to join the cult. None of it makes sense. "Disappearance"? More like "Disappointing"!
MEDIOCRE. You can sort of tell within the first 10 pages where a book is going. And this one makes it clear that it's gonna be a pretty generic family-in-a-haunted-house story. And that's what it is. Characters are okay- not so jerky as to be unlikable. But not likable enough that I really cared about what happens to them after they stupidly decide NOT TO LEAVE THE HOUSE ONCE THEY REALIZE IT'S HAUNTED. I mean- Little tips his hat by having the people say they can't afford to movie, but still- tired of that trope, yo. The House, while not great, was a way better Bentley Little "haunted house" book.
The Circle (2012)
Short and sweet. This novella revolves around a vindictive spell cast on a small group of people, resulting in everything from pooping precious gems to unleashing gems. This one gets a lot of hate for not spelling everything out, but Little gives you just enough info to piece it all together and it's a funny, mean little ride. Should be judged as a good long short story rather than a truncated novel.
The Influence (2013)
Another small-town winner. An angel gets accidentally shot down during a New Years' celebration and the town goes completely chaotically bonkers. As Little's towns tend to do.
The Consultant (2015)
Another mounting-nightmare tale of an evil consulting firm that takes over companies, making them do crazy and nasty things. Builds momentum really well and gets weirder and darker with each passing page. It ends with a very surreal showdown between the consultant and our hero. Some parts are way too gross for anyone with any decency in their heart. The rest of you will dig it.
-Phony McFakename
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