Talk us through it
Jim Craine is a typical twelve year old in the summer of 1985. His vacation from school stretches out ahead of him, he is becoming interested in girls, and he has some of the best mates he will ever have. Life would seem to be idyllic with only what to do being a concern for Jim and his friends. Unfortunately the summer of 1985 also saw the murderous rampage of "The Night Stalker" through Los Angeles County neighbourhoods. As the psychopath gets closer and close to Jim's street the promising summer vacation starts to unravel as Jim learns more about the world than he ever expected to. Can Jim solve a murder before things go completely to pieces and will his family survive? Ready to go back to the future?
Review"Why not? Pows are for life." - Charlie Cruel Summer is a first person narrative seen from the point of view of it's twelve year old protagonist Jim Craine. Author Matt Venne does wonderfully well invoking the innocence of youth before gradually whittling it away as Jim's summer vacation goes down the toilet in a major way. Jim may start the summer as a carefree kid but by the time school resumes, an occurrence he looks forward to by the end of the novella, he has learnt life isn't as easy going as he had once supposed. Matt Venne is telling a coming of age story with the obvious comparison being to the Stephen King novella The Body. Both involve young protagonists, and both revolve around finding a dead body. While Venne's story could be viewed with some mild concern, the plot and underlying themes are pretty close to King's work, Venne comes at things from a different angle then King with a much more literary bent than the Maine writer is pre-disposed to take. This may be viewed as sacrilege in some circles, but I'm going to go on the record and state Venne has created a better novella than King's equivalent. Some one shut down the email accounts stat, we're going to be getting some irate correspondence pretty shortly! Before taking time out of your valuable schedule to berate me for my opinion in this review, I would suggest you read the rest of the review and by heck Venne's story Cruel Summer as well before making your mind up. Matt Venne beats Stephen King at his own game, summoning up a summer holiday view of long ago youth before turning the innocent into protagonists in a chaotic blend of horror and adult themes. Matt Venne begins his story getting the reader acquainted with the Night Stalker. We learn his teeth have gone black with rot and his breath is enough to knock over a brick wall. Besides sending oral hygienists into screaming fits of terror, this is hardly the start one would expect from a coming of age novella. Venne is not going to play by any rules and jives to his own beat. The Night Stalker will loom large over Jim Craine's summer both physically and figuratively. By the end of Cruel Summer it would appear that Jim has had two very close shaves with the psychopath, though we learn surprisingly that the murder of Rose White, which Jim becomes obsessed with after encountering the young lady both alive and dead, is not down to the obvious suspect. Clearly Jim's almost self destructing attempts at discovering who killed Ms White will also go a long way to defining his outlook on the world post summer, not all things can be worked out as easerly as Tubbs and Crocket make it appear in Miami Vice. Do we note a more resigned Jim in the concluding passages of Cruel Summer? Matt Venne isn't saying, he lets his prose do all the talking that needs to be done. The Author uses the Night Stalker as almost a literary illusion, an external symbol of the chaos entering Jim's life from more mundane sources. As the Stalker's victims are found closer to Jim's neighbourhood, Jim's street, and finally almost in his house, so the young narrator's family relationships becoming more chaotic and strained. Jim realises he has not sat down and done anything with his father for quite sometime, and worse yet he discovers his father is being unfaithful to his mother. The first signs of age are creeping up on his mother, and in a leap of intuition Jim realises she may not be happy with a brand new tract house in a new sub division. His best friend Smitty uses Jim as an excuse, without asking, and starts on his own spiral downwards. The only things Jim has to hang onto are his cousin Charlie, soon to be dragged out of Jim's world, and his younger sister Annie. There is no stability at the center of Jim's world and he must make some tough adult decisions. This is central to an understanding of Matt Venne's Cruel Summer, and no the writer isn't saying Jim is going to become a better person via being tempered through fire. Sorry if this review is starting to sound like your English Appreciation class, but Matt Venne has a heck of a lot going down in his novella, I'm sifting the surface soil that a critic would dig deeper into. Adults only exist in Venne's story to place restrictions on Jim's investigation into the murder of Rose White. They fulfil no other function other than to come down like the wraith of god on the least transgression Jim or his cronies commit. Clearly modern parenting practices weren't in vogue back in 1985 as Jim seems to suffer through inordinate beatings at the hands of his parents, and it must be said quite a bit of psychological abuse. Social services would be all over the Craine family in the modern era. In keeping with his overall plot Venne writes in a naturalistic style with plenty of readily identifiable television shows and movies being referenced. His characters aren't placed in a world that only exists in the eye of the Author, but are ordinary people in a lower middle class suburb with that world view to the forefront. As John Carpenter pointed out in 1978's Halloween, and something Rob Zombie completely missed in the 2008 remake, the horror has come to the streets of middle class suburbia and in the face of that dark chaos the citizens are more apt to shut and lock their doors than to offer any help to the victims. Only Jim, a naïve kid, picks up on the signs and tries to find out what happened to Uncle Bill. In keeping with Venne's darker views on the encroachment of adulthood we never do find out what happened to the errant adult or indeed who killed Rose White. The author isn't about to tie up all the lose ends, as Jim discovers life simply isn't like that. Cruel Summer is a hard story to pigeon hole, besides it being obviously a coming of age yarn, as Venne has ventured into the territory of a number of genres. There's a big enough horror element to keep us happy at ScaryMinds but it's more of the psychological and what could have happened style of horror rather than having something from the grave lumbering into view. I guess when I finally put Cruel Summer down, I read it over a single Sunday afternoon in some glorious spring heat, I was left pretty much with the same melancholy feeling I had when I first read King's The Body. Maybe it's looking back with rose tinted glasses, but the world seemed a whole lot nicer and fill of possibilities than it does now at an older age. Venne has simply nailed his prime theme and feel. Naturally since Cruel Summer is a stand alone novella it's been published by the good folk at Tasmaniac Productions. As well as the novella we get an introduction from Joe R. Lansdale, excellent cover and internal illustrations by Daniele Serra, and an outstanding overall package in terms of binding and paper quality. The release is limited to 100 soft cover and 26 lettered hard copies.
If you are jonesing a copy then I would suggest you drop everything and set your browser to the heart of the sun, or at least to
Tasmaniac and get in quick as this one isn't going to remain in stock for too much longer.
ScaryMinds Rates this read as ... Excellent early effort from an up and coming Author.
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