Book Review: OUR WINTER MONSTER by Dennis Mahoney
I’ve got a soft spot for winter horrors, where the frigid environment compounds human or supernatural threats. Perhaps its the dose of familiarity I have with winter’s beauty and winter’s dangers that makes the setting work so well for me in fiction. Anyone else who likes such seasonal scares should check out Our Winter Monster by Dennis Mahoney, just published by Hell’s Hundred Books, a new horror imprint from independent publishers Soho Press. As the chilly winds and ice continue outside, there’s no better book to curl up with under a warm blanket and a warm beverage at hand. As much as I enjoyed the novel and would recommend it to particular readers, Our Winter Monster has several weaknesses combined with its many strong points. These add up to a solid thriller that will entertain many general readers and horror fans, but which fails to achieve a potency or quality that its premise or Mahoney show potential for. The summary provided by the publisher for Our Winter Monster does a great job of succinctly relating the plot: For the last year, Holly and Brian have been out of sync. Neither can forget what happened that one winter evening; neither can forgive what’s happened since. Tonight, Holly and Brian race toward Pinebuck, New York, trying to outrun a blizzard on their way to the ski village getaway they hope will save their relationship. But soon they lose control of the car—and then of themselves. Now Sheriff Kendra Book is getting calls about a couple in trouble—along with reports of a brutal and mysterious creature rampaging through town, leaving a trail of crushed cars, wrecked buildings, and mangled bodies in the snow. To Kendra, who lost another couple to the snow just seven weeks ago, the danger feels personal. But not as personal as it feels to Holly and Brian, who are starting to see the past, the present, and themselves in a monstrous new light . . . Let’s start with some of the things I think Mahoney does really well with Our Winter Monster. The wintry environment is like a character unto itself, manifested into a monster of swirling ice and snow that evokes fear. As the plot summary suggests, the exact nature of this monster is a mixture of supernatural and psychological, a metaphoric manifestation of trauma in Holly & Brian’s past that they are partially trying to work though, and partially trying to ignore/forget. Psychological horror manifesting in physical ways is nothing new to horror, but Mahoney pulls this off very well, blending past and present through the novel. Where Our Winter Monster could easily be written more towards the thriller or mystery end of the genre spectrum, Mahoney solidifies the horror aspect with frightening images of the snow monster, the psychological fear of characters not being able to control themselves, and the violence/gore of the deaths. Characterization is one aspect of the novel that has both successes and failures. Holly and Brian stand out with the most development (understandably as the protagonists.) As the reader discovers more of their past and what is to come during this present night of trial, one can see a great arc in each of them as individuals as well as the two of them as a couple who love one another. Mahoney integrates these characters very well with the plot to show how their difficulties of relating to one another stem from the trauma that make them unsure of each of them, themselves. They have to learn how to face themselves and the individual decisions of their past. Yet, they find the strength to do this together. As the thematic core of Our Winter Monster, Mahoney does a phenomenal job in these characters and how they drive the plot. However, the secondary characters don’t come off as well. The amount that Kendra is in the novel necessitates deeper development then ends up being there. It seems as if her story should intersect in ways with Holly & Brian’s, yet I didn’t finish the novel with any sense of this being the case. Likewise, another secondary character, Tanner, could have been more fully developed, given how central he ends up being to the plot. I felt this particularly so because his role ended up feeling very predictable, even from his first appearance on the pages. Beyond being a horror novel through the story of Holly & Brian, Mahoney seems to be adding a mystery novel with the secondary characters, and this half just doesn’t have the same heart, resonance, or novelty to it. The other significant critique I would make of Our Winter Monster is that Mahoney tends toward fully explaining things to readers rather than letting ambiguity or subtlety rule. For an undemanding reader just looking for some entertaining diversion without having to invest too much focus, this approach will work on point. But an approach toward the other end of the spectrum would have helped make the novel into something more special. As I write this, I’m realizing Our Winter Monster is an interesting novel that straddles the line between mass market thriller for casual readers and psychological/supernatural horror novel for fans who are familiar with the genre tropes. By casting this bimodal net Mahoney’s book would probably capture the interest and admiration of both kind of readers while also leading to disappointing some from each camp. Perhaps because I’m fine with switching between the two branches of reading, even within a single work, the novel ended up scoring overall with me. Beyond this, I’m very interested in seeing what else Hell’s Hundred releases in the future.
Month of Joy: Summertime in Sydney by Thoraiya Dyer
December in Sydney is summertime. Some of my greatest joys this time of year: My animal patients, the creativity of winter decorations in Sahara-like heat, the sound of cellos and the taste of chocolate. It’s a privilege being a veterinarian, and my patients come in two varieties – domesticated and wild. The sadness of their short lives, being there to see them sicken, staying stoic while they succumb to age or injury, as you shepherd them through their decline, are all balanced by the beauty, the brilliance, the miracle, that we get to share our time on the earth with them.
Month of Joy: Falling Snow and Rising Spirits by Phoebe Barton
Every December, a holiday-themed zone opens up in Star Trek Online: Q’s Winter Wonderland, a place where players can forget about spatial anomalies and chroniton fluxes and enjoy themselves in a place where no one ever dies, where the only enemies are made of snow and candy, and where it’s always winter. I found myself spending a lot of time there in 2017, even if I no longer have any real in-game reason to, and not just because it was 2017. I wondered why until it clicked — winter, a proper northern winter, is one of my sources of joy.
Month of Joy: Settings of Silver and Gold by Kate Heartfield
I live in a cold part of the world, so you might think that at this time of the year I’d be looking for escape in stories set in the tropics. But I find the books that bring me joy in the winter tend to be set in this season, in the Middle Ages in Europe. One of them is Connie Willis’s 1992 time-travel novel, Doomsday Book. Another is Umberto Eco’s first novel, The Name of the Rose, published in 1980.
