What do you think?
Rate this book
The Demon
Vernon Sweet, the former sideshow freak known as Grogo the Goblin, moves into the quiet town of Beckskill, New York, with his guardian, and soon unexplained murders make him the object of serious scrutiny
- GenresHorror
384 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
34 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 9, 2023
Sackett is an interesting writer for sure and this is his third book of his I have read; like his others, I was pretty mixed on this one, my feelings ranging from a 2 to a 4 almost throughout. Sackett's books are much more 'cerebral' than most horror fare from this vintage (this was published in 1991), but I would definitely not classify this a literary.
The Demon largely takes place in Beckskill, New York; a small town upstate by New Paltz, in late 1968. Using a motif I forget the name for, this starts off with a 'letter to the reader' prologue, from 1990 or so, informing us that the story is actually a manuscript he received from an old acquaintance from the Summer of Love years that depicted the events back in 1968.
The actual story starts with carny midway at a New York fairground, where a busker is trying to get people to pay to see his mysterious freakshow tent. One of the freaks is of course 'the demon', but he is known here as Grogo the Goblin, a small, deformed man who role includes being the 'geek'. His best and only friend is an ancient Hindu who works the freak tent as 'Maharaja the rubber man', basically doing yoga on stage. The busker/owner has decided that tonight's show will be the last... after some horrific events, Grogo, AKA Vernon Sweet, leaves with the Hindu to his family home in Beckskill, which he is now the only owner of after his sister passed away few years ago.
Sackett builds a big cast here, primarily of hippies and such, who live in the Beckskill area and in NYC. One of the leads is a local, living with his sister on their parent's trust funds after they died in a plane crash recently. Filthy rich, Clay and his sister basically smoke dope and drink all day, and of course talk philosophy with their pals. As one of their pals is a bearded Marxist, the philosophy at times is at a fairly high level (never expected to read arguments about Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky in a horror novel 😎, let alone about the forces and relations of production).
Perhaps one of Sackett's biggest problems for me is his pacing and at times meandering plot. I found The Demon super intriguing at times and near bored to tears at others. We know something is up with Vernon AKA Grogo right from the start as demonstrated in the prologue, but still, he is not only deformed, but he seems to have the intelligence of a 3 year old. Yet, Sackett takes his own sweet time before we start to explore little Grogo, seemingly going down a memory lane of 1968, politics, drugs, free love and all. I kinda dug this and Sackett, born in 1947, must have lived some of the life then as it feels pretty authentic.
So, do not expect a fast-paced thrill ride here, but if you are intrigued by late 60's culture, you might really enjoy this. And, it must be stated, Grogo AKA Vernon AKA The Demon is a pretty novel premise, even in horror fiction. 3 little demons.
The Demon largely takes place in Beckskill, New York; a small town upstate by New Paltz, in late 1968. Using a motif I forget the name for, this starts off with a 'letter to the reader' prologue, from 1990 or so, informing us that the story is actually a manuscript he received from an old acquaintance from the Summer of Love years that depicted the events back in 1968.
The actual story starts with carny midway at a New York fairground, where a busker is trying to get people to pay to see his mysterious freakshow tent. One of the freaks is of course 'the demon', but he is known here as Grogo the Goblin, a small, deformed man who role includes being the 'geek'. His best and only friend is an ancient Hindu who works the freak tent as 'Maharaja the rubber man', basically doing yoga on stage. The busker/owner has decided that tonight's show will be the last... after some horrific events, Grogo, AKA Vernon Sweet, leaves with the Hindu to his family home in Beckskill, which he is now the only owner of after his sister passed away few years ago.
Sackett builds a big cast here, primarily of hippies and such, who live in the Beckskill area and in NYC. One of the leads is a local, living with his sister on their parent's trust funds after they died in a plane crash recently. Filthy rich, Clay and his sister basically smoke dope and drink all day, and of course talk philosophy with their pals. As one of their pals is a bearded Marxist, the philosophy at times is at a fairly high level (never expected to read arguments about Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky in a horror novel 😎, let alone about the forces and relations of production).
Perhaps one of Sackett's biggest problems for me is his pacing and at times meandering plot. I found The Demon super intriguing at times and near bored to tears at others. We know something is up with Vernon AKA Grogo right from the start as demonstrated in the prologue, but still, he is not only deformed, but he seems to have the intelligence of a 3 year old. Yet, Sackett takes his own sweet time before we start to explore little Grogo, seemingly going down a memory lane of 1968, politics, drugs, free love and all. I kinda dug this and Sackett, born in 1947, must have lived some of the life then as it feels pretty authentic.
So, do not expect a fast-paced thrill ride here, but if you are intrigued by late 60's culture, you might really enjoy this. And, it must be stated, Grogo AKA Vernon AKA The Demon is a pretty novel premise, even in horror fiction. 3 little demons.
January 7, 2018
This is a competently written horror novel that just sort of lost me in the last act.
The idea is that a sideshow freak is actually something more and his rubber man pal is the thing that keeps him in check. They end up retiring to the small town where the creature (variously known as Grogo the Goblin and Vernon Sweet) was born just in time to fall afoul of a plan to take the old Sweet home and property (where they plan to retire) for a new plastic factory.
As if that weren't enough, it's 1968/9 and there are a bunch of goddamned hippie kids running around, being obnoxious. The main hippies are a pair of rich orphans who live in the town and a set of twins, one of whom was molested by their father (upon the discovery of which their mother killed herself). There's also a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist and an ecology-minded law student.
It's a trope of horror stories for many of the characters to be unpleasant, and this book has that. While not as awful as some others (cf. any random Stephen King novel), it can be hard to find a character you want to see surviving whatever horror eventually comes down the pike.
I was wobbling between 3-4 stars when the SHTF in the final section of the book and, ultimately, that pushed me into a three star rating. One main issue I had was that the writing was too casual to convey much actual horror. It was almost flippant. This could be explained—but not mitigated—by The Big Reveal.
I won't spoil TBR here. You'll see it coming when the author tips it off early on, and keeps tipping it off throughout the book. The fact that it's not surprising in the least isn't really the problem. To bring Mr. King back into the discussion, Carrie proceeds from the ending being spelled out from the outset, and it's a fine story.
All I'll say about it is: Unreliable narrator. Now, the whole book is set up with the time-honored "This is a true story" wrapped in a nice "I know how hack that sounds" layer, and the book sorta won me over with a reference to Plan 9 from Outer Space, which also had a "This is so true, guys, you won't believe it" opening from Criswell.
But the story is told by a psychotic. The narrator says things we know can't be true. Having seen The Big Reveal coming, I started to look for more clues—but since the narrator is lying to us, they're not only not there, they're directly contradicted. At the same time, TBR couldn't have been anything else. Literally nothing makes sense if it's not there, and yet the fact that it is what it is means the whole thing could be a lie, but the whole thing is premised on it not being a lie, etc. etc. etc.
It comes off as a kind of cute device that doesn't work because the narrator is completely coherent (if describing remarkable things), and yet turns out to be both a basket case and simultaneously amazingly responsible for 20 years! There are reasons this doesn't make any sense that I can't write without spoilers.
I had hoped for better.
The idea is that a sideshow freak is actually something more and his rubber man pal is the thing that keeps him in check. They end up retiring to the small town where the creature (variously known as Grogo the Goblin and Vernon Sweet) was born just in time to fall afoul of a plan to take the old Sweet home and property (where they plan to retire) for a new plastic factory.
As if that weren't enough, it's 1968/9 and there are a bunch of goddamned hippie kids running around, being obnoxious. The main hippies are a pair of rich orphans who live in the town and a set of twins, one of whom was molested by their father (upon the discovery of which their mother killed herself). There's also a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist and an ecology-minded law student.
It's a trope of horror stories for many of the characters to be unpleasant, and this book has that. While not as awful as some others (cf. any random Stephen King novel), it can be hard to find a character you want to see surviving whatever horror eventually comes down the pike.
I was wobbling between 3-4 stars when the SHTF in the final section of the book and, ultimately, that pushed me into a three star rating. One main issue I had was that the writing was too casual to convey much actual horror. It was almost flippant. This could be explained—but not mitigated—by The Big Reveal.
I won't spoil TBR here. You'll see it coming when the author tips it off early on, and keeps tipping it off throughout the book. The fact that it's not surprising in the least isn't really the problem. To bring Mr. King back into the discussion, Carrie proceeds from the ending being spelled out from the outset, and it's a fine story.
All I'll say about it is: Unreliable narrator. Now, the whole book is set up with the time-honored "This is a true story" wrapped in a nice "I know how hack that sounds" layer, and the book sorta won me over with a reference to Plan 9 from Outer Space, which also had a "This is so true, guys, you won't believe it" opening from Criswell.
But the story is told by a psychotic. The narrator says things we know can't be true. Having seen The Big Reveal coming, I started to look for more clues—but since the narrator is lying to us, they're not only not there, they're directly contradicted. At the same time, TBR couldn't have been anything else. Literally nothing makes sense if it's not there, and yet the fact that it is what it is means the whole thing could be a lie, but the whole thing is premised on it not being a lie, etc. etc. etc.
It comes off as a kind of cute device that doesn't work because the narrator is completely coherent (if describing remarkable things), and yet turns out to be both a basket case and simultaneously amazingly responsible for 20 years! There are reasons this doesn't make any sense that I can't write without spoilers.
I had hoped for better.
November 16, 2019
Surprisingly competent writing and characterization, marred by a meandering story. There are far too many characters and far too many scenes that aren't crucial to the story. I got 3/4ths of the way through before I realized that there probably wasn't going to be any payoff to the story.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews