White Spawn

by Marc Laidlaw

Adolescence can be terrifying. The monsters under the bed that frightened us in childhood are replaced by deeper fears, monsters all the more terrible because they just might be real. Kayla’s family has moved to a rural community, and things aren’t great at home. She feels cut off from the real world, and she’s always fighting with her new stepfather. Then one day she discovers a dying salmon on the bank of a stream. It’s diseased, rotting, its symptoms recalling those suffered by an old man who disappeared before her arrival.

But this find leads to another. A white-haired boy named Thor, who lives with his grotesque grandmother in a trailer, far off in the rank forest. As Kayla’s friendship with Thor deepens, she begins to understand the monstrous truth behind him and the backwoods community to which he belongs . . .

Cunningly constructed and powerfully felt, Marc Laidlaw’s menacingly resonant novella leads us through woods half recognised from fairy tale and nightmare, to locations truly dark and strange.

Genres: Horror

65 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2015

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 4 out of 5]

a boy comes from the river, a fair and barefoot prince of the land, descendant of the land's original settlers - or so his people have told him, of their history and his legacy: Vikings and Aryans and river spawnings, blood and soil; the boy is white trash, or so people like him have been named. a girl comes from yonder, a daughter to a mother who doesn't know her and a question mark to a stepfather she doesn't want to know, both anxious that she keep to her people: a people who name others white trash, people who can afford to live in a big house on a hill; they are a flimsy, hollow people, interlopers, descended from nothing.

an author writes a beautiful tale, one with horrific images: rotting fish on muddy banks and armed right-wing zealots who yearn to blow up the world around them and a hideous, orgiastic spawning in the river involving beings who are more than mere fish. an author dedicates this tale to his own daughter. why? because the tale lives through its heroine, a daughter, a girl understanding little, yearning for understanding, longing to protect and to be protected. a girl must make her own decisions. she moves back and forth in her mind, favoring one side and then the other. it is a difficult decision she must make; in the end, she will choose neither - she will make her own path through the woods.



a review or two ago I decried a horror novel that turned ridiculous after I realized it was all about angry and very flexible rocks; I don't want to say too much about this one because I can imagine myself reading about the mysteries at the heart of this story and vowing to never read such a stupid-sounding thing. but what sounds inane if encapsulated in a few words, or banal and ugly when describing the materials used... can become mysterious and thrilling when actually read, and especially when written by a craftsman in full command of his powers. a well-constructed and surprisingly tender work.

[Karl]

From the PS Publishing Web Site:

SYNOPSIS

Adolescence can be terrifying. The monsters under the bed that frightened us in childhood are replaced by deeper fears, monsters all the more terrible because they just might be real. Kayla’s family has moved to a rural community, and things aren’t great at home. She feels cut off from the real world, and she’s always fighting with her new stepfather. Then one day she discovers a dying salmon on the bank of a stream. It’s diseased, rotting, its symptoms recalling those suffered by an old man who disappeared before her arrival.

But this find leads to another. A white-haired boy named Thor, who lives with his grotesque grandmother in a trailer, far off in the rank forest. As Kayla’s friendship with Thor deepens, she begins to understand the monstrous truth behind him and the backwoods community to which he belongs . . .

Cunningly constructed and powerfully felt, Marc Laidlaw’s menacingly resonant novella leads us through woods half recognised from fairy tale and nightmare, to locations truly dark and strange."

[Sheena Forsberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a gift from my fiancé and I was not familiar with Laidlaw’s work (and as such didn’t have any expectations). I really liked this read which reminded me of fairy tales I grew up with and a twisted take on Romeo & Juliet. It is just 60 or so pages but it wastes no time pulling you into the story. I was on the last page and (sign of any good novella) wished there were more pages left for me to turn.

[Christopher Teague · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tremendous!

What starts out has an intriguing crime story, becomes something quite different in the second chapter - the story of Kayla, a lonely girl who meets Thor, a boy from the wrong end of the river or so her mother and step-father remark.

Within sixty-five pages, Laidlaw paints a fully-fledged mythology around Thor's family, with an ending that is nigh on perfect.

Recommended.

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

This tale reads like a trout's mad dash upstream and ends in a high note, with a good pouring of romance and madness.

[Timothy Youngs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well done.