The One Safe Place

by Ramsey Campbell

Don and Suzanne Travis and their adolescent son, Marshall, become involved in an escalating web of brutality, murder, and kidnapping after Don testifies against a man who attacked him after a minor traffic violation. Reprint.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Novels

401 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Ramsey Campbell is a British writer considered by a number of critics to be one of the great masters of horror fiction. T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today," while S. T. Joshi has said that "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood."

Reviews

[James Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ramsey Campbell is generally more well-known for his (in my opinion, significant and massively influential) contributions to the field of supernatural horror. In this novel he has created monsters that are products of our reality - and believe me, the Fancy family are more terrifying than any Old One or Shoggoth for the fact that they are the people whose misdeeds we see on the front pages of tabloid newspapers and on the news. They are people I have probably passed, interacted with, on the street. This is urban horror in its purest form.

Violence is the keyword here. It isn't a glamorisation of it but one of the most detailed dissections of it I've read in contemporary fiction: its nature in the minds of civilians on different sides of the pond, the effects of its depiction in the media, the cycle and hereditary nature of violence within communities and familes - the list goes on.

Campbell has an amazing ear for regional dialects. As a resident of Northern England I really enjoyed the various exchanges which felt almost documented. I have a hard time finding another author whose prose alone gives me such sheer joy and this is due largely to Campbell's imagination for conversations. There is also a vein of dark humour which comes from the many awkward exchanges reflecting that which we experience day to day: those cringey misunderstandings when you can't say just what you want to - pure expression slipping just out of one's vocal grasp. The breakdown of communication between the American characters and the British, and the further innuendos and misunderstandings that come with this, is also a high point.

I think what made this novel really linger in my memory is the unflinching treatment of taboo subject matter. I don't want to spoil it for any readers but steel yourself for moments of heartbreaking cruelty and injustice. And as in all of his fiction, Campbell puts you right into the brain of the character. You feel every abuse, every moment of tragedy, every revelation as though first-hand.

[Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welcome to the 90s! Thomas Harris is at peak popularity and all the supernatural horror writers are ditching the ghosts and ghouls to embrace human monsters. Which leads to this deep cut from Ramsey Campbell's oeuvre, where he temporarily ditched cosmic horror for a string of straight forward thrillers. Everything is bleak, and going into town feels like walking through a bunch of edgy B-plots from The Shield. Some Americans get sick of their trashy culture and move to Britain, thinking things will be classier there. WRONG. It turns out the Brits are a bunch of uptight sadistic psychopaths who go out of their way to torture the Yanks at every impasse. They are still mad that we whupped them back in 1776 and don't let go of grudges. They break into your house, beat you, threaten you, and eventually will kill you, not for snitching to the police, but for making them look ugly in the police sketch artist rendering lol. I'll stay on my side of the pond where every civilian has guns and the hooligans don't feel empowered to mess with them. Thanks for the warning, Mr. Campbell!

[John Ulrich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Departing from his horror style which we've all come to love, Campbell has taken us on a completely different journey. One that exposes the impact violent media may play in our daily lives what the reality of those situations look like. The parts not shown in the movies. I certainly didn't expect for it to end the way it did, which is why I love his books. You think you've figured it all out along the way and every step he proves you wrong. This book was a joy to read, especially the way he crafts his sentences and leads you down certain paths. It develops each character nicely and by the end you're not sure who you should be rooting for. Very well done, and I expect nothing less from the master.

[Kevin Carson · Rating 5 out of 5]

There seems to be a deliberate ironic parallel between the violence and rage of the Fancy family, and the authoritarian politics and violent rhetoric of the middle class Britons who go on about "stamping out violence" by "teaching them a lesson," "making them afraid," and other punitive approaches. I'm thinking in particular of the scene where the teacher asks students to discuss violence they've witnessed in the previous week, and when one boy starts to recount something the gym teacher did says "We don't call it violence when it's something a teacher did."
Blue-haired ladies who mutter in dark tones over tea with the priest about things "we're not allowed to say any more," and Campbell's obvious dislike for them, are a staple in his novels.

[Christian Molenaar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ramsey Campbell can write. It should come as no surprise, given he penned his first collection at the age of eleven and began publishing stories in various magazines shortly thereafter, that Campbell knows his way around the written word. For much of his oeuvre, Campbell has trafficked in the weird tale of Machen, Blackwood, and his most outsized influence Lovecraft. Campbell proved himself early on a canny addition to the mythos, writing his own original work set within Lovecraft’s fictional world. Here, though, he abandons any pretense of supernatural horror and shifts his focus instead to the evil that men do in the form of a tepid reflection on portrayals of violence in movies. Campbell introduces a family whose sole characterization is seemingly that the entire world hates them—from the kids who bully young Marshall at home and abroad to the shrieking concerned parents threatening violence toward mother Susanne to the violent criminals who brutalize father Don. It’s all quite brutal stuff, and Campbell is able to use his talents to elicit at least some emotional response from his portrayal of a grieving family, but this book is far too content to lock into a droning palette of misery right off the bat and never move anywhere else.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's the first book I read by this author. It definitively won't be the last. The language and style is convoluted which makes it a bit difficult to read, but the narrative is amazing and keeps your heart racing. It's not a horror book, but it's probably one of the scariest I ever read.

[Sam Hager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought provoking story about the world and violence. Suspense-fully written. The perspective is from a European view and judging America and gun violence negatively and unfairly which is my only complaint. Recommended.

[Ömer Oral · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent thriller movie which grabs your attention till the end.
However, it also includes the dumbest little boy-dog character this world has ever seen. Dumbest little f...

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Undeniably vivid, but this angry polemic against the state of British society has aged poorly. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...

[Twinings · Rating 1 out of 5]

When it comes to reading a book, I'm nothing if not committed from the moment I crack it open (this is unfortunate when reading this book). I will finish it, if its the last thing I do..but gosh its slow going. Ugh!!