New Book Alert: The Black Veldt by Michael Reyes; Short, but Graphic and Terrifying Horror About The Haunting Darkness

 

New Book Alert: The Black Veldt by Michael Reyes; Short, but Graphic and Terrifying Horror About The Haunting Darkness

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: One thing for sure in Michael Reyes's graphic and terrifying horror novella, The Black Veldt is that its protagonist, Jose Carvel is one seriously haunted SOB.

Even as a child, Carvel has not had an easy life. He was abandoned and unnamed as an infant. He hitchhiked from a children's home in Tulsa with a man who didn't molest him "like other truckers" so he took his first name, Jose. As for his surname, Carvel it came from a guy in Kansas who didn't make much use of the name. Carvel doesn't remember much about his past and what he does remember comes in fragments of freaky nightmares, frequent travel, physical and sexual abuse, and some dark sinister creatures that appear in and out of the shadows. He had spent most of his life running from the shadows, the shadows that he tries to forget but compelled him to commit violence.

In 1970's New York, Carvel sells cocaine, which he uses, and heroin,which he doesn't, hangs out at a local bookstore, mocks the Studio 54 crowd ("Hell will be ABBA playing 'Dancing Queen'", he predicts.), scans the streets for notorious serial killer, Son of Sam, and engages with the eccentric drugged up night life crowd. 

There is a strong presence of the setting of New York's nightlife in the '70's. Many nights, Carvel wanders around in a hopeless daze through a decaying city infested with crime, drug dealers, street kids, prostitutes, and of course Son of Sam lurking about. While not mentioned in The Black Veldt, history tells us that New York City was suffering such a financial crisis at the time that they were declaring bankruptcy and requested assistance. This time of hopelessness and poverty also serves as a backdrop to the general haunted mood of the novella of a city that is being swallowed hole by despair, decay, and darkness. It becomes a perfect world for someone with a haunted past like Carvel to live and thrive. If he is surrounded by darkness, might as well enjoy it with the other hedonists, enjoy it to a potentially early grave.

Carvel's nights become even stranger and his hauntings take a more supernatural bent. He runs into people who recognize him and address him by other names even though he doesn't remember them. He follows Javonka, a mysterious woman with green hair and polychromatic eyes who also recognizes him and carries clippings of missing people all around the U.S. He also receives information from a friend about the leucrota, dark mythical creatures that despise humanity. These experiences reawaken the "shadows" inside and the urges that Carvel originally repressed to do violence.

It's hard for a book with such a bleak haunting dark setting and tone to get even darker, but that is what Reyes does. The book actually sets us up for the supernatural experience by featuring Carvel trapped in a place called The Black Veldt surrounded by demonic creatures and a sinister cult from which he struggles to escape. Once the setting hits New York, we are led to believe that maybe this strange introduction could be a nightmare, fever dream, or a drug trip.

Only when the memories start to return and Carvel starts to feel the violent urges and sees the demons everywhere, even in one very frightening passage while making love to Javonka, that we know the demons are real and they have claim over Carvel.

With such natural and supernatural darkness that haunts the novella, any type of positive resolution would be out of character for Carvel and the world around him. In fact without giving too much away, it seems that Carvel is forever caught in an endless cycle of encountering both a real and figurative hell. He gets the Hell of demons and retreats to the hell of his real life only to reencounter the demonic hell once more. The Hell and the haunting darkness will be with him forever.

Many novellas are too short, but this one's length is perfect. Any longer would overdo the sinister dark aspects: too many nights of Carvel taking drugs and sleeping around before we encounter the demons from which he can never really run. Too many passages with the demonic creatures tormenting Carvel when the small tastes that we are given are just fine. At its brief length, The Black Veldt is haunting and terrifying enough without going overboard with padding and filler.

The Black Veldt opens up the possibility that we can be haunted not only by the supernatural, the unknown, but by the known world around us. Reyes expertly mixes both worlds as ones that can scare us almost to death.