By MICHAEL McDOWELL (Avon; 1979)
The late Michael McDowell made a jaw-dropping debut with this paperback original (the very definition of a “Paperback from Hell”), which isn’t without faults. THE AMULET reportedly began as a screenplay, from which McDowell fashioned a 200 page novelization that was purchased by Avon, who demanded its length be doubled. McDowell complied, performing a page-for-page doubling that, frankly, is all-too evident.
The plot is quite simple: following an accident at an Alabama firing range, in which Private Dean Howell is severely wounded by a malfunctioning rifle, the town of Pine Cone, the location of the factory that manufactured the defective weapon, is hit with a succession of deadly calamities. The culprit is a demonically endowed amulet bequeathed by Dean’s mother Jo, who’s determined to avenge her son’s maiming. Jo’s scheme is complicated (but not halted) by the fact that Dean’s wife Sarah, who’s been tasked with supporting her husband and hateful mother-in-law, works in the factory Jo holds responsible for Dean’s injury. Sarah also happens to be the only person in Pine Cone with an inkling of what precisely is happening.
The novel’s raison d’etre are the many gruesome yet black humored killings (had this 1979 novel been published a decade later it would be categorized as splatterpunk) that occur due to the amulet’s never-explained influence. All we really learn about the object is that it has a golden chain that seals itself around the necks of its possessors, who quickly turn murderous before getting killed themselves.
The methods of dispatch include arson, poison, an ice pick, a ceiling fan, a washing machine and boiling liquid, while the victims are white, black, old and young—and even, in one case, a toddler (it’s fact that infants didn’t fare well in horror fiction of the period). The amulet’s evil influence isn’t limited to humans, as is proven when a pig eats the thing and reacts accordingly, and when the object gets into the machinery of the rifle plant, and so precipitates the ultimate revenge Jo so ardently desires.
McDowell relates this tale in extremely expansive fashion, fashioning a veritable southern epic from a hopelessly thin conception. The lack of character development that tends to characterize horror fiction definitely isn’t a concern here, as McDowell makes sure to color in his characters’ every conceivable hue and keep their motivations plausible. That thoroughness extends to the backwoods milieu in which these folk reside, which is as vividly rendered as anyone could possibly desire. It’s a region the Southern-bred McDowell new inside and out, and he convincingly details its particulars down to the dialogue exchanges, which always ring true.
As for the horror business, it’s related in unerringly rational and straightforward prose, a technique that works especially well in the destruction-of-the-munitions-factory climax, which in its calm, hysteria free recitation of unbelievable destruction earns that most hackneyed of terms: mind-blowing.
The downside of McDowell’s glut-happy approach is that, aside from the inevitable repetition (I lost count of how many passages we’re given of Sarah pondering the amulet’s deadly properties), it leaves us with a very slow moving book. I can’t help but wonder how THE AMULET might have read in its original 200 page version, which I strongly suspect was its optimal form.