Farewell, Jack Ketchum
Back in January of this year, Dallas Mayr, also known as Jack Ketchum, died. He was not the most well-known author, but where his name was known (primarily among horror fans), his reputation was that of a writer who performed literary assaults on his readers' senses and emotions. He gave the world two of the most legendary, brutal horror novels of the 20th century: Off Season and The Girl Next Door.
Off Season was his first novel and despite the fact that the publisher, Ballantine, had required numerous cuts from Mayr to tone down the dark, gruesome, and relentlessly bleak feel of the book, it was a lean, mean, and utterly vicious read. Not even reaching the 200-page mark, the novel left no room for the literary self-indulgence that seems to plague many novels today, stretching what should be a 250-page story into a bloated 500-page one. Of course, many years later, Dallas was able to republish the novel in a form more to his liking, known as the Unexpurgated Version, which is the one most commonly found now Either version is highly recommended and if you enjoyed one version, check out the other as well, if you can (the original can be hard to find, but the Unexpurgated Version is relatively easy to get).
Off Season was eventually followed by a sequel, Offspring (which was made into a movie). Later, this was followed by The Woman, which was developed as both a movie and a novel, in collaboration with Lucky McGee.
Then there is The Girl Next Door. Whereas Off Season is gruesome and brutal, dragging the reader through a horrific struggle to survive a night among a deranged cannibalistic clan, The Girl Next Door just makes you feel sickened with humanity and the sadistic things it is capable of. Of these two, Off Season is the more enjoyable. This is not to say that The Girl Next Door is a bad book, quite the contrary, it is an excellent book. However, I don't think it is anybody's idea of a good time. It guts you and may even make you feel helpless, but it is remarkable. Still, it is not a book for everybody. It is made all the more disturbing due to the fact that it is very heavily based on a true story. The novel itself is a work of fiction, but just barely. The characters and setting are Mayr's own invention, but the events don't stray too far from the truth. This is a fairly common theme in his work, actually, basing stories one real stories, sometimes just one particular element of the story, sometimes the bulk of it. Off Season, in fact, is based on the story of Sawney Bean, who is almost certainly just a legend, though his story has been related as fact quite frequently. Modern historians point out a lack of any contemporary evidence of his existence and crimes and have come to the conclusion that he never existed at all.
One of the most infamous elements of The Girl Next Door is the original cover, which Dallas hated. Featuring a skeletal cheerleader that would look at home on the cover of an R.L.Stine book, it wholly misrepresented the book it accompanied, giving the expectation of a fun little horror tale, one which may give you some goosebumps and maybe a giddy shiver or two. Instead, the book grabs you and throws you into a living nightmare, forcing you to endure barbaric inhumanity. It would be like purchasing a record with Pat Boone on the cover, then playing it, only to hear Deicide blasting from the speakers.
The first work of his I actually read was The Lost. More of a suspense novel than an out-and-out horror novel, I thoroughly enjoyed it and it led to me picking up more of his work. An interesting thing about his work in horror is that he rarely went into supernatural territory, preferring to keep things more uncomfortably realistic and disturbing. The man did it extremely well.
With his death, the world of horror, and I would argue literature in general, has suffered a major loss.
Off Season was his first novel and despite the fact that the publisher, Ballantine, had required numerous cuts from Mayr to tone down the dark, gruesome, and relentlessly bleak feel of the book, it was a lean, mean, and utterly vicious read. Not even reaching the 200-page mark, the novel left no room for the literary self-indulgence that seems to plague many novels today, stretching what should be a 250-page story into a bloated 500-page one. Of course, many years later, Dallas was able to republish the novel in a form more to his liking, known as the Unexpurgated Version, which is the one most commonly found now Either version is highly recommended and if you enjoyed one version, check out the other as well, if you can (the original can be hard to find, but the Unexpurgated Version is relatively easy to get).
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| First edition of Off Season (left) and hardcover edition of the Unexpurgated Version (right) |
Off Season was eventually followed by a sequel, Offspring (which was made into a movie). Later, this was followed by The Woman, which was developed as both a movie and a novel, in collaboration with Lucky McGee.
Then there is The Girl Next Door. Whereas Off Season is gruesome and brutal, dragging the reader through a horrific struggle to survive a night among a deranged cannibalistic clan, The Girl Next Door just makes you feel sickened with humanity and the sadistic things it is capable of. Of these two, Off Season is the more enjoyable. This is not to say that The Girl Next Door is a bad book, quite the contrary, it is an excellent book. However, I don't think it is anybody's idea of a good time. It guts you and may even make you feel helpless, but it is remarkable. Still, it is not a book for everybody. It is made all the more disturbing due to the fact that it is very heavily based on a true story. The novel itself is a work of fiction, but just barely. The characters and setting are Mayr's own invention, but the events don't stray too far from the truth. This is a fairly common theme in his work, actually, basing stories one real stories, sometimes just one particular element of the story, sometimes the bulk of it. Off Season, in fact, is based on the story of Sawney Bean, who is almost certainly just a legend, though his story has been related as fact quite frequently. Modern historians point out a lack of any contemporary evidence of his existence and crimes and have come to the conclusion that he never existed at all.
One of the most infamous elements of The Girl Next Door is the original cover, which Dallas hated. Featuring a skeletal cheerleader that would look at home on the cover of an R.L.Stine book, it wholly misrepresented the book it accompanied, giving the expectation of a fun little horror tale, one which may give you some goosebumps and maybe a giddy shiver or two. Instead, the book grabs you and throws you into a living nightmare, forcing you to endure barbaric inhumanity. It would be like purchasing a record with Pat Boone on the cover, then playing it, only to hear Deicide blasting from the speakers.
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| First edition of The Girl Next Door (left) with its infamous cheerleader cover and a reissue with more appropriate art (right) |
The first work of his I actually read was The Lost. More of a suspense novel than an out-and-out horror novel, I thoroughly enjoyed it and it led to me picking up more of his work. An interesting thing about his work in horror is that he rarely went into supernatural territory, preferring to keep things more uncomfortably realistic and disturbing. The man did it extremely well.
With his death, the world of horror, and I would argue literature in general, has suffered a major loss.
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