 This review is based on a pre-edited version of the text. I understand nothing major in terms of content has changed between that version and the final published book, but fair warning. Also, Johnny’s a dear friend. That said, my usual rules apply - I don’t review anything unless I finish it and have something positive to say. I start more than I finish, and I finish more than I review. A Distasteful Horror Story, is, I suspect, going to generate some controversy. It’s set firmly in the UK horror scene of the 90’s, and serves, in part, as a kind of cracked mirror history of that scene. The books protagonist is a genre enthusiast and fan who little by little strikes up a friendship with Carson Fisher, a (fictional) leading light of the scene. This early part of the novel is a joy, as it charts our protagonist falling in love with the genre and scene, realising quickly just how accessible his idols are. Given Mains own position in the UK horror community, it's hard not to read this as a love note to his own early days in the scene, and it’s utterly charming as a result. At the same time, the mix of real authors with fictional characters invites what I am quite sure will be some fevered speculation as to the true identities of some of the more ‘controversial’ figures in the book. Mains blends these fictional and non-fictional elements with great skill, constantly leaving the reader guessing as to how much is repurposed anecdote and how much whole cloth invention. Indeed, the author and narrator seem to take an impish delight in leaving threads dangling, clues (or red herrings) for follow-up. That said, there’s far much more going on here than a lot of ‘inside baseball’ type UK horror scene sequences, as delightful as they are. As is made clear in the opening chapter, our narrator is telling his story from behind bars, having committed an act of murder, and the slightly disjointed past narrative is interspersed with some incredibly detailed (and occasionally gruesome) accounts of day to day life in prison. It adds another layer of tension to the story, as the reader is led to speculate on the precise nature of the crimes that placed our narrator there, as well as providing an increasingly rich narrative in its own right - indeed, by the time I reached the second half of the book, I was at least as engaged with the prison plot as I was with the story the prisoner was telling. Mains plays with this dual narrative masterfully, teasing out the revelations at both ends of the tale, and interspersing it with some borderline audience trolling at some points (though, to be clear, I found the way he handled that hilarious). And I have to say also that this is a book you do need to read to the very last page - and I mean that literally - to get every twist of the tale. A Distasteful Horror Story is an unusual and audacious debut novel, combining Mains’ love of genre with a rollocking and twisty narritive and a payoff that will, I’m sure, be hotly debated for some time to come. I found it to be a disturbing joy to read. KP A Distasteful Horror Story Considered one of the all-time greats, horror author Carson Fisher has been mouldering away in a cemetery for the last ten years. However this story isn't about him, it's about his murderer, who has decided to write the ultimate kiss-and-kill book. From Johnny Mains, creator of the Dead Funny series, comes A Distasteful Horror Story - a novel that possibly should never have been written, let alone published... "[Mains] is giving you little pieces of the puzzle all the time: keeping you guessing while at the same time satisfying your curiosity. It is a brilliant trick and I wonder quite how he does it. I hope he will reveal his methods to us all one day. Many a Booker prize winning novelist would benefit from his technique" - Reggie Oliver "In future editions of the OED, the verb 'to Mains' will be defined as 'to acerbically and wittily dissect the world of small press horror" - John Llewellyn Probert "What do you mean I'm not allowed to blurb my own book?" - Johnny Mains   Comments are closed.
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