BOOK REVIEW: BLACK MOUTH BY RONALD MALFI

13/7/2022

‘Black Mouth’ finds Ronald Malfi continuing his superb run of form

Starting a 432-page novel on Saturday morning and closing the last page on Sunday evening, developing tunnel vision for the spreading horror across the weekend, is the type of intense experience I have come to expect from Ronald Malfi. This author is on such a rich run of literary form I am surprised Titan, the publisher of Black Mouth, have not tied him up on a ten-book contract instead of a measly two book deal, with the superb Come With Me (2021) being the other half of his cracking double-A side package. If you are new to Malfi he has so many excellent novels to choose from, other recent efforts The Night Parade (2016), Bone White (2017) are beauties, or you could backtrack further to December Park (2014) or Little Girls (2015) for your first sample. Malfi can be compared to the great Adam Nevill in that both authors have such impressive back-catalogues fans frequently disagree in identifying what the ‘best’ is, in reality both have relatively few weak links, with this latest offering as good a place to start as any. Malfi is totally stellar and those just discovering him are in for an epic journey which gleefully shimmies around all types of horror without ever becoming samey.

Although Come With Me was very well received, I did read some criticism directed to the fact that some saw it as more thriller than horror, those doubters will be silenced by Black Mouth as even though thriller elements are key to the story, this is full-blown and very unsettling horror which is laced throughout with the painful haze of addiction and guilt. The promo material notes “for fans of IT and NOS4A2” which in actual fact does it a disservice as it lacks the flab which weighs down those two books and Joe Hill’s back-catalogue is rather light-weight in comparison to Malfi’s own. However, his latest does have some structural similarities to both works, in particular IT, where adults return to the place of a childhood trauma which shaped their later lives. In this story Malfi also cleverly sidesteps the ‘coming of age’ trope, which would have been very easy to fall into, instead jumping from kid protagonists to those aged 35 without missing a beat.

Structurally Black Mouth was a beautiful tale which effortlessly sucked the reader into the broken life of alcoholic Jamie Warren who is wracked with guilt for abandoning his mentally impaired little brother, Dennis, some years earlier. Jamie is the novel’s main character and his story is told in the first person, however, every other point of view is presented in the third person with the narrative fluently moving between styles. Adding to the flow are the natural flashbacks to 1998 in which the unspoken trauma which dominates the novel lurks and the shadowy character which pulled the strings. I’m not going to say who he was, or what his game was, but the scenes in which he featured totally crackled and when he was off-page I was hungry for his return.

Malfi is a master of providing vivid and atmospheric settings, ranging from the terrifying Alaskan location in Bone White to the pitch-perfect ‘coming of age’ small town of December Park and the cursed ruin of Black Mouth ranks alongside his best. ‘Black Mouth’ is an area on the outskirts of the West Virginian town of Sutton’s Quay which years earlier suffered from a devastating coalmine collapse which as a result ruined the landscape and became a location to avoid. Jamie Warren and his two best friends Clay (who is black but has a skin condition which makes an easy target for bullies) and Mia, who lives in poverty and neglect with her uncle. These three kids (and Dennis) were natural outsiders and it was a treat to follow their progress and how their actions impact their older selves. Jamie’s troubled relationship with his alcoholic and abusive father provided some of the most powerful (and horrific) scenes in the novel and upon reflection showed that sometimes you don’t have to go very far from home to find a real monster.

Like father like son, Black Mouth opens with Jamie being reprimanded for being drunk on the job and being forced to attend rehab and then AA, shortly after which he hears that his mother is dead and that nobody is looking after his disabled brother Dennis. As Jamie relapses, fights the bottle and heads back to West Virginia the story jumps to Mia who has become a relatively successful independent filmmaker and whilst visiting a film festival spots a man in a fairground who looks uncannily like someone from their past. The reader realises that the events of 1998 are going to interconnect with the current story, but how is the big question? But I do not want to give any spoilers and you will have fun finding out yourself, with some very clever twists and reveals along the way. I particularly loved Mia and would have enjoyed reading more of the book from her point of view, as she was a great character with swagger, punch and attitude.

Black Mouth is top-heavy with great characters and even though it would be very easy to dislike Jamie, a broken alcoholic who abandoned his brother, one cannot help feeling compassion for him, particularly with the powerful flashback sequences. The alcoholic moments, hallucinations, withdrawals and the fight with the bottle were all vividly described and their realistic nature balanced nicely with the unfolding horror. However, it is Dennis who steals the show and he easily ranks amongst Malfi’s finest literary creations. Disabled and slow he might be however he has a beautiful natural childish charm and an undiagnosed otherworldly manner about him which begins to pulse stronger as events escalate. Showing no fear, Dennis may well have you both shouting from the rooftops and shedding a tear in some outstanding sequences towards the end.

Malfi is at the peak of his powers and I was delighted to recently read that Titan are also publishing a collection of four new novellas later in the year, with Ghostwritten. If you have never tried his novellas Mr Cables (which was republished in 2020) is a great place to start, or for his short stories the awesome We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone (2017) is also worth investigating. Black Mouth was a fantastic horror novel and ranks amongst his very best, and that’s saying something.

Tony Jones

Black Mouth
by Ronald Malfi

A group of friends return to their hometown to confront a nightmare they first stumbled on as teenagers in this mesmerising odyssey of terror.

An atmospheric, haunting page-turner from the bestselling author of Come with Me

For nearly two decades, Jamie Warren has been running from darkness. He's haunted by a traumatic childhood and the guilt at having disappeared from his disabled brother's life. But then a series of unusual events reunites him with his estranged brother and their childhood friends, and none of them can deny the sense of fate that has seemingly drawn them back together.

Nor can they deny the memories of that summer, so long ago – the strange magic taught to them by an even stranger man, and the terrible act that has followed them all into adulthood. In the light of new danger, they must confront their past by facing their futures, and hunting down a man who may very well be a monster.