BOOK REVIEW: ​I Am The River BY Ted E Grau

"Take a trip into the subconscious of Ted E Grau,
but beware the hidden trapdoor into 1970s Vietnam…”

Being a fan of the short and novella length fiction of Ted E Grau I was anticipating his debut novel “I Am The River” with some interest. How would this terrific exponent of the short horror form transfer to juicy full-length feature was the million-dollar question? Be prepared for a bizarre and off-the-wall treat, which although will not be to all tastes, does not disappoint. Set during the latter stages of the Vietnam War, this uncompromisingly impossible to classify tale must surely enhance his stellar reputation and resonate beyond the horror community. It’s surreal, bleak, discomforting and the powerful ending vertebrates long after completion, in tune with the ghosts which haunt the consciousness of its main character Isreal Broussard.
 
Is “I Am The River” a horror novel? Good question, and I’m not sure what the answer is, but it’s certainly a fine addition to the modern canon of outstanding weird fiction. If you’re looking for a slash-bang-wallop type of horror novel, then look elsewhere. This story is slow, fractured, meandering, descriptive, disjointed, meditative and ultimately an odyssey towards redemption. Even though one of the two-story sequences is set during the Vietnam War it does not read particularly like a war novel and features only one truly violent sequence near its conclusion. However, it does reflect deeply upon the horrors of war and for the survivors who never truly leave it behind.
 
Even though it is not a long novel, it takes its time setting the scene, so I would recommend you read it slowly otherwise it is quite easy to get lost and lose the thread. The disorientation, which is probably deliberate, continues as the plot moves from first to third person narratives, not to mention curious stream-of-consciousnesses which also populate the plot. You’ve probably going to read a few sections more than once, but that’s no bad thing.
 
Five years after the end of the Vietnam War a washed-up, and druggie ex-soldier, Isreal Broussard lives in Bangkok, unable to leave the Far East, bar-hopping and trying to forget the past in an endless cycle of paranoia and intoxication. This guy has skeletons in his closet which are key to the development of the novel. There are elements of the supernatural, but then again, maybe the guy is just wasted? Read it and see what you think, much is deliberately obscure. Unable to leave the past behind, he is seemingly haunted by a giant dog, which may well be the spirit of something else, or perhaps it’s just too much booze? It’s all part of the disjointed and intoxicating atmosphere which permeates the entire novel.
 
The second story key strand takes up back towards the end of the war, in which Isreal is recruited by a CIA operative called Chapel to carry out an unspecified secret operation after being dumped by the regular army. He had been branded a coward after failing to shoot an enemy target. By this stage the USA realises it is losing the war and that repeated aerial bombings will not defeat the Viet-Cong, so instead are looking at weirder and off-the-wall measures to freak the locals out. Chapel is just the man to lead this operation, and his motley crew of rejects, into the jungles of neighbouring Laos, keeping the ultimate goal shrouded from the rest of the team (and the readers) until very late in the novel. And of course, eventually, to confront his demons the stories meet. And it’s totally outlandish when it does.
 
Other reviews have compared this to “Apocalypse Now” and I can see why, it is trippy in the same style as the famous film, however, what it reminded me of more than anything else was Josh Malerman’s “Black Man Wheel” and anyone who reads both books will know why. But there will be no spoilers from me. There are, however, some elements of cosmic horror, as you would expect with this author.
 
The preface has terrific reviews and praise from genre leading lights including Adam Nevill, Victor LaVelle, Paul Tremblay, John Langan and Kealan Patrick Burke. This comes as no surprise, as these authors all produce the same type of thoughtful horror that Ted Grau has created here. Isreal Broussard is a terrific central character, a broken man, who is neither portrayed as a good or bad guy, driven by guilt and the horrific places the war took him. He might not be a hero, but you’ll definitely be rooting for him.
 
I found “I Am The River” a captivating and challenging novel which demanded 110% of my concentration. I got the impression the author went out of his way to create something which would have readers scratching their heads as it is not an easy read. He succeeded and then some. Be prepared for a hypnotic journey, which effortlessly straddles genres, and will surely rank amongst the strongest, curious and most original novels of 2018.
 
Tony Jones

During the last desperate days of the Vietnam War, American soldier Israel Broussard is assigned to a secret CIA PSYOP far behind enemy lines meant to drive terror into the heart of the North Vietnamese and end an unwinnable war. When the mission goes sideways, Broussard is plunged into a nightmare that he soon finds he is unable to escape, dragging a remnant of that night in the Laotian wilderness with him no matter how far he runs.
Five years later, too damaged to return home and holed up in the slums of Bangkok, where he battles sleep, guilt, and a creeping sense of madness, Broussard discovers that he must journey back to the jungles of Laos in an attempt to set things right and reclaim what is left of his life. A fever dream with a Benzedrine chaser, I Am The River provides a daring, often surreal examination of the Vietnam War and the days after it, burrowing down past the bullets and battlefields to discover the lingering horror of warfare, the human consequences of organized violence, and the lasting effects of trauma on the psyche, and the soul.