The Pack by David Fisher Man has betrayed his best friend—now the dogs will have their day. It’s a bitter winter, and the dogs of summer have grown hungry ... and vicious! Publisher : Valancourt Books (14 April 2020) Language : English Paperback : 216 pages ISBN-10 : 1948405520 ISBN-13 : 978-1948405522 A review by Richard Martin Horror was doing big business in the bookstores in the 1960s. This was largely thanks to gothic literature which promised gentle tales of haunted manors and melancholy spirits on their covers. Things took a more devilish turn towards the end of the decade with the release of ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ in 1967, followed by William Peter Blatty’s ‘The Exorcist’ and Thomas Tryon’s ‘The Other in 1971, but the real fun began in 1974 with the release of two books that would open the floodgate for pulp horror. Jaws (Peter Benchley) and The Rats (James Herbert) proved that there was an appetite out there for books that weren’t ashamed to be all-out horror. The publishing industry took note and throughout the 1970s and 1980s, companies such as Zebra, Tor and Pinnacle published a seemingly endless supply of books promising unspeakable terrors and sporting covers that had to be seen to be believed. Sometimes the content was great, other times… not so much, but one thing that you could always be guaranteed was a fun and entertaining read. By the mid-90s, horror paperbacks were seemingly out, and thrillers were in. Gone were the lurid covers of skeletons, evil dolls, creepy kids and flesh hungry critters. The horror was still there, it just wasn’t marketed as such, treated like a shameful secret. As titles fell quickly out of print, many of the horror authors and their work became increasingly forgotten by all but the most avid fans and collectors. Enter Will Errickson, Grady Hendrix and ‘Paperbacks From Hell’. In 2017 Hendrix and Errickson released their seminal love letter to the horror paperbacks of a bygone era, shining a light on some long-forgotten classics and renewing interest in the mass market horror paperbacks of the 1970s and 80s. Not content to simply share their passion for these oft maligned but much missed books, thanks to their partnership with Valancourt Books, we are being treated to new reprints of the best of these decades-old, forgotten gems. To date, thirteen reprints have been published (with a fourteenth on the way), retaining the original cover art and boasting brand new and insightful introductions from Hendrix and Errickson. In this series I’ll be reading each and every one and posting articles at Ginger Nuts of Horror looking back at the best books two decades of horror has to offer. Any books that can be included in the ‘when animals attack’ sub-genre have always been my go-to for horror paperbacks from this era, and following the success of books like ‘Jaws’, ‘The Rats’ and ‘Night of the Crabs’, there was certainly no shortage of imitators to choose from. My stance has always been, the more outlandish the creature the better (two of my personal favourites are ‘The Pike’ by Cliff Twemlow and ‘Carnosaur’ by Harry Adam Knight) but if you’re looking for something genuinely scary as opposed to the fantastical escapism many of these books offered, the best books to pick up were always ones featuring dogs as the antagonist. The reason, for me at least, was twofold. Firstly, they always felt a little more plausible and grounded than a lot of the wilder creature features out there (I have a lot of positive things to say about ‘Slugs’ by Shaun Hutson, but ‘plausible’ and ‘grounded’ would not be two of them). Dogs in horror novels always feel like a genuine threat and it is not outside the realm of possibility (certainly when compared to Slugs and Dinosaurs) that what you are reading could actually happen. The second reason was how ‘wrong’ it felt to have man’s best friend turn on him. There is no other animal where that same sense of betrayal and corruption was quite as pervasive as when your beloved pet turns on you. To call David Fisher’s debut novel, ‘The Pack’, plausible and grounded may be a step too far, but there were passages, particularly in the early sections of the book, where it was all too easy to put yourself in the character’s shoes. Published in 1976, it tells the story of an isolated island community frequented by tourists and holidaymakers during the summer months and all but abandoned during the winter bar a half dozen elderly families who call the island their year-round home. Those making their summer homes there have been leaving their pet dogs behind, unwilling to take them back to their ‘real lives’ in the city, and a feral pack of former pets has formed. Struggling to find food as a winter storm sweeps the island, the dogs begin to take desperate measures, going against their domestic upbringings and giving in to primal natures in order to survive. The book's prologue, a meagre four pages, sets the story up in a particularly heartbreaking way. A family packing up to catch the ferry back to the mainland debate the fate of Jake, a dog they saved from the pound early in the summer. It seems his rescue was only a temporary reprieve as the parents don’t want the responsibility of feeding and walking the dog now that the summer is over, and instead opt to take him out to the woods and tie him to a tree, expecting him to free himself and live wild, but not before they have beat a hasty retreat. As an animal lover, I found this section to be a rough read, but an undeniably effective one and it introduces an element to the book which is often missing from these creature feature books, namely making the antagonist a sympathetic one. We are soon introduced to Larry, who is visiting his parents on the island for the winter with his family (wife Diane and two young children) with a view to convincing the elderly couple to come live with him in Manhatten. There is an interesting dynamic at play with Larry and his father, who don’t see eye to eye on the subject but, after a tense moment when the pack of now wild dogs first make themselves known to the group, the argument between father and son becomes moot, as the family soon find themselves unable to leave the house, let alone the island, as the pack lay siege to their isolated home. The notion of a pack of pet dogs gone rogue, and one that includes a dalmatian, a terrier and a dachshund at that, may sound comical on paper (and the book does descend into increasingly outlandish set pieces as it goes on) but the pack are effectively menacing in the early sections of the book, and there are two scenes in the first half (one with Larry’s youngest daughter and a second with him and his father) which are incredibly, page-turningly tense. Once the action becomes limited to the house, however, the book takes an unexpected turn and the focus instead becomes the psychological toll the siege takes on the family and Larry in particular. I can well imagine that many readers will take objection to Larry’s actions throughout the book, labelling them as erratic at best, idiotic at worst, but the strength of the book is that Larry isn’t a capable hero who thrives under pressure and makes all the right calls. As the events of the story begin to take their mental and physical toll on him, we get to the heart of his true character and find a strong undercurrent of toxic masculinity which causes him to make increasingly unwise and unnecessary decisions that begin to put himself and his family at risk. A subplot detailing the sibling rivalry between him and his younger brother provides not only the reasons why acts like he does, but also gives us an (admittedly superfluous, but very engaging) introduction to someone who acts like a more traditional ‘hero’, who fares no better. The genres most famous examples of ‘when creatures attack’ books, particularly ‘Night of the Crabs’, boast hyper-masculine leads who are capable of saving the day by sheer manliness alone, and it was very refreshing to read a book from this era where actions driven solely by fear of being shown to be ‘less than a man’ are consistently proven to be counter-productive, to the point that things escalate to almost absurd levels solely due to some poor decisions. You may not like Larry much as a character, but he certainly makes for interesting reading. Not every character gets the same level of attention as Larry, however, and I’d go so far as to say the rest of the cast is largely forgettable (literally. Larry and Diane have two children and twice while reading the book I was taken aback by the mention of them as I’d completely forgotten they existed). Given the books relatively light body count there is little narrative reason for a lot of the characters to be there and the story would have benefitted from either sharing the focus more or removing them entirely. I can’t close out my review without mentioning the movie adaptation. There are scores of examples of film versions of the 70s and 80s mass-market horror paperbacks that were of, let’s be generous and say questionable quality, and in Will Errickson’s introduction to ‘The Pack’, he uses a quote from the author that lets his feelings on the 1977 movie loosely based on his novel known in hilariously ruthless style. While there are countless examples of bad movies based on these books, ‘The Pack (starring Joe Don Baker of ‘Walking Tall’ fame, and directed by the man who brought us ‘Enter the Dragon’) is not one of them. Tense, affecting and occasionally brutal, it’s surprisingly effective and the dogs on screen are a genuinely menacing presence. I highly recommend tracking it down. The Pack is ‘Cujo’ meets ‘Night of the Living Dead’, predating the former by over five years. While not without its flaws, it offers a rare example of a Paperback From Hell that manages to balance suspenseful action and character moments with a fun and entertaining story. The book is uncommonly unpredictable for a sub-genre so rife with predictable plots and had me riveted from page one right through to the fantastic final page. Join me next time when I’ll be sharing my thoughts on Stage Fright by Garrett Boatman. If you’d like to read along with this series and want to pick up copies of the books, or learn more about Valancourts’ Paperbacks From Hell line, visit their site at www.valancourtbooks.com/paperbacksfromhell THE PACK BY DAVID FISHER In the August heat they frolicked on the beaches, fetched sticks, played with the children. Then the summer dwellers left, abandoning them to the island’s harsh winter. Ravenous hunger and violent rage have brought them together under a cunning, ferocious leader. Man has betrayed his best friend—now the dogs will have their day. It’s a bitter winter, and the dogs of summer have grown hungry ... and vicious! This edition of David Fisher’s The Pack (1976) features a new introduction by Will Errickson and the original cover painting by Lydia Rosier. “A flesh-crawling thriller!”—The New York Times TODAY ON THE GINGER NUTS OF HORROR WEBSITE GHOST RECALL BY ALAN BAXTER [BOOK REVIEW]DEFOE 1666 [SPLASHES OF DARKNESS] THE HEART AND SOUL OF HORROR FICTION REVIEWSComments are closed.
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