Richard Laymon is, apparently, another of those horror writers that has found great success in other parts of the world, but for some reason has been only published sparingly in the United States. Since Laymon’s death, some of his books have been released in the United States. Night in the Lonesome October was the first book to be published after his death, and is at once an example of his typical writing, and a radical departure from the rest of his work

The main character is Ed Logan, a student at Wilmington University who, after returning for his second year of college, receives a break-up letter from his girlfriend, Holly. Depressed and lonely, Ed takes a long walk to a 24-hour donut shop in the middle of the night to try to find some answers and ease his mind. On the way, a friend of his girlfriend sees him walking, and offers him a ride. Ed declines, but finds her later, sitting at the donut shop waiting for him. After she leaves, Ed bumps into a man who makes several suggestive comments about his friend, and attempts to assault Ed, eventually chasing him in his pickup truck.

In spite of this experience, Ed continues his late night wanderings, ever-fearful of seeing the headlights of the pickup truck behind him, and also curious and fearful of the many characters that inhabit the night. He runs into many strange characters, including a group of cannibal trolls who live under a bridge, and a girl named Casey, with whom he becomes infatuated. Casey is a free spirit who sleeps in a different stranger’s house every night, and teaches Ed a game called “ride or hide,” in which, whenever a car comes down the street, they have to decide whether to hide, or to stay in the open and chance that it is a psychopath or criminal.

Night in the Lonesome October is essentially a character and mood piece, with little to no real story going on. Basically, Ed is a typical college kid trying to deal with the feelings of breaking up, meeting a new girl, being infatuated with another girl, being the love interest of a homosexual friend, and just trying to get through to the end of the day. All this is, of course, set during and in-between his midnight wanderings around his bizarre city. College is a fun time, but is also a time when adults are made, and when people have to figure out what their life will be while still dealing with many of the same adolescent fears and problems. Laymon captures this atmosphere well. It is easy to see a young man, coming out of a relationship, taking late night walks, searching for answers, and also being intrigued by the strange characters that are out in the wee hours of the morning. Night in the Lonesome October is a less-sarcastic, more twisted version of Catcher in the Rye.

That being said, you do have to take some of the book with a grain of salt. Laymon, as a horror writer, couldn’t escape from the horror genre. Thus, while the book is really a piece about Ed Logan, a kid trying to find his place in the world, there are plenty of horror elements. Laymon basically replaces J.D. Salinger’s biting wit and humor with his own twisted horror (i.e. the aforementioned cannibals). While this works pretty well overall, it really hurts the book is in the ending.

It seems clear that Laymon really didn’t know how to end this book. Granted, it is tough to find a good ending to a piece that isn’t story driven. However, Laymon’s choice of ending is really poor. Without giving it away, I will just say that a fairly well-done mood piece degenerates into a typical suspense novel – and a bad one at that. In fact, the one other Richard Laymon book I read had almost the exact same ending as this one – and both involved having a girl getting tied up by a maniac and sexually assaulted. I can deal with that if it is a necessary part of a plot, but it comes completely out of nowhere and serves no purpose other than to attempt to create a story where there was none before.

With the exception of the ending, Night in the Lonesome October is a good book, especially if you’re a college-age male. There is some good mood-setting here, a few interesting characters, and some decent scares for good measure. Sure, this isn’t exactly a great work of literature, but it is a good read and manages to be deeper than most horror novels. Just ignore the ending, and you have a pretty enjoyable novel here. I do recommend it, but please disregard the last few chapters.




Recommended: Yes