It was a chilled but sunny December morning when I opened a parcel to discover this beautiful jacketless hardcover from Screaming Dreams.
I tend to dislike jackets anyway – they just snag and look tatty – and even after being read, dropped on the floor and pounced on by the cat, this sturdy book still looks pristine, festooned with its fantastic artwork from Steve Upham. And it turned out to be a great distraction from the pre-Christmas chores that I should’ve been doing. Having enjoyed several of Gary Fry’s short stories, I was pleased to discover that Fearful Festivities is a thoughtful and well paced horror novel, staffed by strong characters and brimming with the season of ill-will.
It begins on a strangely warm December 22nd in the gentle Yorkshire village of Hitherton, when several of the residents receive a dragon-stamped invitation in the mail.
“Christmas is a time for miracles. Tell us what you want.”
Delivered by an elusive but nightmarish postman, could these tempting requests possibly be the answer to their woes? There’s Tom, a cash-strapped family man with a failing bookshop, and Graham, his unemployed academic brother. We also meet a lonely and obese woman, a wannabe internet tycoon, and a boy who misses his soldier father who’s away fighting in Afghanistan… and all of them have a deep longing for something that traditional gifts can’t provide.
Along with several other desperate people, they’re strangely lured into making wishes and responding, often against their rational judgement. The miracles start to take form, yet things seem increasingly askew and sinister. Before long, it’s clear dark forces are at work and all kinds of devilish trickery ensue, which I wouldn’t dream of spoiling.
Initially, I wasn’t bowled over by this book. The prologue concerns the 8-year old boy, Kevin, who misses his dad and is frightened of the closet monster. It delivers the requisite horrors and excitement for a curtain raiser, but seems slightly over-described and didn’t quite hook me as it should. I became much more engaged when we start to meet the other residents going about their daily routines, and the oft-famililar problems of their lives in which the grass is always greener. This is one of several well handled themes, and we don’t have too long to wait before it all starts to kick off.
The semi-rural village’s sense of place is perfectly evoked, and the inhabitants themselves are mostly likeable, and pleasingly flawed. They’re painted in some detail, the author’s intelligent and often literary style making for some thorough character study. We get to know them intimately to the point where we recognise slightly odd changes in behaviour, which adds to the supernatural feeling of unease. Character point of view is also usually a strength, though with the occasional wobble. Despite plenty of nice moments during young Kevin’s story when we, as readers, realise certain things that have eluded his 8 year old perspective, there are a couple of times when his ruminations are expressed in a form that seems far too adult.
But the book is full of clever turns of phrase, and some immediately startling visions that unsettle in a single sentence. This author also has the knack of wry one-line teasers at the end of a chapter, which makes for some gleeful theatre. The different plot threads are nicely linked, sometimes entwined, other times subtle in their passing. And I liked the way that the characters’ individual wishes are not all immediately revealed. They’re teased in as the tension mounts, letting our ghoulish curiosities wonder what manner of trouble they might have accidentally invoked.
Although very entertaining, the showcase finale was not quite to my taste, and also includes a paragraph of explanatory narration that I found intrusive and unecessary. But I certainly wasn’t disappointed, and the monstrous conclusion provides plenty of surprises, and neatly ties up some great concepts with a bang.
Fearful Festivities is a layered, strongly-themed novel, and manages to dissect the envy and hope that come at this time of year without getting bogged down or losing the sense of grisly fun. It makes for compulsive reading with investable characters, icy shocks, and that classic feel of creeping menace that should be the essence of any horror tale.
Switch off that bland Christmas repeat on the telly, and read this instead. You’ll never look at a child’s misspelling of Santa Claws the same way again.
Available from Screaming Dreams here
