THE ELEMENTALS [1981]

SO, I DON'T READ A LOT OF FICTION . . . I tend to prefer non-fiction . . . but every now and again I'll be in the mood for a nice horror novel.  Especially when October draws near.  And I just devoured one of the best I've ever read:  Michael McDowell's 1981 horror novel THE ELEMENTALS. 

The late Michael McDowell (who died in 1999) wrote quite a few novels but this is the first I've read and it was so good I'll be seeking out more.  In addition to writing episodes of TV's Tales from the Darkside and Tales From the Crypt, McDowell also wrote the screenplays for the films BEETLEJUICE, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS and THINNER.  But here in THE ELEMENTALS, the writing is just so good!  McDowell is a master at characterisation is vividly real in a way that reminded me of Mervyn Peake's bizarre characters in his GORMENGHAST trilogy.  Plus McDowell can suddenly turn on the chill factor and turn things creepy and genuinely disturbing.  So what's it about?  Here's what the back of the beautiful Valancourt Books edition I read has to say about it:

"After a bizarre and disturbing incident at the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage, the McCray and Savage families look forward to a restful and relaxing summer at Beldame, on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, where three Victorian houses loom over the shimmering beach. Two of the houses are habitable, while the third is slowly and mysteriously being buried beneath an enormous dune of blindingly white sand. But though long uninhabited, the third house is not empty. Inside, something deadly lies in wait. Something that has terrified Dauphin Savage and Luker McCray since they were boys and which still haunts their nightmares. Something horrific that may be responsible for several terrible and unexplained deaths years earlier — and is now ready to kill again . . .

A haunted house story unlike any other, Michael McDowell’s The Elementals (1981) was one of the finest novels to come out of the horror publishing explosion of the 1970s and ’80s. Though best known for his screenplays for Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, McDowell is now being rediscovered as one of the best modern horror writers and a master of Southern Gothic literature. This edition of McDowell’s masterpiece of terror features a new introduction by award-winning horror author Michael Rowe. McDowell’s first novel, the grisly and darkly comic The Amulet (1979), is also available from Valancourt Books."

When I read about the house being devoured by a huge dune of white sand, I was hooked and had to get the book!  I am SO glad I did.  THE ELEMENTALS is truly one of the best horror novels I've ever read!  It was so intriguing how McDowell could make the horror scary in the sweltering heat under a burning sun just as well as in the dark.  Those who know me will attest to the fact that I usually run out of steam halfway through a fiction novel and either abandon it or take months and months and months to get through it.  Well, THE ELEMENTALS I devoured in three days!  Talk about a page turner!  And I'll be re-reading it someday, that's for sure.  

Now, I in no way receive any sponsorship or free gifts or anything like that from Valancourt Books but you should definitely go check out their website.  They're a small independent publisher that specializes in publishing long out-of-print and overlooked horror fiction in handsome, affordable QP paperback editions and I wholeheartedly recommend you give them a look.  The Valancourt Books edition of THE ELEMENTALS can be grabbed here:


THE ELEMENTALS at Valancourt Books

I've picked up a small stack of Valancourt books already and I'm 3/4ths through a second one!  I'll also be picking up the several other Michael McDowell books they publish.  Perfect Halloween reading!