Skip to main content

"American Elsewhere" by Robert Jackson Bennett



“Some places are too good to be true. Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things…” (taken from the Goodreads summary)
***
      American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett follows the story of former policewoman Mona Bright, as she tracks down information regarding her deceased mother and finds herself in the small town of Wink, New Mexico. Suddenly the benefactor of her mother’s old house, Mona decides to temporarily reside in the town of Wink while she decides what to do with the house. The town is strange, mysterious, and dangerous as a whole, and even stranger as individual residents are introduced. The undoubtedly human residents seem quite content to make arrangements and conditions for strange unseen forces while never ever venturing out of their houses after dark; staple community members are unquestionably fey, otherworldly, and know more than they’re telling; and clusters of residents seem stuck in a pseudo Stepford-like haze without any clue as to what they are doing or what constitutes normality. Mona finds herself interacting with all these bizarre townspeople while trying to unravel the mysteries of how her mother fit into this small town dynamic, what role the abandoned scientific research facility on the mountain looming over the town plays, and the reason why her mother chose to end her life  so abruptly and without warning.
***
      American Elsewhere at first appears as a work of urban fiction--an ex-cop turned drifter, disillusioned with the justice system dealing with the loss of both her parents--but quickly starts to twist into an otherworldly invasion story worthy of an episode of The X-Files. Or Sanctuary.  Or a bizarre hybrid of both. As the story progressed, the town began to twist into a bizarre nightmare world. The laws of physics start to warp and it starts being less like a  mystery and more along the lines of a sci-fi mad scientist backstory gone horribly horribly wrong. I discovered this book when looking for long fiction that embraced the Lovecraftian narrative style of writing. And American Elsewhere definitely has Lovecraftian narrative running throughout its plot. In fact, as I was reading I started to picture the town of Wink, NM as a sister town to Night Vale--the fictional desert community of Welcome to Night Vale, the CommonPlace Books podcast heavily influenced by the works of H.P. Lovecraft.  
      And once my brain made this comparison, I was hooked and desperate to read it all in one sitting. Unfortunately, since I had started reading it on a one hour lunch break, that wasn’t going to happen so for the rest of the day I kept gazing longingly at my satchel bag and making whimpering noises.
***
      American Elsewhere is most definitely, unquestionably, and without a doubt, weird. There’s no other one word description for it. Which was great for me, because I tend to deliberately seek out and embrace the weird. It’s weird, it’s twisted, and it delves into the dark recesses of human thought to poke at the lingering fears humanity has stored in the backs of their minds. The base story that Bennett presents is not necessarily new--on the contrary, there have been so many sci-fi stories that rely on the infiltration trope, i.e. humanity’s slow replacement with otherworldly duplicates or subversive enemy agents that it’s pretty much become its own branch off of science fiction. We’ve seen it in so many times in movies (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Faculty, The Invasion, The Thing, Little Shop of Horrors, Oblivion, Slither, The World’s End, etc.), in comics (Marvel’s  entire Skrull Invasion comic series), in television (the long-running Syndicate story-arc in The X-files, multiple story-arcs in Doctor Who, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Outer Limits, Stargate SG-1), in literature (Animorphs, The Puppet Masters, The Bone Clocks)--it’s a very well known plot device for sci-fi creators. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a worn-out plot device. On the contrary, Bennett uses it to his full advantage. Combining a classic creation-style myth with the infiltration trope, gritty urban fiction style writing, and plenty of aberrant Cthulhu-esque monsters, at the end of this book I found myself wishing that I could wipe it from my memory completely so I could read it again and experience it for the first time .
***
      American Elsewhere was Robert Jackson Bennett’s fourth novel, and you can find it in the fiction section at the Ocean City Free Public Library. Or put a hold on it in our online catalogue.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker

For some reason, I felt like it took me forever to finish this one, which is strange because it was a rather cute little story. Truly is a heroine of enormous proportions - she was born big (which ultimately kills her mother and turns her father into an alcoholic) and continues to just grow and grow throughout her life in upstate New York. All of this is compounded by the fact that her older sister, Serena Jane, is beloved by the rest of the town for being little, dainty, beautiful and perfect. Despite all of these hardships, Truly remains a kind figure, if something of an outcast. However, after her sister's untimely demise, Truly must move in to take care of Serena's nefarious husband and child. And this is where things start to get a little...crazy. There's lots more to this story than I'm describing - betrayal, murder, mysticism and true love. The pacing is quick and Baker does a nice job of characterization. Overall, a good read.

OCFPL Book Club - January

 Welcome to the 2023 OCFPL Book Club season. We chose quite the range of books this year. We hope you can join us in our monthly virtual discussions as we set off on this year's reading adventure.  This month we discussed The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan. Overall many members of our book club enjoyed this book. They loved how the stories of the various characters intertwined with each other. Bridging the past to the present. Going back and forth with these stories at first does not make sense until the end, when the final puzzle piece is placed do you see the whole picture and it is quite delightful to see all that unfold.  One of the elements of this book is the story of how random things that are found have stories to them. A lost puzzle piece found on the road or a random hair bobble found on the ground in the park may mean nothing to a simple person who may walk right past it. Yet  for Anthony, our keeper of lost things, revered these items. Carefully recorded where and

OCFPL Book Club - February

  This month we discussed  Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Most of our discussion group enjoyed this book. They loved how the story started with two sisters and how the lineage grew with each of them but at the end, those who were once separated have found their way back to each other. Also, seeing the impact and development of history throughout the generations in this story. While the book only touched the beginnings of the history of Ghana, we discussed how through this book we learned more about slave history that what we knew before. It was eye opening and though provoking. The element of trauma that can cause a generational fear in the family was interesting to see unfold through the story. How the fear of water was caused by a drowning from the past and the fear of fire was caused from a massive fire from another past trauma through in the family. It may seem insignificant but it led to the discussion of how we reflect on our own fears and the fears off our parents or family members