Death Instinct

Recognizable, Perhaps Predictable―But Not Unreadable

01/31/2007

I’ll begin this review by stating up front that usually I don’t like fiction that is so dependant on sensationalistic killings and extreme twists and turns that make the plot appear entirely too contrived. In fact, in this zine I have taken Leisure Books to task for putting out too many books that tediously adhere to this formula, which stifles all originality and creativity. That having been said, Death Instinct cannot be lumped in with this contemptible formulaic fiction—for the simple reason that Bentley Little is a talented writer.

Little’s post-modern weird tales such as The Ignored, The Store, The Policy and The Association take the mundane and render it sinister, thereby exposing the secret forces that govern our lives and revealing how free will is frequently an illusion perpetuated by the ruling classes in order to manufacture the consent of the governed. As Phillip Emmons, Little is writing a more recognizable form of genre fiction, yet his ability to craft characters makes Death Instinct more than just a predictable read. The story is related through an ensemble of characters whose relationships to one another are not always obvious to them (think Robert Alten’s Short Cuts). They and the Phoenix they inhabit are all unhappy in recognizable ways. Cathy cares for an ungrateful and abusive father, works a dead end job that is not commensurate with her education, and dates infrequently. Jimmy, a latchkey child whose father would rather drink than come home to his son, returns from school to an empty house, worried that the school bullies he’s recently pissed off are going jump him. And in the middle of the neighborhood is the Lauter house, that spooky empty house in every neighborhood where something so terrible happened in distant memory that ten years later, it still stands empty.

And then the bizarre killings begin—a woman is exsanguinated and has her arms and legs cut off and sewn back on, a police officer’s body is found with thousands of pins stuck in it, making simple patterns, a dog is skinned and nearly turned inside out. Police detective Allan Grant, another one of these recognizably unhappy people, is tasked with finding the killer that the press has dubbed the Phoenix Fiend before he murders again, further tarring the reputation of the police force.

In spite of the unusual murders, this is pretty formulaic fiction of the type where each successive killing is unusual solely for the shock value, and the killer is a caricature rather than a fully fleshed character. But most surprising of all is that the reader actually cares what happens to the other characters and is given a reason to turn the page. This is because they are a bit more than caricatures, so much so, in fact, that one could imagine that if they existed in some parallel universe where characters have consciousness of their role as fictional entities manipulated by a narrator, they might be a bit annoyed at being inserted into this plot. While Death Instinct is not the Great American Novel, or even the Great American Horror novel, you won’t curse yourself for spending $8.00 to buy a copy either. Instead, this is one of these strangely compelling reads that you take with you on an airplane or in the bathtub or to bed at night, one of those pieces of fiction we use to escape with when we’re supposed to be grading yet another stack of student essays or writing our dissertations.