At That Gangly Stage

At That Gangly Stage

01/17/2005

Moore, James A. Possessions. New York: Leisure, 2004. 339 p.

The mother of an eighteen year old possesses a mysterious, magical necklace that evil forces, represented by shapeshifting creatures that have neither eyes nor noses and winged creatures capable of knocking eighteen wheelers of their course and into oncoming traffic, are very hot to retrieve. These creatures will stop at nothing, including killing the mother on her son's birthday, in order to get this necklace, which is needed for a ritualistic ceremony that will somehow usher in an age of darkness and demons.

Sound a bit trite and silly? Formulaic? The kind of plot structure that can only work in a Young Adult horror novel?

If you answer yes to these questions, then you find yourself in the same boat as I was when I looked at the blank spaces in this Word document and wondered what to say about James A. Moore's Possessions. Yes, it does revolve around teenaged protagonists, and yes, they do eventually discover that they have powers of which they were unaware, but the writing style does not lend itself to being a young adult novel in the strictest sense. In fact, if this novel is going to appeal to a specific demographic, it will be young males, aged 17-21. The sentence structuring is a little too complex for the average 12-16 year old, unless s/he happens to be a highly advanced reader, and the plotting is too mundane for the Harry Potter crowd.

This of course creates a problem for me as a reviewer, for I like Moore's fiction in general. Under the Overtree (Leisure, 2000) was actually quite readable for a novel about a young boy, and Fireworks (Dorchester, 2001) was interesting in its communal approach to horror. But I just could not get interested in Possessions, and I wonder if this novel will appeal to adults. Then again, it may be relegated, a la John Saul, to the tweener shelf of the library where both adults and children visit. If so, this is unfortunate for Moore because even though Saul sells well, he is seldom respected by serious readers of horror.

Yet this story of Chris Corin will have limited appeal, as I mentioned, and those readers will find a lot to like in it. The novel begins on Chris's eighteenth birthday, with a Pizza Hut style celebration attended by his closest friends and family (his sister Brittany and his mother whose name is unimportant because she is basically the sacrificial adult). When his mother leaves early to go to work, she realizes the necklace she always wears is at home. This realization comes too late, for almost immediately she dies in a traffic accident caused by a winged demon. After the funeral, Chris catches a strange humanoid creature tearing up his mother's room, looking for "the key."

It turns out that shapeshifting creatures seek the Golden Key, and they will stoop to even defiling Chris's mother's grave to find it. They finally do get it when they attack Brittany, and then Chris decides that now it's personal. He learns where the creatures can be found, and accompanied by Brittany and a friend, and he discovers his heroic potential when he goes there to stop their ritual and save two friends.

At best, Possessions is a pulpy read with characters that are interesting and believable psychologically, although physically they seem to be quite superhuman at times. The love-hate interaction between Chris and Brittany is believable, and Brittany herself seems to be modeled after a real teenager (rather than turn her into some heroic goody-two-shoes, Moore has her make some mistakes, stamp her feet, slam doors, cry and scream into her pillow). On the down side, Moore leaves a good many open ends and does some strange things, such as have Chris win the lottery, but then never show what purpose the money has in the novel.

The overall problem I see with Possessions as far as its appeal to readers is that all of the main protagonists are in high school. In general, very few novels with child or young adult protagonists appeal to adult readers. After all, it's hard to write a Carrie or Summer of Night. Even King and Simmons only managed to do it once (I consider King's Christine to be a flop because its reader appeal is so limited). For this adult, there is just something a bit silly about a magical amulet and shapeshifting demons that need it for power.