Undecisive Straubian work.
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An early work of the master of horror, it is neither a detective story, neither I'm afraid is it a horror novel.
Somewhere in between, it has the qualities of both, mixing so much that sometimes it's difficult to see heads from tails.Teagarden, the unlikely main character, soon becomes the hunted, despised and hated homecomer to the idyllic countryside town. Twenty years earlier, or so people believe, he raped and killed his thirteen year old cousin.
He seems to have no recollection of it, seems to have no remorse, although he knows he is innocent and still searches for the truth in the old case, which brings the local sheriff
, as likely a suspect as anyone else, down on him like a ton of bricks.
When two local girls, both in their teens, are murdered, he finds himself in a world designed to see him found guilty, charged and executed, or in the lack of the first, just executed. He receives death threats, gets beat up, has his car demolished, only to stubbornly still go on and on.. The thrill to the story is that he is sucha clich', drinks more and more, makes mistakes and wild allegations, behaves oddly in all manners, which of course brings the ignorent, small-minded people of the town only more convinced about his guilt. Having read all other Straub works available, I still cannot totally comprehend the ending, what really happens, why, and by whom, nut this is a brilliant way of making me feel uneasy, which seems to be Straub's most cunning trick.
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An acquired taste.
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I have read four books by Peter Straub, five if you count The Talisman, and this one is probably my favorite, although that isn't saying much. It's certainly no classic, but it ain't that bad either. Published before the overrated Ghost Story, If You Could See Me Now is from the time when Straub was still undecided on what type of fiction he wanted to write, literary or genre. (Actually, come to think of it, he's still undecided on this point.) This fluctuation shows, and the reading experience is uneven. In short strokes, the book deals with Miles Teagarden, who comes back to a small Midwestern town where a murder was committed long ago, a murder everyone thinks he committed. Much of the story deals with his interaction with various townspeople, and many of these scenes are expertly handled. The nuances of conversation, the petty asides and veiled threats that are constantly being directed at Teagarden, combine into a cumulative effect that is quite persuasive. Just about every townsman and -woman is narrow-minded and ignorant, willfully uninterested in trying to understand the new arrival. The fact that he is writing a paper on D.H. Lawrence, for instance, instantly pegs him as a degenerate. The problem is that the main character isn't all that likable himself, what with his aloof manner and strange affectations, like the way he shoplifts, secretly pays for the book he stole, and then methodically rips it apart page by page. There are also odd lapses in logic, and elements that seem to serve little or no purpose are added to the mix, like when Teagarden finds a dry academic tome by a former colleague in a small town department store. The last time I checked, the sparse bookracks in those kinds of places held only cheap paperbacks with trashy covers. Jarring details like this detract. In addition, many of the supporting characters are unsuccessfully rendered. Every time the character nicknamed Polar Bears turned up, for example, I sighed in resignation. Polar Bears? What kind of name is that? Why the plural? And why does Miles refer to a teenage female acquaintance as the Tin Woodsman? It's a Wizard of Oz reference, fine, but I don't get what it's doing here. Nothing about her indicates that she lacks a heart; she is, in fact, one of the more sympathetic people we meet. Zack, a cheap James Dean knockoff, is cut from an entirely different cloth. He's supposed to be, brooding, intense, and fiercely intelligent, yet he is mostly just corny. I couldn't decide if he was too smart or too stupid to be believable. Perhaps, because the characters are so blatantly constructed to serve the story and given little air to breath, their actions become constricted and the story itself a little arch? Also, the threat to the town and Miles himself, a threat that may or may not be supernatural (don't worry, all is revealed at the end) is at one turn eerily omnipotent and curiously ineffectual at the next, making for hazy ground rules. Reservations aside, the story seems to have an autobiographical slant, in particular when dealing with the frustrating relationships between writers and non-writers, which gives the book an unusually personal vibe. The book as a whole is fine, although a tad too pretentious and stuffy. A typical work by Peter Straub, in other words. It's rather short, too, so it doesn't outstay it's welcome.
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