Book Review: The Folks

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

The Folks     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Ray Garton
Class/Genre:   Fiction   Horror   Gothic
Cemetery Dance, 2001, $40.00

After the fire ravaged his face, Andy Sayers came to live with his grandma in the remote village Pinecrest,
isolated even from other towns on Mount Crag. Andy lives apart from the townsfolk not just because he finds
their fundamentalist Christian control insidious but also because adults look at his face in horror. Still he
has dated though his ex-girlfriend recently became the victim of a serial killer. He earns a scholarship to
attend the local Hand of God College, which elates his true believing grandma that he will find Jesus there.

On Halloween, Amanda Bollinger drives Andy to a nearby graveyard where she seduces him with her incredibly
elongated tongue, but as he is in the midst of passion something wrong grips his testicles. He wants to run, but
Amanda persuades him to come to the family mansion where he meets her family, a brood of people the result of
incest with physical and mental disorders that would make a circus side show seem normal. Because of his scarred
visage, he is the Chosen One to lead THE FOLKS of the Bollinger brood.

Though the graphic details of the FOLKS may turn off some readers, fans of gothic horror will enjoy this tense
thriller. The story line of to be or not to be a Bollinger takes a back seat to the sinister suspense laden
atmosphere in which the audience expects bad things to happen to Andy. Several key members of the Bollinger
minion have distinct personalities including the patriarch who wants to groom Andy as his heir, the sex predator
Amanda, and a boy-man with strange ethics. Not a typical read, fans who appreciate something different in their
horror tales will want to read this cross between Layton’s Beast House and Browning’s Freaks.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner