The Burn Palace

The Burn Palace begins with a maternity nurse discovering that one of the newborns in her care has disappeared and has been replaced by a six-foot corn snake, and it just gets wilder from there. Dobyns brings in a huge case of characters, residents of the fictional small town of Brewster, Rhode Island, as well as renegade coyotes, mysterious Satanists, and a rampaging lunatic to terrify them all. But at the heart of a story is a mystery, and State Trooper Woody Potter doggedly pursues the solution while reminding us that it's all about the baby.

Dobyns juggles his cast of characters gracefully, giving us readers time to get to know the various cops, kids, town characters, and even dogs that populate Brewster, so we can better care about show more their safety as things start ramping up. His omniscient narrator relates the story with a folksy voice, almost as if he's sitting beside us and whispering in our ear. The petty politics and soap opera-like relationships of small-town life gradually take on sinister undertones as the plot unravels. It became very difficult to put the book down once all the pieces start whirling together.

This was a fun and thrilling read, reminiscent of Dobyns' The Church of Dead Girls or one of Stephen King's small-town tales. For me, the only major flaw was the hint of magical realism, never fully explained or incorporated fully into the overall story. But that is more than made up for by Dobyns' characters, setting, and audacious plot. show less

I don't remember how I first heard about this book, but the first thing I noticed was the gigantic blurb on the back of the book from Stephen King that included this little gem: "If ever there was a novel that demonstrates why this mode of entertainment remains healthy and vital more that 150 years after Charles Dickens did his thing, The Burn Palace is that book. It is, simply put, the embodiment of why we read stories, and why the novel will always be a better bang for the entertainment buck than movies or TV. Great story, great prose. Musical prose. You can't ask for more than this book gives."

High praise indeed. Maybe it was because of this quote that I went into the novel with Stephen King & small-town horror at the forefront of my show more mind, but at any rate, I felt like I was reading a slightly experimental version of 'Salem's Lot. Which was pretty cool, and slightly strange, because it wasn't a perfect comparison.

At the beginning of the novel, a baby is kidnapped from a small Rhode Island hospital and replaced with a large snake. Coyotes are out roaming the streets. Strange deaths that seem to be linked with local witches & Satanists. And in the midst of this murder and seemingly paranormal mayhem is a police force who is desperately trying to make sense of the seemingly disjointed occurrences. In other words, it's a strong mix of small-town horror and police procedural, with a little bit of experimental writing thrown in.

For the most part, it works. Occasionally the prose becomes a little too stylized, but it's easy enough to overlook. One of the biggest selling points for me was how detailed the setting was, which is one of my favorite things about Stephen King's novels, especially his earlier writing.

The novel starts off slowly and very gradually ramps up the tension until about the half way point, when the story really starts to pick up. I've suggested this book a couple times to patrons at the library, and I always tell them ahead of time that the story takes a little bit to really get going, but it picks up about halfway through.

Even though this isn't classified as straight-up horror, there are hints of the supernatural with mention of demonic worship and shape shifters. Although there's some ambiguity with whether or not the activity really is supernatural, the creepiness pervades every chapter, and the information about how bodies are cremated is delightfully gruesome.

Readalikes:

'Salem's Lot - Stephen King. The Burn Palace doesn't have any vampires, but the setting and gradual sense of horror is very similar. Both novels even have intermittent chapters where the narration feels like it's giving the reader a literal bird's eye view of the town.

Ghost Road Blues - Jonathan Maberry. Another small town thrown into disarray by the presence of something incredibly dark and evil. The tones are very similar, but Ghost Road Blues is distinctly classified as supernatural horror.

If you enjoy horror with experimental prose, you might try The Devil in Silver by Victor Lavalle or Breed by Chase Novak.

If you enjoy suspenseful novels where the line between the normal and the paranormal is blurred, you might try Help for the Haunted by John Searles or Night Film by Marisha Pessl. (Note that Night Film has a much more experimental structure and feels more like a hardboiled detective novel than anything else.) show less

I finished this book in two days, literally staying up until ungodly hours of the night to do so. Upon finishing, I can say it was a messy, creepy, action-filled suspense-y thriller set in a small New England town. However, while reading this book, I couldn't stop grousing!

The novel opens dramatically: 'Nurse Spandex', a thirty-something nurse known for modifying her scrubs to make them more flattering, has just left after a fling with a doctor while on duty. Returning to the nursery, she's horrified to find a newborn baby missing, replaced with a massive corn snake. That frightening crime sets off a series of increasingly creepy and violent events in small town Brewster, a summer vacation town in Rhode Island, that culminates in a show more shocking and violent Halloween.

The cast is enormous. We've got an Iraq War vet-turned-cop with broken heart and a bad attitude, a flaky and inexperienced but deeply moral small town journalist slash single mother, a series of quirky and inventive ten year olds, a gaggle of local and state police with various tics and quirks to make them memorable (cop who hums opera, cop who can't stop eating, townie cop who is racist, etc.), spunky old ladies and degenerate young men.

Dobyns' writing style reminded me of Stephen King mixed with Michael Chabon, with a myopic focus on place and a strange almost meta-narrative style, excessively quirky characters propped up almost smugly, relentless action that was almost too much.

As a result -- and my biggest complaint while reading -- is that despite the page length (my copy clocked in at 420 pages), everyone actually felt really thin. We were given shorthand for the character, some trite, some original, and you could see a mile away the character interactions. Women, I think, suffered the most. All young women were sluts -- multiple people told us this -- and even those who weren't actively slutty were still irresponsible (our single mother refuses child support because she got herself pregnant, not her and the guy, but whatever.) The romantic building up is straight out of rom-com -- two angry confrontations lead our intrepid journalist to dream about the cop being stepfather to her song -- while the sex is straight out of a Clive Cussler.

I know, I sound super negative but, but, I couldn't put this book down. I really couldn't. I stayed up waaaaay later than I should to finish this, and it was worth it -- the mystery was satisfying, I guessed a few twists and not some others, and even the flimsy characters hooked themselves in me and didn't let go.

Bloggers who do the RIP reading challenge in October will absolutely want to add this to their TBRs; anyone who likes Stephen King will want to pick this up. (King writes a gushy, literally gushy, review for this book. It's adorable.) show less

"I think I'll read some fiction next," my spouse said at dinner tonight. He'd just finished reading A First-Rate Madness and was looking for a break from nonfiction.

"Well, the book I just finished was pretty good," I offered.

Our seven-year-old chimed in. "Oh, The Burn Palace?" he asked. "The one with the snake on it?"

I confirmed that he'd remembered the title---and cover art---correctly. "Yes. It was good, but it wasn't edifying."

And that's just how I think of this novel. It was fun to read and took a direction that was more satisfying than the one it seemed like it was going to take. It deals with the ways in which our assumptions cloud our vision to reality and cause us to make unwise decisions, which was interesting, but I'm not sure show more much of the novel is going to stick with me for long.

Of course, it's not always necessary to be edified by the books we read, but I prefer it if I am. Being entertained at the same time I am spiritually and/or intellectually improved satisfies me. It feels like multi-tasking. This novel was more uni-tasking.

It also provides a biased, unflattering, and inaccurate view of individuals with mental illness. Sure, not all of the homicidal characters are mentally ill, but the only mentally ill character is homicidal---and rather gratuitously so, plot-wise. Given that those with mental illness are no more likely to be violent criminals than those not diagnosed with mental illness, this characterization seems biased and inaccurate to me. show less

LOVED this book! Dobyns' debut novel is a mix of police procedural/mystery/paranormal/horror. Which is just my cup of tea. The novel opens as a baby is discovered missing from the maternity ward. In the baby's place is a snake. Astonishingly, the baby's mother is not concerned about her missing baby, and, in fact, insists it's the devil's baby. The novel moves along at a quick pace and we are led into a police case that may or may not involve satanic ritual, murder and suicide. Also, the characters were fantastic. I especially loved the two young boys at the center of the story, one of whom has telekinetic powers. This book reminded me a lot of Stephen King's early books. I would high recommend it!

I am always leery of books that are highly praised by Stephen King. I usually very much enjoy Stephen King books, but until this book, I have never liked a book he heaped high praise on. The Burn Palace is not like most books, in that it doesn't fit into one genre, or category. It is darkly funny, often times disturbing, it blends mystery with horror, and touches on philosophy and religion. From the first chapter the reader is given loads of detail about the town of Brewster where the story takes place, so much detail that you often times feel as though you are observing the events in the book as they take place. The book has lots of death, crazed wolves, crazy townsfolk, and some less than healthy relationship issues. That being said show more it was a very enjoyable book to read. show less

Stephen Dobyns is such a good author. His depictions of small town America are dead on.

The Burn Palace a dark , twisty mystery. Although promoted as a supernatural horror novel, in truth this novel is more of an old fashioned police procedural.
The town of Brewster is under siege. A newborn disappears from the hospital and is replaced by a snake.
Carl Krause has just gone plain mad, actually growling at people.
There are reports of coyotes acting out of character.
A girl reports rape, then disappears.
On top of all that, there are rumors of wild Wiccan parties, Satanism, and shapeshifters.
As the town teeters on the edge of panic, vandalism attacks start to occur.
The horror in Brewster is very real. This is the stuff nightmares are made of. show more The events that unfold in the small town of Brewster boggles the mind.
Greed, ambitions, lust, small town politics, desperation and loneliness cause folks to make very regrettable choices.
The nine day span of events brought out the best and the worst in human nature.
Again, the literary style is matched with a good old fashioned mystery. Again, Dobyns pulls it off wonderfully.
Over all this one gets an A
This is an ARC copy from Netgalley. show less