The Fallen

Dale Bailey is such a damn good natural writer it is hard to see why he has been so overlooked. The only recognition he seems to have gotten is for the The Resurrection Man. His stories scattered throughout numerous collections are uniformly good and always unique in perspective. I wish he was more prolific. He also wrote a good thesis on the haunted house in fiction.

This is a pretty good first novel, especially in a mass market horror novel like this. In the same vein as Stephen King, only a little deeper in symbolism and meaning; Bailey is trying to do more than just spook us. Actually I'm not sure how much real "horror" there is here. It seems to be more like a suspense novel with a supernatural element, more like noir. Even if some show more of the usual genre tropes are here, its more as if the author is just using the genre as a vehicle for saying something about gods, faith, love, free will, and reality. What, in the end, was the thing in the mine, angel or demon or what, did it represent something more? Why was it so scarred? Was it good or evil? Did it matter? What is the nature of free will in Grubb, or anyone, if things like the "angel" in the mine exist? Are we better or worse without it? Maybe things would have been better off if they had just left it alone.

The only criticism I have is Bailey never goes any deeper with these questions neither as narrator nor through any of the characters. These are just left out there as implied but never fully explored. I did get the feeling he was just kind of testing the waters here to see how much he could get away with bending the MM horror novel away from just blood and guts stuff.

It looks like he probably had a two book MM deal based on The Fallen, and when this didn't pan out in sales he went back to the lower sales specialty publisher (Golden Gryphon) for Resurrection Man and Sleeping Policemen. show less

Dale Bailey’s The Fallen, originally published in 2002, is apocalyptic in another sense. The mining town of Saul’s Run is a quiet place, but every generation or so, a whole bunch of bad things happen. When Henry Sleep, who left for greener pastures years ago, returns to care for his ailing father, he’s thrust right into the midst of whatever it is that makes Saul’s Run different—and it lives in one of the abandoned mines. Of course, Henry and a friend had a run-in with this “guardian angel” when he was a boy. And when it doesn’t get its way, it’s not so angelic as one might expect.

The Fallen is a nice combination of horror and mythology, reminding us that there are some powers out there that simply can’t be pleased show more all the time.

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com show less

Saul's Run is a great place to raise a family. Life is good, folks live to a ripe old age, and there hasn't been a violent crime in nearly a generation. It's almost as if some force were protecting the God-fearing folk of the Run from harm...

Henry left the quiet town almost a decade ago-after his mother's tragic death and a terrible falling-out with his father. Ever since, he has shut out his memories of the Run. He has tried to not think about the day his mother died. But now-after the startling news of his father's suicide-Henry is coming home...

Home, where his former girlfriend is waiting on her dying mother and her living dreams.

Home, where his boyhood friend is mysteriously drawn to something inside an abandoned mine.

2.5 stars rounded up.

Henry Sleep's father visits him in a dream.
It's time to come home.....

When he calls to check on his father he finds out that he has committed suicide. So Henry returns home to Saul's Run.
A small town where people live long lives, no crime occurs and sickness has a weird ebb and flow.

This book could have been really good. The story just didn't flow smoothly. The first half of the book kept me coming back for more and then it just fell to crap. The writing became so uneven that I just couldn't care anymore.



I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.