The Hollow Kind

Nellie is fleeing an abusive relationship with her 11-year-old son...but she's taking him to a different type of danger... a place she once called home. The story tells us of danger, but also greed, revenge, and obsession. This horror tale tells the story of the unforgivable trespasses that cost multiple generations their very souls. The year is 1989 and Nellie Gardner is fleeing her nursing school, her home and her abusive husband with her son, Max, to Georgia. Her abusive husband, Wade Gardner, is an academic with a quick, hot temper. The story then takes a slight detour...same place, but the year is now 1917, and we are now with Nellie’s grandfather, August Redfern and his wife, Euphemia, who have started a turpentine enterprise in show more the southern Georgia wilds and soon are the parents of twins Charlie and Hank. Hank goes on to be Nellie’s father. The twins soon learns that the land they are defiling for profit demands more sacrifice in the full meaning of the word, than mere greed can satisfy. Nellie settles into her grandfather’s creepy Gothic mansion and is soon confronted by local "snake oil" salesman Lonnie Baxter, who has always thought that the property and the house was his birthright. Her reunion with Hank doesn't go well and leads to an uneasy discussion between father and daughter, and soon Nellie and Max are also threatened by some unpredictable phantoms; the ghost of a young girl; a dead bear who won’t seem to stay put; and the resurrected Dr. Gardner. Of course, we were expecting something on this order...after all if you hang out in dusty old mansions that are populated by long well-kept secrets, along with guilt, remorse, and madness, something unwanted, unexplained and undead is bound to come slithering out of a moldy hole. I really liked the way Andy Davidson deftly sloughed his way between bated-breath anticipation and a downright unexplained horror. By the end I was thinking this would make a great horror movie...move over Shirly Jackson. show less

The Hollow Kind definitely had an intriguing description, and I always gravitate to those stories about houses where something creepy is going on or has an evil legacy. I also tend to like ambiguity, where you are not exactly sure what is happening, but go along just for the simple pleasure of reading a good story. But sometimes, that ambiguity can be a negative thing as this book just took for granted that you would get what happened without often giving enough descriptions of the event, then other events would go on for pages and pages. And personally, I feel like some really important events fell within the ambiguous and glossed over sections.

The characters were okay, although none of them really had any distinct personalities, not show more even Nellie, I did like her character though, but preferred Max, her son, and wished the story had revolved more around him. I didn't find the characters that difficult to keep track of, but did feel most of the secondary characters were one-dimensional and wished the author had spent a bit more time developing them so they had more distinct personalities. And character introductions were a bit of a misfire. Suddenly, there was discussion about Agatha, and although I get it was supposed to be mysterious, the way it was thrown in didn't fit the narrative and threw me out of the story. It was a struggle trying to piece together who she was, the role she played in the book, and how everything fit together as everything was so ambiguous. In the end, I found her to be the most intriguing character without being give a chance to shine, if that makes sense.

While the writing style was a bit slow, I actually didn't mind the descriptive writing as gothic horror needs to be soaked up and absorbed, to really seep into your skin. And the slower pace didn't really bother me, but the pacing was a bit much for me, as things that really needed development were glossed over and other events just dragged on and on, where I started losing interest and began skipping paragraphs and even pages. It was laborious reading at times as events and people were just dropped as if you were aware of them; I had to re-read a couple of sections just to make sure I hadn't missed something important. There were some creepy moments in this book, and I do think Mrs. Redfern had the best story arc; I just wish the author had developed both of these more which would have added more tension, creepiness, and terror.

Verdict
The Hollow Kind had some creepy moments as well as some great potential, but the story itself suffered from pacing issues, lack of character development, and ambiguous writing tactics that made it difficult for me to be fully invested in the story. It did redeem itself somewhat with the ending, but by then, I was struggling to finish the book, and honestly, the ending was predictable and didn't offer anything new to the genre. Overall, I feel like this was a miss for me, but I did like the writing style, even if the pacing was off, and would like to see what the author writes next. show less

This is a solidly creepy novel spanning most of the 20th century, and a really interesting take on confronting generational trauma. It's a little longer than I think it needs to be, but it kept my interest, and I found the setting to be quite vivid. The narrator really found her stride in the second half, but I would have preferred if the recording had maybe an extra two seconds of space between each section.

Davidson hit it out of the park again. I was hooked from the first page. Great action scenes and fantastic characters. Cosmic horror at its best.