The Amulet

“The Wiregrass is not a region that breeds tolerance or friendliness, and the more genial of human attributes seem to exist in that place by chance and neglect rather than by cultivation.”

It’s hard to feel or care for most characters in this novel. There are a lot of bad apples. I mean, like moldy and glass-strewn applesauce of the soul. And I get it—you need the baddies so one doesn’t mind or, indeed relishes, the grisly demise of these soon-to-be-crushed humans. But for the occasional good character? They’re grist for the mill, as well, and any attempt at prior sympathy gets tossed in the hopper. The hopper? Well, we’ve got whipping ceiling fans, plunging icepicks, throat-tearing swine, hurtling automobiles (that don’t show more just pummel a body, but positively pulverize it by propelling that poor soul into a concrete abutment), ad nauseum. Yes, it is sickening. And the mayhem does get predictable once you see the amulet pass from one battered person to another, even if the destruction is inventive. But is that enough? Maybe for some. Obviously for some, since it was picked up for publication after six previous novels had been submitted by the author and rejected (can’t fault the man’s gumption). To me, though, it does read like an 80s slasher film.

What separates this from other savagely grotesque horror of its era is the build-up; a sleepy Alabama town absolutely dripping with gossip; consistent colloquial dialogue; class and racial conflict—all mixed in a sultry Southern Gothic stew. I wish there’d been more of this and less havoc, since the violence would’ve been far more piercing and painful to witness. It did at times feel like a case of “and then this happened, and then this happened, and this . . .” You know, just as slasher flicks usually come off. Some people lap it up. I find it a bit tedious; much like watching pieces rolling by on a blood-soaked conveyer belt; but then, blood on tap is some people’s beverage of choice. However, I’m the type of man who once covered himself in faux blood for promotions on a book release, so . . .

This is number who’scountinganyway? in my parade of horror novels as research for my upcoming short story collection. As Kurtz said through the mouth of Marlow through the pen of Conrad: “The horror! The horror!” And even though 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘵 may not have been the brightest gem on the chain, it kept my interest, nonetheless. Each entry colors enough of the spaces in my brain to facilitate my search for the vacant, the untold, the uncrayoned pockets.

“Sarah dropped her head in her hands. She was crazy to think those things, crazy to sit in the darkness and accuse her invalid vegetable husband of mass murder; out of her mind to see calculated, spiraling mayhem when there was only accident and not uncommon domestic homicide. She was crazy to think it, but there was no way any longer to believe anything else.
She no longer loved Dean. With what she knew about him, how could she? Besides, it wasn’t Dean that had come back to her, but a breathing corpse, a sweating sack of warm lard surrounding a tube that ran from the top to the bottom, from the mouth to the rear end—and that was all. Josephine Howell, she was the crazy one, for sitting there all day talking to such a thing.
Sarah at last admitted to herself that she no longer had a husband. That Pine Cone rifle had done worse than even what Jo credited it with. It had blown away not only Dean’s face, but it had torn off everything that was good in the man, leaving a rotting carcass of single-minded wickedness. Sarah was not even allowed the comfort of mourning the loss of her husband, for legally the man was still there: he had a Social Security number, and he occupied a certain space, and dozens of government forms had to filled out with his name on them. And worst of all, he had the right to demand attention of her. The thing that lay in there on that bed, however, was no more Dean than if Sarah had stuffed a dozen dead cats in a pair of pajamas and arranged them on the bed to look like the figure of a man underneath the covers—and stuck a white gourd on the pillow for the head.” show less

Michael McDowell absolutely nails rural Southern speech. (And he should as he was from SE Alabama.) In this particular book he also nails the pettiness, gossip, boredom, monotony, & more of living in such a small, rural town.

It's gory in unique ways & once the action really starts, it keeps barreling along at a good clip. As this was his first novel, it probably could have been shortened/edited a bit more. But, his pitch perfect Southern Gothicness more than makes up for it.

I love The Elementals more but I'm certainly glad I read this. McDowell is quite the master of Southern Gothic Horror, imo.

Probably 3.5 stars but I am rounding up.

While it started off fairly interesting, The Amulet quickly fell into a repetitive pattern of find amulet, go mad, kill, be killed, drop amulet. This wouldn't have been too bad if it happened just a few times, but it happened 6 or 7, breaking only to check in with Sarah's search. Compounded by the amulet's apparent restrictions of power, the climax of the story is nearly non-sensical, if not entertaining. But on the positive side, the conclusion was well-earned and deeply satisfying. It's strange to see a book that fumbles the buildup and sticks the landing, rather than the other way around, but there you have it.

My original The Amulet audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

🏆🎧 ABR Reviewer's Choice Award Winner

After being wounded in a military training exercise, Dean Howell returns home to his wife and mother in a vegetative state, his face hidden behind layers of bandages. While Sarah administers to his treatment, in addition to working full-time at the local munitions factory (the same factory that built the rifle that exploded in Dean's face), his bitter, resentful, and domineering mother, Jo, plots revenge. Jo blames the entire town of Pine Cone, Alabama for her son's debilitating injuries and sets into motion a series of extraordinary murders. The titular amulet, a cursed (or, perhaps, possessed) item show more gifted by Jo to the man who failed to hire Dean into the factory and save him from being drafted into the Vietnam War, is the only thing connecting the otherwise unrelated and inexplicable deaths. As the bodies begin to pile up, Sarah realizes the amulet lays at the center of it all, and she must find it before any more killings can occur.

Originally published in 1979, Valancourt Books reprinted The Amulet for a new generation of readers a few years ago, and this past August released this audiobook edition narrated by Audie Award winner Julia Whelan. Whelan does an excellent job bringing Michael McDowell's material to life, giving dialogue a soft and welcoming Southern lilt. Her reading of McDowell's wonderful writing held me in rapt attention the whole way through, and this is a top-notch production all around.

McDowell is an author that has been on my radar for a while now, thanks largely to Charlene at Char's Horror Corner, who has positively reviewed a number of the author's works as resurrected by Valancourt Books. Huge props, too, to Valancourt, because now that I've read McDowell for myself I will most certainly be reading as many more of his works as I can get my hands on.

Despite being set during the late 1960s, The Amulet is far from anachronistic. I've read plenty of 80s novels that felt far more dated than McDowell's (even Robert Marasco's Burnt Offerings, published only a few years prior to this book, felt far old than its original 1973 pub date), and thanks to the human factors at play here -- the family drama, friendships, and racial tensions between the white and black sections of Pine Cone -- The Amulet feels just as relevant in 2018 regardless of its nearly forty-year -old history. McDowell has an ear for dialogue, and the Alabama-born author successfully captures the regional patois and atmosphere of the region. His characters are believable, each of them inhabiting their own lives within these pages, and we're given just enough detail to care about them before they're yanked away from us. None of Pine Cone's residents are safe (not even the children, and there are several child deaths depicted throughout, so fair warning), and the diabolical piece of jewelry is a sort of traveling gun drawing them all toward danger. The body count here is significant, and McDowell does not pull any punches as he dispatches entire families, friends, and neighbors in delightfully creative and gruesome ways. In fact, I suspect the Final Destination film franchise owes a large debt, and a number of thanks, to this particular novel.

The Amulet is a wonderful and engrossing work of quiet, small-town horror, and McDowell does an incredible job building this story, ratcheting up the tension and taking us from one twisted murder to another as we follow this cursed object across Pine Cone and into the lives of those unfortunate enough to claim the strange necklace as their own. As his first published novel, The Amulet is an excellent introduction to McDowell's work for newcomers such as myself. I can promise you now it certainly will not be my last, and I'm already debating which Michael McDowell book I should dive into next.

Audiobook was purchased for review by ABR. show less

I had high hopes for this one, but I'm afraid it ended up turning me off from reading anything else the author wrote. The writing itself isn't too bad, but the book's story itself feels loose and messy--more an excuse to offer a reader horrific scenes than anything with structure or a story that I could truly engage with. A number of folks in my horror book group have really enjoyed it, but I really just needed more. The story was played out fast-and-loose, without any real build-up of tension once things got going, and although the gossipy/horrid characters were entertaining and there was a certain wry humor to sometimes be enjoyed, that wasn't nearly enough to make me feel engaged. With the end being just as fast-and-loose as the rest show more of the book, with some resolution to the characters but none of the explanation I'd hoped for, I can't say that I was all that impressed (or even happy I'd finished). It's also worth noting that although the book is somewhat dated and placed in the Vietnam era, the author's writing of race and constant remarks on weight/fat made for some regularly uncomfortable reading (for me, at least), which would have itself given me second thoughts about reading more of the author's work.

I should note that I read this with a horror book club, and many of the other readers enjoyed it or were, at the least, entertained enough to feel it was an 'okay' read they were happy enough to have stumbled on. It seems the hallmarks (from what I've heard) in McDowell's writing are gossipy, great scene-setting, bad people and over-the-top events, all of which this book delivers on. And aside from a ton of scene-setting that made for a slow beginning, there's nothing wrong with the writing here except for what I'd call some underdeveloped/stereotyped characters and an uncomfortable way of dealing with race and weight both. So, I'm sure McDowell will be worth picking up for some readers...just not this one in the future. show less

Shortly after I read Cold Moon Over Babylon by this author I made it a point to seek out his other works. Somehow I missed out on reading Michael McDowell back in the 80s. I am now armed with a small collection of his books and this is the second one I have read. I'm pleased to say I enjoyed it just as much as my first venture.

This story takes place in Pine Cone Alabama where there is not much opportunity for work other than the munitions factory. Jo Howell, who is as mean as the Alabama sun is hot, blames the munitions factory and just about everyone in town for the horrific accident that put her son in a vegetative state. She is consumed with thoughts of revenge, and she will have it, in the form of a cursed amulet that causes whoever show more possesses it to murder whoever happens to be handy at the time, before they themselves also die in freakishly bizarre accidents the likes of which I would not expect to see anywhere outside of one of those Final Destination movies. I do wish there had been some explanation of where the Amulet derived this power from but that did not really detract from the gory good time I had reading this book. show less

I haven’t read many horror novels that fully deliver on their promises the way this one did. A kind of perfection!