The Lake

Richard Laymon has always been a much revered horror author, choosing as his style to employ horror, shock effects, and sexuality in his work. Unfortunately, The Lake is not a book worth praising. Suspense is there, but it’s scarce, and frankly the reader doesn’t really care. I couldn’t get over the bizarre plot, the too unbelievable coincidences, and I could loan even less forgiveness to the hideous characterization.

It’s a rule in the publishing world that the ! sign be kept to a minimum. Also, capitalizing words or sentences to show that the character is screaming, or else is stunned, is lazy writing if overused. Here Laymon sins repeatedly, and I almost feel that the book was only published and this was overlooked simply show more because he had already gathered a following. His other works did not have this flaw, and one must wonder what was going on in his personal life to create such a rushed piece.

Dialogue is painfully pitiful for the most part. It’s unnatural that when characters speak to each other, they keep saying the others name in each sentence. The dream sequences used with the young girl, Deana, grows confusing, and so many times is not needed and only hurts the story. To make matters worse, the story is told through a valley girl style, with exclamations and comments capitalized by teenage slang that screams cardboard character.

The plot isn’t better. In fact, the book was hard to finish, and even harder to keep picking up. It starts promising enough, but then everything becomes so muddled it’s painful to wade through. The ending doesn’t answer all the questions, being obviously a bizarre twist just inserted to have something. Storyline isn’t consistent, and some things are rather irrelevant seeming. If he had following up with the story line the book began with, it would have been more interesting, or even the second storyline, but as it stands….well, I’m speechless.

Due to the weaker writing style, the bizarre plot that doesn’t entertain, bounces all over the place when it doesn’t need to, doesn’t make sense, and the false characters with painful internal and external monologue, The Lake isn’t a book I’d recommend. Frankly, I’m surprised it was even published. Read another Laymon book if you wish to be entertained, but stay far, far away from this one. show less

The Lake is a chaotic and creepy horror that will likely have readers flipping through the pages out of pure curiosity to see what happens next. Laymon’s rumored forgotten tale is packed with a hatchet-wielding chef, a backwater mama’s boy, hormonal teens, a spooky old-folks home and a sicko serial killer hell bent on revenge. On the receiving end of all this terror are a mother and daughter. Yes, they experience an accidental death, blamed for murder, witness a boyfriend’s murder, are beat up, kidnapped, abused, conned, deceived, frightened, and nearly killed numerous times. All this would be an achievement if it were spread over several books instead of rolled into one. I understand this is fiction, but WHEW! Even I’m having a show more hard time buying it. To top it off, the women in the novel have a strange obsession with their breasts. They also take unrealistic risks (like jogging at night after being attacked), are too eager to mix sex after trauma and willingly give over easily to emotion and relationships. For example, after the traumatic loss of her boyfriend, Deana jumps quickly and trustingly into another relationship – may I add with lots of breast groping worthy of a bodice ripper. However, given the story line, murder, killer on the loose and physical and mental trauma, the insertion of sexual thoughts and actions by the victims is just plain weird and not in the good horror kind of way. I can’t imagine any woman relating or reacting like either of these female characters. In addition, I’m still trying to figure out why Nelson the killer one-eyed chef and the old-crone were even necessary? The inclusion of these characters is deliberately misleading and disjointed. A few scenes go nowhere and are completely unfinished. I’m still wondering, ‘What the hell was that about?’ Mommy Dearest (as the old-crone is called) should have ended up on the cutting room floor along with several other pages. I won’t give away the ending, but lets say more breast groping is involved. To add insult, the last chapter is followed up with a ‘hereafter.’ Now, I know some readers like this, but I can’t stand the approach. I don’t want pages of summary at the end of the book telling me what the characters eventually went on to do and how many children they had. Honestly, after 400 pages I shouldn’t need a summary to wrap it up. The one shining light in the tale and saving grace occurs during the telling of Leigh and Charlie’s story. This part of the novel had me intrigued and fully engaged in the tale. It was epic but unfortunately the second half of the novel slowly killed my wonderful memory. show less

This book had more crazy and off-beat people in it than any I've read in a long time. They weren't crazy ha-ha, they were truly psychopaths. I loved it from the get-go. While spinning one tale about Deanna and circumstances surrounding her boyfriend's death, Richard Laymon tells the story of her single mother's tragic tale when she was the same age. 'The Lake' has absolutely no slow or dull time throughout the book! Definitely recommend it to my friends that read "sick shit".

Not a literary masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, yet I could not stop reading it. Much like the slasher movies from the 70s and 80s, it includes everything from gratuitous sex and troll-like mutants to cleaver wielding psychopaths.and sadism. I'm still not sure how everything was supposed to fit together, but I read it through just for the creep factor.

I just barely finished this book. In fact, in order to finish I had to skip most of the second half, it was so bad.. It started off rather well for just a fun book to read, but then it was as if the editor quit on him half way through.The book became very disjointed with characters and storylines that did not belong in the time or place. I will try to read another of his works, just in case this was not the norm, but I can not say I enjoyed this one. That is why it received such a low rating.

Wow. This was a real disappointment. I certainly could not put this alongside Laymon's other great books. I was relieved to find out that it was completed after his death as the writing style is unimaginative, disjointed and unbelievable. This definitely would not be a good place to start if you were a first time Laymon reader. I was glad to finish this one and move on.

obviously, i'm in the minority on this one, but it was one of the most obnoxious book i've ever read. it should have been named "Stiffening Nipples", because these two words seemed to appear very often in the text. There are alternate expressions that could have been used to imply an imminent sexual situation.