Neverland

I am diffidently a fan of Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Bentley Little and Robert R. McCammon...so this story was written for me. It was written also for you if you love the work of any of these authors. The account is told from the point of view of 10-year-old Beau Jackson. It's what occurred on his last vacation on Gull Island off the coast of Georgia. This is not anything like the Hawaiian Islands. No lovely oasis in sight...never has been and never will be. It's an unhospitable, unwelcoming, sparsely populated, humid, hot and swampy mess, but his "granny" lives there in her large, creepy old house. Beau is not alone. His cousin, Sumter, (I never want to meet this kid), shares his summer on the island. To say Sumter is strange and a show more little "off", is an understatement. At times he's just downright disgusting. I actually had chills and shutters to some of his antics...and nothing usually bother me unless an animal is being mistreated. Beau always seems to suffer from Sumter's actions, from following behind him through prickly bushes to the larger escapades that Sumter draws him into. The two boys may seem like opposites, but they share a gift...a startling, vivid imagination. The adults in this story are a classic example of why some people should never be allowed to reproduce under any circumstances...so the boys are basically on their own, and they take full advantage of it. I love creepy, scary movies but they don't scare me...this book, Neverland,DID! What existed in that shack the boys played in had waited eons for just the right souls to come along...and the two boys were perfect for IT...an innocent one and a tainted one. Neverland is one of the most compellingly creepy, horrific, stories I've ever read, and I have read hundreds by some really good writers but this one is...I can't find a word that truly fits it. show less

Douglas Clegg is a master of fantasy and imagination. THIS plot is nothing simple; it turns out to be creative ,and unpredictable as hell, and I stand with applause for the hours he must have spent brainstorming this one.

Neverland is fun, twisted, gripping. I fell in love with the characters, I weeped with them, I feared for them. The setting with the old house, the creepy shack, the woods - all amazing, beautiful, unnerving. The pace is quick when it should be, slower when its appropriate, and overall ends with a stunning conclusion. Clegg writes with a hand that holds talent, knowing how to work its stuff.

Read Neverland for a good time, an imaginative roll in the hay. You won't be dissapointed.

While I planned on dedicating all of my vacation reading to getting through a number of sequels to series I’ve been reading the serendipitous discovery of Clegg’s Neverland in the New Fiction section at the library put that task off for a bit. Oftentimes, for reasons I can’t quite explain, the desire to read horror fiction strikes me during the height of summer. There is a part of me that equates the thrills and chills of a good horror novel with the bright sun and oppressive heat of a summer afternoon. In truth many of my favorite horror novels have taken place during the summer, notably Caitlin Kiernan’s Red Tree and Dan Simmons Summer of Night make excellent use of the summer months to enhance their settings. Thus when I show more settled down at the beach last Saturday the book I first grabbed was Neverland.Neverland follows the young Beau during his annual family vacation to his Grandmother’s home in Gull Island, Georgia. There his cantankerous Grandmother ruthlessly criticizes her children and grandchildren while his parents drink a bit too much. Left to his own devices Beau, his sisters, and his cousin Sumter are inevitably drawn to a forbidden maintenance shed that Sumter believes houses a god named Lucy; a place he has named Neverland. There the children are lead by Sumter into ever escalating and increasingly dark rituals set about to bring Lucy into the world.Leaving the supernatural aspects of the novel aside for a moment what makes Neverland so engaging is Clegg’s ability to so readily capture the personalities and perspectives of children. The observations by Beau are precise and accurate colored by his innocence yet evident a wisdom and foresight that adults frequently fail to see in youth. The children still act like children saying what’s on their mind frequently with little foresight, or evincing a cruelty born of curiosity that is so often the province of children and in Neverland a quality that serves to birth some of the novel’s most horrific moments. None of the characterization of Neverland’s youthful characters feels out of place and the pitch perfect tone in dialogue and action adds an element of realism that enhances the horror.The horror of Neverland is top notch and occurs on multiple levels. On the one hand there is a certain amount of psychological terror not necessarily from the characters themselves but inherent in the role of reader as witness in the novel. The growing sense of dread at the escalation of the activities in the titular Neverland arises from the knowledge, or at least belief, that this can’t end well; an inherent wrongness in the actions of the characters that feels tantamount to watching inevitable and ultimately unavoidable car wreck. Some horror novels, and many horror movies, fail at this aspect, those moments where the reader or viewer screams “Don’t go in there!” or whenever a character stupidly stumbles off into the dark by themselves and leave you shaking your head in frustration rather then sympathy. What Clegg does is create characters whose decisions you understand even if you the reader recognize that they aren’t the right ones. Clegg goes on to masterfully blend that sense of wrongness and dread in simple decision making and realistic actions with elements of the supernatural. Early in the novel Beau’s experience with the “thing” that Sumter keeps in the crate in Neverland can be taken as the gullibility of a child or something more supernatural in nature. Sure Clegg’s description leans heavily toward a supernatural explanation there is a always a tiny sliver of doubt that perhaps Beau was imagining things; that his fear made him see something that wasn’t actually there. Clegg twists the wonder of a child’s imagination into something horrible at once evoking fond memories of childhood games and tainting them with dark stains of blood. That blend of Wonder, horror, and revulsion really makes this novel shine and kept me turning pages as fast as I possible could.I could go on and on but really the bottom line is this is one of my standout reads in 2010. I have constantly lamented the dearth of horror titles in recent years and despite this being a 13 year old novel Neverland gives me hope that we will continue to see quality titles in horror over the coming years. If you’re looking for a good scare and want to delve into the dark shadows of childhood to escape the heat of this wickedly hot summer I highly recommend you give Neverland a shot. show less

Three pages into this book, I knew that I was going to like it. The story starts with a family on their way to Gull Island, GA for summer vacation. They're in their station wagon....two 12 year old girls (twins) a 10 year old boy, a baby, and the parents. It is a typical road trip with the kids squabbling and carrying on and their parents trying to intervene and keep the peace. This story is narrated by 10 year old Beauregard (Beau). I love stories narrated by kids.....their descriptions of things are so hilarious and true. The way he describes the members of his family, including his Grandma Weenie who is crabby, wheelchair bound, and carries and silver-handled brush on her lap that is often used for spankings, is very detailed. I show more could picture her in my mind, as well as the other characters. I laughed out loud several times while reading this...especially when Beau is teasing his sister about her dead hamster!

Beau's family vacations every year on Gull Island GA at his grandmother's house. His Aunt Cricket and Uncle Wayne join them, along with their son, Sumnter. Sumnter is strange, and Beau and his sisters are reluctant to join in any of his games. Sumnter chooses an old gardening shed which is strictly off-limits, to make into a clubhouse. There is a password to the clubhouse....and there is a god of the clubhouse. Before they know it, Beau and his sisters are sucked into Sumnter's weird world of games and hallucinations. He claims to have a god by the name of Lucy, in a crate in the clubhouse. Lucy must be fed....and by fed, he means sacrifices. The kids go along with Sumnter for awhile, but then things start to get out of hand. One evening they all experience "flying" up into the sky, and Sumnter begins to sacrifice small animals to Lucy's crate. From inside the crate there are sounds of scratching and growling. Sumnter swears the other kids to secrecy, but Beau confides in his mother about what's been going on.....but did he let her know too late? Lucy is expecting a very large and promising sacrifice; a human sacrifice; and she has asked Beau to get it for her so that she can come out to play.

This Southern-Gothic type horror story is one of the best that I have ever read. It kind of reminds me of Boys Life by Robert McCammon, which is one of my favorites. Douglas Clegg does an excellent job weaving this twisted tale. I highly recommend horror lovers everywhere to check this out. show less

The first and, up until now, only book I've read by Douglas Clegg was Isis and that wasn't all that long ago. I enjoyed Isis immensely and planned on picking up some more of the award-winning author's work. Luckily for me, I was offered a copy of Clegg's Neverland for review which I readily accepted and looked forward to reading. Neverland was first published as a mass market paperback in 1991 by Pocket Books. In 2010, Vanguard Press reissued the novel in a lovely trade paperback edition which incorporates a scattering of marvelous illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne, the same artist who lent his skills to the 2009 Isis reissue. I've seen nothing but good things about Neverland and the new release is getting great reviews. Guess it's time show more to get my word in, too.

Every summer, Beauregard Jackson and his family travel to his maternal grandmother's home on the Georgian coast to spend vacation together. He, his parents, his baby brother, and his twin sisters pack themselves into the car to make the grueling, un-air-conditioned drive to Gull Island to meet up with his aunt, uncle, and their son. Beau more or less gets along with his cousin, but Sumter has always been more aggressive. This year is no different, although Sumter is acting more strangely than usual and has started playing in the old abandoned shed in the woods--the one place they are forbidden to go. Calling it Neverland, the children claim it as their own, a world away from the adults. Beau and his sisters get swept up in Sumter's creation of Neverland, triggering a chain of events that lead to tragedy and the revelation of dark family secrets.

One of the greatest things about Neverland is the ambiguity between what is real and what is simply the overactive imagination of a ten-year-old. Many of the events are probably even more frightening if there isn't anything supernatural going on. And that is what makes Neverland work so well for me. It is creepy and chilling because the kids act like kids, the grown-ups act like grown-ups, and terrible things happen as a result. Other than occasionally being more articulate than I wold normally expect, I think that Clegg captured the attitudes and behaviors of the children quite well, including their inherent distrust of the adults and growing up. I really enjoyed Beau as a narrator and he had a great voice that for the most part felt authentic to me. His interactions with his siblings and cousin, and with his older family members, were believable and real. I really felt for this guy who was forced to come to terms with some very hard truths and responsibilities before he really should have had to.

I've not read much horror fiction yet, so I'm not sure how Neverland compares, but I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed the novel. Clegg skillfully maneuvers along a fine line between kids just being kids and something much more sinister, making the storytelling very effective. One example is the children's co-option of fairly common religious language and rituals which comes across as eerie and perverse. I found it easy to identify with Beau and his family, having taken my fair share of vacations in the south. While his family certainly isn't perfect, and there's a fair amount of conflict among its members, they do love each other. There is something very heartfelt about Neverland. Still, the wonderful moments of nostalgia are punctuated by horrific actions and events that are difficult to determine to what extent they are true and how much is just in Beau's head. Either option is terrifying in its own way. The final chapters are intense and I found the epilogue to be very touching and beautiful. I'm glad I got another chance to read and review another of Clegg's books and I still plan on tracking down some more in the future.

Experiments in Reading show less

Terror smolders beneath the surface of this Southern Gothic horror tale. It's late summertime, and the Jackson clan is heading out on vacation like thousands of other families. Ten year old Beau Jackson narrates the tale of the family's last annual trip to his grandmother's ancestral home, known as The Retreat, on Gull Island, Georgia. Upon their arrival, Beau discovers that his cousin Sumter has already staked a claim on the abandoned and "off-limits" shack out back. Sumter transforms the shack into a clubhouse and claims that a god named Lucy lives there and must be worshipped.

As the days pass, Sumter conjures up his own world called Neverland where he gradually and craftily leads the other children astray. As Sumter's dark sanctuary show more grows, Beau and his twin sisters are sucked into the evil abyss with acts of stealing, animal sacrifices, and other gruesome rituals. Beau and his sisters go along with Sumter's demands for a time. However, the innocent Beau faces a turning point when he must learn to differentiate between what is real and what is imagined in the supernatural world of Neverland.

Before the end, a sinister family secret will be revealed. As the horror escalates, readers won't be able to put this one down. The last 100 pages send you speeding toward a collision course with a stunning and horrifying conclusion.

The Bottom Line: Originally published in 1991, Neverland is a fantastic coming-of-age story that's hard to put down. This twisted tale of horror is guaranteed to send chills up your spine. It's Southern Gothic horror at it's best and sure to be a classic. The characters are authentic and the imagery will evoke childhood memories of past vacation nightmares. The dark and eerie illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne along with the ragged edged pages of the book heighten the gothic spookiness of the tale. This book is highly recommended for adult fans of horror. Some readers, however, might be troubled by the depictions of animal sacrifices.

This book review appeared first at the Mini Book Bytes Book Review Blog: http://minibookbytes.blogspot.com/ show less

This book was slow to get to the point and preachy off the bat. There is definitely a religious tone to the novel that becomes confusing and convoluted as we spiral through the adventures of a couple of young kids on a family island in Georgia. I felt the the attempt to create chaos in the story led to chaotic writing that towards the end, when all hell was breaking loose, was very hard to follow and packed very little lunch. The urgency of the character and the situation was downplayed by time shifts from outside in the action to meanwhile in the house where the same action is affecting the other characters before heading off to the bathroom but without cohesion. As a movie this would be excellent and definitely a terrific horror show more flick! The imagery is brilliant and disgusting and nauseating but like many novelists trying to write LSD-esque scenes of confusion and fantasy, I felt that Clegg went too far into the confusion and struggled to bring it back on course settling with "he awoke in bed...." show less