I received a digital ARC of this book from Netgalley.

It was a mistake for me to start reading this book at 10:30 at night. Really, I have no one but myself to blame. Robert Jackson Bennett is great at the art of creepy. Many of his books have a palpable sense of dread, a feeling that something terrible is going to happen, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Our unnamed narrator meets his older brother Bear at an abandoned hotel in west Texas. Bear has bought the place from a cousin and plans to fix it up enough to take advantage of the fracking boom. Bear sees the hotel as a last chance to get his hands on the American dream, a chance to finally get something back from the system that left him in a violent home even after his brother was removed and put in foster care. His brother is mostly floating aimlessly through life after his wife took their baby daughter and left. As the brothers work on renovating the hotel, they find a hidden trap door in one of the rooms. Since they don't know the combination of the hatch, Bear decides to leave it alone and not rent out that room. But if the brothers could ignore the secret door, they can't ignore the terrifying figure in white, or the ghostly cries of a woman calling for her baby in Spanish. Some bad things happened at the hotel. Some of them are still happening.

This is a very good horror novella. The atmosphere is dry and dark and lonely, weighted with a past that won't rest.
1

Stars: 3 out of 5.

This is a hard novella to review. It's short, coming shy of 100 pages, but is sure packs a wallop when it comes to content. I think my problem is precisely with the content - senseless violence against women and children is a trigger for me.

Other than that, I loved how the author can create the atmosphere of West Texas with just a few words and make you feel the desolation of the landscape and the bleakness of everyday lives of those who live there. Having traveled through that region, I can say that the description is spot on. 

The main protagonist is also fleshed out pretty well, so it was easy to empathize and root for him at the end.

Unfortunately, that is not the case for his older brother Bear. I'd say that we see too little of what makes him tick as a person and how he really is before the events of the book to fully realize the changes that happen to him during the story. This is a shame, because if we had two likeable characters to root for, watching them react differently when exposed to the same circumstances and same nefarious influence would have been a lot more impactful, I think.

It does portray the horrid "boys will be boys" mentality very well, though. Where women are just objects useful only to satisfy the desires of men. Discarded when they cannot or will not accomplish that.

As it stands, I liked this story enough to finish it, but not enough to have a lasting memory of it. It was okay enough to spend a lazy afternoon with, but I have read books by this author had had been a lot more impactful.

PS: I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

With each new book, I'm becoming a die-hard RJB fan. This short novella about two brothers that purchase an old motel with the intent to get rich off it really packs a punch. The history of their old motel is a terrifying story that comes to light the longer they stay within its walls. It might be a bit formulaic but that doesn't stop it from being a truly frightening and unsettling tale.

Robert Jackson Bennett plants his whole foot in this novella - this is a small package that carries a lot, lot, lot of weight. There's a very cinematic quality to it? There's not much writing that spools out like this; it's very tangible, and economic, and clear in its vision and Bennett's ability to pick the very right word makes me JEALOUS. He is working in a very particular area of American Southern (or rather Texan) Gothic ghost story (with a tinge of horror) and I don't think there's much to be improved upon in his take and its exploration of manhood/manifest destiny. Fans of his Divine Cities series or of Foundryside may sort of bounce off this (it's without a scrap of light or humor) but it's very much in the vein of his earlier work like Mr. Shivers or American Elsewhere. A strong recommend but with a trigger warning for abuse, sexual violence, VAW, and drug addiction; it's not overly graphic but it's there.

This was an amazing and horrible horror book. Horrible in the best way that a horror book can be. It's actions are so egregious that you HAVE to find out what happens and the way that Bennett spins this tale and buid the suspense is masterful. 2 brothers purchase an old motel that their father used to run but after some renovations and some discoveries, visions, and sounds, and even secret doors start to unveil themselves.
This was a great story that keeps you guessing around every corner and doesn't let up on the pain inflicting onto the main character.
I felt that this does have many of the same steps as a horror haunting story yet the remote atmosphere and the small outskirts of lawless Texas put this in a setting familiar yet terrifying. Bennett's characters are real and their story seems real and authentic.

Robert Jackson Bennett has become one of my must reads authors, a view arising from his brilliant DIVINE CITIES trilogy and only confirmed by his nearly as brilliant THE FOUNDERS TRILOGY. Both are fantasy works, but Bennett also turns his craft toward horror as well, and that craft is indeed evident in his newest novella, In the Shadows of Men, a taut, concise work that unnerves in more ways than one.

The brothers Pugh — one our unnamed narrator, the other his older brother Bear — are near the end of their line. For the youngest, it’s been “thirty-nine days since my wife left and she packed our little girl into her car and said she couldn’t stand it anymore, she just wanted to go someplace where everything wasn’t ugly all the time.” Bear, meanwhile, is trying to right his own life after his battles with addiction. His method? Buy an isolated old motel in the heart of fracking land in West Texas, one owned by their dad’s uncle Corbin Pugh, fix it up, and make some relatively easy money while the oil boom is still going.

Now, “isolated old hotel off the freeway” is never a good harbinger. Nor, usually, is “strange old relative one’s never heard of.” And sure enough, it turns out there’s more to the motel’s story than they know. A local sheriff informs them of some of that backstory, and rest gets filled in or hinted at through the usual supernatural occurrences: strange noises, ominous figures appearing and disappearing, hidden objects, and the like. And soon our narrator and his brother find themselves fighting against a “horror” that threatens to swamp their lives.

Bennett is working with the standard horror tool kit here, but in genre, I’ve often said it isn’t whether or not an author uses tropes but how they present them and what they do with them. And, as can be expected from an author as good as Bennett, both are handled in impressive fashion. From a writing standpoint, the creepy moments, the startle moments, the “someone is watching me” moments, etc. are all handled deftly, smoothly, and concisely, so that on the basic horror level, they’re surprisingly effective in how much they disturb despite being such familiar moments.

Besides the stylistic quality, these moments feel less “trope-y” because Bennett is so good at creating both vivid characters and atmosphere in few words. I don’t know if I’d say writing good huge tomes is “easy,” but I do think it’s easier than writing good short works. Brevity is tough, effective brevity even more so, and Bennett is a master at it, reminding me albeit in different fashion of Ursula K. LeGuin in the way he can convey so much using such sparse language. We don’t get pages and pages of details on how our narrator’s life was upended, what happened to his marriage, how Bear became addicted or how he got subsequently clean again. But we don’t need those details as both men come fully alive as characters; we can see them, we can hear their desperation and anger, we can feel their sense of their lives slipping away from them.

All of that, meanwhile, enhanced and echoed by the West Texas setting, which itself is echoed by the sparse, lyrical language, introduced at the very start:

To travel across West Texas at night is to pass through bursts of light and seas of shadow, these sudden punctuations of towns clinging to the highways as they slash through scrub . . . An aging unlit asphalt road will suddenly flow into a smooth, cement highway, fresh and new and lit up white. Then you will pass through countless tiny villages that are seemingly abandoned, all crumbling grain silos and mid-century town squares . . . a strikingly bipolar place, an empty land that has somehow gone mad overnight, suddenly teeming with trucks and truckers and workers and trailers as dozens of companies converge on the desert flats to plumb the depths of the Permian . . . giant coiling flares unscrolling from the towers . . . making the many shadows dance like witches in the woods . . . A land studded with giant candles burning in the darkness, apparently unobserved, unwatched . . . what is being burned has spent millions of years sleeping miles and miles under the skin of the earth.

That’s a long quote, but it’s just so damn good, not just stylistically but in the way it introduces so much of what is to comes. Isolation. The dual nature of things. Battling light and dark. The hint of violence with that word “slash.” Dissolution and decay via the “crumbling” silos. Things not being what they seem — “seemingly abandoned,” “apparently unobserved.” The introduction of the supernatural with those witches in the woods. The reference to madness. How things can change so suddenly, so abruptly. And that sense of something buried, of the past being brought to light, of something being awakened. So. Damn. Good. Believe me, I could have kept going with that opening. But you get the idea.

Bennett, though, isn’t interested just in showing off his stylistic chops or in simply scaring the reader. What makes In the Shadows of Men rise above simple adrenaline rush is its depth, the way Bennett uses it as a vehicle to yes, tell a horrifyingly compelling story, but also, despite its slim nature, to explore large themes: what it means to be a man in today’s world versus what we’re told it means to be a man, the ways too many have become inured to the (non-supernatural) horrors of our society, how the past shapes the future (and how deterministic that shaping is), the withering of the American dream for so many and how society seemingly averts its collective eye to their plight, our short-sighted use of fossil fuel, the way violence engenders violence, and others.

Here, for instance, is the narrator on how his expectations, based on the classic American dream, have panned out:
This was not the story I was supposed to live. I was supposed to get a job and a wife and a child and we were supposed to flourish. It was not supposed to be so hard to do every little thing . . . It was not supposed to be like this. Nothing was supposed to be like this. Everything was not supposed to be so goddamned hard.

And here’s bis brother Bear: “Shit’s changed. Used to be you could go almost anywhere in America, find decent works, get a house, get a pension, get a family, and you wouldn’t have to tear your hair out or go into debt . . . I’m clean. But that don’t matter now. You see a man like me ever making a decent life for himself these days? I mean, really?”

As with the opening, I could cite a number of other passages delving into these themes, each of them thought-provoking, each of them more disturbing in their reality than any of the supernatural horrors presented to us. I won’t say how either those horror elements or the more unsettling social criticisms play out, save to say that the lyrical closing paragraph is perhaps more haunting than all that has come before. Bennett remains at the top of his game. Even when, or perhaps especially when, that “game” is deeply, deeply serious.

Published by Subterranean on August 31, 2020

Science fiction, fantasy, and horror all tend to be shelved together in bookstores, although they are distinct genres. Robert Bennett Jackson is one of the best at blending the genres together. His recent novels have been fantasies with elements of science fiction, but In the Shadows of Men is best categorized as a horror novella.

The story is of two brothers, one of whom becomes obsessed and perhaps possessed by evil. Narrating the tale is the younger Pugh brother. He calls his older brother Bear. If the narrator’s first name is revealed, I missed it.

Bear and his brother had an abusive father. Bear took the larger share of the abuse. The narrator was living in Houston when Bear asked him to come to Coahora, a dried-up Texas town that is seeing a new life due to fracking. The narrator’s wife left him, he feels trapped, so Coahora seems as good as any other place in which to disappear.

Bear bought a motel from a cousin who inherited it from Corbin Pugh, an uncle of Bear’s father. Bear thinks he can fix up the motel and cash in on transient workers until the fracking moves elsewhere. The narrator agrees to help because he has nothing else to do. Before much time passes, the sheriff pays a visit and tells them that Corbin operated the motel as a house of ill repute, importing Mexican girls to serve the local men.

In the tradition of horror novels, spooky things begin to happen. They find a hatch in one of the motel rooms but they can’t unlock it. They hear voices and an old Merle Haggard song. The narrator sees apparitions and hears girls crying. Bear begins to behave irresponsibly and then gets a bit whacky. The narrator is eventually drawn into the good-versus-evil conflict that is so often central to Bennett’s work. The story’s suspense comes from the fear that evil will overtake the narrator before he can save an innocent victim and — perhaps — save his brother.

Since these are all standard horror elements, I can’t say that there is anything surprising about the story, although it delivers some chilling moments. Bennett’s strength is his characterization. While there aren’t many characters, he does a sufficiently deep dive into the narrator’s psyche that it’s easy to feel sympathetic when the brother-against-brother theme reaches its denouement.

At this point, Subterranean has made In the Shadows of Men available as a fairly pricey deluxe edition hardcover. I don’t take price into account when I make recommendations, but buyers might want to take it into account when deciding how much they want to pay for a novella. The price point is appropriate for collectors and affluent Bennett fans. Other readers might hope that it eventually becomes available in a more affordable format. In any event, the story is one that horror fans and Bennett fans will likely appreciate, even if it lacks the substance of Bennett’s longer work.

RECOMMENDED

It's nice to see Robert Jackson Bennet writing horror again, and contemporary horror at that. While "In The Shadows Of Men" doesn't tap into the zeitgeist as unnervingly as his last novella (The future he describes in "Vigilance," published in 2019, has only become more frightening in the interim), it does deal forthrightly with some of the more disturbing, secretive thoughts and behavior of male psychology. Bennet doesn't pull any punches here, and the result is a ghost story where the threat of violence is arguably more terrifying than the violence itself.

But even the best ghost story can only be scary three-fourths of the way through. Ghosts are inherently less spooky once they get a motive. However, even after the supernatural threat deflates, Bennet still captures the eeriness of driving through long stretches of American night, passing isolated oases of light, and that uncanny nagging thought that you could get murdered out there and no one would ever know. That will linger with the reader even if the ghosts don't.

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this horror fantasy novella eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here are me honest musings . . .

The cover drew me in and three things convinced me to read this book:

1. I love Robert Jackson Bennett as an author;
2. It is a Subterranean Press book and they do great work; and
3. Who doesn't like to read about haunted motels?

This novella tells the story of two brothers who decide to go into business by renovating an old motel in West Texas.  Their past was dysfunctional to say the least and they are trying to get a little bit ahead for once by catering to the workers of the fracking industry.  However the motel has an unsavory familial past which bleeds into the brothers' present.

This is an atmospheric read where the graphic elements of the story are not the focus and happen off the page and yet the horror is always present.  The blending of psychological and paranormal elements is so well done and balanced.  For such a short story, it packs an both an emotional and philosophical punch about generational abuse, the effects of trauma, society's reactions to violence, sibling relationships, and class privilege.

The story is unsettling, sad, disturbing, and yet ends on a hopeful note.  I feel that this novella highlights the author's skills.  It is a book where the subject matter wasn't quite what I was expecting and yet I ended up being fascinated by how it turned out.  That ending was so bittersweet.

So lastly . . .

Thank you Subterranean Press!

Side note: This novella reminds me of how much I need to visit his backlog.  Arrr!

I've not read Robert Jackson Bennett's series books, even though my husband has and gave them glowing reviews. I know Bennett through <i>Vigilance</i>, a novella about a <i>Purge</i>-style reality show with guns, and I didn't like it. So I was wary going into this piece. But this one is a wholly different kettle of fish altogether, and is creepy and horrifying all at once. It's not surprising, no. But that doesn't mean it doesn't make an impact, it does. A creepy motel that was once used for nefarious purposes (you can imagine what), is now getting refurbished from two brothers who are scarred in different ways already. And they get the feeling they're being watched, and it goes from there.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

4.5 stars - A very enjoyable novella. I had no idea what it would be about but I am always interested in reading new things from Bennett.
The atmosphere and characters were both very well constructed and sucked me in; it's easy to consume this in one sitting.
Another reviewer mentioned how this tackles issue of nurture vs nature and dealing with the sins of your predecessors. These elevated it from an enjoyable but 4 star genre-fiction story to my 4.5 star rating.

In the Shadows of Men by Robert Jackson Bennett is VERY different from his other novels. With it, however, he confirms his status among my coveted must-read list. I don't even like short stories, but I thoroughly enjoyed this spooky one.

At 120 pages in length, Mr. Bennett was able to tell a full story along with clearly establishing the setting, developing the main character, and creating the ghostly element. His story has a tone and mood to it as well. Most authors struggle with creating this much in 320 pages, let alone half that!

In the Shadows of Men is a fabulous short story that is at its heart a play on the age-old question of nature versus nurture. Surprisingly complex for being so short, it also touches on the idea of the sins of one generation passing onto the next generation. If Mr. Bennett's previous novels scared you away because of their strong science fiction/fantasy elements, In the Shadows of Men is your chance to check out this amazing author.

This book was a beautifully dark and horrific tale. It felt like returning to Bennett's earlier "Troupe" novel, which I loved. Dark, gritty, violence, but some earnest and true grappling with core elements of good and evil. There is a supernatural element of a place legitimately haunted by evil, and it was a slow and terrifying creep of a read.

What makes a man; how does he grow to fill his own life when his father and his father's father took it away through violence and anger? Is he doomed to repeat atrocities of his forebears, or can he hope to find a small bit of light through the cracks in his tumbled down life? These are the true issues of this story, though it is told through truly creepy, terrifying means. Descriptions of sexual violence are found in the book, but how Bennett ultimately treats this topic is with the weight it deserves.

This book was haunting, scary, and dark, and that Robert Jackson Bennett wrote so beautifully of such horrors is a testament to his true talent as an author. His descriptions evoke a desolate, gritty, dirt-filled place, full of men desperate to make it in this life. It feels like a place on the outer edges of society, wreaking of desperation, where little is monitored, and bars are filled with rough, grime-covered day laborers who always end up in a brawl.

If you have enjoyed his canon, from "Mr. Shivers" and "The Troupe" to "American Elsewhere" and his growing fantasy works, such as the "Divine Cities" and "Foundryside" series, you are sure to appreciate this dark, powerful work.

The story is told by the unnamed younger brother of Bear Pugh. Bear buys an old run down motel in west Texas off a cousin who had inherited it. Bear invites the younger brother to help gut the place and and refinish it. They end up uncovering a history that should have remained in the past, but old ghosts and visions won’t stay quiet.
This is an ominously compelling book with very good writing. You can feel the depressed vibe of the men as they use hard work to hide the horrors of their past only to end up pulling the horrors of the past from the motel.

Very interesting, different from the others I've read by this offer. My only complaint is that is was a short read.

3.5 / 5 ✪

https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2020/08/26/in-the-shadows-of-men-by-robert-jackson-bennett-review/

In the desolate wastes of West Texas, In the Shadows of Men finds two brothers down on their luck, looking to cash in on the oil boom. To do this they need to renovate the old Moon and Stars Motel, sold to them by a cousin who wanted nothing to do with the place. As the younger Pugh and his brother, Bear wade into the wreck, they find its dusty halls and empty rooms strangely comforting, at least at first. But after a while, little Pugh begins to notice a disquiet about the place. Apparitions haunt his dreams; a looming man in white, young Mexican women, and an almost palpable feeling of lust and desire. Soon these thoughts begin to infect more than just his dreams—and that’s when things get stranger still.

The brothers find a hatch in one of the rooms: a steel door padlocked from the outside. As neither can discern the combination lock, they try to forget about it and move on. But once unearthed, it proves to be a mystery that just won’t die. Especially when the local sheriff comes by, teasing them with information on the history of the place and its owner—their great-uncle—Corbin Pugh.

Their own father was a devil of a man, but supposedly his uncle was something else entirely. What kind of man was Corbin Pugh, and what was the secret he was hiding? And how badly do the brothers want to find the truth, when it means they can never unlearn it?

My first question is what kind of person would think that moving to Texas would solve all their problems?

Well as they’re both from Texas, I guess this point is moot. West Texas is far removed from Houston, which the younger Pugh has just left. The story takes place in a small, lonely town, a suitable setting for just such a ghost story. And while little Pugh isn’t a terrible narrator, he’s not not the best lead, either. In fact, as neither brother is a conversationalist, the story often skips ahead days or weeks at a time, even after unearthing some new piece of the puzzle. While he’s pegged as the less inquisitive of the two, Bear seems to be more interested in solving the puzzle than his brother, who typically finds something curious and then goes and doesn’t think about it until a week later. Who finds a golden puzzle piece only to wait until a week later to see where it might fit?

Though the stoicism of the narrator works against the story, I felt it also prolonged the mystery in a way, which helped the atmosphere surrounding it. There was a greater sense of anticipation, a bigger building of tension. Though while the build was more enjoyable, I would’ve liked it to’ve been longer, or more intricate. Also, the conclusion itself was slightly underwhelming. So, yes, it hurt in some ways, but helped in others. All in all, the story evened out. Definitely a good read—though it didn’t leave much of a lasting impression.

On an unrelated note: I really hate when we don’t learn the narrator’s name. We learn his brother’s name, his uncle’s, his wife’s and daughter’s—but not his own. Annoying. And harder to write a completely coherent review.

TL;DR

In the Shadows of Men was an entertaining enough read, considering a sped through it in less than a day. It’s the mystery, if nothing else, that drove me through it, as neither the story nor the premise are particularly original or interesting enough to carry all the weight. But a dark tale, full of supernatural elements, a mystery that needs solving, and a man whose life is in desperate need of an escape—all combine to make this an enjoyable (at least in some ways) horror-thriller. It’s a good read, just don’t expect it to leave much of a lasting impression.

#IntheShadowsofMen #NetGalley

3/5

Not much here to say other than I felt very unattached to the story. I couldn’t get into the harder I tried to push through the book the more I felt it was harder for me to enjoy it. Unfortunately this one wasn’t for me. Even though the writing style was clear and focused. Thank you for giving me a copy for an honest review.

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In the Shadows of Men by Robert Jackson Bennett is a novella taking place in a west Texas motel that is being renovated by two brothers, when strange things start to happen. Mr. Bennett is an award winning author, mostly known for his science-fiction and fantasy novels.

In a small, desolate town in west Texas, the Pugh brothers bought a motel with the intent of renovating it and making their fortune. Each brother has a history of tough luck, trauma, shame, abuse and of course a dysfunctional environment they grew up in.
Only that they haven’t yet realized how dysfunctional.

Slowly they start to discover that the motel, owned by a relative of theirs, has its own checkered and horrible history. But not only are they changing the motel, turns out the motel is changing them as well.

I have enjoyed Mr. Bennett’s Founders series and when I saw his name attached to another book I immediately picked it up. In the Shadows of Men by Robert Jackson Bennett did not disappoint, it is a tight novella telling a dark story with supernatural themes.

This is a very atmospheric story, everything from the old motel to the dusty Texas weather comes across in a clear and evocative manner. I’m not much for horror stories, but this one had me on edge, especially when the supernatural is suggested, not necessarily shown.

The Pough brothers think they are creating opportunity for themselves after their lives turned upside down by buy a motel that belonged to a distant relative. Each one is dealing with his own demons, while the motel, it seems, has plans of its own.

When I was about half way in the novella, I didn’t know if I was reading a supernatural story, or one about a man’s sanity spiraling down to oblivion. It turned out that this story is a bit of both, exploring the traumas of childhood and how it affects adults’ lives.

Even though I don’t enjoy horror or ghost stories, I enjoyed this novella very much, even though it is not something I would normally read. The author is good at what he does, writing, so I would imagine that the genre wouldn’t matter much.

The story of the choices that men have to make in order to leave the poisonous shadow of abusive family members. Readers should be aware that this touches on: child abuse/rape/sex trafficking/murder (happily, not in an exploitative manner, but reader beware.)

I wish I was more familiar with Bennett's earliest work (Mr. Shivers, American Elsewhere, The Company Man) because I don't quite know if In the Shadows of Men is more of a return to Bennett's origins or a stretching in bold new directions. Readers who primarily know Robert Jackson Bennett from his Divine Cities trilogy will be in quite a surprise for realistically bleak this novella is.

Set in our world, in the wreckage of the modern oil boom, In the Shadows of Men is story of brothers and a past almost better left buried. This isn't a novella to read before bed because the combination of how Bennett hints at the supernatural and reveals an absolutely horrific family history is, well, not to overuse the word brutal, but brutal.

If it matters, it is never quite clear if this is fully in genre or if it is straddling a line in ways that some of Stephen King's work does - and the comparison to King is particularly apt.