The Damned Highway

This was one crazy road trip set in 1972 that resonates so well with current events. I also loved all the music references thrown in. A great choice for fans of horror who also like it with a good amount of humor.

From the moment this book began, I felt it was uncanny how the authors captured the voice of Hunter S. Thompson. I genuinely started reading it in his speech patterns and found myself cracking up.

The horror aspects are good, but the sense of humor is really where this one shines. It's not my favorite book from Keene (Sorry Mamata, I haven't read your other work) but it's well worth a read for fans of the authors or fans of Thompson.

Seriously, opening chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

Brian Keene and Nick Mamatas answer a question no one ever thought to ask with The Damned Highway: Fear and Loathing in Arkham. What if Hunter S. Thompson, instead of joining the campaign trail during the 1972 presidential primaries, traveled to the fictional town of Arkham, MA, where he experienced the horrors H.P. Lovecraft described in his writing?
I'm honestly a bit sad that I didn't know about this book when it was originally released ten years ago. The cover art for that edition is definitely superior and so perfectly captures the blend of cosmic horror and gonzo journalism one is destined to find if they crack the spine and open this book. When I say they've perfectly captured this blend of otherwise disparate things, I'm not joking. The Thompson pastiche doesn't come across as being satirical or heavy-handed. As someone who's read essentially everything Thompson had published, the style is unmistakable...and these two authors nailed it, including the unrelenting disdain for Nixon. I've never read any other work from Mamatas, though I've always sort of intended to (it just falls by the wayside). but I've enjoyed a good number of Keene's books in the past, and nothing from his other work mimicked the style and texture of another author in this way.
Feeling as if he's going to be crushed under the weight of both snow and an endless barrage of unwanted fan letters, our eminently unreliable narrator determines that he needs to escape from his Colorado compound. He can't go West. That's where all of this awfulness began. Instead, he chooses to go all the way in the opposite direction. Looking at the map on the bus station wall, he picks Arkham as his destination. A short while later, he's waiting for the bus to arrive as an ethereal tentacle caresses his leg....and you can sort of guess where it goes from there.
The biggest difference between this fictionalized version of Hunter S. Thompson and the traditional Lovecraft narrators is the capacity to take in stride things that should drive any sane man mad. The moral of the story is that when you're never quite sure that a thing you're seeing isn't just another hallucinatory episode brought on by the surplus of illicit substances you've carried with you, it's far easier to cope with unearthly horrors. In that sense, it could be argued that there would be no better guide into the realm of eldritch horrors. It could be argued that a man with Thompson's psychology is uniquely suited to document this descent into the unknown.
This is an odd book in so many ways, but it's equal parts amusing and horrifying; it's disturbing in both its depiction of cosmic horrors and the antisocial, drug-addled mind of our protagonist.

4 Stars!

It has been a long time, too long, since I read something by Brian Keene. There was a time when I was reading multiple books by him every year and that just seemed to come to a crashing halt for some reason. When I saw The Damned Highway: Fear and Loathing in Arkham by Brian Keene and Nick Mamatas, I knew I had to read this novel. So I did.



Hunter S. Thompson meet H.P. Lovecraft in a novel about an epic journey through the heart of the American dream. . . or nightmare. Thompson finds himself in a strange niche in American society of the early 1970’s. He has gained a measure of fame as a journalist and author but is uncomfortable with not only that fame but with his profession in general. It is all that he has to make a living with, though, so he is stuck with it and looking for the next big thing. The impending election of 1972 and Nixon’s plan to win the election, and maybe conquer the world, is the biggest topic of the moment and Thompson believes there is much more to the election than mere politics. With this in mind, he sets his sights on Arkham, MA, as the epicenter of the election and sets off on a cross-country journey to the heart of the American dream.



Along the way, Thompson meets an eclectic cast of characters from all walks of life and learns the hard truth that there is a dark force at play in American politics. This election is not just about the next president of the United States. It is a platform which could launch Cthulu into the world to warp it in any matter the dark god sees fit. The planets have aligned and the time is right for Hell to come to Earth and Nixon is nothing more than a tentacle-bearing emissary for the dark forces at play. Thompson must fight through psychedelic drugs and one fo the oddest cast of characters ever assembled to save not only his country but the world as a whole.



This novel is a mind-bending trip into the heart of the dark soul of America. I have not read much by Hunter S. Thompson but the authors seem to capture much of the strangeness that I found when I read his works. The jokes keep coming and Thompson bounces from one highly unlikely scenario to the next so that the reader never really has time to get his feet under him and settle into the story. Everything seems to move almost too fast, faster than rational thought at least, and this keeps the reader off balance and wondering what is going to come next. What is next is usually a mixture of the unexpected and the absurd as things grow stranger and stranger. Slimy demons and psychedelic mushrooms abound as reality become more fluid as the election nears. No one seems to know what is really going on, not even the authors and especially not Thompson himself.



The Damned Highway is part tribute, part parody, and part horror political satire but is all fun. I do not think this book is going to be for everyone as it is definitely not a conventional story and much of it borders on the edge of bizarro fiction. Because of this style of storytelling, the novel is not going to work for everyone. For me, though, Keene and Mamatas bring just the right touch of humor, horror, and insanity to the story to make it work. If I had one real criticism of the story, it would be that the end seemed a bit anticlimactic but that is really nitpicking. The Damned Highway sank its comedic teeth into me from the very first page and the momentum rarely waned. I found it to be a hilarious, sometimes horrifying, read that bordered on the edge of the insane but also provided a keen insight into politics and human nature in general. I would definitely recommend the novel for those who are not afraid of the unconventional.



I would like to thank Crossroads Press and NetGalley for this review copy. The Damned Highway: Fear and Loathing in Arkham is available now.

I wanted to like The Damned Highway more than I did but it just wasn’t for me. The writing is fantastic, and the story is great, however I’m not a fan of the style used and this made it hard for me to get into the story and truly enjoy it. I’m sure that other people would love this book but I’m just not a fan of Hunter S. Thompson (the main influence on this book) and that type of writing. I can’t connect with the characters and drug fueled ramblings just irritate me, I could see the skill in the writing but I didn’t like the delivery and this ended up frustrating me.