(207)TERROR #2: We're back! ...with WOLFEN

Here's another foray into horror fiction by me and Dennis.  Last time we tried a conversational approach, interspersing each other's observations about Rick Hautala's Night Stone, and that went pretty well.  

[you can read post #1 here if you missed it: http://greenhandbooks.blogspot.com/2023/03/horror-dm-1-michelle-dennis-talk-horror.html]

This time Dennis wanted to try a different approach, wherein we got together and discussed our book face-to-face instead of typing back and forth.  Obviously this is always a more enjoyable experience for us.  Dennis promised he would take notes and type them up later.

He got this far:

😂

Apparently after tasting the Murder Hornet I ordered (my fave cocktail at LFK, which is right across Longfellow Square from the shop) it obliterated all of Dennis's original plans for the evening, and he gave up on taking notes at that point.  Ah well!  Of course we don't let such things stop us, and we have put together a post for you regardless.

NOTE:  You won't know this from reading the text below, but Dennis's document formatting defaults to Dutch spelling, so my experience in editing this document was tremendously surreal, because most words showed up with the little red underlining that denotes typos... and every time I tried to type something like "to the" it automatically changed it to "tot he" which at first I thought was making everything dead, but no, that would be in German -- instead it was trying to make me say "See you!" in Dutch (which I guess also works if you're dead? 😂).  Word nerds unite!!!

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The Wolfen by Whitley Strieber

discussed by Dennis Seine with sidenotes and afternotes by Michelle Souliere

First things first. Nine times out of ten, folks misspell this author’s last name: instead of Strieber, they go for Streiber. Then, it becomes impossible to find his books at your local library. Chaos ensues. The horror community comes crashing down. So let’s keep it Strieber.

I was reading a bit about this fascinating guy this morning. His newest book came out in 2017, and is called The Afterlife Revolution. Why bring this up? Because he co-wrote with his wife Anne. Who died in 2015. 

So in case you were wondering if Strieber (not Streiber) has backed down from his claims in his 1987 nonfiction bestseller Communion, think again. In these fruitful times for conspiracy theorists, Strieber is letting his freak flag fly and is up to his ears in Roswell, crop circles, JFK assassination plots, telepathic communication (see above), and more of these gloriously weird ideas.

The text-heavy original paperback

Now, this wasn’t always the case. In 1978 his debut novel The Wolfen was published. And it was a hit. The book got made into a movie with the same name in 1981, starring Albert Finney.

These Wolfen are not werewolves. They are descendants from canine species and have lived secretly alongside the human race for centuries, including in New York City, where the book takes place:

“No pack knew how these cities came about, but man inhabited them, keeping for himself the warmth they produced in winter, and the dryness that was not affected even by the most violent rain. While the sky poured water or snow, man sat comfortably in the cities. How these things grew and why man possessed them, nobody could say.”

They feed on people, but pick out the ones nobody misses: Outcasts and drug addicts, living in ghettos and alongside the train tracks. It is as classic a picture of New York City in the seventies and eighties as you can imagine. The city is dirty, crime abounds, homeless people are walking the dark, rainy streets of Manhattan, full of trash. The place is heaven for Wolfen.

Another early paperback edition!

Until things go wrong. Strieber does not mess around here. In the opening chapters a gruesome murder takes place. Two cops are attacked and don’t even have time to fire their guns. They are partially eaten. The tracks surrounding the bodies are odd and appear dog-like, plus there is unexplainable fur on the wounds.

Obviously, the Chief of Police wants to avoid a mass panic and issues with the upcoming election. So the published story involves carbon monoxide poisoning and stray dogs. 

But the two police officers assigned to the case, the older George Nelson and his much younger female partner Becky Neff (a female cop in the New York City of the seventies? She must work twice as hard as her male colleagues to prove she belongs there. SPOILER ALERT: she does.), aren’t buying it and follow the leads. They approach several experts and slowly discover there are other sentient beings walking the streets of the city than just prostitutes, dirty cops and other undesirables. In the process, they almost develop some feelings for each other, but that storyline more or less bleeds out.

Suntup ed w/Francois Vaillancourt art!

Does this sound like your basic American Werewolf story? Sure, to a certain extent. But Strieber makes a few decisions that lift up this book to great heights.

First of all, he switches off the storytelling perspective between the officers investigating the case and the actual Wolfen. And it’s not even corny. It makes for a much more interesting background to the ‘villains’ in the novel.

Secondly, Strieber goes for functional gore. Gore for gore’s sake can be a bit lazy. Here, it works, for instance when the Wolfen are digging out the brains of one of their victims to get rid of all memories of their discovery:

[p180 in 1988 Avon edition]

So, the little old man was contaminated by the other two, the two who knew. […] The man’s hands fluttered up before his face and his bowels let loose.  That was all that happened.  Then they were on him, pulling and tearing, ripping full of rage, spitting the bloody bits out, angry that the two important ones had been missed, angry that this one also dared to confront them with his evil knowledge.  They had cracked open the head and plunged their claws into the brains, plunged and torn to utterly and completely destroy the filthy knowledge.

Thirdly, the book does not waste any time and goes into fifth gear straight away. This is a full-blown pageturner, a cop thriller that uses genre conventions that work, adds a few dimensions, subverts some of the reader’s expectations, and turns it into a rather short book that packs a punch. It works its way into a terrifying and a bit of a sudden apotheosis, which leaves open all sorts of possibilities for sequels that unfortunately never came.

Afternotes:

When Wolfen dumps the reader right into the action without any warm-up it’s a real jumpstart, and a heavy application of police procedural as the focus for the storytelling really threw me (Michelle) when I read it – at least at first. 

Michelle's copy, a 1988 reprint.

The way the story expands through history almost effortlessly as the reader continues on is deftly done.  As more and more of the voice of the Wolfen is introduced, the perception of their culture and a fascination (almost sympathy) with their survival is fed, word by word, as you learn more about these very “other” characters.  Like a vulpine Hansel and Gretel, the Wolfen strew breadcrumbs for you to follow them into the maw of their story.

Sidenotes: 

I also noticed (once I got over its presence in a horror novel) that using a police procedural focus in the storytelling allowed a very solid framework on which to hang some truly outrageous story elements.  Because of how Strieber tells this story via both its police officers and academic characters with their rigid worldview, by the end of the book you find yourself nodding along, accepting a deluge of fantastic concepts because you know, somewhere in the morass of NYPD and institutional paperwork, it is all on record somewhere. 

The other very effective tactic used by Strieber as he invades our brain is a look-back realization.  Ferguson is driven to research the potential of folkloric links left behind by the Wolfen.  Mid-research, he finds himself leaping out of a chair as a special collections librarian turns the page of an ancient book for his inspection.  The image on the page triggers a flashback to what he thought had been a childhood nightmare.

[p149] His mind was racing now as he remembered an incident that had occurred when he was no more than six or seven.  […]  He was asleep in his ground-floor bedroom.  Something awakened him.  Moonlight was streaming in the open window.  And a monstrous animal was leaning in, poking its muzzle toward him, the face clear in the moonlight.  He had screamed and the thing had disappeared in a flash.  Nightmare, they said.  And here it was staring at him again, the face of the werewolf.

This is an incredible moment, and the reader feels as startled as Ferguson himself.  It adds a surreal gravitas, a reality to the situation that ties the current tension to a childhood nightmare, and links it all to a centuries-old lineage of lupine horror, following humans from the dark forests to the shadow of their graves.

In closing:  Is this a perfect novel?  Heck no.  But it is a fun read, with a lot of interesting ideas worked into it.  And when you consider it's Strieber's debut, it's a heckin' strong start.  Definitely worth sitting down with - entertaining and a fast read!