Neverland - Small Town Horror
Neverland by Oklahoma writer Jeff Dosser is a tight, well ordered, nicely executed dark fantasy. I feel confident it should happily satisfy the appetites of any lover of horror or dark fiction. It definitely did not disappoint me.
Neverland is the story of former police detective Mark Boyd and his son Abe. After a traumatic event, Mark decides to move to the small town of Button Creek, Oklahoma in search of a better, simpler life. As befits a scary story taking place in a small town, Button Creek has a dark secret. (Queue spooky background music here.) Mark and Abe are immediately drawn into a quagmire of danger bolstered by town wide obfuscation and cover up.
One of Dosser’s best accomplishments in this story can’t be fully elucidated without spoilers. I will say this much: the baddies of this story are extremely well tread territory for dark fiction. I should have groaned when I realized where Dosser was taking me. I should have, but I didn’t. Instead, I became more excited for the journey ahead. Impressively, Dosser manages to bring something new, interesting, and even clever to an area of dark fiction where it is nearly impossible to do so.
There’s a lot that Dosser does right in his storytelling. Any story set in a small town requires a fine and steady supporting cast of local characters. Without them, the town is left flat and two dimensional. Happily, Dosser manages to send us on a journey through a fleshed out town while avoiding getting lost in countless pages of “world creation”, like Stephen King. (I adore King, but there are times when he might not need to add 300 pages of background on all his characters and their history in each and every book.) Instead, Dosser stays on point and sticks carefully to the tale he’s trying to tell. You have all the hints you need to suggest a full-formed, real town. Yet the only characters you meet in depth are the ones you really need.
That last point is maybe a thing that matters only to me. But I think it matters. Dosser’s tale is the perfect length for the tale he is telling. At 264 pages, there’s neither wasted space nor are you left wondering about plot points that don’t get wrapped up (or are sloppily wrapped up). He doesn’t complicate an already complete story with numerous sub-plots. Padding drives me crazy. Some stories are just shorter and are perfect that way. Dosser let the story determine its own length. That’s something I noticed and something I always appreciate.
Prospective readers should be warned that there are a few pretty intense scenes in the book. In particular, the intensity of the opening scene will surely be upsetting to some readers who have been the victim of violent crime.
For me, characters, plot, setting, narrative, story, themes, etc are what matters most. On this level, I thoroughly enjoyed Neverland. I am not surprised it won the 2018 Oklahoma Writers’ Federation award for “Best New Horror Novel”. It was a fun read. My only criticism of the book would be that it could have used a better editor. There were errors that on occasion distracted me, but I am the last person to be too picky about this. The review you’re reading right now is probably only legible because of the excellent editors at Horrorbound.
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