Book Review: IN THE VALLEY OF THE SUN by Andy Davidson

IN THE VALLEY OF THE SUN by Andy Davidson. (June 2017, Skyhorse Publishing)  Hardcover, 376 pages. ISBN #151072110X   

 

from the Goodreads website summary . . . . ..

 

For readers of Joe Hill, Cormac McCarthy, and classic Anne Rice, a chilling tale of suspense and horror set deep in the Texas desert.

 

Travis Stillwell spends his nights searching out women in West Texas honky-tonks. What he does with them doesn’t make him proud, just quiets the demons for a little while. But his nights soon take a terrifying turn in a desert cantina, where Travis crosses paths with a mysterious pale-skinned girl in red boots. Come the morning, he wakes weak and bloodied in his cabover camper, no sign of a girl, no memory of the night before.

 

Annabelle Gaskin spies the camper parked behind her rundown motel and offers the disheveled cowboy inside a few odd jobs to pay his board. Travis takes her up on the offer, if only to buy time, to lay low, to heal. By day, he mends the old motel, insinuating himself into the lives of Annabelle and her ten-year-old son. By night, in the cave of his camper, he fights an unspeakable hunger. Before long, Annabelle and her boy come to realize that this strange cowboy they’ve taken in is not what he seems.

 

Half a state away, a grizzled Texas ranger is hunting Travis down for his past misdeeds, but what he finds will lead him to a revelation far more monstrous than he could ever imagine. A man of the law, he’ll have to decide how far into the darkness he’ll go for the sake of justice. 

 

When these lives converge on a dusty autumn night, an old evil will find new life—and new blood.

 

Deftly written and utterly compelling, this is an atmospheric literary fiction debut perfect for fans of horror, psychological suspense, and Western fiction.

 

my review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

 

     An amazing debut novel. Davidson writes with a sparse yet immersive quality, sprinkling his work with metaphors and symbolism. I was suitably impressed. 

 

     Throughout the novel are flashback sequences for every character that help shed light on their current values and motivations, making the reader empathetic with every single character even those we know we should not like. In the 1930's a midwest tornado steals a family away from a young girl, and the beginning of her journey down a dark road. The main character  (Travis Stillwell) has a terrible childhood, afraid of a brutal drunken father and a promiscuous whoring mother that shape his values in the wrong way. It's easy to see how small yet horrific instances in childhood can play such a large role in formulating a person's demeanor and outlook. His first awkward sexual encounter teaches him the wrong things about desire and love. A stint in the jungles of Vietnam only hardens his soul.

 

     Flash forward to the 1980's and this person has become a serial killer of women, driven by a search for love and family. When he meets the young girl from the 1930's, now an ageless vampiric demoness who introduces him to a new kind of lust (for blood), the serial killer in him continues forward with new purpose. A chance encounter with a widow and her young son operating a rundown motel in the Texas desert leads to a learning experience, but is it too late? A sense of dread runs throughout the novel and kept me glued to the pages until the final chapters.  I gave this a four star rating on Goodreads.