I Was a Teenage Slasher

Thanks to Saga Press for the physical ARC. This book has a great design and I’m happy to own one.

This book was a bit of a gamble for me. I was really interested in the blurb, had seen some early reviews that were great including other FanFiFam, but I had read one full length from the author and I hadn’t really gotten along with it. After finishing this and loving it, now I’m wondering if it was simply because I read the other when I was newer to horror. So perhaps a reread of The Only Good Indians is imminent now.

This has to be one of the most unique takes on the Slasher genre. It brings to mind another recent read for me, which was Brian McAuley’s debut, Curse of the Reaper. Where that novel blends Slasher tropes with psychological horror, Jones went completely off the rails and made a slasher memoir. And not just any memoir, but one that takes place within a world where slashers do exist. There’s definitely no wondering here why zombie stories take place in worlds where no one knows what a zombie is, Jones has offered up his teenage slasher all the reference material he needs.

In a kind of self referential nod that felt like Jamie Kennedy’s Randy from Scream/Scream 2, our main character’s best friend Amber is the launch board for all of Tolly Driver’s necessary slasher info. Her brother, a slasher fanatic, has the goods on what’s going to happen, when, how, and maybe even where, not that she’s necessarily going to share all of it. And on the inverse of maybe the ‘why’ zombie worlds don’t know of zombies, this created this really interesting tension where Tolly spends a huge portion of the book not believing what happened to him simply because his real life couldn’t become like the movies. These things existed in his world, but as fiction, they couldn’t possibly become him, right?

The detachment of Tolly from his Slasher self is another really unique dynamic to this novel. The Driver (pun intended), taking over has this supernatural angle to it that starts all the way at the beginning with the blood from the Joss kid. And just like any slasher, revenge is the driving force, right? And while the reader does live through the near death experience with Tolly, it did kind of feel like a somewhat weak reason to go around killing people. However, slashers aren’t usually known for being reasonable, rational, believable even. And it’s within that, that this story lies. There are things that seem extreme, things you’d never believe or assume, but neither did Tolly.

Multilayered and compelling, Tolly Driver is anything but a mindless killer. With notes of coming of age, of finding oneself, with angles of grief and strength, this bleeds through as a love letter to Lamesa and Texas as a whole. And I absolutely loved Tolly’s internal commentary and struggles from the passenger seat. Jones has this way about his writing, this meandering, sometimes longwinded, sometimes unconventional sentence structuring, that just lends itself so well to someone telling their own story. And, I think, especially someone trying to remember it as well. It had this really nice stark contract to another read of mine at the time, Deep Freeze by Michael C. Grumley, which had such short chapters to enhance its pace that there were over 100. Jones instead, uses long winding pieces of each day to show just how much Tolly was really going through, both trying to stop it, and failing miserably.

Poetic and heart breaking, the final 15 pages of this may break you.

Slasher boy meets final girl and it all ends in tragedy? Nah, it's way more than that. Love the thought process evident: the only way to honestly convince the reader that a final girl could have a strong connection with the slasher that wasn't solely of the kill or be killed variety is to have that relationship predate the slasher impulse. Means it's achingly sad to witness the final girl realize that just because her friend was innocent doesn't mean he shouldn't be stopped now, means the slasher keeps striving for his humanity even as the evidence against it mounts. Tolly's narrative is one of melancholy and nostalgia, rather than bloodlust or terror, that mood is as much created by looking back on 1989 and lost youth, lost father, as the sense that he couldn't go back, can't change anything that happened, and that's underlined by glimpses of every day Tolly, of occasionally sweet, realizing he could be more thoughtful Tol, especially in relation to Amber and his mom. Overjoyed to continue the marvelous tradition of Stephen Graham Jones' way of writing final girls (the very slow understanding dawning reluctantly on the girl in question), too. Don't think I didn't see that ‘final girls don't have to be girls' you slipped in, Mr. Jones. I would be happy to see a boy or non-binary final person in future. ☺️Now to really geek out on the details: The slasher onomatopoeia at each knife draw gave me such a strong memory of Walken's headless horseman sound cues in Sleepy Hollow - perfect vibes.The idea of slasher rules translated into real life conferring a paranomal super power, a blood contamination like the Hulk, resulting in actually getting in places that were locked, having better aim, proficiency with weapons, speed when not looked at, especially with self enforced limp, killer camouflage by absorbing injuries, near impervious to death, knowledge of intended victims' locations, especially in flagrante delicto, ability to make engines go dead, awareness of cops; that slasher magic then influencing the people around him into predestined roles, like careless teens and oblivious authority figures, I LOVED IT. It's not quite a twist on the classic forms but more a fuller commitment to them, that still feels fresh. Sidebar: Something about Osh Kosh the llama still having the ability to weird out the burgeoning slasher kid was equal parts hilarious and endearing, plus just the basic absurdity of a llama featuring in the mismatch of these situations.
P.S If you've never read the acknowledgements in a Stephen Graham Jones book, DO! They're heartfelt and enthusiastic without being saccharine, and if you need a moment to transition out of the horror novel space, they're a lovely denouement. 
⚠️animal death, gore, homophobia, racism, implied child abuse, animal abuse, suicide