The Painted Darkness

The Painted Darkness is my first encounter with the work of Brian James Freeman, who if the blurbs on the outside and the glowing introduction by Brian Keene are any indication, may be something of a rising star in the horror field.

The book centers on its protagonist, Henry, in two different times. In the present day, Henry is struggling with a creative block which is interfering with his painting, which is his trade. As he attempts to break through it, he begins to remember the day as a boy when he saw something terrible, an experience he has blocked out. As he is struggling with these memories, Henry has to deal with the old heater in his renovated house. The story flips back and forth between, the present day, where Henry's travails with the heater take a dark twist, and the day in his childhood that he has repressed for so long.

Though clearly meant to be a horror story, I have to admit most of the real spookiness is concentrated in the middle section of the book, where Henry (much like the reader) is at his most disoriented. Once the action reaches its climax, the supernatural nature of the events became too fantastic for me to find scary. I'm no stranger to supernatural elements, especially in horror fiction, but Henry never felt fleshed out enough for me to let the danger to him get too far under my skin. The tale does retain a certain dark fairy-tale quality, and I would still recommend it.

(Note: I received The Painted Darkness through Library Thing's Early Reviewer's program.)