Offspring
by Jack Ketchum
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jack KetchumEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-05
ISBN: 0843958642
Number of pages: 293
Publisher: Leisure Books
Book Reviews of Offspring
Book Review: A Big Disappointment
Summary: 1 Stars
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
I just discovered Jack Ketchum, read his first book, OFF SEASON, and was blown away by it. Wow, I thought, here is an author who isn't afraid to go the limit. The violence and gore were truly over the top, but what set it off from similiar stories was that no one in the book, absolutely no one, was safe. The prose had a raw, visceral quality that made the reader overlook or at least forgive certain infelicities in the writing (beginning too many successive sentences with the same word, using the "said John" construction instead of "John said", etc.). In short, a masterpiece of the genre, and a truly frightening read.
I immediately picked up OFFSPRING with high hopes. Alas, these hopes were dashed. First of all, the storyline is basically a retread of the original: Ketchum assembles a group of characters in an isolated cabin in the Maine woods and sets his cannibal family loose upon them; these scenes alternate with others that focus upon the police investigation. I don't have a problem with recycling the plot; my complaint is that it's done in such an anemic way. First, the victims are not nearly as interesting as those in the first book. Second, very few of them are killed--in fact, only two out of six actually die. Yes, two of the survivors suffer horribly at the hands of the cannibals, but the final scene shows them sitting in a hospital room smiling, as if all is right with the world once more. A typical Hollywood happy ending. The ones who really get decimated are the cannibals, but with names such as First Chosen, Second Chosen, the Girl, the Woman, it's hard to keep them straight, let alone work up any interest in them. Finally, the prose style is far weaker than in the original: pages of sentence fragments alternate with long run-on sentences that go on forever.
In short, a major disappointment. I had been looking forward to reading more Ketchum, but if this is how he's mellowed, I won't bother. One reviewer likened OFF SEASON to the film director Wes Craven's early work, and I would agree. Unfortunately, OFFSPRING reminds me of Craven's anemic later work, after he sold out to Hollywood.
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