The novel celebrates the struggles of a group of Indigenous young people living out their ordinary adolescent crises, plus a battle with the forces of fundamental evil
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Beast
Richard Van Camp | Douglas & McIntyre
$24.95 | 312pp.
Tłı̨chǫ Dene author Richard Van Camp’s new novel Beast is an altogether strange and wonderful reading experience. It celebrates the struggles of a group of Indigenous young people living out their ordinary adolescent crises plus a battle with the forces of fundamental evil, embodied in the Beast, the truly horrifying Dead One, in the mid 1980s in the then Northwest Territories.
The Beast is a ferociously imagined avatar of evil, seething with maggots and sadistic hatred. He has captured some of the kids and threatens a general war in the North, and it is up to Lawson Sauren and his unlikely band of young warriors and spirit guides to protect an ancient treaty and avert disaster.
I usually avoid the horror genre. I seems to me that if I want a full dose of horror, I can tune in to any cable news channel and watch the world go to hell in the proverbial handbasket. So, I did not approach Van Camp’s new novel Beast with initial enthusiasm.
This novel is a remarkably fluent and effective use of the genre conventions to inform a story of profound human depth and meaning. Oh, and don’t be put off by the young adult category. Like the best young adult work, this is accessible to readers of all ages and will reward the adult as well as the teen audience.
At its best, the horror genre provides the thrilling experience of fear and danger enjoyed in the comfort and safety of the reader’s armchair. We all have reason to fear our own inner monsters, as well as the world-devouring and monstrous reality of death. Well done, horror fiction offers a kind of inoculation against those terrors. And make no mistake: Beast provides that healing inoculation while bringing memorable characters and setting to life. This is a book that will move, inform and change readers whether they enjoy it in middle school or the old folk’s home.