I haven't read Adam Cesare before, but I've seen his name often enough, usually associated with a franchise called 'Clown in a Cornfield', a 2020 YA horror novel that won a Stoker Award, spawned no fewer than three sequels (so far) and was even adapted into a feature film. I presume that's what got him noticed by the big guns, because Union Square, part of the Hachette Book Group snapped him up and are reissuing at least some of his older work. This is a 2015 novella, originally published by the now-defunct Shock Totem, then later by his own Black T-Shirt Books. They've also released a "restored and remastered" edition of his 2013 novel 'Video Night', which I'll tackle next month.

I had a blast with this, in part because it rang true to me. I know some of these people. However, it does betray its roots by feeling rather like a small press novella. It's old school pulp horror, happy to introduce characters in order to take them down. If we pull back just a little from what Cesare's put in front of us, we can see the house of cards he's built around it, and the biggest success that it has may well be that he never topples that down. He does that by keeping us engaged with a small cast in a single setting to the point where nothing really matters once their story is done.

The first character we meet is Robby Asaro, making pizzas at the Funcave Arcade. It's not gourmet in the slightest but he takes pride in his work and it's not hard to see that as who he is even when he's not at work. Unfortunately, he's dragged into the oven and burned to death, so we don't get to see him anywhere else but Funcave, but that isn't the end of his story. We met him back in 1989 in the prologue, before skipping forward a quarter of a century to 2014 to see how the old place is doing in his absence and finding that he's still there as a "conscious electric current".

He's a benign presence, a literal ghost in the machine, who's evolved into a sort of godfather to a steady cast of regulars at the arcade. He looks after the place, lives in the games and occasionally helps someone out if their luck isn't in. He's particularly fond of Tiffany Park, a young Korean lady, seeing her as the daughter he never had. He's watched her grow up at Funcave and he feels a sort of responsibility for her well-being, so is far from happy when Chris Murphy upsets her.

Chris Murphy has a habit of upsetting people. We could call him a sexist and a racist and we would be understating the case. He's an incorrigible ass and the first thing he does in this book is to call Tiffany a "chink". That's paragraph one. He's five feet away from her and the place isn't busy. The frustrating thing from our perspective is that he actually wants to chat her up but this is the best he can do. Much later, we gain a little sympathy for him because this is generational hate passing down from his father and likely from his father before him.

Of course, it doesn't excuse anything, but it does help explain why he's such an incel. In his mind, it makes sense for him to follow her outside to the car park after bullying her inside. It isn't only the racial slurs, of which he finds plenty. He even treads on her purse strap so she can't leave without causing a scene. However, when she finally gets away from him and heads out to her car, he keeps up with her and tries to ask her out. It's as inept as you might imagine and every bit as creepy and we aren't remotely surprised when Tiffany punches him. We're likely more surprised when an arc of lightning spears down and fries him to a crisp.

Was that Robby protecting her? Of course it was and, while it feels like I'm spoiling the book with a revelation like that, the back cover blurb does the very same thing. It also includes the next very important detail, which is that this act doesn't end when the lightning boils away. Chris's essence, his energy and, most crucially, his loathing, feeds right into the same place Robby is, whatever or wherever that might be. They're effectively merged into one and that changes everything. While Robby is a benign presence at Funcave, a combination of Robby and Chris surely won't be. "A black wave of sadness and hate" is what hits Robby and we immediately doubt his ability to surface.

There's at least some substance in the generational abuse that's helped to make Chris what he is, or at least was, now that he's physically a pile of ash in the Funcave parking lot. Mostly, though, it feels like Adam Cesare was more interested in choreography than character development. Now, I should underline that this isn't the problem it could be in a longer piece. This is a novella and it's a relatively easy shift from haunted house story into slasher. It's short, downbeat and nostalgic and it does everything a decent slasher ought to do, perhaps sans the usual moral message.

And what that translates to, is fun. It's right there in the name of Funcave, though the place isn't a thriving hotbed of activity, especially on a Tuesday afternoon split over at least two levels. There are other people there, both staff and patrons, and we meet all of them, even if most of them get only a brief introduction before they're adopt their inevitable roles as the next victims. Everyone enjoying this as a slasher is going to start judging it on the quality of its kills and its dialogue.

The former are decent, with at least one highly memorable showcase piece that I won't spoil. Any readers imagining the words through cinematic adaptation will be very happy with that one! The latter isn't up to the same level, though I must say that I'm all in favour of lines like, "There's, like, bloodsucking ghost eels in the electronics." You'd need a perfectly cast actor to nail the delivery, especially without an exclamation mark, but it's got every potential in the world.

Behind all that, well, there's not a heck of a lot, but Robby is a surprisingly sympathetic character, given that he's dead for the vast majority of the book. It's easy to feel for Tiffany too, not only the token female regular in a nostalgic arcade but the token ethnic female regular too. Chris Murphy may be her bully on this day but we could easily imagine half a dozen others just like him ready to take their turns on the other six days of the week. We feel for her before we even meet her. She's actually the most substantial character in the book, which helps, but we were always on her side.

And I'll shut up before I drift into a spoiler that the back cover blurb didn't get to first. This is very much what it is. It wears its essence on its sleeve, like a stray glob of ectoplasm, and if you're into that sort of thing, you'll get a kick out of this for the hundred pages and change it has for you. If it seems too old fashioned in its episodic slasher approach, then I doubt it has anything that can win you over. Like the pizzas Robby made in 1989, it's not gourmet but Adam Cesare takes pride in his work. ~~ Hal C F Astell