by Monnie

Created on: September 11, 2010

Jack Ketchum’s brand of horror is unsettling and brutal. Ketchum has a straight forward, blunt approach which chills the soul. If you have grown up on writers like Stephen King and John Saul, Ketchum probably will be a rude awakening. This isn’t to say he’s not talented or effective though. He’s just considerably different. Comparing King to Ketchum is like comparing films like Rosemary’s Baby to Saw. Both are fine specimens of what good horror should be but the means of accomplishing this horror is completely different. Peaceable Kingdom is a collection of short stories by the writer whose given name is Dallas Mayr.

The opening story is simply called The Rifle. A mother decides one day to clean her ten year old son’s closet when she finds a shotgun. A loaded shotgun. As she stands there shaking with anger and fear she recounts in her head all the recent, troubling events occurring with her son Danny. The stealing, the fire setting, the lying. She then goes to find Danny and confront him with the evidence of his dangerous behavior. She begins to venture into the woods behind her house and down the path to where his clubhouse is. Nothing prepares her for what she finds there.

The Rifle is a story that rings loudly with a chilling, palpable fear about when children go terribly wrong. Even years after the senseless deaths of children at Columbine, along with other incidents, many people are still trying to understand how such unthinkable violence can come from a young person. This story explores the discovery your child is capable of murder from a parents point of view. The realization your child is a monster.

This story wasn’t a particularly pleasant read. In fact, most would find it depressing and disturbing. Yet to criticize a horror writer for scaring us is like criticizing a dolphin for swimming. Stephen King has often quoted another writer for stating horror fiction is for those of us who like to stop and look at car accidents. Reading Jack Ketchum brings this analogy to mind. He is a writer who depicts the accident with a brazen, just the facts style searing the situation in the writer’s mind. While this writer prefers the more eloquent depiction of King, she had deep respect and admiration for Ketchum as well. In King’s writing handbook On Writing he says a writer has to, first and foremost, depict the world in an honest fashion. Ketchum does this.

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