Book Review: Bedfellow by Jeremy C. Shipp

Bedfellow by Jeremy C. Shipp

Paperback, 224 pages

Published November 2018 by St. Martins Press/Tor

I have a long history reading with Jeremy Shipp going back a decade to his first surrealist novel Vacation from the indie bizarro publisher Raw Dog Screaming press. I am a big fan of his work and normally that means I would read the book cold. This time I made the mistake of reading the back copy of the book. The back description painted a dark picture. "When the . . . thing first insinuated itself into the Lund family household, they were bemused. Vaguely human-shaped, its constantly-changing cravings seemed disturbing, at first, but time and pressure have a way of normalizing the extreme. Wasn't it always part of their lives?"

Pretty intense and scary sounding right. I thought Shipp who I know as humorous surrealist was writing something far darker than his normal work and I was interested in that. When the intruder breaks in and starts a conversation about Howard The Duck ad the movie having Duck Boobs the tone was not exactly what I was expecting.

In a sense, this novel is a surrealist tale of home invasion featuring a character who is basically a psychic vampire. The home intruder starts as a random bad movie fan, then transforms himself to into an uncle, drinking buddy and worms himself into the family. The narrative switches between family members and it was my understanding that he was able to manipulate their understanding of who he was. In the final act, the book gets darker but that is not Shipp's strength, it is the wit and humor.

Shipp is a funny writer both in prose and even more so as a follow on social media. His love for crappy so bad it is funny cinema bleeds through but it is not exactly a great fit with the rest of the book. I suspect that will bother some readers. I found those moments amusing so it didn't bother me. I think readers looking for a straight-up horror novel likely won't make it past the first 100 pages. If you go in expecting the sarcastic tongue in cheek weird-ness the author is known for you are going to enjoy Bedfellow more.

The problem for me is I read the back cover and thought we were going to get a straight horror novel. I was excited to see Shipp stretch his wings and do something a little different. None the less that is a me problem, the book is well written just not what I thought we signed up for. Despite whatever mixed feelings I had about this book I think Shipp is an exciting writer and I will check out whatever he does.