Book Review: Doorways to the Deadeye by Eric J. Guignard

Doorways to the Deadeye by Eric J. Guignard

Paperback, 328 pages

Published July 2019 by JournalStone

As an editor and publisher, the Bram Stoker award-winning author Eric Guignard has really done wonderful work highlighting overlooked authors with his excellent "Exploring Dark Fiction" series. His collection That Which Grows Wild was excellent and showed great range. I was excited to give Guignard's first novel a shot. According to what we can glean from the acknowledgments the author fell into one of the many pitfalls typical to first-time novelists. Apparently, an earlier draft was much longer. Wisely Guignard trimmed the novel to about the right length.

In 1973 Lee Marvin starred in a movie about depression-era Hobos that director Guillermo Del Toro once said was one of his favorite films. Last year I watched this movie to see why GDT loved it so much. This is a strange film that is about the cat and mouse game between the conductor and the bo's who hop his trains. I can't say I loved the film but I did have a thought that a horror novel set in this world might be really cool. I didn't think I was the person because I thought it would take years of research I didn't really pursue the idea.

A couple months later I got really excited when I learned that Eric Guignard had actually done it. Doorways to The Deadeye is as much a novel about magic realism as it is action and horror. The Deadeye concept has a fantastical Clive Barker feel but the setting is more of a sentimental Stephen King tone. The story has a Talisman-like adventure, the Deadeye is a place where the dead survive as memories based on how people remembered them. This reminded me of the territories in the Talisman but the whole novel has that wonderful sentimental tone of The Green Mile. The tone and the setting are the absolute strength of this novel. I could totally see more stories in this world.

This novel is the story of Luke Thacker a depression-era Hobo who is riding the rails and living a free life when he learns about the land of the Deadeye. Using Hobo signal codes that are mapped out early in the book, he ends up in this magical realm. Hunted by the man protecting the railroad Smith McCain and looking for his lost Daisey the line between the living and the dead becomes blurred. The novel is about the power of storytelling and myth so it makes sense that it is told in flashbacks from the far future of 1985. This framing device works very well.

The theme of the power of memory and storytelling creating narrative ghosts is super cool, the idea that the Hobo code written on walls around the country leading Luke to this other world is actually under-used. I kinda wish he didn't discover this world as early in the story. Perhaps a novel where he is following a mystery of a lost love only alive in memory but always one clue away was more what I was looking for. I loved 2/3 of this novel to me the thing I couldn't hang with was how much political and historical figures became a part of the novel. The existence of Ben Franklyn and Paul Revere made sense in the story but it didn't work for me. I found most of their scenes corny and it took me personally out of the world.

I understand why they are there, and how this could work for some. I think readers into Historical fantasy would enjoy this aspect of Doorways to Deadeye. I think the way the novel explores the Myths that make the foundations of America makes sense, and in many ways bold. It just didn't connect with me. I loved the idea of the Deadeye but I wanted that world to feel more dangerous and not so easy to slip into. I wanted less sentimental ghee-whiz and more scary what is in the darkness feel. I thought the roadmap of symbols was a nice touch but I wanted more of them visually through-out the book.

Guignard is a hell of a writer, and this is an extremely bold concept. I applaud him for swinging for the fences. I think this is a really good novel, worth reading even if I didn't connect with it. As a reviewer, I try to understand the difference between what is objectively good work and what I subjectively didn't connect with. If you like historical dark fantasy I think you will dig this book. More importantly, I hope you check it out because it is a great example of a book that is unique to the small press. NYC publishers don't find work like this. No matter how much value they have.