Book Review: Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay

 

The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay

278 pages, Hardcover

William Morrow, July 2022

If you follow either my blog or the podcast you may already know I am a huge fan of Paul Tremblay as an author. It is of course a super solid year for the man, as his work entered a new stratosphere with the film based on the novel The Cabin at the End of the World ( M.Night's Knock at the Cabin – see it if you haven’t it is great) but the novel he released this last year hasn't gotten the level of conversation I think it deserves. I mean I have heard plenty of great things before reading and blurbs from all the heavy hitters pointing to its tone and audacious experimentation should have folks excited. It is nearly impossible for a novel to equal the hype of a major studio film by the same author.

It is hard to match the hype of the movie, unlike other Tremblay novels in the last couple of releases this one doesn't have a horror concept upfront. That is mostly because it is one of those the less you know the better novels and it might have something to do with the way it is being marketed as a “psychological thriller.”  It is a horror for sure but the nature of it was more subtle and the promo stuff I saw focused on the coming-of-age nature of it.

That is one of the things I love about it by the way. There is an entire sub-genre of horror coming-of-age novels most playing with The Body (Stand by Me) and Boy’s Life vibes. There are fantastic novels with that vibe examples include Brian Keene's Ghoul, Douglas Clegg’s Neverland, and James Newman’s Midnight Rain. Those stories often include groups of boys, bikes, and a mystery that involves a group of friends. We all know those special childhood friends. I can't tell you how much I appreciate how Tremblay came to this subgenre and gave it a unique feel for our generation.

 I assumed that is what Tremblay was doing here. With these coming-of-age novels, there is a tendency to believe the story is autobiographical, and Tremblay warned readers not to think that way. He also admitted that there is some of him in there. The thing is it is impossible to tell a coming-of-age story without drawing on our personal stories.  

One thing that makes this novel a singular work of this subgenre is the feeling of teenage isolation and angst.  Pallbearer's Club is a punk horror novel, something I of course love. Filled with Husker Du easter eggs and commentary “I could be the Grant Hart to your Bob Mould,” and chapter titles from Husker Du albums, that match the tone of the albums.

 This novel is about the generation that discovered the weird stuff before MTV did with Smells like Teen Spirit. The discovery of punk rock before that point was like a one-to-one virus transmission and on page 48 Tremblay captures it. After a list of awesome bands, “I liked some bands better than others, but every band was daring, challenging, and unlike anything played on local radio or MTV. This music was a new prism through which I viewed the world; a thrilling secret, and for the first time in my life I was in the know. Chords vibrated on a wavelength that fused me to the music and together we were bigger than a shouted chorus and together we were as small as a promise and for those two to three glorious minutes of song duration, we were the same.”

When I tell young people about being punk rock pre-nirvana I have to remind them that mainstream jocks and rednecks hated us. I love that this novel nails what it felt like to connect to the power of punk. To a young isolated teen, that connection is like a superpower. I think readers who didn’t experience this feeling, may view this as just character-building details, and not part of the mission statement. Art Barbara as a character, as a narrator of this story needs to be the outcast, the misunderstood. That feeling of isolation is a huge part of the story.

Art Barbara is more than just an isolated punk rock teenager, he forms the Pallbearers Club, a group of teens who hang out at the funerals of people who have no one and serve as Pallbearers. This super goth activity gives him and his new friends a strange and personal relationship with death. Enter Mercy Brown who responds to a flyer and shows up to carry the dead with a Polaroid camera that may or may not have the ability to catch film of the dead.  Maybe?  Art and Mercy have one of those fleeting youthful friendships that are quick, powerful, and unforgettable. This is the heart of the novel.

Written with an experimental, and super smart tactic, Tremblay has the reader taking in the novel with Mercy Brown as she, partially the subject reads it and comments. These appear in the margins as “handwritten” red pen commentary. This means that the reader starts to read the book through her eyes, creating a specific reading experience for this book. A neat narrative trick.

In every coming-of-age novel, you have to wonder what is the storyteller remembering wrong through the haze of idealism and memory. Here we have Mercy underlining and disagreeing at times, backing up Art at other times. This was pure genius and took the whole experience to another level. At first, it might appear as a total gimmick. It is not at all a gimmick.

It makes this novel a unique fictional memoir that despite first person has two points of view. It is not just a coming-of-age novel but a conversation. The subject is memory, and legend and the subtext is dripping through every page. That said the horror elements are there.

Based on a legendary case of New England occultism that I never heard of inspired the backbone of the horror elements. I admit it was a case I had no context for and I am sure for folks who do the novel works on another level entirely. That case and what the novel really is, in the end, becomes very interesting.  I don't want to spoil it but there is more than one subgenre of horror Tremblay is making his own here.

Tremblay is operating on several levels here, and I think this is a writer's novel in all the best ways. Maybe it is not as shocking as Cabin at the End of the World, and it is not as nail-biting as Survivor Song, but I think it has more in common with A Head Full of Ghosts.  In my opinion, Pallbearers Club is not my favorite Tremblay but it is easily his best. He is in command of his powers in a really impressive way. It is a must-read for Horror fans.