Mutt
Shane McKenzie
Rothco Press
March 27, 2015
Reviewed by Tim Potter
Shane McKenzie has become known, in recent years, as a quality writer of extreme horror. His work often deals with interesting and diverse themes like gluttony and lucha libre, set against the desert backdrop of South Texas. With Mutt, McKenzie explores new territory, the Texas setting the only familiar element. It’s a kind of coming-of-age story, maybe a love story and certainly a tale of the search for identity.
Patrick is new to Texas, a transplant from northern California and a young man looking to find his place in his new home. He lives with his mother and works as a pseudo-janitor at a local boxing gym. He’s also half Korean and half European, his skin a darker complexion that, in his new community, is easily mistaken for Latino. He’s a mutt, of mixed heritage, and it’s through this that the conflict of the story arises.
While waiting on the bus to take him to work, Patrick sees and begins day dreaming about a Latina who rides the same line. His yearning is honest and painful, something anyone who had a high school crush can relate to. He sees himself grabbing and passionately kissing her, but finds himself too reserved to even approach her. He keeps riding the bus, and so does she, and he soon realizes that she’s part of the local ruling gang, Los Reyes Locos. Things start to get complicated when the girl, Krystal, approaches Patrick and won’t let him be shy. She fights through his unsure nature and get him to talk to her. It’s no time before she says to him “Don’t tell me you’re one of them Mexicans that don’t speak Spanish.” In this moment of truth Patrick must decide whether to tell her the truth, that he’s not at all Mexican or hispanic, or go along with it to try and get the girl. He does what we all would have done. He just says “Yes” and goes for the girl.
Patrick soon finds himself in a world he is completely unfamiliar with, one that he wants no part of. It’s a world his mother told him to stay away from, but he didn’t listen. He’s soon in over his head, trying to cope with extraordinary circumstances and survive a life inhabited by gangsters and horrific acts of violence.
Mutt is not a horror story, but that is not to say it is not horrific. It is. And there is plenty of violence, but it’s not the over-the-top, unrealistic violence of McKenzie’s horror novels. The violence here is real, at times painful to read and has real-world consequences. This is a brutally honest novella, dealing with themes that anybody can relate to, in ways that most of us don’t want to acknowledge possible. The book shows that Shane McKenzie has impressive literary chops, which I already knew, and that he can tackle any story he wants, which I suspected, but now know for a fact. Mutt is an truly moving and affecting work.
- Midian Unmade – Book Review - September 30, 2015
- Wolf Land – Book Review - September 16, 2015
- Convalescence – Book Review - September 7, 2015
- Rage Master – Book Review - September 3, 2015
- The Art of Horrible People – Book Review - August 28, 2015
- Greasepaint – Book Review - August 26, 2015
- Bonesy – Book Review - August 17, 2015
- Dark Screams: Volume Four – Book Review - August 13, 2015
- Trust No One – Book Review - August 10, 2015
- The Monstruous – Book Review - August 3, 2015
