(pb; 2021)
From the back cover
“What would you do for all the money in the world? Or to get with the girl of your dreams? What if you could make other people do anything you told them? What if all this and more could be yours just for winning a race. . . against the devil?
“A long-abandoned church on top of a mountain in the Pennsylvania backwoods is where the devil waits for anyone brave enough to challenge him. The course runs from the gate, through the cemetery, to the church doors.
“If you win, the prize is yours.
“If you lose. . . you die at sunrise.
“Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
“For four college students
looking for a good time, nothing could be further from the truth.”
Review
Where, a 141-page novella, is an excellent, sharp-and-short, distinctive, horror image- and sensory-potent satanic spookshow work, with character-focused action and spiraling-beyond-them consequences and fast pacing. Appropriately, given its cemetery setting, undead uprising and other creepy elements, Where is dedicated to movie director Lucio Fulci, the genre-hopping filmmaker who’s best known for his horror films, e.g., ZOMBIE (1979), THE BEYOND (1981) and THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981), though Where's ending is more comforting than anything in Fulci’s oeuvre.
Where's stark writing style lends itself to an equally stark screenplay for an excellent hour, hour-and-fifteen-minute short film. Not only that, Where is my favorite Steensland book thus far, and my one of my favorite 2022 reading choices. (I haven’t read Southard’s other writing.) Worth owning, of course!
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