Abraham is a man easing into an ideal middle age. He has a pretty decent job, a pretty decent house…and is very much in love with his wife. They talk of having children together.
Then she dies.
Bereaved and reeling into depression, Abraham finds solace in fishing. It calms him, and gets him out of the shadowy confines of his own head. Eventually a buddy from work, Dan, decides to join him. Dan lost his family in a fatal accident, and the two men bond over their shared pain, and the casting of the lines that help them endure it.
One day, Dan hears about an isolated fishing spot called “Dutchman’s Creek”. Enroute, they stop at a local bar and casually tell the chef about where they are going. The chef goes pale, sits the men down, and proceeds to tell them why they should not, under any circumstances, go to Dutchman’s Creek.
See, odd things happen at Dutchman’s Creek. Creatures are spotted in the dark waters that have no place in the lands of sanity. Figures are seen in the nearby woods…figures that resemble those who should be cold in the ground. And then there’s the old legend of a strange man who came to these parts hundreds of years ago…a man of few words and terrible plans, who the poor hill-folk could only call “The Fisherman”…
So this is a modern horror story. How does it go? Eh, it’s better than Stephen King at his worst. There are some interesting ideas and imagery, but if you’re a fan of strange/weird fiction, well, it’s probably not anything you haven’t read before (especially for those Lovecraft fans out there).
The book is effectively divided into three parts: a framing device with Abraham and Dan, with a middle section detailing the old legend. This part of the story’s prose is made to resemble that of a man telling a tall tale…which, in theory, is fine. However I do think Langan didn’t commit fully to this literary device, meaning there are moments when the story starts to sound like a wikipedia summary of a novel you’d prefer to be reading. So that’s not amazing.
It is, however, not very long. So anyone with a need for a quick fix of oddness (yours truly certainly fits that bill) might not mind a quick dip into these troubled waters. Me like books.
Me Like Books 