Read the Girl Next Door Jack Ketchum Online Free

There'due south no other way to put information technology. This month, Richard Thomas and I read i of the about cruel, almost violent, near disturbing books I've ever experienced. It was tough. The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum gave me nightmares and made me cling to the life I live, the life I love, with more decision than I've felt in a long time.

Below you'll see what we both think of this vile, this contemptible, this utterly remarkable novel...and why nosotros both think, despite everything, information technology'southward worth a read.

But just one. Seriously. I don't know how you lot could desire to read it twice.

May contain minor spoilers.

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Richard: So this was your commencement Jack Ketchum. I think I started with this book, also my first Ketchum, perchance fifteen years ago? I knew information technology was going to be intense, simply I was still unprepared. It was unlike just nearly anything I'd ever read. Information technology starts with the opening line, right?

"You call up you know about pain?"

Leah: Heh. Yes. I actually just took a class that focuses on the offset 10 pages of your novel, especially that opening line, and it made me appreciate this book's opening all the more than. Considering information technology just sets the tone so perfectly. "Y'all remember you know about hurting?" And you know, right and so, that fifty-fifty if yous recall you lot do...Ketchum'southward about to school you anyhow.

And in and so many different kinds of pain, besides!

Richard: For certain.

I teach a one day horror course at Story Studio Chicago, and I read the first ii pages and talk about hook, about foreshadowing, and tension—all of that. It'due south a brilliant opening, really.

Let's be honest: I didn't "savor" it in the least. Information technology was a painful read.

Leah: It's one of the best openings I've read recently. You know your narrator. You lot know what y'all're getting yourself into. You know information technology's non going to be pretty.

And the rest of the volume follows from there, in such horrific manner.

Richard: Had you heard most the volume before, any thought of what was going to happen? I knew next to Zero back and so.

Leah: I knew Ketchum'due south proper noun, obviously, being a LitReactor girl, and him being such a big presence there. And the story felt vaguely familiar to me.

Richard: I mean, Ketchum has a reputation as being one of the most brutal authors out there, but not just gore, the psychology backside it, too. It's not horror porn.

Leah: Yes! The psychology is intriguing, and terrifying.

Richard: Did you know information technology was based on a true story? And did that brand it worse?

Leah: I didn't, until the Author'south Note at the end, merely I'k very well-read on holocaust literature, and this felt a lot similar that. A story that's telling about how wretched humans can be to each other.

Then I read the Author's Note and I actually wanted to thank Ketchum for including it, for letting me know WHY he wrote the book, you know?

To me, knowing that information technology was based on a true story — and a truthful story that and then horrified him — made it that much more powerful and upsetting.

Considering it wasn't just stupor porn, you know?

Richard: I guess I should say for those that oasis't read it, hither's a quick synopsis:

Suburbia. Shady, tree-lined streets, well-tended lawns and cozy homes. A dainty, tranquility identify to grow up. Unless yous are teenage Meg or her crippled sister, Susan. On a dead-cease street, in the nighttime, clammy basement of the Chandler house. One thousand thousand and Susan are left captive to the fell whims and rage of a distant aunt who is quickly descending into madness. Information technology is a madness that infects all 3 of her sons—and finally the entire neighborhood. Only one troubled boy stands hesitantly between One thousand thousand and Susan, and their cruel, torturous deaths. A boy with a very adult determination to brand...

Right. Fifty-fifty later that opening, he backs off of it, and you, the reader, accept a jiff and go, "Okay, information technology's kids, they're catching crayfish, it'south non so bad." He sets you up, over and again. It'due south intense, then he backs up. I hateful, how long is it before annihilation Really happens?

Leah: Not too terribly long, really. I of the first scenes that stuck out to me was ane of the neighbor boys — Woofer — dropping night crawlers into an ants' nest.

It's such a vicious, senseless thing to exercise...minor in comparison with the remainder of the story, but agonizing nonetheless.

Richard: That's one of the bright things nigh Ketchum. Non just is he non agape to prove you the gore, the horror, but he and then calms the story down, and takes the time to build in dorsum story, character, showing the good in people, so nosotros can care. And so he destroys them.

Leah: Ha! Yes. Then he destroys them. And breaks my heart. Thanks, Jack Ketchum. Thank you.

Richard: Correct, but every bit a reader, y'all're not horrified by that ant scene. Information technology's just a hint of what'south coming. I mean, at what betoken do nosotros the audience really empathise what's going on?

Nigh kids have played doctor, or had a neighbor that allowed you to have a beer now and and so.

Leah: I think information technology takes a while to actually get into the horrific side of it. At that place's the sweet of the love interest, right? Meg and David most could have had something, in another world in another time.

Richard: For sure.

What I beloved is that he makes you complicit, you are a part of this, you are a witness, and so at some point, it goes besides far.

What that signal is, it's going to exist unlike for every person, every reader, right? Until it's that tipping point, where it's BEYOND whatever sort of reasoning or logic.

Leah: Well, David, the narrator, does that. I kept making little notes (Yes! I fabricated notes!) of the times he said, "They" versus "Nosotros." Sometimes HE felt complicit, and other times distant, and then aye, that's how we felt, likewise.

Richard: Exactly. As he struggles, so do we.

Leah: Except...well, I never really thought One thousand thousand deserved any of information technology, because she didn't.

I'd like to think, given like circumstances, that I'd never partake, merely there are then many psychological studies that say otherwise.

I'd also similar to hope to never face whatever sort of similar circumstances, for the record.

Richard: No. She didn't deserve any of information technology. Only early on on, isn't she kind of going forth with things? She wants to have fun with the boys, they all desire to get forth, only so information technology turns pretty speedily into something much darker, with Ruth, the authority figure, the one that's SUPPOSED to stop them, actually instigating things.

Leah: True. She's hungry for friends, for affection. Merely so Ruth. Ugh, Ruth.

Richard: Nobody wants to be the buzzkill, the party pooper, simply obviously things become way as well far.

It's not the horror, the torture, the violence and sex that Ketchum does then well in this book, in my opinion. It's getting the states to Care well-nigh Million and Susan, to really feel for these people.

Leah: Hither's a question: would they accept gone so far without Ruth? Like, a bunch of kids hiding something from their parents, if perhaps Meg didn't have a domicile to go to?

Richard: Probably not. She pushes them, right? Starting time she catches them, then she makes it worse. Y'all've heard of a parent communicable a kid smoking and then makes them smoke the whole pack, until they vomit. It takes a strange turn, the first of many, when we realize she's not going to stop it. That she's a mess. And she wants to participate, encourage them to tap into their base desires, the sex and violence.

Leah: The one matter that bothered me is that we never really know WHY she did this, you know? Only then, information technology bothers the narrator too. There's a whole scene where he talks about tracing her path, tracking downwardly her ex-hubby, to see what turned her into a monster. Just we never really know.

Of course, Ketchum didn't know the motive for the actual woman who was responsible for the actual issue that sparked this volume.

Richard: She seems like damaged goods, for sure. I become the sense that not only is she an addict, but she has been abused in past relationships.

Leah: Mayhap true. I got that too.

Richard: For me, it was easy to believe. I'g pretty certain that I'd read American Psycho before this book.

Leah: Heh, skillful comparison. Information technology was easy for me, too. Have you lot always heard of the Stanford prison house experiment?

Richard: No. Do tell.

Leah: It was a study in the 70s, in which a group of psychology students were selected to be either "guards" or "prisoners." They adapted to their roles really well — too well, in fact, by the cease. Though the selection was random, by the end the guards were fairly savage. They actually had to call off the experiment early to keep anything too bad from happening.

Richard: That does ring a bell.

Leah: I e'er call up of it when I think of how bad people can be. Those kids had no reason to be bad, merely they wound upwards being terrible, but because they COULD.

Richard: I think I recall something about people pushing a push button, and the level of "daze treatment" they could requite to somebody. Might take been a different study.

Leah: It'southward the same with state sponsored violence like the Holocaust. In one case you have permission to exercise bad things, it can go second-nature. I just finished a book on the women — wives, secretaries, etc. — who participated in the Holocaust. It's spooky.

Those were the things I thought about while reading The Girl Side by side Door. Because I'one thousand totally normal, right? (Don't answer that!!)

Richard: Ha. It takes you there, you don't have a choice, right?

Do you think this volume holds up? Information technology was written in 1989. Information technology wasn't until recently that I read books like The Finish of Alice by A. M. Homes—and I know you just read Tampa past Alissa Nutting.

Alice is still the most difficult book I've read, merely American Psycho and this book were the showtime ones to really prove me this different kind of horror.

Leah: I think, if information technology had been a contemporary novel at the time, no, it possibly wouldn't. But because the story is and so colored by nostalgia for the 50s, I recollect it does.

Because information technology'due south gear up in time. Something like this would be harder to swallow now...or at least parts of information technology.

Similar, if a girl went to a police officer claiming corruption, she wouldn't be blown off in this solar day and historic period. Just she was in the book. But yous tin can easily say, "Oh, that was in the 50s. Things were unlike then."

Richard: Why do you think this book works? I assume y'all "enjoyed" it, that it was a powerful read for you lot. I know it was intense for me. I think I may have cried the first time I read it. Partly it's because I WAS a young boy, I have memories of kids in my neighborhood—burning ants, even a neighbor killing a cat, of playing dr. with a girl downwards the street. The suburban setting, the idea that this could happen right next door, that'south part of why it worked for me.

I'm more disturbed by something similar this than a story most demons or vampires, because it could really happen. And information technology did. Nevertheless does.

Leah: Let'south be honest: I didn't "relish" it in the least. It was a painful read. On at least one occasion, I was reading while sitting next to my daughter. I'd look up, glance at her, recall, "If anybody ever lays a hand on her, I'll impale them myself" so go back to reading.

Richard: Nosotros just heard nearly that example, where was it, Indiana or Ohio?

Well, I hateful as far as information technology being a horror book, it's SUPPOSED to horrify you.

Leah: Simply yes. The book works on and so many levels, considering, aye, things like this happen. I concord...this is much more terrifying than monsters or aliens because it Tin HAPPEN. Sometimes people are evil. Horrible.

Horrific.

So information technology'south an incredible book, in my opinion, because information technology accomplishes its job so fully.

I was, quite honestly, horrified.

Richard: I reacted the same way that you did hither. I would put it down, and go hug and kiss my kids.

Leah: I definitely cried, more one time. Information technology was THAT affecting. Y'all. The torture? It was insane.

Richard: I went on a binge when I outset bought a agglomeration of Ketchum books on Ebay many years agone, nearly 10-fifteen books, for similar $20. I but plowed through them all. Just I felt so sick, so dirty, every bit in tainted, that I had to read lighter stuff, pick upward the Bible, lookout man a Disney movie. It was very hard. But I wanted to tap into that for my own writing, to see how it was washed, and to discover out where my ain line would be in my dark writing.

Let me give you a little example.

Leah: Huh. I had the same feeling. Like, "Ok, now I need a shower, but damn. How practise I write something like that?"

Richard: There was a rape scene in Disintegration, the novel my agent is shopping at present. I can remember sitting there and contemplating what I was going to do. COULD I write this scene? HOW would it define the volume? Did I even WANT this scene in the volume, did it make sense? It was my protagonist hitting bottom, and I had to decide if it would be Ketchum in that moment or more similar King? How much do I show, what practice I do? Is this Clive Barker, the brutal violence, or something else. In the end, the scene became what it had to be, information technology fit the moment. Tin't tell you what happened, only the protagonist rediscovered his humanity, when he'd been a monster for so many years. Powerful.

But I DEFINITELY thought about Ketchum, about this volume, and a few of his others, every bit well every bit books by Barker, King, etc. It was a tough decision.

Leah: Maybe it'southward the age-old question: how much is too much? Fifty-fifty Ketchum asks the question in this book. There's a particular scene in which he fades to black.

The narrator says something similar, "If you desire to imagine this scene, go for it. But I'm not going to help you." I idea that was brilliant.

Richard: Yeah. With the torture, at some point, information technology'll just be overkill, your audience volition shut downward.

Leah: He let u.s. go along a bit of humanity fifty-fifty while reading this terrible thing.

Richard: For certain. It's non the horror, the torture, the violence and sexual activity that Ketchum does so well in this volume, in my stance. Information technology'southward getting us to CARE about Meg and Susan, to really feel for these people. That'south what I idea was and so vivid. But words, right? And I'thou balling my eyes out, sweating, sick to my stomach.

Leah: They're two girls with a tragic back story, and then terrible things keep happening to them. Y'all have these sweet images of One thousand thousand at the beginning — at the river, at the fair — and they just go defiled. Information technology's terrible and sad.

And with Susan, it took me longer to care about her, I think. But past the terminate, when she's standing up for David even though she really had no reason to, and after all she went through, well, I was pulling for her.

I hope in some alternate reality she goes on to pb a really good life.

So. If I wanted more than Ketchum, where should I go from here? What book would I read next?

Richard: Totally.

As far equally more than Ketchum, if you can handle it, there is the story about the cannibals. I think it starts with The Offspring and then Off Season is the second volume that talks about it, I recall. There is a scene in The Offspring where they rip a babe out of the mother, while both are however alive, that'south one of the more horrifying things I've always read. That whole Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe.

Leah: Oy. Ok, that may be my limit. I mean, I had a c-section and all, but ouch.

Richard: A lot of people like Cherry-red, more of a vigilante story. It'due south actually good.

Leah: Vigilantes I can handle.

Richard: And, his story collection, Peaceable Kingdom is brilliant, shows a much wider range of phonation, not and so brutal. Pick that one upwardly for sure,

Leah: Will do, thanks!

Richard: I approximate it says a lot that you even so want to read more than.

Leah: I sort of read with one eye closed....and squinting...set to run and hide and buss my child at any necessary point.

Richard:LOL...for certain.Terminal thoughts on The Girl Next Door?

Leah: My final thoughts: I'thousand then grateful to Ketchum for his Author'due south Note. This would have been a MUCH different conversation had I not known WHY he wrote it. I would accept been angry, I call back, and distressing. But instead I'm more...adamant to live a good life and not let things similar that happen on my sentinel.

Richard: Yeah. I had a hard time understanding why Homes wrote her book, as well, until I read some interviews.

Merely if you want to read a horror story by i of the dark masters, and really want to challenge yourself, if yous've read American Psycho, only want a completely different kind of horror, then read this book. Ketchum pulls no punches, will leave you gutted, but he'll also get you to actually care virtually these people, will show you how y'all can write horror without it being reduced to gore. I give it 5/5 and retrieve information technology'due south a MUST READ for fans of horror, and authors that write dark fiction. Only yeah, I don't need to e'er read information technology once again.

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Source: https://litreactor.com/columns/prose-conversation-the-girl-next-door-by-jack-ketchum

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