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Revenant
Compelled by a hungry spirit to journey to the ghost town Revenant, a group of people grieving for their dead children and spouses find a second chance to contact them, and choose between the worlds of the living and the dead
- GenresHorrorFictionParanormal
344 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
1 person is currently reading
181 people want to read
About the author
Melanie Tem
115Ìýbooks49ÌýfollowersMelanie Kubachko was born and raised in rural northwestern Pennsylvania. She received a degree at Allegheny College and went on to earn a master's degree in social work from the University of Denver. Apart from a varied career in social work she has published short fiction in numerous publications, including Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Skin of the Soul, and Final Shadows. Her work has also been included in such anthologies as Women of Darkness and Women of the West.
Married to Steve Rasnic Tem.
Married to Steve Rasnic Tem.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 4, 2008
Revenant is a ghost story. It’s also very much a novel about grief and loss, but it’s also a novel about the way people allow themselves to be destroyed by grief and loss. The town of Revenant is a city of the dead which feeds on excessive grief; it feeds on the emotions of those who can’t let go. It calls to those who are bereaved. Tem gives us the stories of a variety of people to whom Revenant calls, and she shows us their pain and their selfishness, their nobility and courage and also their folly. It’s not really a horror novel, certainly not in the conventional sense. It is, though, a very fine novel.
September 8, 2019
Tem's background was in social work, and that is most evident here in this book, which is an examination of grief and how it affects people. She created a story that features a half-dozen or more character sketches of different people experiencing their own versions of grief: a mother whose children died young; an elderly woman who grieves the loss of her husband to Alzheimer's; a father whose son, once a strapping example of what he considers masculinity, is now a quadriplegic. She examines the loss of the living and those still alive, and the pieces are fascinating and compelling.
(Tem creates a couple of characters who grieve the loss of something they never should have had, and takes us up close and personal to some terrible people. It's distressing, uncomfortable, and horrifying, because even those sketches are fascinating and compelling in their own ways.)
The message of the book is clear: Come to terms with your grief, or it will kill you. Ghosts have always represented the grief people feel over lost loved ones, but Tem takes the concept a step further and has the ghosts live in a ghost town in the midwest. They can return and interact with those who grieve them, and they lead them to the town -- Revenant -- when they can no longer deal with representing that grief. There, they're forced to confront their own feelings or suffer the consequences.
The book doesn't follow the typical structure of a novel. The initial chapters are the character sketches, where we get to know the ghosts and those keeping them in Revenant. Once we're introduced to those characters, we enter the town of Revenant where everyone interacts with each other and faces their emotions. It's unusual, but it works remarkably well.
Revenant will gut you like a well-written horror novel should. I don't know if I would recommend it to just anyone (at the very least, there's at least one trigger warning one should issue before giving it to someone to read), but it's a brilliant story that will haunt you after you turn the last page.
(Tem creates a couple of characters who grieve the loss of something they never should have had, and takes us up close and personal to some terrible people. It's distressing, uncomfortable, and horrifying, because even those sketches are fascinating and compelling in their own ways.)
The message of the book is clear: Come to terms with your grief, or it will kill you. Ghosts have always represented the grief people feel over lost loved ones, but Tem takes the concept a step further and has the ghosts live in a ghost town in the midwest. They can return and interact with those who grieve them, and they lead them to the town -- Revenant -- when they can no longer deal with representing that grief. There, they're forced to confront their own feelings or suffer the consequences.
The book doesn't follow the typical structure of a novel. The initial chapters are the character sketches, where we get to know the ghosts and those keeping them in Revenant. Once we're introduced to those characters, we enter the town of Revenant where everyone interacts with each other and faces their emotions. It's unusual, but it works remarkably well.
Revenant will gut you like a well-written horror novel should. I don't know if I would recommend it to just anyone (at the very least, there's at least one trigger warning one should issue before giving it to someone to read), but it's a brilliant story that will haunt you after you turn the last page.
April 30, 2023
An eloquent, yet brutally dark and poetic story about grieving, and what that means for the dead as well as the living, this is a book that needs to be read. On a personal note: once upon a time I owned the best horse in the world. He was an Arabian gelding named Merlin, and there will never be another horse like him. I lost him in 2009�14 years ago from the writing of this review, and now he’s been gone exactly as many years as he was mine. I miss him every single day. Some of the grief I hold from other things I sometimes displace onto my mourning for Merlin. I was once offered, by an artist friend of mine, to visit a shaman who would be able to reduce my grief by releasing the hold Merlin still held for me. It crossed my mind then that maybe I still held Merlin. However, the notion horrified me and, in a flurry of panicked tears, I declined.That makes me wonder how well I would hold up in Revenant. I’ve lost several very important people, too, and I think maybe I would understand this in Revenant, that my love for my horse is also a love for a time in my life I’ll never recapture. I think I would let him go. So, this isn’t much of a review, more like a soliloquy or a memorial. When you grieve, when you hold on and won’t let go, it cripples you. And it deteriorates the beauty of memories. Read this book if you are mourning—it’ll be a hard read. Read this book if you have mourned—you’ll recognize the sad, solemn beauty of letting go.
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May 26, 2024I am sorry to leave a comment here under reviews for a book that I have not read yet but I wanted to assign a date for this book and the date set functionality of the website currently seems to be broken. If they get this working I will use this and delete this review.
02-27-2009
02-27-2009
August 23, 2020
While I really enjoy the story Tem is telling here I think it could have been structured better. The story revolves around a cast of characters each dealing with their own form of grief over a lost person. Ultimately, each character finds themselves gathered in the ghost town known as Revenant where they must deal with their grief.
Tem allots each character a chapter of their own to flesh out their traits, backstory, and motivations. While this is a great idea, the book has 8 central characters (Hannelore, Annie, Patrick, Elinor, Tom, Corrine, Bill, & & Gabriel.) My hardcover copy is only 250 pages, but I found myself confused and annoyed by the fact that new characters were still being introduced so far into the story. It isn't until the books third act, 170 pages in, that we actually gather them all in Revenant. At that point, I found myself having to revisit each characters chapter to brush up on their story. It can be hard to keep track of that many players, esp when each is so deeply detailed. Elinor's chapter alone is 44 pages long!
I'm not here to say how it could have been written better, just a thought I had while reading. Ultimately I really enjoyed the story. This book is really sad and the characters are all pretty convincing. I always appreciate a book that can evoke strong emotion and this one sure did!
Tem allots each character a chapter of their own to flesh out their traits, backstory, and motivations. While this is a great idea, the book has 8 central characters (Hannelore, Annie, Patrick, Elinor, Tom, Corrine, Bill, & & Gabriel.) My hardcover copy is only 250 pages, but I found myself confused and annoyed by the fact that new characters were still being introduced so far into the story. It isn't until the books third act, 170 pages in, that we actually gather them all in Revenant. At that point, I found myself having to revisit each characters chapter to brush up on their story. It can be hard to keep track of that many players, esp when each is so deeply detailed. Elinor's chapter alone is 44 pages long!
I'm not here to say how it could have been written better, just a thought I had while reading. Ultimately I really enjoyed the story. This book is really sad and the characters are all pretty convincing. I always appreciate a book that can evoke strong emotion and this one sure did!
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July 23, 2011Stephen King endorsed the entire Dell Abyss Horror line. Here is his blurb:
"Thank you for introducing me to the remarkable line of novels currently being issued under Dell's Abyss imprint. I have given a great many blurbs over the last twelve years or so, but this one marks two firsts: first unsolicited blurb (I called you) and the first time I have blurbed a whole line of books. In terms of quality, production, and plain old story-telling reliability (that's the bottom line, isn't it), Dell's new line is amazingly satisfying...a rare and wonderful bargain for readers. I hope to be looking into the Abyss for a long time to come."
"Thank you for introducing me to the remarkable line of novels currently being issued under Dell's Abyss imprint. I have given a great many blurbs over the last twelve years or so, but this one marks two firsts: first unsolicited blurb (I called you) and the first time I have blurbed a whole line of books. In terms of quality, production, and plain old story-telling reliability (that's the bottom line, isn't it), Dell's new line is amazingly satisfying...a rare and wonderful bargain for readers. I hope to be looking into the Abyss for a long time to come."
October 9, 2008
Poorly written.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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