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Welcome to Vacationland. Ketchum gives an entirely new definition to tourist season... hunting them instead of catering to them. He picked an ideal setting for a family of inbred cannibals to make their home. It is a place we call ‘Fah (far) Downeast� where few of the family trees have branches.

The publisher splashed a quote across the front cover from Creepy Uncle Steve to promote the book: Who is the scariest man in America? Jack Ketchum. To be real, it worked because it’s what got me to read it.

There seemed to be two authors writing this. A Janus -faced writer who produces butter smooth sentences depicting horrific graphic violence, and then another who disregards basic writing rules and shleps the flow with awkward clunky sentences. When flexing his chops, the writing is brilliant, but the story between the action lacks the same level of fluidity. I try not to let that aspect bother me because on my best day I struggle to write at Ketchum’s worst. Who am I to judge? However, the incongruity of writing acumen between the narration and the action weaved throughout the book was a tad annoying. Now that I got that gripe off my chest, I can focus on the story.

The gore is on the level of The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn movies. The scariest aspect is the possibility this story could happen. A documentation of what the human animal is capable of in its ignorance. Superstitious troglodytes who kill for a purpose aside from having a hankering for long-pig. A “what could happen scenario� if people accepted pain as the supreme divinity and chose to believe we are all suffering spirits who need to be released from our meatsuit. Think about that the next time you stare into some unfamiliar woods�