The Bright Lands – John Fram
100-Word (or Less) Synopsis: A decade ago, Joel Whitley escaped Bentley, Texas, for New York City and he hasn’t looked back. But when his 18-year-old brother, Dylan — the town’s golden boy and quarterback of the football team — sends him a series of cryptic and desperate text messages, Joel heads back to his hometown and uncovers a dangerous, decades-spanning mystery.
Expectation: Small town secrets brought to life in a queer take on “Friday Night Lights.”
Reality: You can’t write a synopsis without giving away the twists, but it has the tone of “American Horror Story” with the bonkers plot twists of the best Blake Crouch and Stephen King novels.
Recommended For: Fans of American horror.
Why I Read It: It was highly recommended among many gay men in the #Bookstagram community.
My Take:
“The Bright Lands” was the thriller/horror/mystery I had been waiting for all year!
Combining bonkers plot twists with social commentary and a truly unsettling last act, the novel is an excellent introduction to the talent of John Fram, who with a little more development, could become the next big thing in horror.
All that to say, the novel is far from perfect.
It’s a tad long and there are too many characters contributing to the alternating POVs to sometimes keep track of where one person’s narrative ends and the other’s picks up. The writing is mostly matter of fact and fragmented at times, but Fram keeps the plot chugging along even as it veers from the natural to the supernatural.
And, about that plot, well, it’s a doozy.
[spoilers ahead]
First, the novel completely falls apart if you think about it too much, so it’s best to take it at face value, which is easy to do because it’s compulsively entertaining and many of the characters are likable.
Second, there’s a lot thrown at the reader. The first 50 percent of the novel is a cut and dried family drama. Dylan’s disappearance quickly turns into a murder mystery that forces Joel and his ex-girlfriend Clark, now a Sheriff’s deputy, to start unraveling the town’s mysteries, which include drugs, racism, homophobia and many football golden boys put out to pasture.
Third, once central mystery starts to take focus, and much of Joel’s horrendous backstory is revealed, the novel amps up a gay storyline that veers into exploitative and somewhat problematic territory.
Basically, there’s a gay sex cult run by town elders that manipulates teen boys into being hedonists to placate a sleep demon that lives underground. In other words, it’s a lost season of “True Blood” or “American Horror Story” — two television shows that are tonally similar to what Fram does here.
The supernatural element helps you overlook the fact that:
Repression of your true self doesn’t make all gay men predatory monsters
Grooming teens with drugs and alcohol to coerce them into sex is not a fun plot
The stereotypes of Texas football culture, and small towns in general, are not original
However, sleep demons aside, some of what happens to the residents of Bentley does happen in real life. Those in the queer community, especially, may relate to some (hopefully not all) of Joel’s experiences in a town that celebrates perfect, masculine sons and shuns those that are different.
Given the subject matter, this won’t be a story everyone will like, but I appreciate that Fram doubled down on some unpopular topics the last 100-pages instead of playing it safe.
Throughout “Lands” I was reminded of early works by Blake Crouch — specifically “Abandon” and “Run” — that were high on originality, but a little low on plotting, character development and writing. I think Fram will evolve much in the way Crouch has, and I can’t wait to see what he does next.
Rating (story): 4/5 stars
Rating (narration): N/A
Format: E-book (library loan)
Dates read: October 22 - 31, 2020
Multi-tasking: N/A
