The Fisherman – John Langan
Expectation: A gory, nature-themed horror/fantasy centered around a fictional upstate New York urban legend.
Reality: An incredibly boring mishmash of genre tropes that overshadowed the few thrilling scenes and a likable main character.
My Take:
Growing up, I loved urban legends. In my hometown, “Resurrection Mary” and “Diana of the Dunes” were the dominant yarns, and they never failed to capture my attention - and nightmares.
The folklore component of John Langan’s “The Fisherman” is what initially drew me to the fantasy/horror novel (plus some glowing recommendations from other reviewers I trust on #Bookstagram), so I went in with higher expectations than was probably fair for my first read by the author.
Structured as a local man recounting his experiences with the area’s — in this case the Catskill region of upstate New York — local ghoul, The Fisherman of Dutchman’s Creek, it’s chock full of local references and history that will delight residents. However, Langan lacked the narrative momentum to keep the rest of us enthralled.
Borrowing many a genre trope from Uncle Stevie, our main character, Abe, is a lonely widower who by day is a corporate drone at IBM, at night drinks a tad too much and on the weekends finds solace in fishing. He is pensive and likable.
When his colleague, Dan, loses his wife and twins in an automobile accident, Abe recognizes his own self-destructive behaviors manifesting in him, so he asks him to go fishing. What follows — essentially the first 70 or so pages (2.5 hours) — is an exploration of grief and male friendship. Outside of the frequent talk about lures and rods, it was easily the best part of the novel.
At this point, I had high hopes.
Langan teased the mystical and gory elements early and often, so I was expecting a no frills nature-tinged horror ride similar to “The Descent,”but once our characters stop at a diner and tell the chatty short-order cook where they are planning to cast their reels, the story fell apart for me.
[mild spoilers ahead]
Essentially the rest of the novel — outside of the last two chapters — is Abe recounting the story he heard from the cook about The Fisherman, a leviathan with the power to resurrect the dead. While this sounds cool, it’s really not.
Langan swells the text with too much history, mythology and religion that our characters — about a half dozen workers building the Ashokan Reservoir in the early 1900s — talk endlessly about what might be happening, essentially relegating this to more monologue than action.
Look, I love literary horror, but it’s difficult to even categorize this in the genre. Sure, there were a few good scenes — specifically, the initial appearance of a formerly dead resident and her understated psychological warfare on the town — but in general I was bored by the world-building and considered giving up several times.
Once the story shifts back to Abe and Dan, I perked up, but the “Pet Sematary” plot was obvious and uninspired. Maybe this will worm its way into my psyche as the year goes on, and I’ll reassess it, but for now this was my first disappointing read of 2023.
[spoilers ended]
Had Langan found better balance between the past and present, maybe as a novella, I would’ve enjoyed it much more. After waiting 17-weeks to receive the audiobook loan from the library, I can’t say it was worth it.
Speaking of the audiobook, Danny Campbell was a decent narrator. His gruff voice matched Abe’s personality well, but whether from his own doing or simply working with what he was given, the performance felt one-note.
Rating (story): 2/5 stars
Rating (narration): 4/5 stars
Formats: Audiobook (library loan)
Dates read: December 31, 2022 – January 9, 2023
Multi-tasking: Good to go, but you’ll have a difficult time keeping track of characters and situations in the bloated middle if you don’t pay close attention.
