Red Town Lost

In the wrap-around story, Dan Suppers car breaks down in Kecksgille, Pennslyvania and he continues on foot only to eventually come across a burnt down building full of corpses. Further wandering brings him to a building with journals of four inhabitants of the town whom he reads, giving us four short stories. As he reads the details of their lives he begins to question his own sanity...

He reads of a group of teens going to a party at a church that ends disastrously. And of a hypochondriac who's deteriorating mental health causes him to pick up other mental illnesses and murderous intent. Another follows a seven-year-old boy with heroin-addicted parents trying to run away. The last is of a teenager inflicted with a medical condition that makes him tall and his limbs incredibly long who decides one day to fight back against his bullies.

These stories are all well written and the character work is great. They all offer a completely different view of life in this small town in Pennslyvania. They are also quite bleak and often extremely violent. The only thread that connects them is a being that manifests as different things throughout - Frankie Red.

Why does Dan just stop and read these stories instead of further seeking help? Why are these first-person accounts of these people that they couldn't have written themselves here as journals for him to read? And what do these four specific people have to do with him and his situation?

So while the writing in this is great and I loved all the characters... It is just so confusing at times. I mean I understand it all now but during reading it the transitions between stories happened without warning. One moment Dan is wandering around and figuring things out and the next a story just randomly starts up out of nowhere. In fact, the first time a story transition happened it wasn't even clear that Dan started reading a journal, it just started into Mikey and his friend's ill-fated party at the church.

Also while going through it nothing seemed to be really connected outside of the Frankie Red bits and I wondered what was going on with this. The author sheds light on this at the end with a little explanation telling us they didn't know at first themselves and they just made it up as they went along to make some of the already written material work before they turned it into a novel. Ahhh.

Now it does all get explained and makes sense if you stick in there and outside of the confusing short story transitions this was pretty good once I got into the weird flow of it. The author has a seriously deranged imagination. (That is a compliment.)

Although when I say make sense I mean be prepared for a completely out there bonkers ending that you may have sniffed out hints of as it goes on but no way are you prepared for the entirety of it. What the heck?