I’m well aware that I haven’t written a positive review of a novel in a long time. To be honest, I’m not a negative person, but if you read my posts on HNR, you could accuse me of having a rather pessimistic view of life.
My strategy for reviewing fiction here is as follows: I seek out small press or self-published authors who have great review data and hope for the best. I’d rather not throw another glowing review of Stephen King’s work into the fray. We all know who the good guys are.
Imagine my pain when I’m done Green Lake Written by SK Epperson. She is not a minor or big name author, although her work has been published by St Martin’s Press and Dutton, among others. I expected more. My mistake.
On the surface, it is a horror novel, but it is also regarded as a thriller. Green Lake Neither. Although this book came up on Amazon when I typed “horror” into the search bar, there’s nothing scary about it unless you’re afraid of scary dialogue.
Our protagonist, Madeline, is a bit of a jerk. But rather than letting us get this information naturally from the characters, Epperson chooses to have others point it out to us, like this throwaway line from Madeline’s sister: “Someone needs to tell you how hard you are on other people. You like to be invincible, but no one is invincible, Madeline, no one.”
Likewise, when Madeline pursues Iris, our heroic police officer, she can’t help but see past his cold, heartless exterior. She can see that he’s a good man. So, she tells him: “I think you’re a good person.”
There’s no chemistry between the two men — though they do end up having sex, of course — but Epperson tries to liven things up with a little racial tension. Ellis is a Native American who has issues with white people. Madeline is an anthropologist who specializes in Native American history, but she has her own problems, as she was once gang-raped with hot peppers by a couple of Sioux teenagers.
Allow me to digress for a moment: Rape is never funny. Unless this is done to a fictional Chili character in a bad novel.
I could go on and on about authors cramming rape scenes into their works for cheap emotional points — thereby trivializing unspeakable acts of evil and violence — but we’ll save that for another time.
I said before that Epperson also markets this movie as a thriller. But it is not. A true thriller needs momentum. Green Lake No. Most of the first half is spent with Madeline and Iris reflecting on what an annoying asshole each other is (even though, I repeat, they still have sex for some reason), with a reference to a dead child and the emotional impact of Homer Simpson’s left jab.
Rating: 2/5
Order yours here.
