Book Review: Road of Bones by Christopher Golden (2022)
St. Martin’s Press
(This review contains minor spoilers.)
Western writers have long been fascinated with Siberia. It’s a hinterland, a place of mystery on the backside of our greatest geopolitical rival. We imagine the rolling hills and remote forests as full of ghosts. The native populations there are alien, divorced from the polluted history and problematic government policies for which we might feel distantly accountable. The nameless indigenous peoples of Siberia we envision are pure in the mind of the Western writer, a canvas equally mystical and remote which doesn’t conjure up all the shadows we have to invite into the room when writing about the Apache, Blackfeet, or Navajo. Their tormentor was our enemy; the villain of their modern conflicts the same as ours. Russia is their oppressor, and it was in those lands they built gulags, a word whose utterance is even more exotic and sinister than their reality. With Siberia, we get to make the other of those that are not like us, and feel justified.
It is onto this projected fascination that Christopher Golden creates a familiar setup: Felix “Teig” Teigland, a low-rent ghost hunter and almost-was celebrity and his cameraman/enduring friend, Jack Prentiss, are off to the Russian north to visit the infamous Road of Bones where thousands of laborers were purportedly buried beneath the concrete for reasons that are never fully articulated in the novel (which is fine). It’s a real place, one that we can Google, allowing our imaginations to fill in the spaces we’ve never seen with the bits of history we prefer to consider.
Teig’s purpose for the journey is twofold: to find evidence of the supernatural, and equally important, to document it on film and thus create a proof-of-concept worthy of being sold to one of those networks that airs ghost shows all weekend. He has a large rental truck, a mouthful of promises, and a haunting need to break big with what he feels is his last shot at success. He’s a middling but infinitely more likable Zak Baggins, tormented by the rather cliche visage of a dead sister who swore she'd haunt him if she died first (and of course, she did).
At the opening of the novel, Teig and Prentiss are on their way to meet a young former convict who hails from the region and promises to take them directly into its dark heart. They pick him up at a gas station, and later a young woman named Nari whose car had broken down along the way. Their broken party complete, they proceed to the town of Akhustm where they hope to extract terrible tales and effective B-roll from the frozen streets.
Only the town is empty apart from a nine-year-old catatonic girl named Una. There are tracks in the snow leading from every open door in the village, but before Teig, Prentiss, and their happenstance companions can determine where they go next, a pack of strange wolves force them back into their vehicle to beat a lurch retreat along the Road of Bones. In the deep of night, they hold up in a bar they passed earlier, and that’s where the strangeness from the wilderness really begins to emerge.
What follows is a violent, high-stakes mishmash of folk horror and creature feature, with Teig and the small cast struggling to hold out until dawn as they find themselves beset by monsters beyond their understanding. It’s sufficiently eerie, though the whole affair feels a bit rushed and thin. I wouldn't go so far as to call it unsatisfying, but there is a noticeable and undeniable drop-off in the last quarter of the book, as if Golden had to give up on the story he was originally aiming to write.
The writing itself is crisp and effective, blue-collar and of sufficient quality for a supernatural thriller. Felix and Prentiss are both worthwhile and well-written characters, though the supporting cast frequently feels flat. I found this to be a smooth read, with no real risk of boredom or over-silliness, though if you don’t have an appetite for folk horror this may be one to skip. The most egregious aspect by far is that there is another significant character I’ve not mentioned who barely connects with the story above–this was a real shock from an established author like Golden and feels like the type of thing a debutant wouldn’t be able to get away with.
Score: 5.5
Strengths:
Solid, if unremarkable prose and pacing
Small cast of well-written characters
Sufficiently scary
Weaknesses:
Feels unfinished or abridged, as if the story never fills the shoes Golden set out for it
Unsatisfying ending
Lots of loose ends for a story this tight
You can purchase this book at Amazon, or preferably, through an independent bookstore in your community.
You may also like: Summer of ‘58, Abominable by Dan Simmons
