#Spooktober ‘Toady’ by Mark Morris

About the book…

Richard, Robin and Nigel are ordinary boys who share a taste for the macabre in films, videos, books and comics.

Then they admit a fourth member to their club – Toady, who is not at all an ordinary boy. From the moment he lures the boys to a seance, unimagined horror overtakes their lives.

Published by Corgi in 1989, when the author was only 22 (22!!), the 700 pages plus bomper which is ‘Toady’ is a vintage horror that is nostalgic, classic fiction at its best.

Reminding me strongly of ‘Everyday Is Like Sunday’, the atmosphere is so cleverly evoked, of Starmouth, a town which relies on the income of tourists throughout summer, and is now a wintery, splintered husk ,in the aftermath of Christmas.

Long time childhood friends, Robin, Nigel and Richard, have little to do, in this time before mobile phones, internet and what not to keep them busy. What they do enjoy is meeting up to swap horror novels, magazines and comics, and to talk about what films they have enjoyed watching since they last met (on VHS, no streaming folks!)

Their cave, down on the beach, is their haven, their safe space away from bullies, parents, and the frightening prospect of making a future for themselves. They don’t have to worry about off putting acne, liking the ‘wrong’ things, or being look down on. Until they invite Adrian Tibbett, aka Toady into their midst.

Films and books to him are just boing, he wants to up the ante and , having done his research, has identified a property where they could do something properly , something like a séance. The boys friend, seafront fortune teller Olive, has a terrible premonition about this, and warns them not to play with things that they don’t understand. She needn’t have worried , however, as nothing spectacular happens in that run down house. The boys go home pretty much disappointed, except for Toady. He got what he was hoping for. A potential source of power to combat his inadequacies. But the price he pays for this may be more than he bargained for…

The way that Starmouth is described is instantly relatable to this kid of the 80’s-nothing to do, nowhere to go, and a challenge to find those like minded souls which you can hang out with at break time. This is reflected in the books and the tv movies that the boys talk about, the punk music that they play, really emphasising their fight to be individuals in a town that has all but up and blown away. The shabby nature of the seafront is perfect, the atmosphere at once claustrophobic and unsettling.

Olive is one of my favourite characters, you can easily visualise yourself in her flat above her fortune telling booth and her psychic warnings are eerie rather than derivative. She is such a well rounded character that she is sorely missed whenever she is not the focus of the story.

There is a bit of a leap into a cosmic horror vein which is tapped during the third arc of the story, but I really didn’t mind as I was so caught up in the action I couldn’t stop (this was the bit I found not so interesting as a teen reading it for the first time). There are some standout moments of horror, it is clear Stephen King was a big influence (the house where the séance is held is on King Street) and some scenes are best read in broad daylight and not just before bed. I am thinking, in particular, of the snowman from hell. Trust me, it is a lot scarier than it sounds!

The protagonists are so relatable, they are the archetypal outsiders so try to bring Toady in to their gang as he is one of them. He is bullied for being too fat, too smart with his mouth, having a difficult personality to get used to. They reach out, trying to be kind, and for their thanks they get involved with the local gang of bullies who are, frankly, terrifying, and out to cause real harm, as well as opening a portal to another dimension.

The deaths are really well done, pretty horrifying and different to what you would expect, and the involement of the local police who are as baffled as the grownups lends a sense of realism to the whole affair as the kids try desperately to put the genie back in the bottle they got it out from.

Whether Toady would have been the same if he had been treated with a bit of kindness is academic, he is a cautionary tale that sometimes there are those who are un-helpable, and cannot be redeemed, nature’s scapegoats if you will. They exist for others to feel superior too, even his friends who feel sorry for him, and , this sets off the catalyst for the whole story as he feels powerless in his own skin. What he, and the other members of the Horror Club go through tests every ounce of resilience they possess, and , in  the end, they find that their redemption lies in their own hands.

Welcome to the Horror Club? Yes please, I would love to join!

About the author…

Mark Morris became a full-time writer in 1988 on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, and a year later saw the release of his first novel, ‘Toady’. He has since published a further sixteen novels, among which are ‘Stitch’, ‘The Immaculate’, ‘The Secret Of Anatomy’, ‘Fiddleback’, ‘The Deluge’

He has written tie-in novels for popular movies as well as orginal stories for ‘Doctor Who and ‘Torchwood’

His short stories, novellas, articles and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, and he is editor of the highly-acclaimed Cinema Macabre, a book of fifty horror movie essays by genre luminaries, for which he won the 2007 British Fantasy Award.

His most recently published or forthcoming work includes Obsidian Heart trilogy and editing short story collections New Fears 1 and 2  for Titan Books.

Twitter @TitanBooks @MarkMorris10