(also reviewed)
He said he dreamed of some of the prisoners, and he dreamed they were trying to suck his own shadow out of him. He said the dream was so real he sometimes checked when walking along the halls, where the light shone bright, to make sure he still had a shadow and that it slid across the wall with him as he walked.
I don't understand people who believe that life imprisonment is worse than being sentenced to death. The ''being killed by the state'' part is just the cherry on that toxic sundae. Capital punishment in the U.S. is an elaborate form of psychological torture that includes decades of isolation, living in basically what are open tombs and slim hopes of survival in miserable conditions.
My strange obsession with the savagery of death penalty in the U.S is part of the reason why I picked up Dark Regions Press' PRISONER 489, spectacularly illustrated by artist Santiago Caruso. The other reason is that it's a Joe R. Lansdale novella. If you don't know who Lansdale is, let's just say that if he has lived in the earlier part of the twentieth century, his name would be revered over those of Mickey Spillane and Erle Stanley Garner as the ultimate King of Pulp. So there's not a Lansdale that passes me by.
The protagonist of PRISONER 489 is a man named Bernard, who works in the cemetary of a prison set in a remote island along with two other guys. Only the worst of the worst are send there, monsters even unfit to live in normal prisons. Bernard's job mainly consists in burying freshly executed prisoners. He was quietly drifting from middle age into the twilight of his existence when prisoner 489 arrived, fresh from the electric chair. Four jolts of current couldn't kill him, so the ferryman that brough him along says that guards finished him off by putting a plastic bag over his head. A storm hits the adjascent islands just as the cemetary crew puts 489 to his last rest. A staff member disappears, 489's grave is unearthed and a quiet grave digging gig suddenly transforms into a fight for survival.
PRISONER 489 is, first and foremost, a gothic novella. So you have to take into account that it'll start slow and contemplative in order to set a dreadful atmosphere. It'll require a little patience. I already have a relationship to Joe Lansdale's literature, so I already trusted him but you might find that it takes time to get into gear. Fortunately, PRISONER 489 is not JUST a gothic novella as it also bears the mark of Joe Lansdale's inimitable style. He never lets the genre carry the writing. Nobody writes an action scene quite like Lansdale does and even given the terrifying nature of the book, the way he meshes the personality of his well-drawn characters into the actions they take, makes for lengthy, unforgettable and unique action scenes. For lack of a better word, I'd call PRISONER 489 a gothic/adventure novella.
Charlie told him that his was the worst job in the world and that a few of the guards had gone mad. Plain snake-licking, ass-clenching mad. Charlies told him he knew of one guard who had beat his own brains out on a oncrete wall, and several had hanged themselves, and a few had gone down to the ocean to drown.
Another interesting wrinkle in PRISONER 489 is Joe Lansdale's keen understanding of the nature of horror. While the plot is rather straightforward despite the supernatural gothic/horror/adventure genre, Lansdale illustrates the psychological weight of working in such a violent environment by narrating the gossips, rumour and myths flowing around and sometimes even just the inner panick of a character. My favourite scene happens during the storm where Bernard is home alone, researching prisoner 489 and hearing suspicious noise on the outside and building up terrifying stories in his mind of what could the nature of this noise be. The greatest fear of human beings is the fear of the unknown and it's something Joe Lansdale understands very well.
Joe Lansdale has to be one of the most exhilarating authors working today. His business model is foolproof for creativity. He has a big enough readership to make a living out of what he does best, and he is just underground enough to have complete creative control on what he does. Because of that, Lansdale always releases a various array of wildly different and original stories. PRISONER 489 subscribes to the long and rich tradition of gothic storytelling, but it resembles nothing I've ever read before. It's a pure Lansdalesque product. A literary object that defies categorization. Fans of Champion Joe such as myself will love it, and it's short enough to turn new fans to the genius of Joe.
Keep it for a dark and lonely winter evening!