Pearl by Josh Malerman

​       I’m a fan of Josh Malerman. The man knows how to produce original literary scares. But it hasn’t been an immediate and easy road, no grand first impressions. It was more along the lines of underwhelming firsts, followed by (interest rekindled by a thoroughly excellent Netflix adaptation of his most famous work) several good to great other works.
    And then there was the recent Goblin, which was somewhere in the middle. Thing is, Goblin was a major publisher’s reprint, so technically, chronologically you can still say Malerman is progressing nicely, instead of, say, meandering, quality wise.
   And so this book, much like Goblin, is a reprint of a limited Cemetery Dance edition book by a major nongenre publisher. But the thing is, it reads very much like a limited genre edition book, which is to say it’s good for a selected genre fan base, but not necessarily the general public.
    Me, I’m a genre fan. Unreservedly so.  And whatever uneven love for Malerman’s work I might have, he’s the author whose books I’d download on name only. Which I did. Although in this instance a thoroughly plot summary read might have been advisable.
   And so here you have it…Malerman at his most Orwellian with an animal farm you’re not likely to forget anytime soon, even as you walk away, think WTF was that. If this book doesn’t make you a vegetarian or at least Kosher, nothing will. In a comparison based advertisement style this is…Planet of the Apes Oink edition meets Charlotte’s Web with Babe thrown in for good measure. But really it’s just about the dire consequences of a farm animal gaining sentience on a level recognizable by and comparable to intelligence as the bipeds understand it.
     It’s a surreal number with over the top violence and thoroughly disturbing themes and imagery, so in that way it’s definitely good for genre fans. But it also has a sort of trippy quality to it. Of all Malerman’s books so far, this is by far the most acid trip like. It also kind of seems like maybe it should have been a longer short story or a novella, but it got stretched out into a novel.
    Not quite a creature feature, this book certainly offers the readers a different and memorable and strangely sympathetic monster. And it is well written, Malerman does that reliable enough. But it’s just so strange and weird (both of which are generally positive descriptors), but it’s strange and weird like a nightmare you wake up bewildered from, not a book you read.
    Anyway, though were just some of my personal thoughts on this. It may work differently for different readers. Actually, I’m certain it will. And Malerman certainly continues to be the author to watch, if only based on the sheer originality and darkness of imagination. So read if you dare. Thanks Netgalley.