“Growing
up in 1980s Niagara Falls--a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place--Jake
Baker spends most of his time with his uncle Calvin, a kind but eccentric
enthusiast of occult artifacts and conspiracy theories. The summer Jake turns
twelve, he befriends a pair of siblings new to town, and so Calvin decides to
initiate them all into the "Saturday Night Ghost Club." But as the
summer goes on, what begins as a seemingly lighthearted project may ultimately
uncover more than any of its members had imagined.”
At its
heart, this coming-of-age tale reminds me much of Stephen King -which the
author acknowledges in his afterword –but also included other great writers of
the era for young adults, John Bellairs, Wilson Rawls, and Judy Blume, for
their influences cover the pages of this short novel (or, maybe, a novella).
It’s told in a flashback format, with now neurosurgeon Jake talking about his
twelfth summer, when new friends entered his life, where the school bully hung
around, and an eccentric uncle who seemly is lost, but unaware of that fact.
For
those born in the 70s, but came of age in the 80’s, there is a lot to
connections that may trigger memories. Much like Stranger Things, which tapped
into an era of great movies, TV shows, and spooky novels, The Saturday
Night Ghost Club captures the era in great detail; especially if you were one
of those kids that did not fit in with everyone else the nerds, the misfits,
the lonely.
The book is sort of magical,
bittersweet, with just enough creepy to keep you going (and one cannot escape
the notion that this book resembles King’s The Body in structure). Davidson’s
prose digs deep and while you can sort of see the ending, it does not ruin what
is an undiscovered gem of novel (released in 2019!!!) that gets lost at the
bookstore or library. A book that deserves a bit more attention, to be enjoyed
by today’s kids as much as their parents who grew up in one of the best decades,
before the 1990s ruined it all.
Davidson has also written five novels under the name of Patrick Lestewka, and five horror novels under the name Nick Cutter.
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