Book Review: Black Mouth (2022)

A cosmic supernatural horror story

Plot in under 25 words: Four childhood friends get the band back together to hunt down the man that traumatised them as children.

Who Wrote It?

Ronald Malfi

Website: Ronald Malfi
Twitter: RonaldMalfi

First sentence

“One week after our mother committed suicide, my brother Dennis was taken into police custody while walking along the shoulder of a winding mountain highway wearing nothing but a pair of saggy white briefs and what I can only assume to be an empty expression on his face.”

What’s It About?

The story moves back and forth between the past and the present as Jamie Warren tells the story of himself, his brother Dennis, and his friends Mia, and Clay.

“I was born a Black Mouth kid, as my father had been. And because that great pit in the earth was supposed to be haunted, Black Mouth kids by their very nature were not afraid.”

In the present, Jamie is an alcoholic, haunted by his past. Dennis is mentally-challenged and lived with his mother in Black Mouth until she killed herself, which is where the story starts. Mia is a filmmaker. Clay is a social worker.

In the past, as children, the four of them were treated as outcasts because they lived on the edge of Black Mouth, a place where a coal mine collapsed back in the day killing miners and leaving a massive crater in the earth.

“Every child who grew up in the Mouth had been warned from an early age to steer clear of them. Never, under any circumstances were we to go inside one of those tunnels. They were pitch black and you could get lost, could wander around for an eternity and never find your way out.”

Jamie and Dennis lived in an abusive household. Mia lived with her uncle after her parents died. Clay has a skin condition that makes him a target of bullies.

Jamie was eleven when he, Mia, and Clay met a strange man living in the woods. The Magician taught them magic tricks and enticed them with stories about ‘the well’ and accessing real magic. The Magician manipulated them into doing something that resulted in the deaths of two people.

“There’s a certain magic here, all right,” he said, still looking around. “It strums in the ground. A heartbeat in the earth. Can you children feel it?”

Twenty years later, Jamie is reluctantly drawn back to Black Mouth to care for his brother. Mia snaps a photo of someone at a carnival that she’s sure is the Magician. Clay learns of a young girl who murdered her friend, saying that a man in the woods told her to do it. A story that sounds all too familiar to Clay.

“Now, in his professional capacity, he recognized all the telltale signs of predatory grooming—the way the man had befriended them all so readily that summer, always repeating their names when he spoke in order to construct a façade of trust.”

The four friends reunite and return to Black Mouth to hunt for the Magician and stop him once and for all and to properly close that part of their lives.

What Should You Expect?

Expect to struggle to like Jamie until you understand why he is like he is.
Expect to be genuinely creeped-out by the ghosts that haunt Jamie.
Expect to really like Dennis.
Expect to feel like there’s something special about Dennis and to wonder if he’s actually the smartest one of them all.
Expect to be drawn into a well-constructed story that moves at a nice pace most of the way through.
Expect to feel slightly unsatisfied at how quickly the story threads are wrapped up and how easily the winners win.
Expect to easily follow the many shifts between present and past.

Should You Read It?

Yes.

If you like your horror to be about ordinary people with everyday flaws and problems trying to deal with cosmic horror and if you like to genuinely feel creeped out, then absolutely read Black Mouth.

I enjoyed it but I thought it wrapped up too quickly and easily at the end. Got to admit, I was drawn to the cover art which was why I picked it up. I’ll definitely be buying more of Ronald Malfi’s books.