The decision Lisa makes in order to attempt her escape has perhaps the most horrifying outcome of all, the effects of which are felt throughout Survivor - much like in the best work of Gary Braunbeck - in both tangible and intangible ways. Every character's actions in Survivor have definite and unavoidable repercussions, and Gonzalez folds them all into his believable plot. He also approaches an aspect of murder rarely encountered with any depth in horror novels: the consequences. Gonzalez touches on the reality of the situation in a way I've previously encountered only in Jack Ketchum novels, which makes the interpersonal violence even more disturbing.

The killings put on film are graphically depicted in the prose, which will put off some readers who are more used to the tongue-in-cheek horror of Richard Laymon or Edward Lee. He layers on the suspense and makes Survivor into a real page-turner, despite its horrific subject matter. Gonzalez expands his novella Maternal Instinct into a gripping full-length novel that is better than a novella expansion has any right to be.

She'll soon be a movie star unlike she ever imagined unless she can somehow bargain her way out, letting her maternal instinct guide the way.īut that's only the beginning. The kidnappers are snuff-film producers, and Lisa was the specific request of one of their best clients. Gonzalez has managed to create, with Survivor, an emotionally resonant moral commentary on the underbelly of society, showing how the top and bottom blend until there is little or no difference anymore.īrad and Lisa Miller are on their way to a romantic vacation (where she will announce her new pregnancy to him) when with the unwitting help of the police, Brad is arrested and Lisa is kidnapped. Under the guise of an extreme horror novel, author J.F. Red Sky in Morning: a novel of World War II by Max.Jesus Coyote by Harold Jaffe (a novel based on the.Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (literary fiction).

Survivor by jf gonzalez