Until recently, I’d merely heard a lot about Ramsey Campbell, the 77 year-old, award winning horror writer who hails from the UK. Having apparently written 30+ books and hundreds of short stories, he’s been downright prolific and one of the mainstays within the horror genre. Now, I’ve actually read one of his books, and it honestly wasn’t what I expected.
Set in the UK, The Lonely Lands by Ramsey Campbell is a book about love, loss, grief and trying to move on after the death of someone close. It centres upon a man named Joseph, whose wife, Olivia, passes away. However, instead of grieving normally, Joseph either has delusions, or is able to visit his wife in the afterlife.
If you’re sick of hearing about Covid, this may not be the book for you. Reason being is that it’s set in the pandemic, which plays a big part in what happens. You see, Olivia doesn’t die of natural causes. She actually contracts Covid-19 after trying to stop a robbery in her friend’s flower shop. The jerk of a robber coughs in her face as he’s leaving, in order to keep her from following him or trying to do anything else.
We also go back in time to when Joe — now the owner of a second hand or thrift store, which is right beside the florist — lost his grandfather. The old man warns Joe not to think about him after he’s dead, saying that paying too much thought to the deceased can have consequences. It’s after this where Joe’s delusions, or his ability to delve deep into the afterlife, begin. He ends up finding his grandfather there, and is shocked to see what he’s turned into; that being something decrepit that’s hiding from the light.
Bothering the dead has consequences for our protagonist, who feels like he’s being followed by his grandfather’s ghost. Meanwhile, he deals with grief over Olivia’s death, tries to keep their shop going and has to interact with her very proper, and downright snobbish parents, who feel like they lost a lot more than Joe did.
Well, all that and the fact that the man who ‘murdered’ his wife is going on trial for his thefts, thanks to a picture Joe took.
Hell, there’s even a chapter mentioning how the couple met.
The Lonely Lands is a well written book, and its prose is quite abstract. The problem I had with this book, and what I didn’t expect, is how hard a lot of it was to follow. Things jump around a lot, and there’s no cohesive thread to the chapters. They can vary pretty wildly, and it can be hard to follow along, understand when something took place and keep it all straight.
However, as someone who’s lost someone very dear to them, I identified with the themes of grief and loss. I’d do anything to talk to said person again, and it’s hard knowing I cannot. That said, the overarching horror story, as light and not scary as it is, is a little messy due to the lack of cohesion.
Overall, I find myself feeling mixed about this book. On one hand, I identify with it and wholly respect it. Then, on the other, I have a hard time saying that I fully enjoyed what I read, as it dragged and was a bit boring at times. A lot of it was also too abstract, and jumped around too much for my tastes. Still, I do believe that The Lonely Lands by Ramsey Campbell is a good and respectable novel. It just wasn’t for me as much as I’d hoped.
This review is based on an advanced copy of the book we were provided with. Thank you to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for the review copy. However, receiving this book free of charge did not sway our opinion.