THE DOPPELGANGER

by Eric C. Higgs ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 20, 1987

Higgs' second occult novel, an uninspired rehash of the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde theme, displays not even the modicum of ingenuity that elevated his first, The Happy Man (1985), to a cut above kinky trash. The Jekyll character here is wimpy gas-station attendant Marvin Moy, with Hyde evident in Marvin's ""doppelganger,"" an ethereal double who takes on physical form during Marvin's periodic blackouts and who fulfills Marvin's darkest fantasies in orgies of murder and rape. Although aware that he possesses mild clairvoyant abilities, Marvin has no inkling of his doppelganger's existence until the day Marvin mind-travels after a pretty coed, only to visualize her being molested by one of her college professors. Marvin blacks out; a few hours later, the police pick him up for questioning: the girl has identified him as the man who beat the professor senseless--at the very instant of his blackout. Marvin's boss alibis him free, but Marvin is shaken and frightened--sadly, though, the reader is not, since just before Marvin blacked out, Higgs began to put his thoughts in boldface, indicating, like a bass drum in the score of a Grade-Z horror film, the doppelganger's lurking presence. With the doppelganger now out and about, Marvin tumbles into a whirlpool of sex and death, each night raping--through the agency of his double--the traumatized coed, and killing one after another his abusive boss and a bullying co-worker, then his domineering parents. By the close--despite Higgs' efforts to drum up sympathy for Marvin by depicting him in a tender affair with his lonely landlady and suffering a few guilt pangs--Marvin has come off as such a sniveling, unpleasant creature that when he finally meets his doppelganger, in a face-to-face battle for survival, the reader hopes--in vain--that, like matter and antimatter meeting, they'll cancel each other out. Crude, crass, and oh-so-dull.

Pub Date: April 20, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION