THE TRAP

by Tabitha King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1985

After two uneven but interesting ventures into offbeat gothic suspense (Small WorM, Caretakers), King pretty much goes for obvious, crude horror-melodrama here--with a mother and child terrorized by loathsome, drooling juvenile-delinquents. (The similarity to husband Stephen King's Cujo is all too blatant.) In the novel's first half, King does a solid, modestly promising job of setting up the Russell family's edgy situation: husband/father Pat, 35, is a workaholic actor/screenwriter, currently filming a Vietnam-revenge thriller, absent from the family's New England winter/summer homes for major chunks of time; sensitive wife Liv, a gifted potter, is becoming increasingly unhappy about Pat's self-indulgence (including cocaine) and neglect; young teenager Sarah is rebellious, especially when her flinty, wise grandma is around; and four-year-old Travis is obviously suffering from Pat's absences, from Pat's jealousy over the mother-son attachment (when he does come home), from fearful insecurities. So, for Lay, the last straw comes when Pat unilaterally announces that--because of his escalating film-career--the family must move out to California. And, to think things out, Liv heads north to the family's summer home in rural Maine, with Travis in tow--despite the difficulties of living up there in winter. At this point, unfortunately, King virtually abandons the developing portrait of a family in realistic trouble. Instead, she just takes Liv through a heavy-breathing, graphic horror-ordeal: the snowily isolated Russell home is invaded by three local teen-vandals; Lay, for Travis' sake, endures ugly harassment and rape (""She would fuck him silly, if she couldn't fuck him to death""); eventually, she fights back, fleeing to the nearest neighbor's house--which is rigged with a lethal form of burglar alarm; and, while husband Pat and local cops are slowly coming to the rescue, Liv wins the one-on-one battle with her primary tormentor. . . who gets burned alive in a cozy fireplace. King apparently intends this two-tone novel to be read as variations on the theme of violence: sequences from Pat's violent Vietnam movie are pretentiously interpolated. And a not-quite-happy ending suggests an attempted return to psychological texture. But the subtler, more ambitious elements here are just about cancelled out by the routine, slobbering melodrama--which, on its own terms, is handled competently enough to provide a modicum of tension and titillation.

Pub Date: April 5, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1985

Categories: FICTION