Bad Man A Novel

Dathan Auerbach — 2018

Reddit horror sensation Dathan Auerbach delivers a devilishly dark novel about a young boy who goes missing, and the brother who won't stop looking for him. Eric disappeared when he was three years old. Ben looked away for only a second at the grocery store, but that was all it took. His brother was gone. Vanished right into the sticky air of the Florida Panhandle. They say you've got only a couple days to find a missing person. Forty-eight hours to conduct searches, knock on doors, and talk to witnesses. Two days to tear the world apart if there's any chance of putting yours back together. That's your window. That window closed five years ago, leaving Ben's life in ruins. He still looks for his brother. Still searches, while his stepmother sits and waits and whispers for Eric, refusing to leave the house that Ben's father can no longer afford. Now twenty and desperate for work, Ben takes a night stock job at the only place that will have him: the store that blinked Eric out of existence. Ben can feel that there's something wrong there. With the people. With his boss. With the graffitied baler that shudders and moans and beckons. There's something wrong with the air itself. He knows he's in the right place now. That the store has much to tell him. So he keeps searching. Keeps looking for his baby brother, while missing the most important message of all. That he should have stopped looking.

Reviews

Ethan E. Harris@romeoearwig

Aug 16, 2022

I think that in reading Penpal only recently and without reading the reviews first, I was armed to more thoroughly enjoy the writing style of Dathan Auerbach. To trust his style. To appreciate his presentation. And as much as I immersed myself in the first book, I found that Bad Man was even more engrossing. I really can't describe the style. It's not gruesome. It's not horrendous, but like Penpal, there is a momentary terror that creeps into the reading experience and combined with the enviable ability to create such a driven, innocent protagonist is beyond any fair description that I can offer. As an author, I'm jealous. As a reader, I am grateful. Ben, the main character, is thrown into his circumstances and his personality drives the narrative. His short-comings are his strength. The first chapter is so craftily placed, that it drives the interpretation of all but the very end of the book. This is superb planning. Everything is obviously carefully crafted and made to almost feel free-form and flowing, like life often is, from the reader's perspective. It makes sense. My only complaint is how in at least four places the story shifts from one location to an entirely different location without a break. You're finishing a sentence in a given place and bam! in the very next sentence, you're across town or in a completely different scene. No rest and no break. I was a little annoyed to have to reread and figure out if I'd missed something. But no, it's part of the presentation. Maybe there's a writing technique that I'm missing, but I found it disjointed. Just a few places. It was enough to make me lose my rhythm. But that's it. That's all the negative that I have. I would recommend this, of course, to fans of Penpal. But I would recommend this to all readers who enjoy a driven character, immersed in a world beyond his understanding, enmeshed in a mystery that is all too compelling. I enjoyed every minute.