Rage. Sue Rovens, Plump Toad Press/Bowker, June 22nd, 2021, Paperback and eBook, 232 pages.
Review by Susan Gaspar.
Straddling the genres of suspense, horror, and crime fiction, Rage is an affecting tale of human unravelling. Sue Rovens continues in the gruesome tradition of her earlier work Buried (2019) and brings us characters teetering on the edge who slowly devolve into ghastly, feral versions of themselves. For the reader, Rage feels like sliding into an unsettling yet fascinating shadow world.
The book’s first half is a slow burn that simmers with near-constant tension. The book’s title haunts and tantalizes with looming inevitability, and you wonder just when the Rage will explode. But Rovens makes us wait. For lovers of psychological thrillers and suspense, this book works from chapter one.
The story begins with a suicide attempt—always an attention getter—and we are introduced to the two main characters: the deeply troubled Weston Cross, and his assigned therapist, Lindsay Yager. We soon learn that neither of these individuals is who they appear to be, and both are nursing old traumas and emotional wounds that drive them to make consistently poor choices. For both, petty annoyances and daily struggles pile up, chapter by chapter, and the stress mounts.
We watch Wes, a longtime victim of abuse, bullying, and neglect, fight and eventually lose a lengthy battle with self-control. As his grasp on reality crumbles, he sinks into a soup of shame, despair, and desire—a perfect recipe for tragedy. We see Lindsay, an unapologetic alcoholic in an unhappy marriage, hit rock bottom and blatantly put herself and others in peril.
There are two unwitting catalysts for Wes and Lindsay: Jay, Wes’ sociable but intrusive neighbor, and Jeremy, Lindsay’s doting but clingy husband. These two prove to be the incendiary sparks that drive the lead characters—and the novel—an explosive end. Without giving away the book’s secrets, it’s safe to say that people are not always who they appear, secrets and addictions often wreak havoc, and sacrifices must usually be made.
The structure of the book is perfect for a tale of this kind: the chapters are short, quick reads, but the chapters each progress in inches and not miles, so you hang on every word as anxiety slowly mounts. The novel flip backs and forth between Wes’ and Lindsay’s worlds—which are exceedingly different but strangely mirrored in hopelessness. The alternating viewpoints keep you equally immersed in both plotlines, and the action never flags. And when the stories inevitably collide, Rage comes to a rolling boil.
Rovens has a talent for drawing you inside the heads of her characters—which are often unpleasant places to be. And once you are firmly ensnared, she is not shy about dishing out the most grim and grisly aspects of human vice, deviance, and depravity. But by then you are bewitched enough to stay, and if you are curious about psychological motivations and the “why” behind criminal behavior, you will get your answers. Thoroughly gripping, Rage is a taut tale of human horror that doesn’t disappoint.