Mr. Hands, by Gary Braunbeck

The sad thing is, Gary Braunbeck was never destined to be a really popular horror writer. In a better world, maybe, but not in the superficial realm in which we now exist.

Gary takes readers a little too far. I'm not talking about brain raping, or babies thrown into woodchippers, or any other nonsense the grossout brigade tries to stick down your throat. I'm talking hard reality and devastating emotion. He takes readers to the limit, and I know from past conversations with him that he takes himself even further.

I somehow never read Mr. Hands until this week. I remember when it was serialized in Cemetery Dance Magazine. I hate serials, and I intended to read it all when the whole thing was completed. It never happened. Leisure Books published Mr. Hands in 2007, and I was going through my own personal Hell around then. I always meant to, but I never did read the book.

I think that might be for the best. Mr. Hands isn't a great book to read when you are at a low point in your life.

Abuse is a recurrent theme in Gary's fiction, and Mr. Hands is heavy with the subject. Child abuse, grief, hatred, revenge, guilt, hopelessness. Mr. Hands deals all that to you. In spades. The book is also about forgiveness. The forgiveness toward others as well as to ourselves. It's about healing and growing against unimaginable odds.

A little girl is murdered at a small carnival. He mother finds a doll the girl owned. An odd effigy of a legless man with long hands with multi-jointed fingers: Mr. Hands. The mother discovers she can communicate with deceased victims of abuse and can control Mr. Hands to take revenge.

There's a lot more to the story than that, but I won't go into details. However, Gary Braunbeck is more than merely a storyteller. He works in metaphor and subtext. Mr. Hands is the irrational, enraged, ugly part of all of us who are sickened by the events we see all-too-often in the news. We ache for the victims, and in our worst moments we crave the same pain and horror upon the sick individuals who commit the crimes.

Gary Braunbeck is the most underrated, under-read, underappreciated writer in the horror field. He goes places most of us do not care to follow, but it's important that we do. We need to understand the things we fear. The things that threaten the fabric of our lives. Gary leads the way, with unflinching clarity, but he also provides a little sly wit along the way. On top of all that, in a time where amateurism is the standard, Gary Braunbeck is a real writer whose work stands with the best we've ever had.

I won't call Mr. Hands the best thing Gary Braunbeck has published. Like others I could name, he is strongest in the short form. The flow of Mr. Hands is a little uneven now and then, but that is generally the case with serialized fiction. I still give it my highest recommendation. Buy this or any other Braunbeck title. Read. Weep. Bleed. And pass on the word.

Written by Mark Sieber