Curse be the Child by Mort Castle

Child abuse, molestation, pedophilia and incest; it’s sad, but each one of these four horrible acts occurs everyday in both the United States, and all around the world. Even more shocking is how the victim of such crimes is often tricked into believing they are to blame, which in turn causes them to grow angry with themselves for forcing their loved ones to engage in such behavior. Adding to the problem is the understandable disgust that is instilled in the average person when hearing about such a topic because more often than not it causes them to want to walk away from the subject rather than facing it and trying to do something about it. I learned this first hand while in college. At the time I was considering a career in law enforcement and one of the classes I took in order to achieve this goal dealt with family law. Nothing about the subject of the class made me consider or realize the types of real life horror we would be looking at. The worst came when we examined a case where a mother had punished her young son for stealing a couple of bucks from her purse by forcing his hand down a garbage disposal. After that I just couldn’t deal with the subject anymore and had to withdraw from the class. Sadly distancing myself from such things, which is what the average person will do, doesn’t help put an end to them. Instead all it does it make it so one doesn’t have to face it, and thus be reminded of its existence.

In Cursed be the Child by Mort Castle the issues of child abuse, molestation, pedophilia and incest are brought forward, a warning about the topics being present within the book displayed before the prologue begins. A note about how the book does not graphically depict any such scenes follows, and then goes on to say that they are simply suggested rather than narrated. Seeing such a warning kind of made me apprehensive about reading this tale, but then I decided to push forward, my mind reminding me that my own novel Text Message deals with such issues as well and did, in some instances, graphically depict them (which I actually found hard to read when working on the rewrites, believe it or not).

Though somewhat difficult to pinpoint for sure since there were several different stories taking place with in this tale, all of which eventually connected in the last few chapters, the novel’s primary focus is on the Barringer family and the events following their recent move to a Chicago neighborhood. Warren Barringer, the father, is a college professor and struggling novelist who, naturally, has a drinking problem. Vicki Barringer, the mother, is a housewife desperately seeking acceptance with the new community and forgiveness for an affair she had years ago. Melissa Barringer, the young daughter, is a happy child who just wants to enjoy life but unfortunately becomes possessed by an angry child spirit named Lisette who was the focus of the books prologue. In the course of this possession it becomes clear that Lisette wants Melissa’s father, and any other adult male relation, to have sex with her. She also enjoys hurting Melissa’s friends, the most vicious act involving a clothing drawer being slammed shut on a friend’s hands. Because of this sudden odd behavior, Melissa is taken to a psychologist named Selena Lazone, who is the focus of a secondary tale within the book. Always trying to escape from her gypsy roots, Selena works hard to be a successful psychologist. Once she comes face to face with Melissa, however, she realizes she needs to embrace her gypsy roots because the rituals within the gypsy community are the only tools she can use to battle the spirit within Melissa. Will Selena succeed? Also will this success come in time to save Melissa and her father from engaging in sexual acts together?

Mort Castle is an author I have wanted to read for a long time, yet never made the necessary step to sit down with one of his novels despite owning a few. A week ago, however, my friend tossed one of his novels into my lap -- along with five others -- and suggested I read it first when we were discussing which of the books I would begin with. Unfortunately the book didn’t work for me. It wasn’t the writing that was at fault for this, though I do think the author may have tried too hard to be delicate with the subject matter, which weakened the writing a bit. Instead the story had way too many different elements taking place, none of which were able to be explored fully within the novel. Making this worse was the interest I had in each of the elements, interest that would have welcomed another hundred to two hundred pages worth of text if it allowed for development of the different storylines. Instead each storyline felt rushed, which then led to the ultimate converging of the storylines to feel forced. The showdown between the spirit within Melissa and Selena was also very disappointing, because it barely covered a chapter. The reader also didn’t get to really experience this showdown at all. Instead the two characters were put together at a table to stare at each other and left alone until it was over. After this a few more things occurred in the book before it ended, again, with another odd convergence of several characters, the final confrontation being build up but never actually shown. All in all, this was a disappointing read, though one that won’t cause me to give up on Mort Castle. I want to read more of his work and see what this author is capable off because I have heard many good things. Anyone have any titles to suggest?