Joyride by Jack Ketchum
So, this one was surprisingly short compared to all the other massive novels this course. I will say, a nice break to that.
Overall, I thought this book was disconcerting about the events of Carole's life. This woman was abused physically, sexually, or by mostly every man in her life. Her husband, Howard, was a real flaming sack of shit. Domestic violence came off rather well in this book, in my opinion. Ketchum captured the idea of Carole not being taken seriously by men because she was Howard's wife when he raped her. If you don't know, that is an actual fucking thing. A lot of ignorant minds are under the impression if you are in a consensual relationship with someone, I.E., married, or significant other, your sexual consent is theirs regardless of how you feel on a given day. When in reality, at any time, everyone has the right to say "No," and "Stop." However, in the world, there are people that believing being in a relationship means you consent to any act autonomously. Ignorant, damning, and insane, right?
Anyway, I saw a lot of similarities between Wayne and Howard. So much, I thought maybe they were the same person when the POV first changed. Wayne seemed like he was trying to figure himself out when he almost killed Susan. Then he goes, full psycho. I thought that was a high reached jump. I thought there would be a build-up, or more suspense to him learning about himself. I felt let down that he did what he did to his girlfriend, then went and watched Howard get murdered, both while trying to process his feelings. Then BOOM, he escalates to kidnapping.
I mean, there was the bar scene where he took Lee's card and tracked them down that way. Besides the point, why them? If he felt they would sympathize with him, or that they would be even as insane as he was, why Carole and Lee? Wayne notes later on, towards the end, scaring the couple made him feel great. Was that because of the power or because of the fact that he assumed they were like him, and he made them uncomfortable? There are a lot of unanswered speculations I have on Wayne and his processes. Aside from his victim choice, why change the MO? He was under some impression it wouldn't get him caught, but might I remind you at this point, he has no way out. It is obvious Lee and Carole are missing, he has raped women leaving his DNA behind, he owns one of the weapons being used, and the kidnapped couple owns the other. I mean, I am convinced he just was not intelligent. Nothing was planned out EXCEPT the kidnapping of Lee and Carole. Sadly, even that crime's planning seemed a little off. I also distinctly remember Carole noting Wayne's car in the neighbor's driveway, but when he leads Lee and her out of the house, it is down the street. Little things like that really throw me off. Even one new set of eyes should have caught that.
I guess, let's talk about the degree of psychopathy here. Lee had this idea to kill the abusive ex-husband(?). Some parts of the book referred to Howard as ex and others referred to him as Carole's husband, so another very unfortunate miss under editing. I am all for letting the writing come, but when you get to revisions, you should know your characters inside out to be able to fix fumbles in drafting. I felt maybe Ketchum didn't know his characters well enough. Now, when I write, I do a terrible thing. I let the characters make themselves. I hardly plan them and know them inside out like you should, but by the time I get somewhere, I know them. I will go back and fix what I need to for the plot to work with the character arch. It seems as though there were some missing dots and crosses here.
Anyway, Lee has some degree of psycho in him for acting on it. Sure, we all think about it, but to plan and act is another level. We have Howard, who is self-explanatory. He is an abuser, stalker, and violent individual. Carole did officially kill Howard, but was the to protect Lee or to get out what she held back? Finally, we have Wayne. The great mystery I have mostly spoken about already. He can't classify as a mass murder or serial killer due to the number of people and the time frame between kills. But he is a psycho, nonetheless.
Lastly, I want to point out how skipped the ending felt. Wayne started doing crazy things at a fast pace, Rule gets him, and that is it. Carole wakes up in the hospital, knowing Lee is dead. The end. Cut short? Yes. This may be one novel I would have recommended extending those scenes toward the end, among others in the book. It not only failed to impress me as a writer but was unable to satisfy me as a reader.
Side note: Rule and his, whatever, Anna. She left him, but we never got why. Assuming it was from him being married to his profession, leaving her and the kid in the dark. But, what if it was something else. This may be the one good pondering that Ketchum included and left alone.
Overall, I thought this book was disconcerting about the events of Carole's life. This woman was abused physically, sexually, or by mostly every man in her life. Her husband, Howard, was a real flaming sack of shit. Domestic violence came off rather well in this book, in my opinion. Ketchum captured the idea of Carole not being taken seriously by men because she was Howard's wife when he raped her. If you don't know, that is an actual fucking thing. A lot of ignorant minds are under the impression if you are in a consensual relationship with someone, I.E., married, or significant other, your sexual consent is theirs regardless of how you feel on a given day. When in reality, at any time, everyone has the right to say "No," and "Stop." However, in the world, there are people that believing being in a relationship means you consent to any act autonomously. Ignorant, damning, and insane, right?
Anyway, I saw a lot of similarities between Wayne and Howard. So much, I thought maybe they were the same person when the POV first changed. Wayne seemed like he was trying to figure himself out when he almost killed Susan. Then he goes, full psycho. I thought that was a high reached jump. I thought there would be a build-up, or more suspense to him learning about himself. I felt let down that he did what he did to his girlfriend, then went and watched Howard get murdered, both while trying to process his feelings. Then BOOM, he escalates to kidnapping.
I mean, there was the bar scene where he took Lee's card and tracked them down that way. Besides the point, why them? If he felt they would sympathize with him, or that they would be even as insane as he was, why Carole and Lee? Wayne notes later on, towards the end, scaring the couple made him feel great. Was that because of the power or because of the fact that he assumed they were like him, and he made them uncomfortable? There are a lot of unanswered speculations I have on Wayne and his processes. Aside from his victim choice, why change the MO? He was under some impression it wouldn't get him caught, but might I remind you at this point, he has no way out. It is obvious Lee and Carole are missing, he has raped women leaving his DNA behind, he owns one of the weapons being used, and the kidnapped couple owns the other. I mean, I am convinced he just was not intelligent. Nothing was planned out EXCEPT the kidnapping of Lee and Carole. Sadly, even that crime's planning seemed a little off. I also distinctly remember Carole noting Wayne's car in the neighbor's driveway, but when he leads Lee and her out of the house, it is down the street. Little things like that really throw me off. Even one new set of eyes should have caught that.
I guess, let's talk about the degree of psychopathy here. Lee had this idea to kill the abusive ex-husband(?). Some parts of the book referred to Howard as ex and others referred to him as Carole's husband, so another very unfortunate miss under editing. I am all for letting the writing come, but when you get to revisions, you should know your characters inside out to be able to fix fumbles in drafting. I felt maybe Ketchum didn't know his characters well enough. Now, when I write, I do a terrible thing. I let the characters make themselves. I hardly plan them and know them inside out like you should, but by the time I get somewhere, I know them. I will go back and fix what I need to for the plot to work with the character arch. It seems as though there were some missing dots and crosses here.
Anyway, Lee has some degree of psycho in him for acting on it. Sure, we all think about it, but to plan and act is another level. We have Howard, who is self-explanatory. He is an abuser, stalker, and violent individual. Carole did officially kill Howard, but was the to protect Lee or to get out what she held back? Finally, we have Wayne. The great mystery I have mostly spoken about already. He can't classify as a mass murder or serial killer due to the number of people and the time frame between kills. But he is a psycho, nonetheless.
Lastly, I want to point out how skipped the ending felt. Wayne started doing crazy things at a fast pace, Rule gets him, and that is it. Carole wakes up in the hospital, knowing Lee is dead. The end. Cut short? Yes. This may be one novel I would have recommended extending those scenes toward the end, among others in the book. It not only failed to impress me as a writer but was unable to satisfy me as a reader.
Side note: Rule and his, whatever, Anna. She left him, but we never got why. Assuming it was from him being married to his profession, leaving her and the kid in the dark. But, what if it was something else. This may be the one good pondering that Ketchum included and left alone.
That's interesting... I never would have thought of Wayne and Howard as all that similar. I can see where you're coming from, but, I part of why you felt Wayne's descent felt rushed, highlights why he seemed so different than Howard to me. Howard was a guy that had it all. As you say, he's the usual (I almost said typical, but they're usually not QUITE as bad as him) brand of man who sees the rest of the world as his play things and is able to let his sadistic side out because society's kinda fucked. In my mind, that doesn't fit Wayne at all. He's not had it all. His mother may have sexually abused him. He just doesn't connect with people and is hiding his dark interests. He doesn't have a sadistic side that he gets to joke about with the other boys at the country club. His obsessive nature about death seemed wildly different to me.
ReplyDeleteThough, I agree, he went from 0to 100 too quickly. Well, that's not right. He went from 0 to 80 too quickly and then, at the end, went from 80 to 150 WAY too quickly.
It felt like there was more story to tell. Idk, I had forgotten about Susan halfway through the novel, but then when she reentered, I expected that to be a really good arc into Wayne as a person and how he interacted and was able to maintain real relationships for all of his life. That just wasn't explored at all by Ketchum... It's as you say, Ketchum didn't seem to know his characters well enough. A change-up in novel length seemed kinda refreshing, but maybe this one needed another 100 pages or so to make this neat idea something more.