
First Edition (1999)

Reissue Cover Art
First published back in May of 1999, US author Richard Laymon’s novel ‘Cuts’ was originally released through Cemetery Dance as a limited-edition hardback, signed by the author and limited to just 1,500 copies along with an additional 52 traycased lettered editions.
The novel has since been released in paperback and ebook formats.
In the run up to Halloween of 1975, seventeen-year-old Albert Prince had started to encounter his first sexual experiences. However, there’s something deep within Albert’s psyche that was now creeping to the surface. An uncontrollable lust for cutting flesh. A sadistic sexual persuasion for causing hurt, pain, and horrific suffering to his victims. Albert Prince is a psychopath. Driven by overwhelming sexual urges, the teenager is beginning to learn that cutting and killing women is what truly gets him off.
As a result of the sadistic murder enacted upon his first female victim – a woman he’d spotted at the local Safeway – Albert establishes a torrent of sexual gratification through the sadistic violence he unleashes. From that moment onwards, the teenager’s life will no longer be the same. Albert Prince is now a sadistic murderer, relentlessly seeking out the next thrill of cutting and killing. Invading the sanctuary of his victims’ houses to cut, rape and kill.
Meanwhile, Janet Arthur’s life had also been taking a dramatic change. She’d recently learnt that she was pregnant. However, when she discloses the fact to the father of their unborn child, he demands an abortion. But there’s no way Janet could ever do that. This is her child. She could never murder it, no matter what Dave says. His instant reaction shows Janet what sort of man Dave truly is. Not someone she could ever be with. Janet finds her only option is to leave his apartment and him, to start afresh by herself, for her and her baby.
Elsewhere Lester Bryant is coming to the realisation of how utterly miserable his life has become being married to his wife Helen. The woman is nothing but a cold-hearted bitch who takes every opportunity to emasculate him. Lester’s beginning to realise he can’t keep going on in this increasingly toxic marriage. And with those thoughts, his eyes open to those around him, and his realisation that there are women out there who actually care, can love, and in turn Lester could maybe fall in love with.
Albert Prince’s relentless spree of sexual violence and bloodshed will take him from home to home. Janet’s life becomes a turmoil of spiralling chaos, with her ex-boyfriend showing increasing signs of how unhinged and violent he really is. Whilst emotionally damaged Lester gradually gets pushed over the edge, whilst he begins to struggle with the juxtaposition of what life might be like away from his wife.
All of these lives, these separate threads of existence, will eventually converge. And for each one of them, and all those caught up in the escalating maelstrom along the way, a chain reaction of events will change their collective lives forever. The question is, how many of them will remain at the end of this spiralling chaos?...
Oh, you’ve gotta love Laymon and his penchant for depicting outrageous sexual violence! This one, as you’ve no doubt guessed from the above synopsis, is bursting at the seams with such sexually driven savagery, largely thanks to our principal antagonist – Albert ‘cut them up’ Prince.
Essentially the whole novel is built upon the gradual converging of three separate storylines – driven by the aforementioned separate lives (Albert, Janet and Lester). There’s also a whole additional cast of secondary characters, many of whom are the co-workers of the cold-hearted bitch, Helen Bryant, who’s a high school teacher with a lot of connections and colleagues she interacts with. The result is a hugely character-driven story, with the numerous characters all having their own parts to play within this escalating wild ride of a story.
Honestly, there’s so frigging much crammed into this tale. Infidelity, stalking, callous violence, a messed up sexual relationship between teacher and student, casual semi-prostitution, an unnerving sexual fantasy involving mother and daughter, and of course a psychopath’s sexually driven killing spree.
So yeah, the tale is incredibly geared around violence, sex and sleaze. However, there’s also an undercurrent of human nature embedded within much of this. An angle tentatively examining the motivations, the impactful chain reaction, emotional stress and magnitude of trauma caused by each and every action.
Nevertheless, the main thrust of the tale is one of creating an elaborate and carefully orchestrated domino effect. Separate stories of entirely separate lives all converging through this wild zigzagging of the course of their respective lives. In fact, Laymon sums up this whole conceptual idea within some of the character dialogue:
“You can’t live without making decisions, and every time you make one, you start a chain reaction. You affect lives. In ways you never figured. Or wanted.”
That quote pretty much summarises the whole concept of the novel. Spoken through a character, the words then echo on through each page.
So yeah, the whole novel is essentially the epitome of the ripple effect. But one exaggerated in true Laymon style, with Albert Prince slicing, dicing and raping his way throughout as we draw closer to the dramatic finale.
As you’ve probably guessed, there’s some decidedly nasty scenes in the novel, as well as some pretty fucking wild scenes of sexual deviancy. Our pal Albert is largely at the forefront of driving this, however, the blossoming relationship between Lester and a considerably older co-worker of Helen’s has some racy but wild sexual fantasy stuff thrown in for good measure. All of which makes the novel quite unsurprisingly not for the faint-hearted.
The novel is an absolute roller-coaster of a read, with so many ups and downs along the way, you’ll struggle to find a point to put the book down, despite its delivery in short pulpy chapters. Classic Laymon!
The novel runs for a total of 327 pages.

© DLS Reviews


