First Edition (1981)
Rerelease (1985)
First published back in May of 1981, Guy N Smith’s novel ‘Manitou Doll’ was a relatively early standalone novel from the prolific and highly revered pulp horror author.
DLS Synopsis:
In 1868, from the relative comfort of Fort Wallace in Kansas, General Sheridan enacted a campaign of revenge against the Plain Indians who’d conducted their guerilla warfare so effectively over the last few years. Headed up by Major George A. Forsyth, the General ordered fifty of his men to hunt down and kill both the Cheyenne and Sioux Indians, who had caused such problems for him.
Only one of the Plain Indians survived the brutal attack. A young Cheyenne Indian named Mistai, the daughter of Roman Nose. However, the young Indian girl didn’t get away unscathed. As she fled the violent struggle, she found herself at the mercy of one of the soldiers’ scouts. A cruel man who saw the opportunity to take advantage of the situation.
As the white solider raped Mistai, she prayed to a tiny totem she’d carved for her father. Prayed that her god – Okeepa, the carved devil god of the Plains Indians – would take a terrible revenge. A vengeance not just on her attacker, but upon all his kind. That it would strike them down with a terrible wrath and that their children, and their children’s children, would rue that day for generations to come.
Over a century later, and in the United Kingdom, Roy Catlin and his family have gone on holiday, staying at the Beaumont Hotel. However, the holiday doesn’t start on the best note, with two biker gangs unleashing a patch war within the nearby fairground. A vicious scrap that ends with a number of bikers dead and the local community shocked by the sudden explosion of violence.
But this is just the start of what will prove to be a disastrous weeklong break for the Catlin’s. Each day they’re subjected to a downpour of continuous rain. Then their car breaks down, leaving them stuck within the local vicinity, with nothing around but the coastline and the fairground.
However, even the fairground isn’t exactly family entertainment. The proprietor – a mean old man named Jacob Schaefer – has let the various attractions grow tired and rundown. The caged animals wearisome, the rides overpriced and tatty. But it’s the Punch & Judy show that really puts Liz Catlin off the fairground. A show of violence, which sees the puppets brutalised, with blood flowing down from the puppet stall.
The next day a tragic death at the fairground is reported. A death that’s followed by another body – a suspected murder. Things can’t get much worse for the Catlin’s holiday.
Only their young daughter seems to be making the most of her time there. Eight-year-old Rowena Catlin has formed a friendship with a Red Indian Fortune-Teller named Jane. A beautiful woman who gives the girl a small carved doll. It’s a friendship which Liz Catlin despises. Seeing her husband’s obvious attraction to the Indian woman only fuels Liz’s hatred for the Fortune-Teller further.
As their wet weeklong holiday continues, the Catlin’s begin to sense a malevolence that’s been gradually escalating. Something at the fairground that’s not quite right. Something evil. Something about all those carved wooden puppets, with their terrible eyes boring down on them.
An age-old curse has awoken. And it’s about to wreak its revenge…
There’s a lot going on within this pulpy offering from the veritable master of the genre – Guy N Smith. It’s a bleak and oppressive novel, wallowing in a constant air of downtrodden misery. Even the frigging weathers miserable! Wet and cold, with holiday goers trying to make the most of the time, but there’s little joy to be had from such a miserable setting.
The novel starts out with a prologue depicting a bloody fight between the Plain Indians and a band of well-equipped white soldiers. However, this starting gambit is merely to introduce the curse, and the small carved totem doll that becomes inhabited by the Manitou Spirit.
Fast forward to the present day, and we’re quickly introduced to Jane, the American Indian Fortune-Teller, who we instantly link with the bygone Cheyenne tribe (and the one lone survivor of the assault). However, it’s what follows that has us on the edge of our seats. An almost unending string of tragedies, murders, and gritty troubles for the Catlin family and indeed all the other fairground attendees.
Honestly, it’s just one thing after the next. A constant stream of misery for which Guy doesn’t take a pause from, but instead, just soaks us sodden with its constant oppression of gloom.
At one point we have a predatory man, who boards the Ghost Train when he sees eight-year-old Rowena Catlin alone within one of the carts. This scene in particular is quite hard to swallow. The man’s obviously predatory actions. The upset and the scare it gives to the poor young girl.
However, where the pulpiness of the novel comes to its fullest effect is with the Punch & Judy show. We’re given a couple of these strange and terrifying shows. Puppet shows where the character of Punch unleashes a torrent of brutal violence upon Judy and their baby. A show that ends in bloodshed and gore. Certainly not what the young audience were expecting!
It’s an idea that Smith later returned to a couple of times – first with the short story ‘The Doll’, which appeared within the British Fantasy Society’s ‘Winter Chills 2’ (1987) periodical, and as then reprinted within the standalone chapbook ‘The Doll’ (2009). In fact, ‘The Doll’ was the original story template for ‘Manitou Doll’. A sort of stripped-down singular slice of horror, focused upon the gritty corruption of the classic fairground puppet of Punch. Not finished there, the corrupted Punch & Judy concept then later reappeared within Smith’s dark thriller novel ‘The Hangman’ (1994).
The novel also has a steady stream of utterly dislikeable characters thrown into the mix. In classic GNS style we have a hunchback dwarf called Stalin who helps out in the fairground menagerie. Of course, he’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work, with a bigass chip on his shoulder and an evil streak a mile wide. Then there’s the fairground proprietor himself. A penny pinching, bitter old man, who’ll take advantage of someone’s misfortune at the drop of a hat.
We also have an interesting dynamic with the Catlin family themselves. Roy has spent his life being somewhat of a pushover, especially with regards to how his wife treats him. Liz is a short tempered, sharp and jealous woman, who always seems to have something negative to say. She treats Roy pretty badly throughout, which as it’s a GNS novel, invariably leads to Roy looking elsewhere – namely at the beautiful American Indian fortune-teller!
However, one thing about the novel, is the strangely haphazard way it knits together all of this misery and tragedy, seemingly without a purposeful direction to where it’s leading or what’s behind it all. In fact, the curse of the small carved Manitou Doll that Rowena Catlin carries around with her, feels more like a vaguely sketched out plot concept, than that of a full-blown driving force to the novel.
Nevertheless, it all seems to work. It’s oppressive and gloomy as hell, from start to finish, but then that’s pulp horror for you! There’s grittiness to the violence, and bursts of chaotic action that seems to erupt at the drop of a hat. Which works in its favour.
It’s not the most accomplished of GNS novels, somewhat suffering from a lack in direction. But the characters are there to pull you along this rough and foggy road. They’re essentially the glue that holds the plot of the novel together. Successfully so too.
The novel runs for a total of 236 pages.
© DLS Reviews
