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ORDINARY HORROR is not a horror story, at least in the classical or modern sense. It
will not make your heart race nor keep you awake at night. No, ORDINARY HORROR is more
concerned with the little, minute, everyday things that, if you take them and twist them
just a bit, will drive you gradually but irrevocably mad.
Frank Delabano is a 70-year-old widower who is in the midst of a very quiet existence. He
is a bit of a loner --- he has not met his next door neighbors of two years --- and his
life seems to revolve around tending his rosebushes. When he finds what he discerns to be
a gopher infestation in his garden he happens to run across an advertisement for an
organic remedy, harmless to pets and to people, which will keep such pests away. The
remedy is as advertised --- to a point, anyway. While it takes care of the problem, it
also seems to alter Delabano's entire world. His home, his nondescript tract house
neighborhood, his all-but-invisible neighbors all begin to take on aspects of terror.
Everything from a garbage truck to the clothes dryer to the telephone gradually,
incrementally, becomes an instrument of foreboding. A sense of entropy permeates
everything, and entropy as always, ultimately wins.
Is this the story of a man who simply decompensates under the weight of all of the time he
has on his hands? Or is it a not-so-gentle reminder of something that most of the rest of
the world already, unfortunately knows: that no matter how safe and secure we think we
are, we remain only a twist and turn away from conflagration? ORDINARY HORROR is a tale of
modern isolation that will be especially disturbing to older readers, particularly those
who find that the world around them seems to be moving ahead while leaving them behind.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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