If you haven’t read a bizarro novel yet, you are seriously
missing out. The genre takes all the
gore of the freakiest horror movies, throws in strange sex and absurd ideas,
and gives us some of the most entertaining and often hilarious novels available.
Carlton Mellick III is often called the godfather of bizarro
fiction, and his frat boy spelunking horror novel, Clusterfuck, is a sick, demented, and thoroughly entertaining read.
Technically, Clusterfuck is the sequel to Mellick’s novel Apeshit,
a favorite among his fans, though it isn’t necessary to read the first before
reading the second. Both are tributes to
B horror films, but while Apeshit is
about high school kids in a secluded mountain cabin, Clusterfuck is about seven college students who go spelunking in
the caves under that same mountain.
The students include Dean, a douchebag frat boy with
lactating breasts, Trent, who was encouraged to be an asshole by his mother and
has risen to the challenge, Lauren, a seemingly sweet sorority girl with a hell
of a disgusting fetish, and adopted sisters Selina and Marta, whose fucked-up
secrets are two awesome to give away in a review.
These fools—and yes, all the main characters are all fools—go
caving in Turtle Mountain despite warnings from a local ranger to stay the hell
out of there. For Trent, this is all a
player, PUA style scheme to get laid.
If you are claustrophobic at all, take this as a warning:
Mellick’s protagonists get themselves literally into a lot of tight spots, and
not the sexy kind. I don’t know if this
book will help or exacerbate claustrophobia, but I got a thrill out of those
intense scenes.
What else is under the ground besides tight spaces? How about white-eyed children, immortal
mutants, and radioactive crystals? Yep,
all there. We also learn more about what the hell was
going on in Apeshit, including the
likely background of a couple of monsters in that book.
I’ve read and loved nearly thirty of Mellick’s novels, and I
recommend this one as highly as any of the others. If bizarro sounds intriguing to you, this is
a great first book to get you into the genre.
If it sounds too strange and freaky, try it anyway. You just might become disgusted with yourself
when you find that you really, really like it.
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