Chantel's Reviews > The Chalk Man

** spoiler alert ** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on abuse, the self-mutilation of a child, the death of an animal, the sexual assault of a child, the death of a minor, terminal illness, physical violence, sexual violence, reproductive rights, substance abuse, Ephebophilia, & others.

Once upon a time, there was a man who had a story to tell; a trip down memory lane riddled with uncertainty, unreliability, darkness, & shadows, the story told the tale of a group of four (4) young friends & the events that led them to discover the mutilated body of a school-mate, hidden under piles of autumn leaves one early morning. Unsatisfactorily, the story that this man, Eddie, has to tell is through the single reflected narration that he chooses to share. Due to his stunted ability to recall the name of a ‘keyhole’, one is left wondering why he would put so much effort into remembering this story at all for, to whom is he telling it? What role does the reader play in this game of shadows?

I suggest any readers who come upon my review heed the content warning I placed at the beginning because unseasoned readers of Horror will be quite shocked to find that this book, deemed primarily a ‘Thriller’ is indeed filled to the brim with morose accounts of graphically terrible things. So begins my main qualm with this story. Had Tudor taken it upon themselves to write a Horror they might have been at the precipice of a good story; had they decided to write a Thriller, the bulk of this novel is useless & is unimportant to the core of the narrative. Because this book fails at inspiring any level of unease, suspense, terror, worry, or thrill, I am left wondering who along the way cushioned this book to be published under the guise that it be anything save jagged puzzle pieces left under the chesterfield in a home whose inhabitants forgot they own board games.

I enjoy reading Horror a fair amount. If I were asked, I should be inclined to say that it is one of my favourite genres to read & the reason for that is because a good Horror story is indeed a delicate sway over the thin sheet of ice that covers a river in winter; the details, pensive reflection, & effort that go into writing these stories is exceptional. One cannot simply toss wet spaghetti at a wall & call it a meal just as one cannot simply enumerate terrible things & call it a story. Within this book we see Tudor begin with the effort of trying to incorporate graphic gore without proper build-up. When Elisa’s face is slashed to the bone by the metal of the ride, I was left wondering why this scene was blown-through so quickly. Are we meant to feel repulsed? Was the intention to grant the reader a tinge of terror only to remind them that this event had little to do with the story?

I am repeatedly left wondering what the intention was behind any of what transpired throughout this story. Should Tudor’s desire have been to intertwine the general Thriller genre with Horror, there needed to be a dedicated build to the events that transpired. In place of this storytelling, we see the story bombard the reader with casual mentions of abuse—most of which affect young children—as though this were a very casual subject of conversation that did not merit the time & energy necessary to broach it. If one were to study the behaviours of any of the children with the surface-level amount of information that the author grants us, one need not be a professional within the field of psychology to note that the children in this story were exposed to horrific levels of violence—both physical, psychological, & sexual—that was swept past in an effort to arrive at the conclusion.

What is the purpose of introducing characters like Nicky only for them to be given no worthwhile effort in the totality of the story? One needs talent, poise, & a decent train of thought to introduce characters of children who are being abused. It is mind-numbing to me that we are still seeing such a blatant inability to approach subject matters pertaining to childhood trauma (generalized) in the year in which this book was written. Though I appreciate that the plot of this story is split between the years 1986 & 2016, the author writes about the young characters' childhoods as though they were growing up in the sticks of 1930s America. There is no excuse not to be dedicated to the craft when deciding that your story will include characters who suffered abuse as children. Do better.

It is very important to me that this point is made clear because I am utterly disgusted at the fact that the author saw fit to include multiple scenes in which children were being violently abused only for the story to magically forget that any of those events transpired. What did it add to the story for Eddie to watch Nicky sit in the park & use her crucifix necklace to inflict physical mutilation on her legs? Why would the author include this if we are never to touch on it again? Are we to assume that because Nicky was self-harming as a child, she was experiencing suicidal ideations? Or perhaps we are to view this scene as all the other scenes & simply take away that this child was being chronically abused by her Ephebophilia, & predatory, parent whom Eddie’s mother believes deserves forgiveness?

What is the goal here? What was the intention of this story? Eddie experiences graphic sexual violence from the older brother of one of his friends, after being furiously beaten by three (3) teenage boys. Even though Mr. Halloran saw the abuse take place he looks past it hoping that his presence as an adult will dissuade these teenagers from ever sexually assaulting another child. All the while Sean, the perpetrator, has a younger brother who could be suffering the exact same abuse we just witnessed inflicted on Eddie & no one bats an eye. I am aware that throughout history there have been multiple instances where well-meaning people did not fully understand the gravity of events however, the author has the benefit of the internet, studied professionals, & years of tallied accounts of these same experiences of violence transpiring.

Therefore, why did Tudor write all the antagonists—the predators, the sexual deviants—as being just like everyone else in town? Why did Eddie’s mother vilify Mr. Halloran for his inaction towards Elisa when she knew from a first-hand account that the Vicar (Nicky’s father) was raping a 16-year-old girl & had gotten her pregnant under the guise of gifting her religious enlightenment? Why did she continue to visit this man in the hospital after everything that he did? What makes his actions worth forgiving? He was abusing his power as head of the local church to rape a young teenager. What part of her medical training & years as the mother of a child made it so she was blissful & without care when it came to facing off with a literal sexual predator? This situation is absurd & genuinely has the story drown itself in ridiculousness; at what point am I meant to care about the person who was abusing children & then also murdered them? The answer is, never.

There is no point at which this story holds an ounce of intrigue or mystery, the author has clearly set out the reveal in the initial chapters & one may question why the author would do that if the goal is to have readers finish the book & not toss it out the window. I’m not sure in which town in America the reputation held by the Catholic Church does not precede it but, apparently, every member of this town was oblivious to the fact that heads of religious institutions, can in fact be the bad guys.

Unsurprisingly, the Vicar is revealed to have been the one who murdered Elisa in a twist so shockingly stupid I don’t even know where to begin. Even in 1986, when hair dye might not have been what it is today, there is no way on this green earth that someone is going from dark hair to the natural pigmentation of a blonde in under a week. Please do not play the reader for a fool in a subject matter that is easily able to be disproved.

It’s swell to think that Chloe, with her chemically dyed black hair, could strip that colour in one shot but, I’m telling you that’s not how it works. Just as it would have been swell for Elisa, with her naturally dark hair to have gone blonde in one shot, yet again, I am telling you that’s not how it works—the bleaching process alone would have mangled her hair beyond recognition if they were inducing it to a blonde state that rivalled the natural blonde of her friend, Hannah. Yet what is remarkably incredible in all of this, is the fact that the Vicar is evidently oblivious to hair colour because the only reason he killed Elisa was that she had blonde hair. How does that figure? Even assuming that she would have been able to achieve a blonde to rival Hannah’s you’re expecting me to believe that the Vicar, in an attempt to settle the score after being beaten by vigilantes, decided to choke some random girl who also had blonde hair because he was too daft to recognize that everyone was using the woods for sexual activities?

The reveal in this story is hilariously bad. This man, the vicar, was beaten in the head with baseball bats within an inch of his life & you’re expecting me to believe that the next week he was roaming the woods wielding an axe & choking people to death? Do you understand how physically difficult it is to choke someone to death with your bare hands? It’s not a waltz through the park & a simple Google search would tell you that. Do you know how dextrous you need to be to wield an axe? Certainly, I would not expect someone who had such catastrophic brain injuries to be playing woodsman in the middle of the night; where did he even get the axe?

Regardless of how nonsensical the reveal is, I was left once again wondering why Eddie’s lack of depth had to be the ploy on which this story rested. As a child, Eddie exhibited serious tendencies toward thieving; he would steal everything & kept almost all things as keepsakes. This is never explored in any depth & instead, the author decides that the signs that this child was exhibiting were enough reason for him to steal the decapitated head of Elisa from the woods & hide it in the floorboards of his family house. At this point, I do not believe that the author has the skill to write a good story & the next questions I pose are not rhetorical because it would mean I am expecting something from a person who is unable to provide it. This is the ideal moment for the story to explore the dissociative actions that Eddie exhibits at night; this child is literally drawing little chalk men around town & cannot remember having done it but it’s more important to read the physical descriptions of the decapitated head then grant this child any semblance of reprieve for what he was experiencing.

Why were we not able to read about a single instance in which any of the exhibitions of trauma, events of experienced trauma, or the wording alluding to trauma, were given any level of seriousness? Why were the events that these children had to live through used as casual markers of a story which was not worth writing in the first place? This is inappropriate & irresponsible. Though it is certainly reflective of reality when people keep things hidden or are unable to garner the help that they deserve; this story simply employed horrific violence against the youth as a means of adding some quirks to a plot that had no substance. Therefore, we return to my original question, what was the intention? Did Tudor want to write a Thriller? If so, why did they not follow simple markers for achieving that? There is too much within this plot that requires the reader to be totally out to lunch while reading it to forgive the blasphemous disservice to all of the themes that are presented.