MINE: A Tale of Madness and Obsession
Robert McCammon’s MINE successfully combined terror and suspense, winning the author the Bram Stoker award the year of its publication. This is the first book I have read by McCammon, and I found it overall impressive.
Perhaps you would like to know if you would like to read MINE also? Then this review will help you make that choice!
Blurb
The story follows Laura Clayborne, a successful journalist whose husband is a successful stockbroker. Her marriage is in peril, despite outwardly her life seeming idyllic. Finding that her husband is being unfaithful during her pregnancy, her unborn son David seems to be the only good in her future life anew without her husband.
In contrast, Mary Terrell is not looking to the future, but stuck in the past. A former member of an extreme-left terrorist group, the Storm Front Brigade, Mary (then known as Mary Terror) reminisces about a life full of violence, excitement and purpose. She now works for minimum wage in a fast-food job, and lives in a filthy apartment where the neighbours constantly complain about the noise she makes, with only the joys of taking acid and playing ‘mommy’ with plastic dolls to keep her ticking on.
After seeing an ad in a music magazine, Mary is convinced that Lord Jack, the leader of the Storm Front before it was disbanded, is demanding her to deliver him the child she miscarried in a car crash. Mary kidnaps Laura’s baby, stealing away any chance of a happy future for Laura for her own.
Laura soon learns that if Mary Terror is cornered in a police stand-off, there is an almost-certain risk that Mary will kill her son before herself. She has to become as ruthless and hate-fuelled as her son’s captor to save David. We follow Laura as she embarks on a lone cross-country journey to regain what is rightfully hers.
Themes in MINE
A Ghost Story
Robert McCammon described MINE as a ghost story. In a letter introducing the story, McCammon wrote:
I sat down to write a ghost story. When I finished, I’d written MINE. Not exactly what I’d started out to do, and certainly not a ghost story in the traditional sense, but a ghost story all the same. MINE is the story of a past era, and a walking dead woman haunted by the specters of what used to be.
Robert McCammon, 1990
McCammon continues:
So, a ghost story? Yes, I think MINE is. The ghosts of a time and place. The ghosts of what used to be, whispering from the yellowed pages of a Rolling Stone. Mary Terror’s journey, into that land where the past and present meet in a violent and inexorable collision, is about to begin.
Robert McCammon, 1990
I personally love a good ghost story. But, I only understood that there were “spectral vibes” after the fact. What really struck me is the bleakness that hits you from both Laura’s and Mary’s narratives. From Laura’s perspective, the way McCammon presents the desperation of clinging onto a single thing for your future happiness is palpable. In contrast, we see Mary (through her insanity) trying to relive the past through some neurotic and maladaptive nostalgia – again something to which the readers at some level can relate. McCammon really captures these feelings in hyper-realism through a do-or-die race for a better life.
MINE is a ghost story in a figurative sense. Mary Terror is haunted by a yearning for a return to the bygone 60s. She is haunted by the woman she used to be, and of a life that thought could’ve been. She is also haunted by her own psychotic hallucinations brought on by years of drug abuse. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of a traditional ghost story, yet who may be growing a little tired of done-to-death tropes of Victorian tragedies and old, dark mansions.
Psychological Thriller
Psychological thriller is a subgenre that combines thriller with psychological fiction. It is frequently used to characterise literature or films that deal with psychological tales in a suspenseful or thrilling atmosphere. MINE primarily fits this subgenre of thriller, combining also elements of horror and a dissolving sense of reality throughout.
Raw negative emotions and neurosis persist as thematic throughout the novel, which we can say is typical of psychological thriller and psychological horror. Paranoia, hatred, and obsession become the driving emotions of both protagonist and antagonist, to the point that they become very similar characters existing as polar opposites on the morality spectrum.
Other tropes that make MINE a psychological thriller is; that of the cult, or in this case an extremist terrorist group; themes of stalking; and of course a missing child. There is also the trope of “the return”, where a figure from the past makes an unexpected and dramatic appearance. The most obvious instance of this is the ‘return’ of Lord Jack, when she believes he is communicating with her through a magazine ad.
Summary
MINE, at least for the first 3 fifths of the book, keeps the reader in a constant state of apprehension. You really fear for baby David’s safety, and this is good. As a lifelong fan of horror, I cannot say that there have been any memorable scares in horror books I have read up until this point. This book, again, succeeds in making the reader feel, which is the product of good writing.
Another outstanding facet of the book was the psychedelic imagery that McCammon conjures in the imagination of the reader. MINE amalgamates pop culture of the 60s, the terrifying, and the Lovecraftian through the hallucinations of our main villain. These really popped out of the page, and have stuck with me since finishing the book.
There were rare occasions reading MINE where I felt the story dragged, in which minimal editing could have resolved this. Overall, MINE is generally a page-turner, with vivid imagery and outstanding writing. Whilst there are parts of the book that feel they take a while to get to their next destination, the stops are memorable and well worth the trip!
