- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press (Sep 23 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0816672202
- ISBN-13: 978-0816672202
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 408 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,082,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
All is not remotely well in the unusual town of Leech Lake, Minnesota. Substitute teacher Diana Turney has lost her job, and is finally beginning to recall long-lost memories of being molested by her father, Wes. To make matters worse, Wes's ghost is beginning to stir in the old smokehouse--the house that Diana has moved back into so she can take care of her sister's child, Kelly. Her sister has been shipped off to the big house to serve a year behind bars after taking a shot at her philandering husband, Carl.
Diana exacts her revenge on Carl by turning him into a pig, courtesy of some supernatural powers that she has recently inherited. But Diana's "gift" is slowly bringing her over to the dark side (and slowly turning the residents of Leech Lake into barnyard animals), with a bit of help from dear old dad out in the backyard. Luckily, there are a few good characters like Jim Cottonwood who keep things from getting totally out of hand. But Cottonwood is also in the joint, sentenced for a rape he didn't commit.
It may sound pretty confusing, but you'll find yourself thoroughly caught up in Thomas M. Disch's bizarre, satirical story of life, love, and death in the supernatural Midwest. --Craig Engler --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Disch's Supernatural Minnesota novelsAwhich include The Businessman: A Tale of Terror; The M.D.: A Horror Story; and The Priest: A Gothic RomanceAcomprise a mock epic on modern American values. This new addition to the series builds on the achievement of its predecessors and secures his tenure as the Swift of supernatural satire. The titular "sub" is Diana Turney, a second-grade teacher hired by the Willowville elementary school after two of its faculty are prosecuted for satanic abuse of students. Diana seems just a harmless eccentricAprone to lacing her lessons with gleanings from her unorthodox beliefs in Wicca and vegetarianismAuntil a session with her astrologer-therapist uncovers repressed memories of sexual mistreatment by her father. Empowered by her new awareness, and aided by a magic herbal tea brewed from mandrake root, Diana becomes a latter-day Circe who entices men sexually and then transforms them physically into the image of their (mostly) piggish natures. This unsympathetic portrait of the victim turned predator is just part of Disch's broad and refreshingly unrestrained critique of our current culture of dysfunction and victimization, represented by a large cast of social misfits that includes Diana's sister Janet, who is serving a prison stint for shooting her husband during one of his adulterous liaisons, and her sexually na?ve paramour, Alan Johnson, who discovers he's been sired by his grandfather, a Protestant minister. Though the characters are tabloid fodder, and the ingredients of the complex plotAwhich include incest, parenticide, emasculation, serial murder, cannibalism and religious hypocrisyApotentially weighty, the novel is a light souffl? of black comedy, kept tantalizingly aloft by Disch's deadpan wit. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but not very pleasant,
This review is from: The Sub: A Study in Witchcraft (Hardcover)
This is one of Disch's horror novels and - although stand-alone - is a companion novel to The MD, The Businessman and The Priest (the last of which I have not read). As with his other horror novels, Disch breaks away from normal conventions; no one would confuse his work with Stephen King in either content or tone.This story follows the descent into evil of a woman as she becomes infected with the malignant spirit of her father. With her change in character come new and nasty powers. The main flaw with this story is its general air of unpleasantness. There are few appealing characters and the book often has the feel of a rural soap opera. Nonetheless, this is a well-written book and for horror fans, it is a nice change-of-pace story.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disch Can Do Better,
This review is from: The Sub: A Study in Witchcraft (Hardcover)
At a time when most contemporary novelists reserve their "villain" slots for men--usually that stock character of the slobby, crude, wife-beating white man--Thomas M. Disch haswritten a book that actually features a female antagonist. For this he gets slapped with the label "misogynist," a label which is just too narrow, as nearly every character in The Sub--male or female--is evil, misguided, moronic, or just plain pathetic. Witch, priest, or shaman, all are corrupt. That's supposed to be the point of "dark comedy," but unfortunately this story is not terribly funny, and it grows tiresome because there is not a single character worth pulling for--until near the end, if you can stick with it that long. Diana, the novel's antagonist, is a substitute schoolteacher, molestation victim, and typically evil witch who, like Homer's Circe, can turn men into pigs. Unlike Circe, becoming evil makes her lose weight and look pretty. Is this the best Disch could do with the potential of a modernized version of this delicious, classic character? Diana's exploits are inexcuseably dull, and so are her victims. She could turn all of Minnesota into pigs, or not; there isn't much reason for the reader to care. For Disch at his best, "The Businessman" is a much better read; the dark humor is there, and some of the characters are actually likable. (For those certain readers who demand that the bad guy always have an office job, white skin, and a penis, they'll get that too.)
1.0 out of 5 stars
rrrrr...,
By dwight moody "Big Jack Earl was 8 foot one..." (Big Tuna, Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Sub: A Study in Witchcraft (Hardcover)
This book was a grave disappointment. Mr. Disch is a great writer, full of good turns of phrase and well described settings, but the characters in this book were made of wood, the plot jumped around to no effect, and I spent the last 100 pages waiting for it to end.On a more global level, the only explanation ever given for the main characters actions are that she was abused as a child, which perpetuates the harmful stereotype that the victem inevitably becomes the victemizer. It's also way too pat and explanation, and never gets fleshed out. The book kind of resembles a work by the Marquis deSade, a repetitious catalog of horrors without a real plot or characters. Unfortunately, it lacks the sex.
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