'Benjamin's Parasite' – Jeff Strand

My 'to be read' pile has taken a little bit of a back seat, just recently, to my reaccquaintance with my Kindle and some of the weird shit that I purchased back when... nope, I've got no idea what I was doing (or thinking) when I purchased some of the stuff that my Kindle recommends I read again. It's a good job then that I love my horror a little bit weird, irreverent in all the right places and just pouring with gore and bits that make me wince. What can I say? I was born in the seventies but being a child of the eighties opened my eyes to a lot of stuff that you can tell is a big influence on the direction that this blog finds itself travelling sometimes ;o)

I had a lot of fun re-reading 'Mandibles', the other week, and so it wasn't a big leap to tackle pre-Christmas work stress by going back and re-reading 'Benjamin's Parasite'. It's not a particularly Christmassy read, okay it's not a Christmassy read at all; it's a read that's so full of everything that writing this review is proving to be a bit of a nightmare. You see, I don't know where to start with it. Actually, yes I do. I'm going to compare it to a 'Calvin and Hobbes' cartoon. Seriously.

Bear with me and have some blurb,

At any given moment, the human body contains millions of parasites. This is the story of just one. A really, really nasty one.

Benjamin Wilson was having a lousy month even before the stomach pains began. He was about to turn forty. One of his students had been shot while on a homicidal meat cleaver rampage. And shortly after the funeral, Benjamin didn't feel so good...

Now everything is changing. His body is being affected in some very unpleasant ways. His personality is developing a few "quirks." But the biggest change is that he has a bunch of evil and/or psychotic people trying to hunt him down to acquire the parasite. His only hope is Julie, a gorgeous bounty hunter who may or may not have Benjamin's best interests in mind, and who may or may not be competent enough to help him anyway.

One of my favourite 'Calvin and Hobbes' cartoons is where Calvin is playing a game where a farmer suddenly becomes aware of all the disasters converging on his farmhouse. That cartoon is 'Benjamin's Parasite' in one page. The farmer is our hero Benjamin Wilson, the trembling fault line is the parasite, the train jumping the tracks is our incompetent bounty hunter and the plane hurtling out of the sky is the utterly ridiculous hitmen (and their long suffering handler), or the murderous rednecks, either is good. The difference is that Strand lets everything hit the target and uses the resuting explosion to propel the plot forward into realms of story that you knew must exist but never once thought you'd actually see written on a page. The mixture of frantic pacing and 'chuck everything at a concept and see what sticks approach' shouldn't work (honestly you try telling a weird horror story at a hundred miles an hour and see how far you get) but to Strand's credit it all holds together and the end result is several parts body horror (screw that parasite for what it did to poor Benjamin) with a sprinkling of road trip and a hint of heist to top it all off.

This isn't the type of horror that has you on the edge of your seat, wondering what that noise was, but it is very much the kind of horror that will leave you a little bit sick at the sight of just what a mutant tapeworm (and a mutant cow at one point) can do. There's a really sweet vein of humour running through it as well, not a single character has brought their 'A-Game' to the table and the resulting mishaps and misundertandings really keep the plot fresh and entertaining. The reader literally has no idea what will happen next and when that involves the aforementioned mutant worm, or the murderous rednecks, then you can't help but keep reading (almost like there's a mutant tapeworm in you, driven by manic plotting and gore).It may all hang together a little too conveniently at times but it's more than likely that you'll be reading too quickly to notice or be more invested in Benjamin making it to a doctor before his 'friend' makes a quick exit, via whichever exit is nearest...

'Benjamin's Parasite' is one gloriously manic read that just doesn't quit with the horror and the humour, leaving me a sniggering wreck and pondering whether or not a sequel could work. There couldn't be a sequel, could there...? I'd read it.