‘The Calling’ – Bob Randall (New English Library)

Page Count: 188 pages.

You know me by now… I like to root around in old bookshops and see what I find, every visit is a treasure hunt and all that 😊 These days, I like to keep an eye open for any horror from the early eighties, I couldn’t get my hands on it as a kid (it was on the shelves but way out of my reach as a kid) so I’m making up for lost time now and catching up on the books of those heady pulpy days when it seemed like anything could become the subject of a horror book. Like a telephone for example…

Really though, a telephone…? Well, that’s what the cover of ‘The Calling’ had on it and it was only going to set me back a pound so I thought, why not? Lets give it a go and see where the book takes me. And that was exactly what I did.

You have a wonderful husband, a beautiful daughter, and a good job in New York City.

And then...the Calling begins. The Presence that turns everyday reality into a nightmare of sheer terror. The shrieking, obscene Silence that follows you everywhere.

Calling you.

First, you tell your husband and friends, but they don't believe you. Then you try to run, but it stalks you without mercy. You have been chosen, and there is only one thing to do.

Answer.

On the face of it and certainly at the beginning, ‘The Calling’ feels like it’s asking rather a lot of its readers, to be scared by a phone that rings and then does nothing once Susan picks it up. For me anyway, Randall couldn’t quite get across just how scary the silence on the line is meant to be. I’m not knocking the experience of women being harassed by phone, I just didn’t feel like what was happening here was as satanic as perhaps Randall wanted it to be. So at that point of the proceedings, I was wondering whether to stick with it.

I’m glad I did. As the book progresses, Randall ups the tension as we get to see the malevolent phone presence widen its influence so that no matter what Susan does, there is something nasty waiting to happen. Randall has an understated way of writing that makes moments like the death of [I’m not going to tell you] even more impactful as you see it really affect every part of Susan’s life. By the end, what we have is a real sense of relentless terror as everything is taken from Susan, except the one decision that she has been trying to avoid. By that point, I couldn’t turn the pages quickly enough, I had to know what happened next.

‘The Calling’ is a bit of a slow burner and given it’s low page count, that’s not the best look for a book that clearly wants to grab the reader straight away. If you stick with it though, it’s worth the read. It’s not going to stop me answering my phone but it was a creepy read while I was reading it.