Only Child

Only Child (1995) by Jack Ketchum – Headline Feature

Slight 1 inch tear to back spine, not serious, but a blemish on an otherwise very good copy.

Some family disputes involve awkward Christmas dinners.

Some involve arguments over who gets the good china.

And then there is Jack Ketchum.

Only Child, published by Headline Feature in 1995, is a dark, brutal psychological horror novel about a family relationship that has gone far beyond dysfunctional and entered the territory where everybody should probably stop pretending things can be sorted out over coffee.

At the centre of the story is a child caught between adults whose relationship has become poisonous, obsessive and increasingly dangerous.

Ketchum takes the familiar territory of marriage breakdown, custody, possessiveness and domestic conflict and removes every comforting assumption that sensible people will eventually intervene and restore order.

They might.

But this is Jack Ketchum, so optimism should probably be packed separately.

Rather than supernatural monsters, haunted houses or ancient curses, the horror comes from something considerably more uncomfortable: ordinary human beings behaving appallingly.

There are no vampires to blame.

No demons.

No mysterious artefact purchased from an eccentric antique dealer.

Just control, resentment, obsession and the terrifying possibility that somebody who believes they are entitled to another person may keep pushing long after any reasonable boundary has disappeared.

Ketchum was particularly good at this kind of horror.

His stories often work because the situations feel disturbingly possible. The violence is not occurring in a Gothic castle surrounded by wolves.

It is happening in homes, cars, courtrooms and ordinary streets.

Places where people are supposed to be safe.

That makes Only Child less a traditional horror story than a steadily tightening psychological nightmare.

The tension comes from watching relationships deteriorate while knowing that the people involved are not necessarily capable of making sensible decisions.

Which, unfortunately, is one of the more realistic foundations for horror.

There is also a grim examination of parenthood running through the novel.

People frequently say they would do anything for their child.

Ketchum appears to have heard that sentence and wondered:

“Anything?”

A dangerous question.

The novel explores the difference between love and possession, protection and control, and the terrible consequences that can follow when adults treat a child as something to be won rather than a person caught in the middle.

It is uncomfortable material, and deliberately so.

Ketchum was never especially interested in giving readers a pleasant little scare before sending them safely to bed.

He preferred horror that lingered.

The kind that leaves you staring at the last page for a moment before deciding perhaps you will read something about gardening next.

Published under the Headline Feature imprint in the mid-1990s, this edition has all the appeal of period horror paperbacks from an era when covers frequently suggested that whatever was inside would not be improving your sleep.

And in this case, that seems fair.

This copy is in Good condition, making it a solid reading copy for collectors of Jack Ketchum, 1990s horror, psychological thrillers or fiction that finds its monsters rather closer to home than is entirely comfortable.

Ideal for readers who like horror without supernatural safety nets, domestic thrillers with genuinely nasty edges, or books in which the phrase “family problems” turns out to be doing an extraordinary amount of work.

Sold by Crappy Old Books, where dysfunctional families are confined to the fiction shelves and all custody disputes over books are settled by whoever pays first.

ISBN: 0747249008
Condition: Good

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