In his novels, William Browning Spencer shows a great fondness for alienated characters who find themselves unable to contend with modern life, characters for whom reality is, at best, malleable. Maybe I'll Call Anna features the misguided David Livingston, a young man obsessed with a female drug addict. In Resume With Monsters, loner Philip Kenon discovers Lovecraft's eldritch horrors populate the business world. In Zod Wallop, author Harry Gainesborough's fictional creations intrude on his everyday life.
Irrational Fears continues this exploration of the nature of reality, this time through the eyes of alcoholic Jack Lowry, who enters the Hurley Memorial Hospital's detox unit to dry out. There he encounters several colorful personalities-Ed Tilman, an adventurer who spent time among Catholic cannibals, who, in his words, "took the whole Communion thing too literally," Wesley Parks, an alcoholism counselor who hates alcoholics, and the lovely Kerry Beckett, a teen alcoholic with whom he instantly falls in love.
Things are relatively calm for Jack until he attends an offsite AA meeting, where he has his first run-in with the belligerent members of a group named The Clear. Led by self-proclaimed prophet Dorian Greenway, this group believes alcoholism is caused by demons. Their equivalent of AA's Big Book, called "Alcoholism and the Pnakotic Pentagram," speaks of the Outer Gods, and how "The Alcoholics" killed Greenway's uncle.
Shortly after, Jack's world starts to unravel. One night, he watches helplessly as a fellow patient is literally sucked into a toilet. Transferring to a new facility, Jack witnesses an AA meeting where participants willingly sacrifice themselves to a tentacled creature in an indoor pool. Jack eventually discovers that the cause of the problems lies in a tragic incident in Dorian Greenway's past. He confronts Greenway, only to find himself trapped in a dreamscape designed in the recesses of the madman's warped mind, a world where Kerry seems destined to die.
Irrational Fears is a fearless exploration of the nature of addiction in many of its myriad forms-addiction to alcohol, addiction to twelve step programs, addiction to cults, addiction to pain. AA is clearly represented as an alternative religion; The Clear is their competition for the minds of the public. Spencer explores these issues successfully during the first two thirds of the novel, then veers away into Greenway's tragic fantasies. The book is no less a success because of this diversion, but Spencer could have lingered longer on his primary topic.
As in prior work, Spencer keeps shifting the book's tone, alternating between the mundane and the fantastic. A day after the toilet incident, we rejoin a surprisingly calm Jack as he travels to the New Way Rehabilitation center. A week after he burns down The Clear's headquarters, he's back in group therapy, listening to the pointless rantings of other patients. These returns to seeming normalcy lull readers, making the forays into unreality all the more jarring. The book does have its lighter side-Spencer's wry observations about the current state of our culture will raise a few smiles. He also shows a playful streak, as when a television reporter announces the death of "Dr. Bradley Blackburn," an obvious reference to pal Bradley Denton. Readers are also drawn into the narrative by Jack, a likable everyman trying to cope with life's problems. His surreal plight aside, Jack is one of Spencer's more realistic characters-his presence makes it easier to suspend disbelief. Jack isn't especially brave or heroic, and has no special talents, but he's a sturdy, pragmatic soul who evokes empathy.
Despite his continued success, Spencer should be wary of treading the same ground repeatedly, as he may someday be accused of getting stale. It's not a problem at present--Irrational Fears displays enough intelligence and creativity to suggest he can write in this vein for years to come. In the end, Irrational Fears, like previous novels, is an engaging story well told, a showcase for Spencer's dark yet comic vision.
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