In Nick Cutter & Andrew Sullivan’s The Handyman Method (subtitled a Novel of Terror), a young couple (Trent and Rita Saban) and their 10-year-old son Milo move into a new house in a relatively new housing development. The family is looking for a fresh start, Trent is on mental health leave from the law firm where his wife also works. The house isn’t quite finished, there’s no lawn, but it was a good opportunity for the family. They are immediately uneasy, especially Trent. They see a literal crack in the wall so Trent, who possesses little to no skills when it comes to repair work. Trent does what any homeowner in the 21st Century would do, Trent searches YouTube for some how-to videos. This is how Trent finds the titular Handyman Method, a series of videos by the Manly Man Hank.
A chilling domestic story of terror for fans of Black Mirror and The Amityville Horror.
When a young family moves into an unfinished development community, cracks begin to emerge in both their new residence and their lives, as a mysterious online DIY instructor delivers dark subliminal suggestions about how to handle any problem around the house. The trials of home improvement, destructive insecurities, and haunted house horror all collide in this thrilling story perfect for fans of Nick Cutter’s bestsellers The Troop and The Deep.
At the outset, The Handyman Method presents itself as a haunted house story. It is that, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a sinister twist with modern sensibilities. The Saban family’s new house has far more structural issues than should be expected from a newly constructed house, problems that go beyond the large crack in their walk-in closet. It doesn’t help matters that the neighborhood is relatively isolated with few other houses or families so when Rita goes to work, Trent is left to caring for Milo who is mostly able to keep himself occupied and more problematically, his own thoughts. As Trent becomes more “focused” on repairing his home, because the builder is being far less than helpful, Handyman Hank becomes a more pervasive presence.
When Trent first finds the Handyman Hank video, there aren’t many, but as Trent continues his quest to repair the house and all the issues he discovers, more Hank videos appear. Hank is more than just a charismatic repairman, he offers life advice to Trent and pervades his thoughts. The catalog of Handyman Hank’s videos goes from general repair advice to videos that seem to talk directly to Trent. When Trent goes to Home Depot for supplies, his thoughts are very aggressive and he gets into some arguments. Trent soon gets a pickup truck and signs up for a contractor card. It gets worse from there. In other words, Trent is embracing all the traits of toxic masculinity and he wasn’t the most likeable character when we first met him.
The basement is dark and dingy and plays on the horror trope of scary basements. As Trent explores his new house more deeply, he discovers something in the foundation of the house that could explain the problems with the house. As Trent finds himself becoming more entrenched in house repairs, Handyman Hank is a more pervasive presence, Trent feels like he hears Hank’s voice in his head.
Some of the novel focuses on Milo and how his discoveries around the property of their new house affect him and Trent. Milo has his own video character with whom he’s obsessed and provides “life advice.” We get some scenes from Milo’s point of view, he was concerned about his parents even before the family moved into this brand new fixer-upper. Handyman Hank tells Trent that he needs to shape Milo into a Real Man. A side effect of Trent’s obsessive focus on house repair is his lackadaisical approach to fathering, aside from being angry at Milo. Rita sort of takes some of this in stride, but she doesn’t get too much “page time” initially as Cutter & Sullivan focus much of the narrative on Trent. Trent has feelings of inadequacy and anger towards his wife who has ascended the corporate ladder of the law firm that pays both of their salaries.
I didn’t like Trent from almost the moment I “met” him as a character. But the narrative pull of what he was experiencing (overwhelmed with trying to fix up a house) was something with which I could empathize. Cutter & Sullivan have a powerful narrative pull in this story and what I found impressive is that I didn’t get a sense of two voices in this novel, they meshed very well together. As I said, I didn’t like Trent, but found it difficult to turn my eye away from his plight/story.
As Trent spirals and becomes more obsessed with Handyman Hank and fixing his house, I still didn’t like him. I thought the way in which Cutter and Sullivan shed light on the issue of toxic masculinity was handled very well, there’s almost a satirical element to this theme. Makes sense since humor and horror can easily go hand in hand. All that having been written, even as Trent’s exploration became even darker, I actually started to feel sympathy for him.
There’s more to the novel, a darkness that extends beyond just Trent and Milo which is fascinating to discover. Cutter and Sullivan throw in some interesting twists along the way that make The Handyman Method a must-read modern horror novel. I’ve read two of Cutter’s novels, The Troop is a standout and he’s equaled that novel with Sullivan here. The Handyman Method is a fascinating, hard-to-put-down horror novel that explores toxic masculinity, an unfortunate element of today’s society that is dark enough itself.
© 2023 Rob H. Bedford
Highly Recommended
Trade Paperback | 304 pages
August 2023 | Published by Saga Press
http://www.craigdavidson.net/nickcutter/index.html | https://www.andrewfsullivan.com/
Excerpt from: https://dailydead.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Daily-Dead-Excerpt-THE-HANDYMAN-METHOD.pdf
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
