Cat Out of Hell by Lynne Truss
Published by Hammer Books/Random House, October 2014
ISBN: 978 009 9585343
248 pages
Review by Mark Yon
Lynne Truss is not a name that immediately springs to mind as a writer of horror, although she is the best-selling author of the book about English grammar and vocabulary, Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
So the arrival of this one was a pleasant surprise, as too the fact that it was being printed under the Hammer Books imprint.
Cat Out of Hell, as you might tell from the title (with apologies to Meatloaf and Jim Steinman), is not meant to be an out-and-out ‘shock-horror’. It’s a gentler tale, a more amusing tale, admittedly with some nicely creepy moments – jolly good fun, though, and like, say, the film Bell, Book and Candle a tale of witchcraft that is not to be taken too seriously.
The story is, to paraphrase the tale of one man and his cat. (Actually, that would make a good alternative title, now that I think about it.) Written in the first person, it is the story of Alec, a recently-bereaved widower, who has gone to the coast of North Norfolk (in England) in January to recuperate.
Whilst there in his lonely cottage, with nothing but tea and a laptop (with no wifi) to keep him company, our bored hero looks at some notes emailed on to him (downloaded when he had wifi) by Doctor Winterton. The notes, in various screenplays, photos and audio files, tell the tale of ‘Wiggy’, an elderly actor and his relationship with Roger, a talking black cat. There’s lots of meandering asides, but much of the book at this point is about Roger telling his life-story. This involves his mentoring by a cat named Captain and Roger’s initiation into a world where cats have a longer lifespan (Roger was originally born in the 1920’s) and teaching him to read and talk.
Initially the tone is deceptively light, yet wears a number of influences on its pages. Fans of MR James will recognise the template for the character, an ex-academic librarian, all alone… and it has a certain drollness in style and tone that reminded me of Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife!, although here we are dealing more with the familiar than the witch herself. Roger does speak like Vincent Price, something which even the author admits is a good thing. (Younger readers may alternatively go for Nick Bakay, the voice of Salem in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, I guess.) Generally the level of snark is quite endearing. For example, here Roger explains to Wiggy that although he has a longer life span, he is not immortal for good reason:
“Living forever deprives the spirit of hope and purpose. It also separates you from mortals in many tragic ways. Think of the Sybil at Cumae – or, if you like, Wiggy, given your more limited cultural range of cultural reference, think of Doctor Who.” (page 49.)
It’s all very jolly, in a PG Woodhouse sort of way.
However, when things then become a little darker, Cat out of Hell may just make you think again the next time you’re blithely dealing with a pet moggy. A third of the way in, we find out that Captain may be more involved with recent events in the narrative than we realise. And when Alec, returning home, finds out what happened to Wiggy after his files, only a few weeks earlier, things become quite sinister.
At this point readers who have ever wondered what goes on in the mind of our furry friends may find that Cat out of Hell becomes a little worrying. We discover that Captain is still alive and determined to retrieve a rare pamphlet produced by renowned ghost-hunter and cat lover John Seeward* in the 1960’s. There may even be a connection to Satan in a manner that Fritz Leiber would be very pleased by. Satanic cat cult? Perhaps.
Changing into an unlikely combination of Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye, the movie Cats and Dogs and Midsomer Murders, Cat Out of Hell continues its relentless pace towards its rather less jolly ending. Not all the points are neatly tied up, but it’s a satisfying conclusion.
I can see why Hammer have taken this one up. Not only does it entertain but it is also quintessentially English in tenor, a tale of manners as much as the occult, and fits very much in keeping with the classic traditions of the 1960’s Hammer Horror movies, which also had their fair share of humour betwixt the horror.
In summary, Cat out of Hell was an entertaining tale and a good read for Hallowe’en, not to be taken too seriously but with some nice moments that make it not as cosy as I thought it was going to be. I therefore recommend it as book to be read in one sitting, with an open fire and a cup of tea nearby.
Mark Yon, October 2014
*Coincidence that the psychiatrist in Carfax in Bram Stoker’s Dracula is John Seward? Perhaps not… A nice little touch, that.
