Michael McDowell’s “The Elementals”

I have a problem, one that Adam Neville (we’ll get to him later) has caused to flare up to a ten. I thought I like nebulous endings, the things we can’t define or understand, the things that just exist without beginnings or endings.

I was half right (I still enjoy a vague ending), but I need an origin story, if just because I know the author just didn’t throw sand monsters at me without a thought.

Enter “The Elementals.”  In a twist no one saw coming, a rich family does what rich families do by spending a summer in two houses (the third is uninhabited) on a strip of sand they’ve had in their family forever. This is all precipitated by the death of their matriarch, a harsh and unloving mother who drove them all batshit insane, when not outright abusing them. The point of view does change from time to time, but most of the story unfolds in front of India, the daughter of Luker and granddaughter to that same awful matriarch. 

She’s the innocent of our tale, despite her required precociousness. It’s this lack of experience along with an adult-like perception that gives her the ability to see the horrors of those mansions on the sand, but also be able to explain and interpret them for the reader. Unlike the adults, who have had the mysteries of the third mansion hovering in their lives for as long as they can remember, she doesn’t know what’s going on and won’t take a denial as an answer.

In this process, she seems to awaken whatever lives there on the beach, and it shows itself capable of taking human form despite its lack of a human consciousness, mimicking the people it’s stolen away over the years. Whether it’s malevolent or just alien and hungry is left to the reader; given its desire to consume, I tend more to the latter. It’s a neat analogue of what sand does to even the oldest and greatest of things— it drowns and devours them. Savage mothers eat their children right up.

I could have taken the ending if I knew some things, like why that third house? Why that strip of sand? What screamed into the void and drew these things? I’ve always felt even the most cosmic of horrors needs an invitation. Yes, bad things just happen without a reason and maybe we don’t get that answer because it would read too much like a cautionary tale when we’re supposed to just fear the sand; however,  I need about 25% more exposition to feel like someone at least put some thought into it. I’m also not fond of the magical black person trope (I’m looking at you Stephen King) because it’s lazy.                 

Would I Read it Again?: I think I would. This is considered one of the quintessential horror novels of our time, and a lot of people think it’s terrifying. I just didn’t get that feeling from this, and I have to wonder if it’s me when this happens. 

Rating: 3.5. I reserve the right to adjust this if/when I read it again.