Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare
Killing all those pesky kids
A killer clown goes on a murder spree attacking a high school party on an isolated farm.
That’s all you really need to know to get a good idea of what this book is, and you’ll be glad to know it does exactly what it says on the tin.
For all you fellow millennials who read Goosebumps as kids, Clown in a Cornfield feels like a throwback to those fun horror books of our youth now all grown up — it’s bloody, gruesome, and oh-so-violent.
Book fair appropriate it is not.
Cesare allows himself free reign to describe his graphic gore with vivid prose, adding a biting edge that takes this book into a much darker territory than you might expect. It appeals to the same sense of nostalgia as Stranger Things, but its execution is much more adult.
Which is appropriate, because it allows me to suggest that the style of the novel mirrors its content…
The small rural town of Kettle Springs, Missouri is struggling to find its place in the modern world, its local boomers lament the bygone halcyon days and wish that they didn’t have to put up with the modern world at all. Naturally, these older folks detest the younger generation with their screen-phones and their carefree lives and their wokeness.
Yes, this book touches on contemporary pseudo-political issues that establishes the small town’s adults and youths are broadly split into two camps: those who want to make Kettle Springs great again and those who don’t instinctively judge others and are progressive, open-minded, and accepting.
Cesare does a good job of highlighting this conflict between old and new throughout the book, and the idea perhaps looms largest in the condition the town finds itself in at the story’s outset: lost and directionless following the demise of its primary industry, corn syrup manufacturing.
It’s not the first thing you might think of when contrasting different generations of Americans, but it makes perfect sense; baby boomers grew up in the era of peak commoditized convenience consumables (and continue to use condensed soup as a key ingredient in many recipes) whereas younger generations are much more aware of the toxicity of such imitation food stuffs and instead prefer their food unprocessed, organic, and real.
In that sense, Kettle Springs serves as a microcosm of the gradually changing country as a whole where change is inevitable, progress is unavoidable (although it’s often far too slow and often takes one step forward, two steps back), and older people will always dig in their heels and insist it is the younger generation that are the problem — never recognizing that either they themselves are indirectly responsible for many of today’s issues of concern, nor that things were never *actually* great for *everyone*.
Sadly, outdated prejudices don’t die out quietly while merely shaking their fists at the sky. We’re all acutely aware of the horrors that persist in the real world, and it’s not too dissimilar in Clown in a Cornfield. But it is — thank fuck — a hell of a lot more enjoyable to witness.
Utilizing a classic new kid in town setup, the novel quickly ramps up the conflict between young and old, establishing widespread conspiracies and a desperate unease that something just ain’t quite right in these here parts, before erupting into an unrelenting onslaught of action that ricochets between Scooby-Doo revelations and a final girl admirably rising to meet her grisly moment with relish.
Clown in a Cornfield does what good horror does best: provides bloody good fun while holding up a mirror to reality, and being eloquently deep once you take a peek beneath the mask.